And so through the breakfast scene, and so through the whole day she sought to exercise self-control.  But could her distress escape the anxious, penetrating eyes of affection?  That evening after tea, when Mr. Willcoxen had retired to his own apartments and the waiter had replenished the fire and trimmed the lamps and retired, leaving the young couple alone in the parlor—­Miriam sitting on one side of the circular work-table bending over her sewing, and Paul on the other side with a book in his hand, he suddenly laid the volume down, and went round and drew a chair to Miriam’s side and began to tell her how much he loved her, how dear her happiness was to him, and so entreat her to tell him the cause of her evident distress.  As he spoke, she became paler than death, and suddenly and passionately exclaimed: 

“Oh, Paul!  Paul! do not question me!  You know not what you ask.”

“My own Miriam, what mean you?  I ought to know.”

“Oh, Paul!  Paul!  I am one foredoomed to bring misery and destruction upon all who love me; upon all whom I love.”

“My own dearest, you are ill, and need change, and you shall have it, Miriam,” he said, attempting to soothe her with that gentle, tender, loving manner he ever used toward her.

But shuddering sighs convulsed her bosom, and—­

“Oh, Paul!  Paul!” was all she said.

“Is it that promise that weighs upon your mind, Miriam?  Cast it out; you cannot fulfill it; impossibilities are not duties.”

“Oh, Paul! would Heaven it were impossible! or that I were dead.”

“Miriam! where are those letters you wished to show me?”

“Oh! do not ask me, Paul! not yet! not yet!  I dread to see them.  And yet—­who knows? they may relieve this dreadful suspicion! they may point to another probability,” she said, incoherently.

“Just get me those letters, dear Miriam,” he urged, gently.

She arose, tottering, and left the room, and after an absence of fifteen minutes returned with the packet in her hand.

“These seals have not been broken since my mother closed them,” said Miriam, as she proceeded to open the parcel.

The first she came to was the bit of a note, without date or signature, making the fatal appointment.

“This, Paul,” she said, mournfully, “was found in the pocket of the dress Marian wore at Luckenough, but changed at home before she went out to walk the evening of her death.  Mother always believed that she went out to meet the appointment made in that note.”

Paul took the paper with eager curiosity to examine it.  He looked at it, started slightly, turned pale, shuddered, passed his hand once or twice across his eyes, as if to clear his vision, looked again, and then his cheeks blanched, his lips gradually whitened and separated, his eyes started, and his whole countenance betrayed consternation and horror.

Miriam gazed upon him in a sort of hushed terror—­then exclaimed: