Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow: A Novel

by C. Despard

THE MYSTERY SOLVED—THE WORKERS REWARDED.

---

CHAPTER I.

WAITING.

Look? I would rather look on thee one minute
Than paradise for a whole day—such days
As are in heaven.

Autumn had fallen upon the little village by the seaside where Margaret was waiting and hoping and longing, with still no tidings, or but very scant ones, of her lost. She and Adèle were left almost alone, for the bleak winds and stormy seas had driven away the few visitors. It was a very different scene from the one which Arthur had looked in upon on that sunny August day not so many weeks before, for now the balmy summer winds had given place to strong blustering gales; the trees, almost bare, shivered in their nakedness; and instead of the soft, continuous murmuring of rippling waters, there came ever and anon to the ear the boom of waves breaking in upon the shore. It was a dreary time. Chill mists and equinoctial gales divided the sea between them, while the dank earth-smell of decaying leaves and dying blossoms made the earth desolate.

The two women in the little cottage, knit together by so strange a tie, fought vigorously against the influence of the season, but there were times when it was too strong for them—times when Adèle would read danger in the stormy seas and long passionately for Arthur's safe return—times when Margaret would fear that her hope had been vain, that never, in all the long life that lay before her, would she see her husband again or know the mystery of his long forgetfulness.

Through it all Margaret and Adèle clung to one another; their mutual friendship was a source of great comfort to both. Adèle was unlike many others of her sex. The knowledge that Margaret was the woman who had first called out her cousin's force of character, instead of making her sick with jealousy, filled her soul with loving reverence for her who had been the cause of this awakening. She never hid her frank admiration, her untiring love and sympathy, from her companion; and what wonder that Margaret returned her feelings, honored her as she deserved, and reckoned her friendship the most precious thing her years of suffering had brought her? They were different, these two who had been thrown in so strange a manner upon one another's society—as different in character as they were in appearance; and perhaps, strange as it may seem, the younger of the two, who seemed little more than a child with her flaxen hair and bright blue eyes and general fragility, was stronger in some ways than the woman of queenly stature, of much experience, of many woes.

In any case, since that evening when Arthur left them the relations between them were partially reversed, for now it was Margaret who leaned upon Adèle for support and comfort. When her courage was about to fail utterly; when, weary and heart-sick, she was ready to arraign God himself for cruelty and injustice; when the long days which would have to pass before anything certain could be known seemed so hard to live through that she would clench her hands and pace up and down, seeking rest and finding none,—then the younger and more inexperienced would bring her strength, would speak with a calm assurance she was far from feeling, would use a gentle authority in enforcing rest that Margaret found it difficult to resist.

"I wonder how it is, Adèle," she said one day when, after a paroxysm of bitter weeping, the young girl had soothed her into something like rest—"I wonder how it is that you have such power? A few moments ago everything seemed hopeless. You tell me to hope, and my courage comes back. What makes you so certain?"

"I scarcely know," replied the young girl; she was silent for a few moments, then added in a low tone, "I believe in God."

Margaret put out her hand; it had grown thin and transparent during these last days: "Darling, I know, but He allows wrong."

"Not for ever," replied Adèle firmly, taking the offered hand in her warm grasp. "Margaret, be patient—your wrong will end—the truth will be known."

"But if he does not know it, what will be the use? And perhaps he is dead. Ah, listen!" She raised her hands and pressed them against her ears.

"Only the wind, dear; but why need you mind that? October is a stormy month, and those we love are far inland. Come! I see I must read Arthur's last letter to convince you that the meeting has not taken place on the stormy seas, with only a plank between them and destruction. Confess, now, something like this was working in your brain."

"I am very foolish—I know it."

Adèle stooped and kissed her friend: "You are weak, darling. Remember how patient you were with me when my strength seemed as if it would not come. Now it is my turn to keep your courage up; you are wasting away to skin and bone with fretting, Margaret. Have faith!"

"In what, Adèle?"

"In yourself—in God—in the future," replied the young girl quietly.

She rose from her seat by Margaret's side and fetched her Bible. We learn in very different ways. To this young girl, trained from her babyhood to think of nothing better and higher than dress and gayety, than self-pleasing in some form, religion had come of itself.

Adèle had always loved to think of the something that for ever lies beyond this world and its fleeting joys; so it was not strange that in her hour of perplexity she should turn instinctively to this for comfort and help.

The afternoon of that chill October day waned, the last flickering rays of light fled, while the young girl read softly of that beyond—the city that hath no need of the sun, the fair land where night is not.

