in her bed these two hours. She asked after you several times during the
day, and was very uneasy at your absence. Poor child! I believe she is
mortal fond of you."

"Of me, Ruth?"

"Of you, sir. I am sure Miss Clary is over head and ears in love with
you. Arn't it natural? Two handsome young creatures living in the same
house together, walking, and talking, and singing and playing, all the
time with each other. Why, Master Anthony, if you don't love the dear
child, you must be very deceitful, after making so much of her."

The old woman left him, still muttering to herself some anathema
against the deceitfulness of men; while Anthony, shocked beyond measure
at the disclosure of a secret which he had never suspected, threw
himself upon the sofa, and yielding to the overpowering sense of misery
which oppressed him, wept--even as a woman weeps--long and bitterly.

"Why," he thought, "why am I thus continually the sport of a cruel
destiny? Are the sins of my parents indeed visited upon me? Is every one
that I love, or that loves me, to be involved in one common ruin?"

And then he wished for death, with a longing, intense, sinful desire,
which placed him upon the very verge of self-destruction. He went to
Frederic's bureau, and took out his pistols, and loaded them, then
placed himself opposite to the glass, and deliberately took aim at his
head. But his hand trembled, and the ghastly expression of his face
startled him--so wan, so wild, so desperate. It looked not of earth,
still less like a future denizen of heaven.