and in that silent appeal, in those dewy tears that glistened in her great orbs, in those words that seemed freezing to her quivering lips, the fierce struggle waging in that bosom was told.  She heard the words, “You cannot redeem me now!” knelling in her ears, her thoughts flashed back over years of remorse, to the day of her error, and she saw rising up as it were before her, like a spectre from the tomb, seeking retribution, the image of the child she had sacrificed to her vanity.  She pressed and pressed the cold hand, so delicate, so like her own; she unbared the round, snowy arm, and there beheld the imprinted hearts, and the broken anchor!  Her pent-up grief then burst its bounds, the tears rolled down her cheeks, her lips quivered, her hand trembled, and her very blood seemed as ice in her veins.  She cast a hurried glance round the room, a calm and serene smile seemed lighting up the features of the lifeless woman, and she bent over her, and kissed and kissed her cold, marble-like brow, and bathed it with her burning tears.  It was a last sad offering; and having bestowed it, she turned slowly away, and disappeared.  It was Madame Montford, who came a day too late to save the storm-tossed girl, but returned to think of the hereafter of her own soul.

CHAPTER XLV.

Another shade of the picture.

While the earth of Potter’s Field is closing over all that remains of Anna Bonard, Maria McArthur may be seen, snatching a moment of rest, as it were, seated under the shade of a tree on the Battery, musing, as is her wont.  The ships sail by cheerily, there is a touching beauty about the landscape before her, all nature seems glad.  Even the heavens smile serenely; and a genial warmth breathes through the soft air.  “Truly the Allwise,” she says within herself, “will be my protector, and is chastising me while consecrating something to my good.  Mr. Keepum has made my father’s release the condition of my ruin.  But he is but flesh and blood, and I—­no, I am not yet a slave!  The virtue of the poor, truly, doth hang by tender threads; but I am resolved to die struggling to preserve it.”  And a light, as of some future joy, rises up in her fancy, and gives her new strength.

The German family have removed from the house in which she occupies a room, and in its place are come two women of doubtful character.  Still, necessity compels her to remain in it; for though it is a means resorted to by Keepum to effect his purpose, she cannot remove without being followed, and harassed by him.  Strong in the consciousness of her own purity, and doubly incensed at the proof of what extremes the designer will condescend to, she nerves herself for the struggle she sees before her.  True, she was under the same roof with them; she was subjected to many inconveniencies by their presence; but not all their flattering inducements could change her resolution.