"Patience," she had said.

"I will have patience," whispered Margaret, "even to the end," she added faintly, "for the morning cometh." She paused for a few moments, as if in enjoyment of new rest; but suddenly, as it were, the full import of her thought broke over her: "Earth holds my treasures," she cried passionately. "God forgive me! I cannot wish to leave them yet. Adèle, light the lamp and bring that green book from my table. An old story is haunting me to-night. It has followed me in my strange life, for sometimes it seems to me that I have loved the human too much. Will you read it for me, dear?"

She repeated some of the lines in a low tone:

"Then breaking into tears, 'Dear God,' she cried, 'and must we see
All blissful things depart from us or e'er we go to Thee?
Ay, sooth we feel too strong in weal to need Thee on that road,
But woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on God.'"

Adèle's eyes filled with tears: "Not to-night, dear, it sounds so dreary."

"Yes, to-night. I feel as if the good and evil were struggling together in my heart, and I have a certain craving to hear the old story, which long ago, when I was an uncomprehending child, used to move me to tears:

"'Onora! Onora! her mother is calling.'"

Adèle said no more. She began to read the "Lay of the Brown Rosary" in a soft low voice, that trembled often from excess of feeling. It seemed real and possible in the tremulous half light of the little room, the sound of boisterous winds and breaking waves running through it like a vivid illustration of its imagery; Margaret's fair face, in its pure delicate outline, her pale patient hands folded calmly, giving a kind of witness to its truth. She listened with apparent calm, but once or twice her face flushed, and now and then the tears would roll one by one down her pale cheeks.

Adèle read well. She knew how to put the true spirit of the scene into the words that represented them. She came to the third part, the spirits of good round the maiden's bed:

"How hath she sinned?
In bartering love,
God's love, for man's,"

when she was suddenly interrupted.

Margaret had started up, her eyes and cheeks on flame, "There are steps outside. Adèle! Adèle! go and see."

Adèle went to the window, while Margaret shaded the lamp. "A man standing outside," she said, "hunting for the latch of the gate. Be calm, dear; it's only the postman. He promised to come if there should be any letter to-night. He's very good not to have forgotten. And such a night, too! Poor old fellow! I must tell Martha to give him supper."

"But the letter! the letter!" said Margaret, sinking back upon her pillow. The flush of excitement had died out from her cheeks, leaving them deadly pale.

Adèle forgot the letter and the postman. She rushed to her friend's side.

"I thought he had come back," said Margaret faintly. "Don't look so frightened, dear; this is nothing," but she moaned as if in pain, "O God! if this is to last much longer I cannot, cannot bear it!"

Adèle stooped to raise her friend, and her warm clasping arms spoke boundless love and sympathy: "Be of good courage, Margaret; perhaps this is to say that they are near."

But the young girl's heart sank. What if, after all, their sacrifices and suffering should be in vain? for Margaret was visibly sinking.

It sometimes happens so. The brave heart that has borne unflinchingly a weary weight of woe fails suddenly when hope—but hope that must be waited for—succeeds. And Margaret had been tried almost past endurance by her life of solitude. A glass of water revived her for the moment. She did not faint, and in the interval Martha brought up three letters. Two were from Arthur, the other from Mr. Robinson, who was still acting, or professing to act, as Margaret's legal adviser.

This was set aside for after-perusal. They did not reckon very much upon his zeal and earnestness. But Margaret's letter from Arthur was eagerly seized, almost too eagerly, for when she had opened it the words swam before her eyes; she found it impossible to decipher it.

"Read it, Adèle," she said; "my eyes are dim this evening."

It was the letter that had been written in Moscow—the letter that had begun so joyfully, that had ended in a cloud. Arthur had not let them know in his letter the reason for the sudden discouragement, but the two women read it and their hearts sank.

They had received one letter before this. It had told of the meeting with Laura in Paris. In it, too, Arthur had announced, with all the sanguine assurance of youth, that the next letter, to be written in Moscow, would certainly bring positive news. He could see no reason for doubting this. The second letter had met with certain delays en route, and the very length of the interval had in her most courageous moods filled Margaret with hope.

When, therefore, the long looked-for letter came, and heralded nothing but another endless journey, another weary search, her heart sank, her courage failed suddenly.

She turned her face to the wall and wept. "I shall never live to see it," she moaned.

Adèle was bewildered; she scarcely knew how to comfort her friend, for her own heart was sad. This unfolding of another weary age of suspense and delay had disappointed her bitterly. In her despair she turned to the lawyer's letter. It might possibly promise hope from another source.

