knew what they foreboded. And, when a
strange voice was heard in the passage,
asking for her, and a tall, resolute-looking man
was ushered into the drawing-room — which
he seemed instantly to take possession of by
the first glance of his eye — she knew without
a word passing between them that he was an
officer, and had come to arrest her.

"I am very sorry, miss," he said, in an
off-hand kind of way, but with great kindness of
manner, too — as much kindness, that is, as an
officer with a warrant against you in his
pocket can show. "It is a painful office I
have been obliged to undertake; but I am
compelled to fulfil my duty."

"Yes," said Magdalen, quietly; she had
risen as the man entered. "Of course you
must do your duty."

The officer pulled out a piece of paper.
"Here is a warrant for your arrest," he said,
"on a charge of forgery; at the suit of your
brother, Mr. Andrew Trevelyan. I am afraid,
miss, I must ask you to trouble yourself to
come along with me."

"Where ? " said Magdalen, not moving a
muscle of her countenance — only placing her
hand on her heart by a simply instinctive
action.

"Before a magistrate first, miss, and then,
perhaps, to prison," said the officer,
respectfully. "You may be able to find bail,
and I hope you will."

"I will ring the bell," answered the girl,
still calm, and yet resolute, "and order my
maid to prepare what will be necessary for
me. Will you not sit down? And may I
not offer you some refreshment?"

Paul had sunk back in a stupor when
he heard what errand that muffled stranger
had come upon. But, when Magdalen,
having given her orders, turned to him and
spoke to him as quietly as if nothing had
happened, he started up and flung himself on
his knees, beseeching her to give up everything,
to sign anything, confess to anything, rather
than submit to this terrible trial. Oh, that
she would listen to him! Oh, that she had
but listened to him when he had first spoken!
that she had had courage to prefer a life
like the brave old troubadours of a better
time — the heroic artists of the day when art
was heroism — to this fearful scepticism of
to-day; and had trusted to Providence and
him! Oh, that his life could buy her safety!
that he could deliver her by some heroic
deed that should not only free her, but stir
men's hearts to bravery and nobleness to the
latest time! And then he sobbed afresh;
and the nerveless arms, which were to stir
the world, fell weaker than a weak girl's
round her.

"Hush," said Magdalen, gravely; "do not
distress yourself so painfully! You know
that I am guiltless; be sure then that I shall
be proved so. Do not fret; do not agitate
yourself. You, who trust so in truth and
God, will he not defend the innocent, and will
not my truth be of itself sufficient to protect
me?"

"No, no, Magdalen! they are going to
murder you!" cried Paul, clinging to her.
"Magdalen! I shall never see you more!"

"Not so bad as that, young gentleman,"
said the officer, mildly, taking him up from
the ground as if he had been a child; unloosing
his nervous clutch on Magdalen's gown,
and seating him on the sofa. "I assure you
we are going to do your aunt no kind of harm.
Let go her dress, my dear young sir, — she has
need of all her fortitude, and you are only
knocking it down by carrying on so. She
will come out well enough. I know too
much of these things not to know the
truth when I see it staring before my
eyes."

"Will she be proved innocent?" cried
Paul, appealing to the officer, as if he were a
Rhadamanthus. "Shall I ever see her again?
Magdalen! Magdalen! are we to meet only
in the grave? Is the tomb to be the altar of
our marriage vow?"

"Dear Paul, for heaven's sake a little
courage; a little fortitude!" said Magdalen,
laying her hand on his shoulder. "Where
is your manhood ? I, a woman on whose
head all this misery is accumulated, I should
blush to bear myself as you do! Cheer up!
I am not sent to the colonies yet!" and she
smiled, sadly enough.

He tried to rise, but his agitation was so
extreme that he could not stand.
Half-fainting, he sunk into a chair, while the
maid brought in a carpet-bag in great wonder
and grief, and some suspicion of the
truth. The officer drank a glass of wine, with
an unusual feeling of oppression at his heart.
Magdalen, in her black dress, her face as
pale and as composed as marble, looking as
if she had concentrated all her strength and
courage within her heart and held a grasp
of iron over her nerves, leant over Paul;
who, trembling and faint, seemed to be
dying. She stooped down and kissed his
forehead, murmuring softly some love names
which he preferred to all others. He revived,
only to catch convulsively at her hands
and waist, and try to hold her near to him
by force.

The calm grand air with which she gently
undid that feverish clasp, while he still cried,
"Nothing, not even your own will, shall part
us!" — the quiet majesty with which she
forced him to be calm and to listen to her—
"If, indeed, he wished to do her any good,
rather than merely to indulge the selfish
weakness of his own sorrow," — Paul felt
that she was the strongest now, if never
before in their whole lives together; and,
while her influence was on him, he
controlled himself sufficiently to understand what
she said.

"Listen," she said, in a deeper and more
monotonous voice than usual, "do you wish
me to feel that I have left behind me a