THE SMUGGLER* 97 



Or linworthiness takes from her him she loves, that love be- 

 comes a memory. You cannot yet judge of Edith, arid there- 

 fore I forgive you for asking such a thing; but she is all that 

 is noble, and good, and bright; and Heaven pardon me! if I 

 almost doubt she was meant for happiness below, she seems 

 so fitted for a higher state." 



The tears rose in her eyes as she spoke ; but Sir Edward 

 feared interruption, and went on, asking somewhat abruptly, 

 perhaps, "What made you say, just now, that you were right 

 and she was wrong?" 



" Because she thought that he was dead, and that you came 

 to announce it to her," Zara replied. "You spoke of him in 

 the past ; you always said, ' he was ;' you said not a word of 

 the present." 



"Because I knew not what were her present feelings,' 5 an- 

 swered Digby. " She has never written; she has never an- 

 swered one letter. All his have been returned in cold silence 

 to his agents, addressed in her own hand. And then her 

 father wrote to " 



"Stay, stayl" cried Zara, putting her hand to her head; 

 " addressed in her own hand? It must have been a forgery! 

 Yet, no; perhaps not. She wrote to him twice; once just 

 after he went, and once in answer to a message. The last 

 letter I gave to the gardener myself, and bade him post it. 

 That, too, was addressed to his agent's house. Can they have 

 stopped the letters and used the covers?" 



"It is probable," answered Digby, thoughtfully. "Did 

 she receive none from him?" 



"None, none," replied Zara, decidedly. "All that she 

 has ever heard of him was conveyed in that one message ; but 

 she doubted not, Sir Edward. She knew him, it seems, better 

 than he knew her." 



"Neither did he doubt her," rejoined her companion, " till 

 circumstance after circumstance occurred to shake his confi- 

 dence. Her own father wrote to him now three years ago 

 to say that she was engaged, by her own consent, to this 

 young Radford, and to beg that he would trouble her peace no 

 more by fruitless letters." 



" Oh, heaven!" cried Zara, " did my father say that?" 

 " He did," replied Sir Edward, " and more; everything that 

 poor Layton has heard since his return has confirmed the tale. 



