moment. My sweet Berta! You waited for me living, and you have waited for me dead. 'If you wait for me,' I said, 'your own heart will announce my return to you,' and you see I have returned. I felt for you an immense tenderness, but a terrible doubt consumed my heart. Had my riches dazzled you? Forgive me, Berta. A fatal learning had frozen faith in my soul; I doubted everything, and I doubted your heart also—I doubted you."
Berta clasped her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven, exclaimed mournfully:
"My God! what cruel injustice!"
"Yes!" burst out Adrian Baker; "cruel injustice! but you have resuscitated my heart; you have brought my soul back to life."
"Ah," said Berta, laying her hands on his breast, "what if it were too late!"
Then, turning to her father and the nurse, she said:
"I feel very cold; let us return to the villa;" and leaning on Adrian Baker's arm, she led the way.
Her father and the nurse followed her in silence. The good man had comprehended everything, but the poor woman comprehended nothing.
What passed that night in the villa it is not necessary to relate; it was a night of pain, of agitation, and of anguish. It was necessary to go