She read it hastily, then, stooping over her friend, "Listen, Margaret dear; you must be brave and not give way. Mr. Robinson is to be here to-morrow; perhaps he may bring news about Laura."

But the mother shook her head: "No, no; my little one is lost—lost! Child, I tell you, God is punishing me. I have sinned."

"Margaret, be calm. How have you sinned?"

But the young girl trembled as she spoke, there was so intense a sadness in Margaret's face.

She raised her head from the pillow, and throwing back the long waves of yellow hair from her face and eyes looked wildly at her companion. And then she laughed—a low hollow laugh that made Adèle shiver.

"In bartering love, God's love, for man's!" she cried, and leaped from the bed, for the madness of fever was on her. "And what is worse, I do it still," she cried. "Yes, I would barter my soul—my soul, do you hear?—only to see him once"—from a shriek her voice sank into plaintive wailing—"to feel his hand upon my hair as in the old days—to hear him call me love, wife. Oh, Maurice, Maurice!"

Adèle was frightened, but she would not call for assistance. Her tears falling fast, she threw her arms round her friend and tried by gentle force to make her lie down again.

But at first Margaret resisted. "Let me alone," she cried; "none of them understand, for men cannot love like women. I must go myself and tell him or he will never know. He might have done wrong—I should have loved him still. Dear, I could never have left you for these long years without a word, a sign; and what had I done?" Her voice sank, she fell back on the bed. "It was God's will. I loved him more than Heaven—more than goodness."

The paroxysm had exhausted her. Adèle covered her feet with a shawl. Margaret closed her eyes and fell into a troubled sleep, which lasted about half an hour. When she awoke the room was in darkness, only the white moonlight streamed in under the raised blind, and there was the sound of bitter weeping by her bed. She put out her hand: "Adèle, are you there? What is it, dear?"

"I thought you were fast asleep;" and the young girl choked back her sobs courageously.

"But what has happened, Adèle? what makes you cry like this?"

"Don't ask me, please, but try to sleep again."

"Child, you must think me very selfish. Was it on my account you were crying? I think I must have said some strange things before I went to sleep, but I forget what they were—indeed, I sometimes fear my brain is giving way. But, Adèle dear, I can't allow you to grieve for me in this way. Perhaps it was something else. Tell me. Come, I intend to know."

She drew one of Adèle's cold little hands from her face and held it lovingly, then the young girl told out her trouble in a few simple words.

Her religion was the growth of her loving heart; she had no particular doctrines, for so-called theology always seemed to her too hard to be understood, but she believed, in the full simplicity and truth of her young soul, what many religionists by their harsh doctrine practically deny—that God, the Father of spirits, is a merciful God, "tender, compassionate, boundless in loving-kindness and truth." She wept that night because the friend whom she loved so deeply would not take to her soul the comfort of the truth that God loved her.

It had come over Adèle's sympathetic heart that evening like a kind of agony that the loving God is for ever, through the long ages, misunderstood and denied—that while He is calling in His tenderest tones to the stricken, they will look to any comfort rather than His for help in their trouble. "God is angry with them—God is punishing them," when in reality "God is with them—God is loving them." She told it all to Margaret in a voice often broken with tears, and her earnest conviction gave a certain reality to her words.

Margaret's sore heart was soothed. "It may be," she said. "God grant it! Dear, I was beginning to feel Him near, but now the earthly things, the longings of youth, have come back with this delayed hope. They stand between my soul and God; I must long for them more than I long for Him."

"And who told you He would be angry, Margaret? Could He wish you to do what is contrary to nature? He gave you these earthly desires, this longing, this love. I sometimes think"—the young girl's voice sank, she bowed her head reverently—"that Christ became a man for this, not only that He might understand us, but that we might know He understands. It is such a good thing; it helps us to bear."

Margaret smiled: "I think it will come. I am better already; but, dear, where did you learn all this wisdom?"

There was a knock at the door which prevented an answer. The landlady's little nephew was standing in the passage, a few choice flowers in his small hands. He wanted to say good-night to Mrs. Grey, and his auntie had sent her some flowers.

It was the best possible diversion. The child's blue eyes smiled up into those of the weary woman, and they brought her pleasant memories. She took the child up on the bed kissed him tenderly and listened to his infant prattle.

Then when the landlady appeared, quiet and respectful, but allowing her honest sympathy to be seen, to ask whether the little boy were troublesome and to say that it was his bed-time, Margaret turned to her comforter with something like hope in her face. "Child," she said, "you are right; God is merciful. I will trust Him."

