And, indeed, when our readers remember how artfully the web of iniquity was drawn around her, and the circumstances of mystery in which Harman himself had witnessed her connection with Poll Doolin, whose character for conducting intrigues he knew too well, they need not be surprised that he threw her off as a deceitful and treacherous wanton, in whom no man of a generous and honorable nature could or ought to place confidence, and who was unworthy even of an explanation.

Mary M'Loughlin could have borne everything but this.

Yes; the abandonment of friends--of acquaintances--of a fickle world itself; but here it was where her moral courage foiled her.

The very hope to which her heart had clung from its first early and innocent impulses--the man to whom she looked up as the future guide, friend, and partner of her life, and for whose sake and safety she had suffered herself to be brought within the meshes of her enemies and his--this man, her betrothed husband, had openly expressed his conviction of her being unfit to become his wife, upon hearing from his cousin and namesake an account of what that young man had witnessed.

Something between a nervous and brain fever had seized her on the very night of this heinous stratagem; but from that she was gradually recovering when at length she heard, by accident, of Harman's having unequivocally and finally withdrawn from the engagement.
Under this she sank.