child which flitted for so brief a span across his pathway and
then was lost forever. le had tried so hard to save her-had
clasped her so fondly to his bosom when with extended arms
she came to him for aid. He could save her, he said-he could
swim to the shore with perfect ease and so without a moment's
hesitation she had leaped with him into the surging waves, and
that was about the last he could remember, save that he clutched
frantically at the long, golden hair streaming above the water,
retaining in his firm grasp the lock which no one at Spring
Bank had ever seen, for this one romance of Hugh's seemingly
unromantic life was a secret with himself. No one save his
uncle had witnessed his emotions when told that she was dead;
no one else had seen his bitter tears or heard the vehement ex-
clamation: "You've tried to teach me there was no hereafter,
no heaven for such as she, but I know better now, and I am glad
there is, for she is safe forever."
  These were not mere idle words, and the belief then ex-
pressed became with Hugh Worthington a firm, fixed principle,
which his skeptical uncle tried in vain to eradicate. " There
was a heaven, and she was there," comprised nearly the whole
of Hugh's religious creed, if we except a vague, misty hope, that
he, too, would some day find her, how or by what means he never
seriously inquired; only this he knew, it would be through her
influence, which even now followed him everywhere, producing
its good effects. It had checked him many and many a time
when his fierce temper was in the ascendant, forcing back the
harsh words he would otherwise have spoken, and making him as
gentle as a child; and when the temptations to which young
men of his age are exposed were spread out alluringly before
him, a single thought of her was sufficient to lead him from the
forbidden ground.
  Only once had he fallen, and that two years before, when, as
if some demon had possessed him, he shook off all remembrances
of the past, and yielding to the baleful fascinations of one who
seemed to sway him at will, plunged into a tide of dissipation,
and lent himself at last to an act which had since embittered
every waking hour. As if all the events of his life were crowding
upon his memory this night, he thought of two years ago, and
the scene which transpired in the suburbs of New York, whither
immediately after his uncle's death he had gone upon a matter
of important business. In the gleaming fire before him there
was now another face than hers, an older, a different, though



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