will not leave me yet!"

I think I see Isora now, as she stood by the window which she had
opened, with a woman's minute anxiety, to survey even the aspect of the
clouds, and beseech caution against the treachery of the skies. I think
I see her now, as she stood the moment after I had torn myself from her
embrace, and had looked back, as I reached the door, for one parting
glance,--her eyes all tenderness, her lips parted, and quivering with
the attempt to smile, the long, glossy ringlets (through whose raven hue
the /purpureum lumen/ broke like an imprisoned sunbeam) straying in
dishevelled beauty over her transparent neck; the throat bent in mute
despondency; the head drooping; the arms half extended, and dropping
gradually as my steps departed; the sunken, absorbed expression of face,
form, and gesture, so steeped in the very bitterness of dejection,--all
are before me now, sorrowful, and lovely in sorrow, as they were beheld
years ago, by the gray, cold, comfortless light of morning!

"God bless you,--my own, own love," I said; and as my look lingered, I
added, with a full but an assured heart; "and He will!" I tarried no
more: I flung myself on my horse, and rode on as if I were speeding
/to/, and not /from/, my bride.

The noon was far advanced, as, the day after I left Isora, I found
myself entering the park in which Devereux Court is situated. I did not
enter by one of the lodges, but through a private gate. My horse was
thoroughly jaded; for the distance I had come was great, and I had
ridden rapidly; and as I came into the park, I dismounted, and, throwing
the rein over my arm, proceeded slowly on foot. I was passing through a
thick, long plantation, which belted the park and in which several walks
and rides had been cut, when a man crossed the same road which I took,