and her cheeks were burning. Mrs. Freeman gazed at her in dis

She spoke loud and abruptly, and it aroused Susan,

"What is the matter with you?"

"Nothing," answered Susan. "Only I feel sleepy, and my head aches. It has been hot and heavy all the afternoon."

"I do not wish to alarm you unnecessarily, but it looks just like the fever coming on.'

"Oh, not here!" uttered Susan, growing nervous at the fear presented to her. "I should not like to be laid up in Mr. Carnagie's house."

"I declare you have the very symptoms. I hope it may not be. I will remain with you, should it prove so; be assured of that."

"But to be ill in this house!" persisted poor Susan, harping upon the, to her, most unsatisfactory point in the prospect. "Could I not be removed to yours?"

"If you particularly wished it. But our house is not so healthily situated, or so roomy, as this. We shall see how you are to-morrow."

But when the morrow came it was too late to remove Susan Chase. The fever had come on with a vengeance. It is probable that her harassed state of mind contributed to increase the delirium.

"Two invalids on my hands!" ejaculated Mrs. Freeman. "Well, I must prove myself equal to it. The danger is past with Mr. Carnagie, so I will turn him over to one of the others, and Brillianna shall transfer her nursing to Miss Chase. She's as obstinate as a mule, in temper, that woman, but she's a famous nurse. As to myself, I'll divide my supervision into three parts; two to be given to Susan Chase, and one to Mr. Carnagie."

When Mrs. Freeman could spare a moment from Susan, she went to pay her first visit that morning to Mr. Carnagie. "There is no need to ask how you are," was her salutation to him. "You look as brisk as pos

sible; very different from what you did three days ago."
"Yes, I am all right again. Brillianna says Susan is ill.”
"The fever has caught her."

"I am vexed to hear it. Is there a fear of delirium coming on?" "It is on already. Raging. New constitutions are knocked down soon. But there is one consolation, Mr. Carnagie; it will be the soonest spent. The fiercer the storm, the quicker it's over. I do not fear but she will get through it."

"Of course her sister will come home to nurse her," emphatically uttered Mr. Carnagie.

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Who, come home?"

"Her own

"My wife. If she stopped aloof from me, she cannot from Susan." "How can she come home ?" cried Mrs. Freeman. "How can she stay away?" retorted Mr. Carnagie. sister, who came out purposely to take care of her in her illness! she cannot let her lie and die-as it may be-amidst strangers, and not come near her. Have you sent to inform Mrs. Carnagie?"

Mrs. Freeman did not reply. Her private opinion, just then, was, that Lieutenant Carnagie's delirium had come back to him. She never supposed he could be ignorant of his wife's voyage.

"Where is it that my wife is staying?" he resumed. "I asked Susan yesterday, but she did not say. Only at Mrs. Jacobson's, I suppose." "Well," remarked Mrs. Freeman, "this is the first time I ever knew that the fever obliterates the recollection of previous events. It will be a new point for the consideration of the doctors. Have you quite forgotten that Mrs. Carnagie sailed for Europe?"

Mr. Carnagie lay and looked at her. "Mrs. Carnagie has not sailed."

"Yes she has. That is why I am staying here with Miss Chase. It would have been a cruel thing to leave her, in your house, without a protector, and you, perhaps, dying."

Mr. Carnagie was weak and ill, and he began to wonder whether his memory had played him false, as Mrs. Freeman asserted. He carried his thoughts back to the past. All in vain.

"I have no recollection," he said: "I do not comprehend, at all, what you are saying."

"Dear me! I hope it will return to you, as you grow stronger! Your wife started for England by the last packet: it made sail the very morning that your delirium came on. Ruth went with her; and Captain Chard sailed by the same vessel, and is taking charge of her on the voyage. Don't you remember now?"

At that moment Brillianna put in her head, and beckoned Mrs. Freeman from the room. It was well that it was so: otherwise, that lady might have obtained a curious elucidation. Mr. Carnagie had time to digest the news, and to form his own opinion upon it. Whether an explosion of angry passion, or any other emotion, was given way to, cannot be told; he was alone; but the next time his medical attendant came, he insisted that something must have thrown Mr. Carnagie back, for he was worse again. Not a word said Mr. Carnagie.

II.

