Disappointed, with lingering steps he turned toward the store, but, as he stepped upon the sill, a slender figure darted from the alley-way, and laid a chill and trembling hand upon his arm.

"Bernard!"

"Heavens, Minny! what brings you here?"

"Hopes and fears, and memories, and sorrows, which _will not_ die."

"Pshaw, girl! harping on the old string yet! What of your mistress?"

"She is well, and by this time happy in her dreams."

"And did she send you to me? how came you here?"

"I came here with the pass, which gives any negro a right to the highway; and though I forged it, it served me well."

Minny stepped back into the shadow of the archway, and Wilkins, obeying the convulsive grasp of that delicate hand, followed her.

"Bernard," said she, dropping her voice almost into a whisper, which echoed deep and clear through the dark and narrow alley, "I have come to you to-night, for the last time in my life, to stand before you for a moment in the light of other days."

She paused, as if some smothered emotion overcame her; and the trembling hand upon his arm slipped down, and was clasped an instant in Wilkins'

grasp. It lingered there but a moment, one wild sad moment to Minny, and was withdrawn hastily, with a gush of tears.

"I cannot tell you," she proceeded to say, in a tone of touching sadness, and speaking every word with impressive distinctness, "I cannot tell you what came over me to-night, as I sat by the tall window, looking up at the pale stars, and listening to the night-wind, but it seemed to me like some vivid dream, or some shadowy vision of the past, and as my mistress fell asleep, I sat there still, looking up at the stars, with my vision between me and them. Listen, Bernard, and let me tell you what it was."

Wilkins' heart was touched by the soul-reaching sadness of the girl's manner, and he folded his arms patiently upon his breast, and leaned back against the brick wall of the archway, with his head bent forward to listen.

"I saw myself, Bernard, at first, as I was when first you came here. I knew none of the sorrows of my situation then, if there were any; at least I did not think it was anything to be a slave, and I was light-hearted and innocent, and very happy. I saw myself tripping along with my basket in my hand, as I so often used to do in my frequent errands to the store, and I met you, and at last, one moonlight night, you started with me from the store, and talked with me kindly and gently, and left me only at the gate of the great house where I lived.

Bernard, do you remember?"

"Yes, Minny, I do remember."

"And the next night, and the next--and still the next--they all came before me to-night so clearly. You were by my side, and talking sweetly, gently, lovingly. Yes, you told your love to me, Bernard; I saw you in my vision to-night as plainly as I saw you in reality then. On your knees before me, me the quadroon, clasping my hand, kissing it, blessing it, praying, imploring, beseeching me to be your wife. You were younger then, and less ambitious. I loved you so passionately, so wildly--Oh! my God! with what intenseness--and I told you so. To-night, looking up at those stars above me, I seemed to hear the old cathedral bell, I saw the doors swing slowly open, I heard the solemn service, you clasped me to your heart--your own."

"Girl! girl!" cried Wilkins, striking his hand upon his brow passionately, "why do you come to call all this up now?"

"Hear me, Bernard," said Minny, laying her hand again upon his arm. "You must hear me out. My lips shall never call the past to your mind again, never; but hear me now. I kept my place, and you kept yours. We met clandestinely, when we could, and where we could; and when I found that bondage kept me from your side, and that you had neither the gold to buy me, nor the courage to have it said you bought your wife, then, then I learned the bitter lot the quadroon has to bear. I was as white as you, as free in heart and motion, with high and good impulses, and a cultivated mind; and yet I had no liberty to go abroad, and make my home with him I loved, and, for the first time in my life, I cursed the fate which rendered me a slave! A little time went on, and what a change! Oh!

Heaven! that I should e'er have lived to see it! you grew cold and distant as you rose in life, and when you gained the position you now have here, I saw, because my very love made me see, that an ambitious heart had turned your thoughts higher than the poor quadroon, the beautiful but wretched slave. You loved my mistress! my master's daughter! She whom he would rather this day bury in the Potter's field than see your wife--and you know it! Oh! what agony then was mine! It was my turn then to weep, and pray, and plead; was I not your lawful wife, your own? Ha! what answer did you give me then? That our marriage was a mere form, that it was illegal, and I was--what? No marriage could be performed lawfully, you said, between a white man and a woman with the blood of my race in her veins. I wonder that I did not go mad then; I was taken terribly ill, but it was my fate to live on in misery. I lived to see you and Miss Della meet often, after that first meeting at the masked ball, and I lived to see her love you. When I found her secret out, I gave you up for ever; and from that moment my love froze up, and has hung in my heart like an unthawing icicle ever since."

"Have done, girl!" cried Wilkins, suddenly laying his heavy hands on her shoulders, as she stood before him with the starlight she so loved, just making her pale face and glittering eyes visible; "have done, I say, or I will curse you. Hence! I have heard enough of this; why do you come prating here, to tell me what I already know too well?--out upon you!"

In his impatient anger, Wilkins threw her from him, and strode hurriedly, up and down through the narrow alley, where they stood. Minny waited until his excitement had in a measure subsided, and he stood once more with folded arms before her, and his dark eyes looking into hers.

"Now," said he, speaking half in mockery, half in awe of the firm-hearted girl beside him, "now, my sin, my concentrated lightning, my beautiful passion, my quintessence of gall and bitterness, go on.

I'll stand and listen now till doomsday, if you will it, though your lips drop burning coals into my bare bosom, and scorch my soul. Go on, I say, I'll listen."

