“And thine own trials, my beloved one,” he said,—­“Has the question never come, why thou shouldst thus have been afflicted?”

“Often, very often, my father, and only within the last few weeks has the full answer come; and I can say from my inmost heart, in the words of Job, ‘It is good that I have been afflicted,’ and that I believe all is well.  While on earth, we must be in some degree of earth, and bear the penalty of our earthly nature.  The infirmities and imperfections of that nature in others, as often as in ourselves, occasion human misery, which our God, in his infinite love, permits, to try our spirit’s strength and faith, and so prepare us for that higher state of being, in which the spirit will move and act, when the earthly shell is shivered, and earthly infirmities are for ever stilled.  In the time of suffering we cannot think thus; but looking back as I do now—­when the near vicinity of another world bids me regard my own past life almost as if it were another’s—­I feel it in my inmost heart, and bless God for every suffering which has prepared me thus early for his home.  There is but one feeling, one wish of earth, remaining,” she continued, after a long pause of utter exhaustion.  “It is weak, perhaps, and wrong; but if—­if Arthur could but know that fatal secret which made me seem a worse deceiver than I was—­I know it cannot be, but it so haunts me.  If I wedded one Christian, may he not think there needed not this sacrifice—­sacrifice not of myself, but of his happiness.  Oh! could I but—­Hush! whose step is that?” she suddenly interrupted herself; and with the effort of strong excitement, started up, and laid her hand on her uncle’s arm.

“Nay, my child, there is no sound,” he replied soothingly, after listening attentively for several moments.

“But there is.  Hark, dost thou not hear it now?  God of mercy! thou hast heard my prayer—­it is his!” she exclaimed, sinking powerlessly back, at the moment that even Julien’s duller ear had caught a rapid step; and in another minute the branches were hastily pushed aside, and Stanley indeed stood upon the threshold.

“Marie—­and thus!” he passionately exclaimed; and flinging himself on his knees beside her, he buried his face on her hand, and wept in agony.

* * * * *

Nearly an hour passed ere Marie could rally from the agitation of Arthur’s unexpected presence sufficiently to speak.  She lay with her hand clasped in his, and his arm around her—­realizing, indeed, to the full, the soothing consolation of his presence, but utterly powerless to speak that for which she had so longed to see him once again.  The extent of her weakness had been unknown till that moment either to her uncle or herself, and Julien watched over her in terror lest the indefinable change which in that hour of stillness was perceptibly stealing over her features should be indeed the dim shadow of death.