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'No, no; you must not talk of it.'

'I must. I will.'

'You do not know, then

You who talk of right and

'I know all. That your father's fortune is gone, and that you—you, Adrienne Isham, have bartered yourself for gold. wrong; you will perjure yourself ——'

'Spare me.'

'I do not pity you. I will not spare you. Where was your independence ?'

'Hush! It was for his sake, not my own.'

'And you submit ? Does Mr. Steinheim know you do not love him? More, does he listen Adrienne - does he know you love another?'

She stretched her hands blindly toward him.

'Help me,' she said faintly.

'I cannot. You can help yourself.'

'It is all left for me. The making and undoing of the sacrifice. I am too weak.'

'Too cowardly! You dare not tell him?'

She closed her eyes at the taunt and imputation.

'You are mistaken,' she said; ‘I will.'

How well Mr. Julian knew his power. He did not fear to alienate her by his harshness. He forced the utterance of the words, believing they would save her, and him; would save them for each other.

And Adrienne did. And Mr. Steinheim listened coldly. He presumed, he said, that Miss Isham had her numerous penchants. He had not chosen so adHe hoped no

mired a woman, expecting to find her altogether heart-whole. scruples of delicacy, which he could not appreciate, would induce Miss Isham to ignore the sacredness of her father's word, or the solemnity of her own promise. He had considered the compact inviolable; was he to understand that Miss Isham desired it broken? And Adrienne thought of her father's harassed face, and dreaded to add to its pallor. She thought of the promise she had spoken; of the vow in the sight of GOD. She weighed the right and the wrong, as she saw them, and uttered a choking 'No.'

Mr. Julian knew of this interview. He read the resolve through the supplication of Adrienne's face, as he had once read the tenderness; and seeing her leave the house alone with Mr. Steinheim, and take the road to the beach, he knew what would follow knew in part.

The apotheosis of earthly passion had come to him at last; the genuineness of young love held undefiled through its maturing! If he could have trusted then! If Adrienne could but have spoken with self-trust! If all the dreary torment of these years could thus have been obviated! But she should be free; were they not one? should he not claim her?

Adrienne came back from her walk, no paler nor colder in voice and manner than was common. Mr. Julian watched her incessantly, but could gain no elucidation. Mr. Stenheim sat by her all through the evening, and her conversation with the group around precluded any privacy, even if Adrienne had

been disposed to accord it, which evidently she was not. Mr. Julian augured ill from this, but with fierce resolve fought back intrusive doubts, as to the ultimation of his desires. The evening dragged; the usual topics and amusements seemed stale and lifeless. Mr. Julian rose early to retire. 'To-morrow is the last of the month,' he said with a significance which appalled Adrienne. 'You must not forget your engagement, Miss Isham, for the morning; it is the last morning, you know, of our stay; we shall have no more boating together at least until next summer.'

'Miss Isham has engaged to boat with me in the morning, Mr. Julian. I am sorry to interfere with your claims,' said Mr. Steinheim with implacable courtesy.

'You may banish your regrets, my dear Sir, and agree that we all go together. You have not tried my yacht yet. I will put it to its speed for your benefit.'

'Miss Isham can decide which boat she will prefer,' replied Mr. Steinheim sententiously.

Adrienne murmured something of her forgotten engagement with Mr. Julian, trembling while she spoke at the falsity of her words; and what Mr. Steinheim called the Julian compromise was agreed upon, with an undefined terror on Adrienne's part, sullen dissatisfaction on Mr. Steinheim's, and haughty impatience on Mr. Julian's. The morning was red and lowering. Mr. Steinheim judged that a storm was brewing, and talked of giving up the excursion, as they sat at breakfast. The waves rolled high, the white caps contrasting with the opaque, metallic gleam of the waters: but Adrienne's silence did not sanction the suggestion; and as the sun finally shone forth, and the wind was not high, she brought her shawl and veil, and walked between her father and Mr. Steinheim to the beach, where Mr. Julian awaited them.

