310
d.
Soon after their marriage her portrait had been taken by the best artist in the town, and this he determined to procure as a memento of the few happy days he had spent with Helena. But the cottage where he left her was now occupied by strangers, and after many inquiries, he learned that the portrait, together with some of the furniture, had been sold to pay the rent, which became due soon after his departure. His next thought was to visit her parents, but from this his natural timidity shrank. They would reproach him, he thought, with the death of their daughter, whom he had so deeply wronged, and not possessing sufficient courage to meet them face to face, he again started for home, bearing a sad heart, which scarcely again felt a thrill of joy until the morning when he first met with 'Lena, whose exact resemblance to her mother so startled him as to arouse the jealousy of his wife.
It would be both needless and tiresome to enumerate the many ways and means by which Lucy Bellmont sought to ensnare him. Suffice it to say, that she at last succeeded, and he married her, finding in the companionship of her son more real pleasure than he ever experienced in her society. After a time Mrs. Graham, growing weary of Charleston, where her haughty, overbearing manner made her unpopular, besought her husband to remove, which he finally did, going to Louisville, where he remained until the time of his removal to Woodlawn. Fully believing what the old nurse had told him of the death of his wife and child, he had no idea of the existence of the latter, though often in the stillness of night the remembrance of the little girl whom Durward had pointed out to him in the cars, arose before him, haunting him with visions of the past, but it was not until he met her at Maple Grove that he entertained a thought of her being his daughter.
From that time his whole being seemed changed, for there was now an object for which to live. Carefully had he guarded from his wife a knowledge of his first marriage, for he