They slept together that night, for Margaret's nerves were unstrung, she could not bear to be left alone; but both of them slept calmly, and a peace, verily Heaven-born, brooded over the small company of women in their temporary home within the circle of the sea-sounds.

---

[CHAPTER II.]

THE LAWYER GAINS HIS POINT.

With lips depressed as he were meek,
Himself unto himself he sold:
Upon himself himself did feed—
Quiet, dispassionate and cold.

Mr. Robinson in the mean time had not been idle. He could certainly never have presented so unsullied a front before the world if he had ever been idle where his own interests were concerned. During those weeks, while L'Estrange and Margaret's child had been wandering—while Arthur had been throwing himself into the task of unravelling the mystery that surrounded Maurice Grey and his desertion—while Margaret, sick at heart, had been waiting and watching—he had been putting all his energy into the task of winding up her affairs in such a way as to make it appear that in their management he had been guilty of nothing but a little pardonable imprudence. He had been obliged to sacrifice some of his own interests in the process, but this was a matter of very small moment.

Mr. Robinson was careful, even as regarded trivial sums, but he was too clever a man of the world not to know the impolicy of the "penny-wise, pound-foolish system." A small sacrifice that would have the effect of impressing the world with his upright character would, he knew, bring in returns fully commensurate to the outlay. He did not, therefore, hesitate to pay up, out of his own pocket, as he magnanimously put it to some highly-impressionable lady clients, that amount of Mrs. Grey's capital which had been lent on insufficient security to the bankrupt trader; but (and this he did not tell the ladies) for the whole transaction he made both sides pay heavily. The man of business was kept under the lawyer's thumb for further use, and Mrs. Grey, out of the capital sum, had to pay not only the expenses, which were heavy, but also certain sundries, including various advances of twenty pounds at a time for maintenance, setting on foot of a search for Mr. Grey and his daughter, letters innumerable, railway journeys and interviews. Mrs. Grey had even the pleasure of defraying the expenses of a trip to Paris taken by her lawyer at the moderate charge of five guineas a day, for the purpose of personally investigating the city with a view to the recovery of Mrs. Grey's daughter. That she had not been met with, either in the Bois de Boulogne or on the Boulevards, was not Mr. Robinson's fault. He carefully frequented both. "Honesty is the best policy." One of the ladies to whom Mr. Robinson mentioned this matter quite incidentally (it illustrated aptly some of her own affairs) put his name down instantly in her will for one thousand pounds; another reported the story to a lately-widowed friend, who at once appointed this upright man her solicitor and confidential adviser. Mr. Robinson held his head higher, and at the next cottage-meeting he attended gave out for the text, "Godliness hath the promise of this life and of that which is to come"—a fact, he proceeded to say, which was strangely borne out by his own late experiences. But this was incidental, a providential side-wind. The real object of his attention at this time was to get rid altogether of Mrs. Grey's affairs, which, as she had the power in her hands of appointing another trustee, he knew it was possible to do. He was anxious, therefore, to press the matter forward, that he might gain her signature acknowledging full satisfaction with his proceedings before any sharper eyes than hers could look into the business and so a contrary advice be given.

It was to accomplish this purpose that Mr. Robinson had planned an interview for the day succeeding that on which Arthur's letter had been received. That morning Margaret was better. The first paroxysm of disappointment had passed. Adèle's words of gentle wisdom had made her almost ashamed of her own impatience. Better than all, perhaps, it was a fine, clear October day. The sun was shining; the bare trees, waving gracefully in the breeze, wrote their delicate tracery against the clear blue sky, the sea had fallen to partial rest. Margaret's excitement had exhausted her. She slept late. When she awoke the sun was high in the heavens. Adèle had long left her side, but before she could look round inquiringly the young girl had opened the door gently and was creeping in to see if her friend were awake.

"Come in, Adèle," said Margaret. "Why, it must be late. How is it that you allowed me to sleep so long?"

"I knew it would do you good, and I was right; you look better already. Now, what do you intend to do? Mr. Robinson, you know, is to be here. Do you feel able to see him, or shall I do it for you?"

"No, no, Adèle. You are spoiling me. I must exert myself."

But in spite of her brave words Margaret felt very weak. It was only with old Martha's assistance that she could manage to make herself at all presentable.

