rank! Was it possible? To her, it was incomprehensible. But terrors loomed over-head, which she could neither dissipate nor define. Day rose, with its lone monotony; and night fell, with its more dreaded companionship. Her tears, her ague-starts, her muteness, might have mellowed a breast of flint: Levasseur referred them to the rebelliousness of maternal blood. The needful golden equivalent insensibly quashed scruple :"It might considerably better both their lots:"— but his fortuitous extraction of her sacred oath to the buried wife infused a furious invigoration that nought could stem. He gnashed his teethhe granted a week for choice-and thenceforth constrained himself to portentous dumbness. During that week, in his absence, a man did approach: blandest courtesies were his but the dove fled the vulture. This brushed away doubts: this roused her to fierce life, which, before morn, degenerated to absolute inertness. Since then, no tear had trickled: torpor leaded her faculties: a motionless distraction burnt her brain.

Those, Levasseur denominated moodiness. Irritability and Bigotry distorted his perceptionand self-induced Poverty and readily-acquired Gain diverted it. Yet the allotted term of

deliberation ending with the even to which the sun now visibly rolled-suddenly humane! he considered the sea-air might recruit her imprisoned flesh. An olden playmate, crossing them, contributed to the result already-given.

The moment with Villiers was that of the

flaming martyr catching a glimpse of Paradise. How Levasseur had been shunned, she could not fathom. She understood not what herself had done. Insanity and Forgetfulness divided hersapient only, that she had sworn, under malison of a mother, to not forgo her faith, yet, on its retention, should be bent into the grasp of gloating licentiousness-and only recollective, that Villiers had been, at some preceding era, a reliever.

But how was he to act? He might abide permanently at Genoa-but what would his interposition achieve? What should prevent Levasseur's removal and consequent liberty? What should control the jurisdictions of a parent? Was not he himself instance of their omnipotence?

He had but the bare moment for thought: Jean's roar reverberated.

"Come, then!" he exclaimed-moving to the

vehicle" I'll protect you at all risk-and as I would a sister!"

She bounded from him. She beheld ber father, fifty paces apart. She crept close again. With a weird gaze she scrutinised his lineaments. They bore it. They had nothing but the glow of indignation, the noblest pity, a lofty virtue.

“Milano!” cried Emile, convulsively. And back shot the horses at top speed.

Levasseur was paralysed. But Disappointment, with mortifying goad, stirred his tongue to imprecation and this, in turn, drove to hot and murderous re-animatedness.

A courier flew-by-wheeled-round-galloped alongside and shouted to slacken. Herbert had despatched him with the passports. He had been apprised of the calèche's deviation. He marked Zizinè.

Again swept-on the horses. Villiers fancied the passports in his pocket-book. He had abstracted a blank docket identically sized. The detention, then, at "the rocks" saved trouble at the frontier-town.

The horses tore into the Milan-road. But who was the man? the trader in human gore

pure

(for, of course, tainted would not content him)?

the Briton? The swarms of those, that season, at Genoa, nullified individual incrimination.

But how providential the whole! had Berkeley's decease been followed by a less delay-or had the "lust-dieted" wretch been later had Levasseur even wavered—had Emile's outset been one hour prior, or Zizine's note one hour deferred-miles had stretched twixt Villiers and her shriekings. Yes! there's a Providence watches over us—we may not scan its issues.

And it he ardently eulogised, which, by him, snatched the simple girl from the maddenings of pollution. He eulogised it!

Shrunk into a corner, no quiver evinced her existence. Kindly he murmured "Zizinè !"— She had just escaped delirium. From beneath the dull, dry lids, a shower of alleviation was gushing.

END OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

BOOK V.

No. 1.-Changes: or the Offspring of a Long Period lapsed.

Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in, God shield us! a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion, living; and we ought to look to it.

SHAKSPERE.-Midsummer-Night's Dream.

So the curtain draws-up on the last act of the great and terrible drama.

It was a fine evening in the autumn of -43, when a venerable, but unbent, old man knocked at a mansion near the Hôtel d'Angleterre à Secheron, Geneva; and, received within, seated himself beside a counterpart antique.

Mrs. Bumbazeene had convened for her con