“As God is my hope,” said Arthur, “I will disarm temptation.  Fear not.  From this hour we part.  Henceforth the living and the dead shall not be more estranged than we.”

He arose, but started as if an apparition met his gaze.  Oriana knelt beside him, and touched her lips to his hand in gratitude.  An arm raised her tenderly, and a gentle voice murmured her name.

It was not Arthur’s.

Oriana raised her head, with a faint cry of terror.  She gasped and swooned upon the intruder’s breast.

It was Harold Hare who held her in his arms.

Arthur, with folded arms, stood erect, but pale, in the presence of his friend.  His eye, sorrowful, yet calm, was fixed upon Harold, as if awaiting his angry glance.  But Harold looked only on the lifeless form he held, and parting the tresses from her cold brow, his lips rested there a moment with such a fond caress as sometimes a father gives his child.

“Poor girl!” he murmured, “would that my sorrow could avail for both.  Arthur, I have heard enough to know you would not do me wrong.  Grief is in store for us, but let us not be enemies.”

Mournfully, he gave his hand to Arthur, and Oriana, as she wakened from her trance, beheld them locked in that sad grasp, like two twin statues of despair.

They led her to the house, and then the two young men walked out alone, and talked frankly and tranquilly upon the subject.  It was determined that both should leave Riverside manor on the morrow, and that Oriana should be left to commune with her own heart, and take counsel of time and meditation.  They would not grieve Beverly with their secret, at least not for the present, when his sister was so ill prepared to bear remonstrance or reproof.  Harold wrote a kind letter for Oriana, in which he released her from her pledged faith, asking only that she should take time to study her heart, but in no wise let a sense of duty stand in the way of her happiness.  He took pains to conceal the depth of his own affliction, and to avoid whatever she might construe as reproach.

They would have gone without an interview with Oriana, but that would have seemed strange to Beverly.  However, Oriana, although pale and nervous, met them in the morning with more composure than they had anticipated.  Harold, just before starting, drew her aside, and placed the letter in her hand.

“That will tell you all I would say, and you must read it when your heart is strong and firm.  Do not look so wretched.  All may yet be well.  I would fain see you smile before I go.”

But though she had evidently nerved herself to be composed, the tears would come, and her heart seemed rising to her throat and about to burst in sobs.

“I will be your true wife, Harold, and I will love you.  Do not desert me, do not cast me from you.  I cannot bear to be so guilty.  Indeed, Harold, I will be true and faithful to you.”

“There is no guilt in that young heart,” he answered, as he kissed her forehead.  “But now, we must not talk of love; hereafter, perhaps, when time and absence shall teach us where to choose for happiness.  Part from me now as if I were your brother, and give me a sister’s kiss.  Would you see Arthur?”