The old woman shook her head once or twice as the task of dressing proceeded. "It was pitiable," as she afterward remarked to Jane, "to see a body fallen away like that. Bless the poor soul!" she continued, wiping her eyes, "if they don't find and bring back her folks pretty soon, it's precious little of her'll be left, what with fretting and one thing and another."

In these days Margaret would always be dressed with care. She had a kind of feeling that her husband might return suddenly, and she wished him to see her at her best. She had left off the black which she had worn during her widowhood, and had returned to the pretty morning-dresses, the soft flowing draperies that in the old days Maurice had loved.

On this morning Adèle thought she had never seen her friend look so fair. Her dress was of gray cashmere. It fitted closely to her slight form and flowed round her in ample folds. Her hair, gathered up at the back into thick coils, rippled off in waves of shimmering gold from her brow, so that the pure outlines of her face were clearly marked. It was held back by a broad band of blue ribbon, over which fell lappets of choice lace. Her face seemed perfectly transparent, it was so delicately fair; and the absence of color, the brightness fever had given to her eyes, the general fragility of her appearance, made her look many years younger than she really was.

When the tedious business of dressing was over she went into the little sitting-room, and standing with her hands resting on the back of a chair for support, looked earnestly into the mirror that hung over the fireplace.

"Adèle," she said, "I am changed. There are lines in my face, there are dark shadows under my eyes. I am a poor, pale, colorless thing. If he were to come back now, what would he say?"

"That you are more beautiful than ever," replied the young girl impulsively, looking at her friend with the enthusiastic admiration that belonged to her susceptible nature and her eighteen years. "Margaret, how can you say such things?"

But Margaret did not answer. She still looked meditatively at the mirror: "If he cannot love me, if he have not loved me for these long years, I would almost rather he did not come at all. It would be dreadful to meet his indifference. Adèle, duty might bring him."

"And if it did, Margaret, something else would keep him."

"But it is such a long time! He may have forgotten. He may have—" "formed other ties," she was about to add, but she checked herself suddenly. "I am talking nonsense," she said hastily, "I must find something to do."

She got her work. It was a child's frock, of the same delicate material and color as that she wore.

"Maurice's favorite color," she said. "I want to have it ready for Laura when she comes back. It will go well with her golden curls, and she wants something new. Dear little one! I wonder has she forgotten me? I scarcely think so."

Adèle walked to the window to hide her tears. In the vague uncertainty, in the view of possible disappointment, there was something more pathetic in this mood of Margaret's than in that of the preceding night. She was just in time to meet Mr. Robinson's cold eyes. He had found the garden-gate open, and was walking up the narrow grass-bordered path.

One of the windows of the parlor where they were sitting opened on to the garden; the lawyer bowed politely when he saw the young lady, and with his usual obtuseness cut short the ceremony of ringing and gaining admittance in the usual way, by crossing the greensward and tapping in his peculiarly lively manner at the window.

Adèle turned round suddenly to prepare her friend for this summary entrance and to recover her own inclination for tears. Margaret's face reassured her. For the first time since Arthur had gone and the fever of hope-deferred had taken possession of her, Margaret looked really happy; her fingers, almost transparent, were flying backward and forward with the busy needle; she was looking down upon her work, which began to assume the appearance of a child's frock, with a smile. In her whole attitude there was rest.

The woman's work had taken its effect upon her mind. To be working for her lost darling made her recovery and return seem real and near to her. It brought back the quiet days when the child had been her one comfort and joy.

"Mr. Robinson is here," said Adèle, crossing the room. Margaret looked up, and met a frank smile from the outside of the still closed window. She rose, threw up the sash, and the lawyer entered, hat in hand.

"Good-morning, ladies," he said cordially. "I was beginning to fear, from the stern appearance of our young friend here, that I was to be left out in the cold. Ha! ha! not a pleasant position on a frosty day. Mrs. Grey, you look thin; not fretting, I hope, though indeed I can scarcely wonder. The absurd way in which your affairs are being conducted is really enough to worry you."

At this point Adèle looked indignant and Margaret tried to protest. But the lawyer waved his hand: "One moment, Mrs. Grey; I wish to make no reflections. As I stated before, in my interview with Mr. Forrest (he took up no less than two hours of my time on a very busy day; this is the sole grudge I bear him);" the lawyer showed his teeth—"as I stated before, Mrs. Grey, I wash my hands altogether of this part of the business. I did my best; my poor services were rejected wholesale, I may say. As a Christian I forgive; yes indeed, what I have come to tell you of my after-conduct will prove that I bear no malice. But it hit me hard—hit me hard."

