Mary returned, but how changed from the gay and blooming bride! Her cheek was pale, and her eye heavy. She hastened to repair the only wrong now capable of any remedy. The prison doors of poor Dinah were thrown open, and her innocence declared: but could the long and lonely days and nights spent in that weary, gloomy abode be blotted out? Could the pangs of cold, shuddering fear, the dream of the gallows, the rope, the hangman's grasp round the gurgling throat, the dark coffin seat, the scoffing multitude, be forgotten? No!--Dinah's spirit was broken, for though her skin was black, there was sensibility and delicacy too beneath her ebon colouring. Could Mary bring back the gladness that once pervaded the dwelling of Mrs. Astor? Everything there was changed. The room in which Mrs. St. Henry died was closed, for it was haunted by too terrible remembrances. Bitterly did Mary mourn over the grave of her victim; but she could not recall her by her tears. No remorse could open the gates of the tomb, or reclothe with beauty and bloom the ruins of life.
Margaret, the true, the pure-hearted and upright Margaret, was not destined, like Mary, to gather the thorns and briers of existence. Long did the fragrance of _her_ roses last, for she had not plucked them with too rash a hand. She and Mr. Hall again met. The moral sympathy that had drawn them together, was not weakened by the tragic event that had intervened; it had rather strengthened through suffering and sorrow. Mr. Hall could never forget the death scene of Laura St. Henry. The love expressed for him at a moment when all earthly dissimulation was over had inexpressibly affected him. Her unparalleled sufferings seemed an expiation for her broken faith. It was at her grave that he and Margaret first met after their sad separation, when the falling shades of evening deepened the solemnity of the scene. Sorrow, sympathy, devotion, and truth, form a holy groundwork for love; and when once the temple is raised on such a foundation, the winds and waves may beat against it in vain. Mr. Hall found by his own experience, that the bruised heart can be healed, for Margaret's hand poured oil and balm on its wounds. He could repose on her faith as firmly as on the rock which ages have planted. He knew that she loved him, and felt it due to her happiness as well as his own, to ask her to be the companion of his pilgrimage. If they looked back upon the clouds that had darkened their morning, it was without self-reproach, and remembrance gradually lost its sting. Who will say she was not happier than Mary, who carried in her bosom, through life, that which "biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder?"