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438 mayest perhaps elect,—elect!—She shall come; she shall come.—When is it to be, dear Pierre?'

'To-morrow, Isabel. So it is here written.'

She fixed her eye on the crumpled billet in his hand. 'It were vile to ask, but not wrong to suppose the asking.—Pierre,—no, I need not say it,—wouldst thou?'

'No; I would not let thee read it, my sister; I would not; because I have no right to—no right—no right;—that is it; no: I have no right. I will burn it this instant, Isabel.'

He stepped from her into the adjoining room; threw the billet into the stove, and watching its last ashes, returned to Isabel.

She looked with endless intimations upon him.

'It is burnt, but not consumed; it is gone, but not lost. Through stove, pipe, and flue, it hath mounted in flame, and gone as a scroll to heaven! It shall appear again, my brother.—Woe is me—woe, woe!—woe is me, oh, woe! Do not speak to me, Pierre; leave me now. She shall come. The Bad angel shall tend the Good; she shall dwell with us, Pierre. Mistrust me not; her considerateness to me, shall be outdone by mine to her.—Let me be alone now, my brother.'

IV

Though by the unexpected petition to enter his privacy—a petition he could scarce ever deny to Isabel, since she so religiously abstained from preferring it, unless for some very reasonable cause, Pierre, in the midst of those conflicting, secondary emotions, immediately following the first wonderful effect of Lucy's strange letter, had been forced to put on, toward Isabel, some air of assurance and understanding concerning its contents; yet at bottom, he was still a prey to all manner of devouring mysteries.