MRS. FREEMAN'S theory of "the fiercer the storm, the quicker it's over," whether right or wrong, in a general sense, certainly appeared to apply to the illness of Susan. The turning-point in her malady soon came, and then she progressed rapidly towards recovery. One day, after she was about again, she was sitting in an easy-chair at the open window of the drawing-room, when Mr. Carnagie came in. Mrs. Freeman had gone for an hour or two to her own home.

"Well, Susan," he said, "I am tolerably strong again, considering what the pull has been. Where's Emma? You said I was to know when I got well."

Susan's face became livid. She was weak yet, and the question terrified her. This was the moment she had so dreaded.

Mr. Carnagie drew forward a chair and sat down by her. tell you, or will you tell ME?" he said, in a marked manner.

"Shall I

Some words escaped from Susan's white lips: something to the effect of "did he know where she was?"

"I do. Was it not a fine recompense?" he continued, with suppressed passion. "We will say nothing of me, her husband, but of you. To bring you out, and then to cast you off in a strange place, without proper pro

tectors, separated from your home and friends by the wide seas! Abandoned, shameless woman! Did you know of her flight the evening she left?"

"Oh no," answered Susan, who was shaking excessively. "If I had, it should have been prevented; by means of force, had entreaties failed. What shall you do?"

"Need you ask? There is only one course open to me."

"And that?"

"Shoot Chard, and get a divorce."

may

"Oh, Mr. Carnagie!" she exclaimed, in a startled, wailing tone. "Do nothing in precipitation. It may not be so bad as it appears. She have gone away only to separate herself from you, without anyany ill intentions. Nothing suspicious, as to her voyage, has transpired here it is universally looked upon as an innocent step. I do not wish to judge between you and Emma, Mr. Carnagie, but you must be aware that there was much ill feeling between you.'

:

"Say on her side, if you please," was his reply.

"There would have been little on mine, but for her own temper and conduct. From the first hour that I brought her out, she gave me nothing but reproaches and cold looks; and for no earthly reason.'

"She-she-some injudicious people told her tales to your former prejudice," stammered Susan, always a peace-maker, and anxious to offer what excuse she might for her erring sister.

"Psha!" angrily retorted Mr. Carnagie. "No matter what she heard to my prejudice, as to when I was a single man, it could not affect me as a married one-or her, either. Young men are young men, all over the globe, officers especially, and plunge into nonsense of all kinds, but when they marry they leave it behind them. Had she heard that I had fired Bridgetown, and boiled down the natives for soup, it was no business of hers. I brought her out here, Susan, to do my duty by her, to be a good husband, as a true-hearted man should be, and she was a fool, and something worse, to rake up my old scores against me. You would not have done it."

That was very true. But Susan did not say so.

"It has been folly and madness with us both, throughout the piece," he continued, "and now, I suppose, we are reaping the reward. To gratify a wild, hasty fancy, each took for the other, I was false to you, Susan, and to every spark of honour that ought to have stirred within me. I'

"Mr. Carnagie," she interrupted, "speak on any topic but that. It is ungenerous of you to allude to it."

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I know that: it was but a passing allusion: but I should like you to glean how bitter to me are the ashes of self-reproach. I should think they are to her for her conduct then-for you had been to her a tender, loving sister, and did not merit such a requital. What has followed that ill-advised step? We have led a cat-and-dog life together, and now she has lost herself; and I"-he stamped his foot-" am dishonoured in the sight of men."

"Have proof before you judge her harshly," whispered Susan again. "She may not have proceeded to extremes, or intend to."

"I will wait for no proof, and I will never spare her," vehemently an

swered Mr. Carnagie. "The very moment that the law will rid me of her, I will be rid. I am surprised you can seek to palliate her conduct, Susan, for her sin and shame tell upon you and her own family, almost as they do on me. Let us drop her name for ever."

He rose and stood as if gazing on the verandah, and the prospect beyond it, probably seeing nothing. Susan's thoughts turned, perhaps in spite of her wish, to the past, when she had been looking forward joyfully to her marriage with him. That marriage had been frustrated: yet here she was, in little more than twelve months, in his house, alone with him, far away from her own home and kindred; alone with him, now, in this room, and yet not his wife! It was very strange; and it was very undesirable; even with the visit of Mrs. Freeman, it was undesirable. Susan felt her position acutely, and leaned her head on her hand in perplexity.

