"As soon as I began to doubt receiving an answer from the marquis, I began to consider in what manner I should break the unpleasant intelligence with which I was charged, to you. Day after day passed away without coming to any determination to speak the truth. I still invented, or found some excuse for deferring my intended communication, from the unconquerable unwillingness I felt to interrupt your happiness."

Egbert at this instant felt the keenest remorse at the suspicions he had suffered to pervade his mind respecting Mr. Greville. Nothing, perhaps, wounds a generous, a noble heart, more severely, than the idea of having done injustice, even in thought, to any person; and that he had done injustice to Mr. Greville, the circumstances he revealed, as well as the language he used, evidently proved.

"But a letter I yesterday received from your friend in town," proceeded Mr. Greville, "at length made me resolve not to postpone what I had to communicate beyond to-morrow, as I now saw clearly I should injure you by any longer delay. The purport of the letter was to inform me, that the agent had been traced from Jamaica to St. Domingo, and that it was the opinion of the person who gave this intelligence, if immediate steps were taken, by which he meant, if some active person went over directly, part, at least, of the embezzled property might be recovered. Your friend laid this opinion before the different legatees, but not one of them would undertake the cause in any manner whatever. He trusted, however, that you, about whom he professed himself greatly interested, would not feel a similar reluc

tance."

"Reluctance!"repeated Egbert. "Good heaven! I shall be all impatience till I embark. I feel new life, new spirits, at the thoughts of recovering something from the wreck, and still being happy." "Many, many bright years of felicity are before you, I trust," said Mr. Greville. "There is one consolation, one happiness, at all events, which must be your's...that, which ever results from the consciousness of properly performing our part."

CHAP. II.

"Now Heaven, I trust, hath joys in store
"To crown thy constant breast."

By this time the chaise, destined at first for a very different journey, had arrived; and, as the night was growing late, Mr. Greville, fearful of his wife's being uneasy at his long absence, hurried Egbert and Jacintha to it, following them himself; Woodville particularly requesting to take his horse.

On their way to Wyefield, Mr. Greville accounted for his unexpected appearance at the inn, which was owing to accident, and not to premeditated design, as they had at first imagined.

He had gone, early in the morning, to spend the day with a friend, who lived on the Holywell road. On arriving at his house, he found him just preparing to set out, about some particular business, to a place near Chester. He asked Mr. Greville to accompany him thither, to which he made no objection, the day being delightfully fine, and the ride exceedingly pleasant. On their return they stopped at an inn to refresh their horses; and scarcely had Mr. Greville been seated in a little front parlour, ere to his unutterable astonishment, he beheld Jacintha and her companions entering. For a moment he sat lost in thought, vainly trying to conjecture what could have brought them to such a

place, at such an hour. A sudden recollection then of the impetuous temper of Egbert, and the high displeasure he expressed at the delay of his nuptials, made him conceive the real cause; and he blessed the chance which had given him an opportunity of frustrating so rash a project...a project which, if accomplished, could only, in the present crisis of affairs, have been productive of sorrow and repentance.

Mrs. Greville and Gertrude, who, in the early part of the evening, had been at a party in the village, were all amazement (an amazement not intermingled with much concern for any one of them) at the long absence of Mr. Greville, Jacintha and Egbert; and vainly inquired from the maid and the boys, if they knew where the latter were gone?

Their surprise was infinitely increased on beholding the three return together, in a chaise and four. Mrs. Greville scarcely suffered them to enter the parlour, before she eagerly demanded the cause of this strange, this mysterious circumstance. Mr. Greville, however, declined gratifying her curiosity till they were alone.

The agitation and distress so visible in Egbert's looks, whose spirits had again sunk at the idea of the long separation which would, in all probability, take place between him and Jacintha; and the still deeper melancholy that was impressed upon her countenance, immediately attracted the observation of Mrs. Greville, and gave rise to various surmises, which heightened her impatience to learn the particulars Mr. Greville had promised to communicate. When they were revealed, language could fully express the joy they gave her.

no

To hear that Egbert, whom she detested ever since she had given up all hopes of gaining him for Gertrude...to hear that he was sunk, distressed, and might eventually be deprived of every stay... to hear that all the pleasing prospects of Jacintha were destroyed, and find that she was again thrown entirely into her power, inspired her with a pleasure almost too exquisite to be concealed. Luckily, however, for her, she had to do with a person not more unsuspicious of deceit in her bosom, than unconscious of it in his own; and who, therefore, believed to be sincere, the expressions of regret which she forced herself to utter.

"I see, my dear," said Greville, completely imposed upon, "to have had the power of placing this amiable, this noble young man even in humble independence, would have afforded to you as much delight as it would have done to me. Had such been the case, I should certainly have opposed his embarking in his present enterprise."

"You do me justice, indeed, my dear," said Mrs. Greville. "I should have been very happy to have had the power."

"We must, we will hope," cried Mr. Greville, "still to see him and our poor Jacintha happy." "To be sure, my dear," replied Mrs. Greville, as happy as I wish them to be."

The anguish which Jacintha restrained in the presence of her father and her lover, before whom the paleness of her cheek, and the trickling tears which bedewed it, alone evinced her feelings, she gave way to in the solitude of her chamber. She there wept, even to agony, at the idea, not merely of (in all probability) her long separation from Egbert, but at the idea of the hazards, the numerous dangers, he might encounter. These apprehen