There are hours when the ghost of a happy past, from which we have persistently fled, constrains us to give audience; and Leo surrendered herself to memories that brought a very mournful shadow into her brave brown eyes.  Thirteen months had passed since her departure from X—–­and despite changing scenes and novel incidents, she could not escape the haunting face that met her on mountains, was mirrored in every sea; the brilliant mesmeric face set in its frame of crisp black locks, with dark blue eyes whose intense lustre had the cold, hard gleam of jewels.  Sleeping or waking, always that dear, powerful face daring her to forget.

When Doctor Douglass and Miss Patty joined the yacht party at Palermo, the former had brought a letter and a package, which sorely tested Leo’s strength of will.  Leaning to-day against the twisted body of an old olive tree, she opened and read once more, the final message.

“When Leighton places this sheet in your hands, the year of release which I could not refuse you, will have expired.  Once your noble heart was wholly mine; and the proudest moment of my life was, and will be, that in which you promised to be my wife.  All that you ever were, you shall always remain to me; and if you can confide your happiness to my keeping, I will never betray the sacred trust.  Life has grown sombre to me, during the past eighteen months; and the only companionship that I can hope to cheer it, you alone can bring me.  I have not willingly or intentionally forfeited your confidence; but that I have suffered, I shall not deny.  If you love me, as in days gone by, our future rests once more in your hands; and you must renew the pledges that at your request I surrendered.  In behalf of our past, I beg that you will retain the ring, hallowed forever by the touch of your hand; and its acceptance will typify, if not a renewal of our engagement, at least the perpetuity of a sacred friendship.  Awaiting your final decision, I am, my dear Leo,

“Yours as of yore, Lennox.”

All that she had ever been; no more.  The graceful, well-bred heiress whom he admired, who commanded his profoundest respect, whom he had known from his boyhood, and who of all others he had desired should preside over his home and wear his name; but not the woman who reigned in his heart; whose touch had lighted the glowing tenderness that so transfigured his countenance, as she saw it that day, bending over a sick convict in a penitentiary.

He offered her formal allegiance, and that pale phantom of affection grounded in reverence, which is to the ardent love that a true woman demands in exchange for her own, as—­

“Moonlight unto sunlight; and as water unto wine.”

She knew that he was no willing victim of a fascination, which had audaciously deranged his carefully mapped campaign of life; that he would have set his heel on his own insurgent heart, had it been possible; and she honored him for the stern integrity that forbade his affectation of a warmth of feeling which she was now conscious she had never evoked.