"I have conquered my evil spirit, Lotta, and there shall be peace and true love between us for evermore, shall there not, dearest friend?"
And thus ends the story of Diana Paget's girlish love—the love that had grown up in secret, to be put away from her heart in silence, and buried with the dead dreams and fancies that had fostered it. For her to-night the romance of life closed for ever. For Charlotte the sweet story was newly begun, and the opening chapters were very pleasant—the mystic volume seemed all delight. Blessed with her lover's devotion, her mother's approval, and even Mr. Sheldon's benign approbation, what more could she ask from Providence—what lurking dangers could she fear—what storm-cloud could she perceive upon the sunlit heavens?
There was a cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, but the harbinger of tempest and terror. It yet remains to be shown what form that cloud assumed, and from what quarter the tempest came. The history of Charlotte Halliday has grown upon the writer; and the completion of that history, with the fate of John Haygarth's fortune, will be found under the title of, CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE.