“Peace, Dorothy; don’t scold the poor child.  You see her heart is nearly broken.  It will do her good to cry.  Come, my own darling, come to your old father’s arms, and never mind what your aunt says to you.”

“Really, Captain Whitmore, if you mean to encourage your daughter’s disrespectful conduct to me, the sooner we part the better.”

“Dolly, Dolly, have you no feeling for the poor child?  Do hold that cruel tongue of yours.  It never sounded so harsh and disagreeable to me before.  Look up, my Julee, and kiss your old father.”

And Juliet made an effort to raise her head from her father’s bosom, and look in his face.  The big tears weighed down her eyelids, and she sank back upon his shoulder, faintly murmuring, “And I thought him so good.”

“Yes,” said Miss Dorothy, whose temper was not at all softened by her brother’s reproof; “you never would believe me.  You would follow your own headstrong fancy; and now you see the result of your folly.  I often wondered to see you reading and flirting with that silent, down looking young man, while his frank, good-natured cousin was treated with contempt.  I hope you will trust to my judgment another time.”

“Aunt, spare me these reproaches.  If I have acted imprudently I am severely punished.”

“I am sure the poor child was not worse deceived than I have been,” said the Captain; “but the lad’s to be pitied; he comes of a bad breed.  But rouse up, my Julee—­show yourself a girl of spirit.  Go to your own room; a little sleep will do you a world of good.  To-morrow you will forget it all.”

“That poor girl!” said Juliet, and a shudder ran through her frame.  “How can I forget her?  Her pale face—­her sunken eyes—­her look of unutterable woe.  Oh, she haunts me continually; and I—­I—­may have been the cause of all this misery.  My head aches sadly.  I will go to bed.  I long to be alone.”

She embraced her father, and bade him good night, and curtseying to aunt Dorothy, for her heart was too sore to speak to her, she sought the silence and solitude of her own chamber.

Oh, what luxury it was to be alone—­to know that no prying eyes looked upon her grief; no harsh voice, with unfeeling common-place, tore open the deep wounds of her aching heart, and made them bleed afresh!

“Oh, that I could think him innocent!” she said.  “Yet I cannot wholly consider him guilty.  He looked—­oh, how sad and touching was that look!  It spoke of sorrow, but it revealed no trait of remorse; but then, would Mary, by her strange conduct, have condemned a man whom she knew to be innocent?  Alas! it must be so, and ’tis a crime to love him.”

She sank upon her knees, and buried her face in the coverlid of the bed, but no prayer rose to her lips—­an utter prostration of soul was there, but the shrine of her God was dark and voiceless; the waves of human passion had flowed over it, and marred the purity of the accustomed offering.  Hour after hour still found her on her knees, yet she could not form a single petition to the Divine Father.  As Southey has beautifully expressed the same feelings in the finest of all his poems: