But now that it was forced upon her notice, now that it lay exposed to her eye, alluring her attention, almost soliciting her grasp, she had not, she wished not to have, the courage to resist the innocent temptation of gazing on it; and she, who a few minutes before had shunned the looks, and almost rejoiced in the absence of the original, now hung in rapturous but melancholy emotion over his shadow. Even virtue forbad not the indulgence which love and opportunity afforded; for it was not the picture of the duke de Beauvilliers that riveted the eye of the countess de St. Dorval-the cold, the grave, the indifferent duke de Beauvilliers-oh, no: the heart, in the omnipotence of its tenderness, had annihilated the intervening power of time and destiny: it was still the Novice of St. Dominick that indulged the play of her enamoured fancy, it was the blooming semblance of the youthful Minstrel of Provence that fascinated her ardent gaze, and received the pressure of

her glowing lip. Again in the eloquent eye, which seemed to move upon the sight of her's, gleamed the brightening dawn. of infant passion; still over the lips, where all the painter's magic art was lavished, the sigh of half-breathed passion seemed to die.

Every lineament, every feature, recalled some sweet stage in love's first delightful era; and memory, rushing through each successive interval of existence, still fondly reverted to that dearly-prized period, when enjoyment shed her roses over the felicitous present, and the vista of future life gleamed with the illuminating beams of hope and expectation; and still did the tear, which is dear to the soul, drop from the eye of Imogen on the object of its contemplation; and still did the sigh, which the heart loves to exhale, breathe over the crystal that enshrined it: when a deep sigh, echoing to her own, awakened her wrapt attention. With a convulsive start she raised her fearful eyes, and hurried the picture to her bosom; then with

a faint shriek covered her face in her veil, to shut out the form of him against whose semblance her heart now wildly beat.

The duke de Beauvilliers sprang forward, and, falling at her feet, clung to the drapery of her robe as she endeavoured to

rise.

"What is it you have to fear?” he exclaimed with emotion; "while the picture "of de Sorville is still wet with the tears "of thy love;-oh! precious tears!"while his semblance still reposes near "the heart where he reigns unrivaled, "what have you to fear from the presence "of one whose only hope, whose only

wish, is now to be the friend of both? "As such, as such only, do I now kneel at "the feet of the countess de St. Dorval."

A bolt of ice seemed to shoot through the heart of Imogen; unable to subdue, unable to conceal, the violence of her emotion, trembling and weak, she again endeavoured to rise. The duke seized her hands.

"Hear me!" he exclaimed, "in mercy

"to yourself, oh! hear me. It is for your sake, not for my own, that I now supplicate."

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Imogen's feelings, wound up to an excess of agony, nerved her (almost fainting) frame with momentary strength. She burst from the grasp of the duke, but in the struggle his picture fell from her bosom. Vanquished, she sank again on her

seat.

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The duke still holding her hands in the clasp of one of his, with the other took the picture, and exclaimed, "I conjure in the name of him whose—” The words died on his pale and trembling lips; his eyes were fixed in a wild and doubtful gaze on the picture; breathless and panting he fell prostrate at her feet, and hid his face in the folds of her robe, which he wildly impressed with a thousand burning kisses. For five minutes a convulsive sigh, a half-stifled sob, a faint and broken exclamation only, disturbed the silence which emotions too vio

lent, too great for utterance imposed. The duke held the hands of Imogen, and reposed on them his wildly-throbbing temples; their pulse responded to the throb of his, and they were bathed with his tears. Imogen, dissolved and wholly overcome, had not the power to withdraw them: the duke himself released them, and appeared to search for something in his bosom; then, with a shudder that seemed to shake his whole frame, he again seized the hands of Imogen, covered them with impassioned caresses, and exclaimed wildly:

"Thou hast bereft me of every thing

but my honour; leave me, oh! leave me "that!--for thy husband is my friend!"

After the solemn pause of a moment he rushed out of the room, and Imogen sank back in a state of utter insensibility.

Recollection returned with less rapidity than life. All that had past, Imogen endeavoured to call to mind, like the scattered visions of a faded dream; but the idea most buoyant in her memory was, that she