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 thy vow!" He spoke with an emotion she could not mistake.—"Is it possible?" said she, "my beautiful, my beloved friend:" and his hand trembled as he gave it her, in token of his assent.—Fearing to utter another word, dreading even the sound of their own voices, after such a disclosure, she soon retired.

Was it to rest that Lady Margaret retired?—No—to the tortures of suspense, of dread, of agony unutterable. A thousand times she started from her bed:—she fancied that voices approached the door—that shrieks rent the air; and, if she closed her eyes, visions of murder floated before her distracted mind, and pictured dreams too horrible for words half suffocated by the fever and delirium of her troubled imagination. She threw up the sash of her window, and listened attentively to every distant sound. The moon had risen in silvery brightness above the dark elm trees; it lighted, with its beams, the deep clear waters of Elle