Minnie drew herself up proudly before him, as she heard his words, and stood with her beautiful head erect, and her keen eye fixed upon him, unwaveringly.

"Had you possessed a soul to burn over a woman's woes, and a woman's wrongs, it would have been scorched out long ago, Bernard; but let that pass. I came to you this night, not only to tell over my own wretchedness, a reviewal of which had risen up so forcibly before me, but I came to you anew as the spirit of the past, to call up in your breast the memory of what you have been, and to ask you if the future brings a change. And now, Bernard, on all your hopes of happiness, here or hereafter, answer me truly. Do you sincerely love this girl, whose guileless heart you've won?"

"And whether I do or not, girl, is it you I must make my confessor? No, never. It is a matter which concerns you not at all. Whether my heart be black as hate, or pure as an angel's pinion, I lay it bare to no one.

Whatever my feelings or intent in this matter, they are my own."

"Not so, Bernard. If ambition has prompted you to gain her affections, if love of wealth has sent you a wooer at that shrine, having in your breast no faithful heart to bestow in return for hers, let me beg, let me implore you, to stop where you are. Be merciful, compare the home which you can give, to the home from whence you take her. Compare the happiness which you can bestow to that of which you rob her, and feel, that if you take her, with all this, to a loveless breast, you take her to misery, to desolation, and death!"

"Do you deem me a villain, woman?"

"What you have been, you may be again."

Wilkins mused a moment; then, in a softer and more subdued tone, said:--

"No, no; oh no! God only knows--but never that to her, oh never!"

"Bernard! my mistress is dear to me; her happiness more sacred to me than my own. If I believed that you would ever play her false, if I believed that a sinister motive led you to accomplish this end, as I stand before you here, I would expose you as you are. I would lay bare to her the secrets of the past. I would warn her to recall the love which she has lavished on you, though the next hour should be my last, in consequence. Her happiness shall never be wrecked while I have the slightest power to guide it clear from danger."

With his impetuous spirit growing calm, as Minny became more excited, Wilkins looked upon her, as she confronted him, with her soul in her face, and his eyes kindled with the admiration his impulsive but generous heart could not but feel.

"Most nobly spoken, Minny!" he exclaimed, earnestly, "and now, as Heaven hears, let me speak what I feel is truth. Minny, there is a first love, a wavering, flickering, effervescing sentiment of youthful hearts, faithful and enduring in some instances, but not in mine, and this, God forgive me, I gave to you. True, I believed then I could never change; but the change came, with the exhalation of my heart's first passion, and though I never hated, I found I could no longer love you. Our marriage was illegal; I did not know it when it took place, but I learned it afterwards, when my love had chilled, and with perhaps a cruel, but a just hand, Minny, just to us both, I severed the cord which had bound us so sweetly, and our parted hearts drifted out of each other's sight, on the billows of life's ocean."

"Aye, Bernard, the one, a torn and shattered wreck, cast helpless on the desolate shores of sorrow and despair; the other, strong and uninjured, floating away to new and pleasant places, with only the shadow of a sad memory following it."

"Too true, Minny, too true! alas for the restless impulses of my misguided spirit. Alas for the trusting hopefulness of thine. But, Minny, as I stand before you now, with my whole heart open to your sight, I can most truly declare, that my love for Della is all that you would have it. She is trusting and innocent. I will never blight the one, or betray the other. I will hold her to my strong heart as some tender flower, which needs protection from a wintry blast, and from the world's cold breath; I will shield and guard, and cherish her with my life. God help me so to do!"

"Amen, Bernard, amen!"

"Minny, are you satisfied?"

"Yes! my heart trusts you once again. Even more hopeful for its trust for another, than even for itself."

"Bless you, Minny; and now 'tis time your anxious heart found rest. I will see you safe to your own gate, and then good-night."

Minny suffered Wilkins to draw her hand within his arm, and lead her forth once more beneath the starry skies. They walked on silently, each engrossed with their own reflections, with only the occasional interruption of the watchman, or the rattle of some noisy vehicle, hastening along the stony streets. Minny at last stopped at the entrance of the vacant court, leading to the secret garden door. As she was about to withdraw her hand from his arm, Wilkins retained it, firmly, yet respectfully, in his own.

"I have been thinking, Minny, more deeply than I ever thought before, of the great wrong which I have done you. The time may never come again when we shall meet as to-night we've met, and before we part, I must hear your lips pronounce my forgiveness."

"From the bottom of my heart, Bernard, I forgive you all that you may ever have done to me; either in word, or thought, or deed."

"I have been a wretch, Minny."

"But," continued the girl, without heeding the interruption, and speaking in an earnest, thrilling tone, "by the Heaven that is above us both, Bernard, I here swear, that if you are ever cold or cruel to the new bride you are winning, as true as there's a heart in my bosom, I will be her avenger--mark my words; though I should have to follow you to the ends of the earth, that revenge shall be mine."

A moment of silence ensued, and Minny stood like a breathing statue of retribution, with her glittering eyes fixed upon the face before her.

"Ah, Minny, the chill breath of desertion and sorrow has extinguished the last spark of affection which once glowed in your breast for me, or you could never speak thus. But fear not; your young mistress shall be to me as the apple of my eye, even as the core of my heart."

"Enough, enough. Good-night."

"Stay, Minny; can you learn to think of me kindly; and, in coming days, to witness my affection for another unshrinkingly?"