“Do you love him?” asked Effie, sadly.
“No, I do not love him, nor is it probable we shall ever meet again,” replied Florence.
“But he has sought your love—and yet you love him not—how strange! I love him! O, would to God I did not!” and here the poor girl sobbed aloud, while Florence, overcome by emotion, threw her arms around the unfortunate, and resting her head on her bosom, mingled tears with hers.
When both were a little more calm, Florence again urged her to reveal her sorrows, which Effie did in language so simple and earnest as carried conviction to the mind of her listener, who shuddered as the fearful abyss in which she had been so nearly lost, thus opened before her.
“And do you know the name of the person who has been so kind to you?” asked Florence, referring to the preserver of Effie.
“I know not,” answered Effie, “neither does Mrs. Wing, but to me, dear young lady, he has been an angel of goodness!”
“Strange!” thought Florence, “this benevolent stranger can surely be no other than my unknown friend. He is, then, all I first imagined him—kind, noble, disinterested—and yet I have doubted him; how am I reproved! but for him, my own fate might, perhaps, have resembled that of the unfortunate girl before me!”
While lost in these reflections, she was suddenly startled by a slight scream from Effie, who, grasping her arm tightly, said, while her pale face crimsoned, and her bosom heaved tumultuously,
“Hark! his voice—it is his voice!”
“Whose voice—what is the matter?” demanded Florence.