"What a future to be anticipated!" suddenly exclaimed Mr. Carnagie. "What will it be ?"

"Ay, indeed," said Susan, rousing herself, "she did not think of her future when she left her home."

"Her future!" he scornfully rejoined-"her future requires no speculating upon; she has plainly marked it out for herself, and entered upon it: I was speaking of my own. Solitude and dissatisfaction are before me,"

"I feel for you deeply. I wish I knew how to whisper a hope that it may be soothed to you."

"I wish you would whisper it, Susan," he answered, returning to his seat. And again there was a pause, which Mr. Carnagie broke.

"In a certain time I shall be clear of her. I do not know how long these proceedings take, but I shall go to England and enter upon them immediately they will grant me leave, under the circumstances. In a few months, from now, I shall be a free man. Will you not whisper a hope for that period, Susan ?"

She did not catch his meaning. "What hope is there that I can whisper ?"

He bent towards her; he spoke in a low tone; a tone as tender as it had been in years gone by. "Can it never be again with Us, Susan, as it used to be? Will you not come out here, and take her place, and be to me my dearest wife ?"

Susan sat with eyes and mouth open. "Mr. Carnagie !"

"If you will but forgive my infatuated folly, and remember it no more. Oh, Susan! put it into my power to atone for it! When the time shall come, if you will but have pity upon me, and be mine, my whole life shall be one long atonement. Remember what we were to each other; let it come again: united in heart and hand, blessings may be in store for both of us."

Had Susan been strong and well, she would no doubt have left Lieutenant Carnagie and the room to themselves: as it was, after a vain attempt to rise, which he prevented, she burst into a miserable flood of tears.

"It needed not your presence here to renew my affection for you," he proceeded. "It had never really left you, though it was obscured by the ill-omened feeling that rushed over me and-her. Which feeling, call it

by what name we might, was neither affection nor love: it was a species of frenzy, a delirium, without foundation and without strength, and that's the best that can be said of it. Had you not come out here, Susan, my affection for you would have died away by gradual degrees: in your presence, and with my wife still true to me, I would have buried it, and did bury it, within myself; you should never have heard of it or suspected it. But she is gone, and you and I are left: I pray you let us agree to render the future bright to each other."

She wrenched away the hand which he had taken, and covered her burning and tearful face, whilst sobs choked her utterance. "Oh, Mr. Carnagie! you are very cruel!"

"I love you better than of old: I love you, as I believe man never loved woman: I will strive to make your life one long sunshine. Susan! you are in my house; you tended my sick-bed and brought me round; you have no other protector here but my own self. Surely it all points to the expediency of your promising to become my wife. You must see it."

"Will you be generous?-can you be generous?" she uttered, in a sarcastic tone, yet almost beside herself.

"I can, and will, be generous to you."

"Then release me, that I may go instantly from your presence. You will, if you have a spark of manly feeling within you."

"Will you not listen to me?"

"I will not listen to you: how dare you ask it? My sister is your wife; your wife, Mr. Carnagie; and you are disgracing yourself and insulting me. To suffer what you have been saying to enter your thoughts, much more to give utterance to it, ought to have dyed your brow with shame. Proceed no further: I have friends in the island, close at hand, who will protect me if I appeal to them."

He looked gloomily at her. "Have you learned to hate me, Susan ?"

"I had not learned to hate you. I esteemed you, and liked you, as my sister's husband. You are teaching me to hate you now."

"Look at my future," he returned; "consider what it will be. Left here, to my deserted home, without any to care for me, or to make it what a home ought to be; pointed at as a wronged man!—have you no compassion for me?"

"Yes, I have every compassion for you-as your wife's sister. All other ties between us have long been over."

"Never to be renewed? Will no entreaty persuade you? not even the pleadings of my unhappy love?"

"Never. Never. I would almost rather have died in the fever, than live to receive this insult: I would far rather die than become your wife. You see that poor black slave," she vehemently cried, pointing to Jicko, who was at work in the garden-" well; were it offered me to choose between you, I would marry him rather than you!"

Mr. Carnagie gave vent to a violent explosion of words, and strode from the room, banging the door after him with such force that it shook the slightly-built house. And Susan Chase, shattered in spirit and in frame, fell into an hysterical fit, and sobbed and cried, unheard by all.