BACK and forth, among the pine-trees that had been witnesses of the happiest moments of his life; over the carpet of frozen pine-needles, every inch of which was holy ground to him, because her foot had trodden it in the past; through the intense cold and stillness; Elias marched, waiting for her to come. Harder than ever was the frost that bound and benumbed his senses; but in his heart, there was the heat of battle. Hope and doubt struggled together there, in mortal combat.

At one instant, doubt getting the upper hand, he would cry: “Will she come? No, God help me, it is most unlikely. I may as well make up my mind to it. She will not come.”

Next instant, hope inflaming him: “She will come. I know she will. She has a kind and tender heart. She can’t find it in her to refuse. She will come; and she will let me tell her how I love her, and how I have suffered; and she will soften toward me, and forgive me. And perhaps her love for me will come back—and overpower her—and make her forget every thing else—and then—she—perhaps—oh, merciful God! if—if she should consent!”

Thus he alternated between hell and heaven.

If he had been enabled to penetrate but a very little way into the future, I suspect, his thoughts and his emotions would have been of a quite different order.

“I must have been here at least an hour by this time,” he said. “It must be almost time for her to get here.”

With stiffened fingers he drew out his watch.

Having looked at it: “Yes; she may get here any minute now.” Oh, how the prospect made his heart throb! “She may be not further than a few yards away.—Ah!—Hark! I—I hear a footstep. I swear, I hear a footstep. Is it she? It comes down the path in this direction. God—God grant that it is she. Nearer—nearer—nearer——”

What was this? Bending forward, every muscle strained, every nerve on tension, to follow the footstep that he seemed to hear—suddenly his voice failed him, and expired in a low, guttural murmur; suddenly a dreadful spasm contracted all his features; his face flushed scarlet, then paled as white as marble; his arm flew ............