sidered questionable when it is known that she has alienated the affections of a husband from his wife," was the cold reply.

"Listen to me, Ida;" exclaimed Sydney with a vehemence that even startled his apparently impassive companion; "I could have borne all but this; my honour is at your mercy, trample on it if such is indeed your pleasure, but I will brook no slur on hers; she is the child of my mother's chosen friend, the playmate of my boyhood, the hope and pride of a widowed parent's heart: earth contains not a more blameless, a more guileless spirit. If you have decided on the ruin of our domestic peace, I must submit; but your insane suspicions must extend no further, touch not a hair of her head by calumny; but, if you have indeed ceased to respect your own dignity, at least respect her innocence."

"Mr. Elphinstone," said his wife indignantly; "you appear to forget that I am at your mercy."

"No, Ida, no; I forget nothing; and you may believe me when I declare that now you have learnt to look upon me as the base and unmanly ruffian that your words imply, I rejoice from my inmost heart that you have so opportunely secured partial and powerful friends, who are able to offer you a more fitting home than that which you accuse me of having dishonoured."

you

"Sydney!" exclaimed his wife; " you are cruel even to cowardice; you do not even shrink from threatening me with a second desertion. Forgetting that for you I became an alien from my home, you presume upon my helplessness to insult me. Did I not tell when you combatted my reason with your specious sophistries, that you would one day remember that you had sacrificed yourself to a woman older than yourself? Did I not warn you against the folly of believing that you would not one day feel this, and visit the penalty of your mistake upon my weakness? Do me justice in this at least."

"Ida, do not urge me too far; you have no right, you have no reason, to talk to me in such a strain as this."

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Enough! enough!" gasped ont his wife; you justify yourself by casting the blame on me, and I must submit. Be it so; there must be a victim-sacrifice me-as I before

admitted, I am at your mercy. The world will be ready enough to exonerate you; there will be little sympathy, and less pity for the woman of six-and-twenty who entrapped the affections of a boy."

"This is too much!" exclaimed Elphinstone, as he started from his seat, and rapidly paced the room; "all is indeed over between us-we must part. How I have loved you none have known; none can ever know; I would have clung to you through life and death. You were everything to me; the very air I breathed was not less essential to my happiness; but now -well, it is idle to repine; I am ready to pay the penalty of my

mistake. You have withdrawn from me alike your confidence and your affection; and for both our sakes, it is better that we should part."

Ida suddenly clasped her forehead with her spread hands, and fastened a gaze of agony upon her husband.

"Is it so ?" she asked in a whisper which the ear with all the shrillness of a

fell upon suppressed scream; "is it really so? And could you indeed part from me so willingly? Sydney, Sydney, how have I deserved this?"

For a moment the whole frame of Elphinstone quivered, and he resolutely averted his eyes; but gradually the flush faded from his cheek, and the frown which had darkened his forehead passed away.

"No," he murmured, tremulously; 66 no; you are right; it would be the rending asunder of body and soul; and yet even that were better than we should live on under the same roof, the one suspected and despised, and the other

"What of the other, Sydney?

What of the

other?" passionately demanded his wife, springing from the sofa, and throwing herself upon his bosom; "Oh, Sydney, what of the other?" "I cannot-and must not dwell upon the subject;" was the agitated reply; "I have fallen from such a height into an abyss so frightful, that I want moral courage to probe my wretchedness to its actual depth." "Yet you did love me, Sydney."

"Love you!" echoed her husband; "do you ask me if I loved you? look into your own heart, and read there if I have merited that such a question should be put to me! It is because I loved you so entirely, so devotedly, that I am at this moment incapable not only of deciding how I ought to act, but even of so acting, if my reason pointed out the proper and becoming course."

"And do you not love me still?"

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Ida, you have made me very, very wretched."

VOL. III.

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