'Since Mr. Isham is going, Morris, I think we can do without you,' he said to a boatman, who stood on the miniature wharf.

'Mebbe you may, Sir,' answered the man laconically, 'seein' you know the craft.'

'You do not suppose there is any danger,' said Mr. Steinheim following the man's glance.

'Danger!' exclaimed Julian contemptuously between his teeth, as he stooped to fasten some tackling.

'She is a tricky thing this season; she is, Sir. But I guess the gale won't be up afore to-night.'

'Mr. Isham, do you think it quite prudent for us to venture?' continued Steinheim a little anxiously.

'I scarcely think we need apprehend a storm within twenty-four hours,' he answered; 'the sea do n't run as high as it did an hour since.'

Running out from the main coast, there was a long, barren peninsula of sand, matted with sea-weed, and encrusted with fragments of shells. Adrienne had frequently threatened, during the summer, the erection of a flag, or some other token, upon the extreme point of this waste. But the approach through the surf was often impracticable, and she had dreaded the exertion of

traversing the sand, so that the execution of her plan had been delayed. That morning, however, the sea grew more and more calm; those seated in the boat felt indeed the suction of a heavy but subdued swell, but the surface of the sea was like a mill-pond, and the breeze was so light as hardly to fill their sail. Mr. Julian's white yacht sat on the water, like a gull, catching the fickle breath of the off-shore breeze, and evincing her speed in spite of opposing circumstances. Suddenly it occurred to Adrienne that she might fulfil her intention of hoisting a flag, and she began to regret her lack of material.

'Vouloir c'est pouvoir, Miss Isham,' said Mr. Julian. ‘I will ground the yacht, your scarf will answer for a flag, and some superfluous spar for the staff.'

Having received this encouragement, Adrienne refused to be opposed in her project, and they began to tack for the point. The landing was accomplished with ease. At a point where the breakers commonly ran high, they left the boat, cradled on the sullen undulation, and plodded through the shifting, scorching sand.

'Ladies must have their whims,' said Mr. Isham apologetically.

Mr. Steinheim bowed without replying, and watched Adrienne, slightly flushed and animated, as she aided Mr. Julian in fastening the blue scarf to the pole they had appropriated. Numerous trials were made, and failed in, to hoist the pole, and the by this time interested group were beginning to doubt its expediency, when Mr. Julian's ingenuity contrived a plan, which seemed to insure their success. Turning for some necessary material, which he had laid beside him, a blast, as of a wind suddenly unchained, snatched it from under his hand; Mr. Isham's hat was borne away in the gust, and the shocked party looked in each other's faces, with mute realization of the change that had come over the sea and the sky. The swell which had seemed repressed, rolled heavily, the sky lowered with scudding clouds, and the lashing wind dashed the spray blindingly in their faces.

'We have no time to lose,' said Mr. Steinheim, 'let us get to the yacht.' 'One moment; we can hoist the pole in one moment,' plead Adrienne, ‘and after all our trouble.

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Mr. Julian scanned her face as she spoke. It was reckless and defiant. He knew then how her interview had terminated with her lover. They applied themselves hastily; in a few moments the pole was fixed, and the scarf unfurled. There was an instant's lull in the tornado, the next the scarf was shredded by the wind, and the sand and spray whirled furiously in their faces.

They did not stop for words. Adrienne disdained aid, and flew rather than walked in advance of the rest, till she reached the boat. Already the sail was torn, and a wave broke over her side.

'We cannot launch her,' Mr. Isham said.

'Let us endeavor to gain the coast,' Mr. Steinheim added; 'how far is it?' 'Three miles and more.'

'That is impossible; the surf threatens to break over the bar with every advance.'

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'Off this cursed beach we are safe enough,' said Mr. Julian; 'I shall not give up the yacht.'

'Try her then,' spoke Mr. Steinheim.

