Then F. Chevreuse looked at Honora Pembroke. She had sat perfectly pale and silent through it all. "Can you go home without assistance, child?" he asked.
She understood his wish to be alone, and rose with an effort. "I am not faint; I am horrified," she said. "It is a monstrous injustice. I wish you would come to us by-and-by." She looked at him imploringly.
"I will go to Mrs. Gerald's directly after having seen him," he promised.
When he was alone, F. Chevreuse locked the door, and began to pace the room, tears running down his cheeks. "O my sweet mother!" he said, "so it's all to be dragged up again, and your dear name associated with all that is cruel and wicked in crime!"
He opened a closet, and took down a little faded plaid shawl that his mother had used for years to throw over her shoulders in the house when the air was chilly. It hung on the nail where she had left it; and while he held it at arm's length, and looked at it, her form seemed to rise up before him. He saw the wide, motherly shoulders, the roll of thick, gray hair, the face faintly smiling and radiantly loving. And then he could see nothing; for the tears gushed forth so passionately as to wash away both vision and reality.
TO BE CONTINUED.
SLEEP.
FROM THE ITALIAN.
O sleep! O missing first-born of the night!
Child of the silent-footed shadow, thou
Who comfortest the sick, and makest light
Of ills, bringing forgetfulness of woe;
Succor the broken spirit that faints for sight
Of thee; these limbs, that travail hath brought low,
Refresh. Come, sleep, and on my temples light,
And make thy dark wings meet above my brow.
Where is sweet silence which the day forsakes?
And the shy dreams that follow in thy train,
The silly flock that scatters at a touch?
Alas! in vain I summon thee: in vain
Flatter the chilly dark. O thorny couch!
O heavy watches till the slow dawn breaks!