EVENING, with its passionless influences, was stealing softly down, and leaving on all things its hues of quiet and repose.

The heart of nature was beating with calm and even pulses.

Not so the heart of Edwin Florence.

It had a wilder throb; and the face of nature was not reflected in the mirror of his feelings, He was alone in his room, where he had been during the few hours that had elapsed since his interview with Miss Linmore.

In those few hours, Memory had turned over many leaves of the Book of his Life.