'No. It is better for us all to get in,' Adrienne said, speaking for the first. Two opposite waves, writhing and curling, broke simultaneously over the bar, and damped Adrienne's feet.

'Let us go on. Do n't it widen?'

'No; it grows narrower still.'

'The boat seems our only safety. What shall we do?'

Mr. Julian appealed from one face to another. They only reflected the blankness and uneasiness of his own.

'I shall get in,' Adrienne said at last, making a move in that direction, and taking advantage of the ebb, she sprang in the yacht. The gentlemen followed as rapidly as thought. They wrenched the anchor from the sand, and waited. The towering, thundering breaker come majestically on; an instant it threatened to engulf them; the yacht strained, like a living thing, to surmount it; the roar and the darkness seemed eternal, and with the subsidence of the strength of the under-tow, the boat came to the surface, overturned; but with each of the four helpless beings, who went down in her, clinging to the side. The lashed vessel tossed in the trough of the sea; the advance of the next wave threatened to carry her on the coast, where she must inevitably dash in pieces. There was a suspension, like a breathing spell of fate, while the wave gathered to come on. Mr. Julian, holding on desperately with one hand, released with the other a rope which was tangled about his throat, and attempted to toss the end to Adrienne, who gazed with a look of glassy consciousness right toward him. The rope struck Mr. Steinheim, who caught at it fiercely, in an impulse of preservation. On the brink of the eternal turmoil of blackness, and dash, and roar; in the spinning centre of abysmal consummation of revelation and retrospection, Julian, with one mad movement, wrenched it from his rival, and struck his hand from its clenched support. Amid the hiss and gurgle of the seething waters, a soul went down. The hungry breakers howled unappeased. The Finite and the Infinite poised, balanced. Death glowered at the phantom, Life. Fear and hope struggled in deadly conflict; and then came victory. The scales tipped. Tossed on the sand, at the mad mercy of the waves, lay Adrienne Isham's lifeless form. She dreamt no dreams; she felt no strife; she did not yearn for triumph, or cavil at the treachery of fate. She was free. Faces of agonized devotion bent above her; the wraiths of buried summers thronged around. Voices that stirred her lifeblood once, stirred it not now. The earth-deafness of DEITY had hushed the harshness of the temporal to her ear. She will not fret again at mystery, nor question life; and midnight tolled the dirge of August.

TO SLEEP.

BY ELIZABETH LYON LINSLEY.

SLEEP, magic Sleep, how shall I sing to thee!

The weary laborer at the day's decline,

With slackened hand, weak step, and tottering knee,
Glad yields him to that honeyed spell of thine,

And lays his tired heart in thy waiting arms,
His faint limbs sinking to their haven sweet;
No toil, or grief, or care, or aught that harms,
Invades the precincts of that safe retreat.

The careful student, whose poor, aching brain,
The earnest soul has plied so long and well,
That every thought seems scarcely less than pain,
When once he enters thy enchanted dell,

He hears the murmur of thy lulling streams,
And catches there that music soft and low,
That sinks and swells within our happy dreams,
And breathes those tranquil airs that gently blow;

In silent fragrance, all his woes away.

The sick heart - from whose inmost depths have flown
The life of love that made it glad and gay;
Whose desolation, tones and words alone

Can never tell: to her thou com'st with rest,
Perchance, and visions dear. Thy kisses kind
Will charm the void within her lonely breast,
Nor leave one sad, mute, yearning wish behind.

The triple sufferer, (ah! how many such!)

With weary limbs, vexed soul, and weeping heart, Thou takest with thy soft, ethereal touch,

As a fond mother takes her child apart

To soothe and cherish -- in thy cradle still,
Thou layest him to rest, and fann'st his brow
With sweet oblivion. No tears will fill

His eyes or heart, for thou art with him now.

Thy lullabies thou singest all the night,

Their quiet tones of peace are caught from heaven,
And though thou float'st away in morning light,
No words can paint the blessing thou hast given.

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