He touched the region of the body where the centre of feeling is always supposed to reside, and looked sentimental.

"Pray sit down, Mr. Robinson. I am sorry your feelings were hurt in any way," said Margaret with gentle dignity; "and I know quite well that my kind friend, Mr. Forrest, is apt to be a little impulsive. Let me assure you that I am not ungrateful for the various services you have rendered me." Poor Margaret! she was thinking, with a kind of compunction, about that interview in London and the sundry advances for maintenance which had been a great boon to her at the time. "His heart is kind," she said to herself; "we may have judged him harshly." Then to him: "I must honestly confess that I was inclined to blame you for lukewarmness in the last matter I confided to you: I mean the search for my husband and child."

"Lukewarmness, Mrs. Grey!" Mr. Robinson lifted his hands in a kind of holy horror; and surely it was a superabundance of honesty that shone out from his eyes. "You really astonish me. In fact I am at a loss to understand you at all. Let me pass the facts of the case in review"—his voice grew stern—"perhaps then the blame will rest upon the right shoulders. If I remember rightly—Be so good as to correct any misstatements; I like to be accurate, but naturally my mind is so full of other matters. Well, as I was saying, you consulted me—in this very room, I think. I promised to do my best, letting you know results. Thereupon you placed in my care certain trinkets. I took them simply because I thought them safer in my strong box than here with you in this lonely place. As to making any use of them, why, Mrs. Grey, facts prove the contrary. Mr. Forrest had only to demand them on your part. Without hesitation I restored them intact. To proceed: as soon as I return (remember, I have not the faintest clue), I consult a detective, put him, as far as possible, on the track, and, further, demand an interview with Mr. Grey's solicitor—perfectly unsatisfactory, professes to know nothing. I take various other measures—needless to enter into detail. The principles of what one may call the private-inquiry business are not easy to explain, especially to ladies. I think I obtain a clue, but is it for me to torture you with half revelations? I wait for a little more certainty, and in the interval in dashes Mr. Forrest, states that you have given over these matters into his hands, that your confidence is shaken, that affairs would be strictly looked into."

Here Mr. Robinson made a dramatic pause and looked sternly at his repentant client. "Mrs. Grey," he continued, "do you know what was my impulse at that moment? Your affairs, as you are well aware, are—or I should say were—in a complicated condition. I felt inclined to take no more trouble, to let your new friends have the burden and responsibility; but"—he lifted his eyes sanctimoniously to the ceiling—"I do nothing upon impulse. Further consideration showed me that to act in so hasty a manner would be unworthy of myself, inconsistent with my character as a Christian man. I wish to 'adorn my profession in all things.' Whether in this I am successful or no is not for me to say."

Through all her penitence Margaret was growing impatient of this long harangue, and Adèle's face showed that she, at least, would not hear it much longer.

Mrs. Grey broke the little interlude short: "And pray, Mr. Robinson, what did you do?"

"Set to work immediately to disentangle your affairs. But, mind you, a man may go to a certain length; self-respect forbids him to go further. What I said to myself was this: I am distrusted, I must resign my position."

Margaret was about to interrupt him.

"Allow me. Before you answer, I must give my reasons, both from my side of the question and from yours, for the advisability of the step which I may say is irrevocably determined in my own mind. We shall take the reasons from your point of view first. Mr. Forrest has your full confidence. You acknowledge so far as this?" Margaret bowed. "You took measures with him totally unknown to me—a breach of confidence—but this I should have been content to waive. Ladies are naturally impulsive. To proceed with our reasons. Mr. Forrest distrusts and dislikes me—impossible to say why. He is a worldling. It may be that a few words of warning and exhortation which I felt it my bounden duty to give him on the occasion of our last meeting have something to do with it. It is a matter of small import, except in so far as it concerns you. Mr. Forrest has inspired you with distrust; he will do so further; possibly your husband also, for I hear he has succeeded in finding out something through Mr. Edwards. But of this you doubtless know more than I. Under such circumstances it will be far wiser for you to allow me at once to give up the management of your affairs. My reasons for desiring it are many of them personal. I will not enter into them, as I fear I have tired you already. If you like I can proceed to open out my accounts and give a rapid sketch of my proceedings, that you may sign this document with your eyes open. Your friend looks dissatisfied; I know ladies often object to signing. Let me reassure her: this is nothing but a deed of release, to pave the way for transfer papers which are now being prepared."

"You are quite right to withdraw, Mr. Robinson," replied Margaret with dignity, "if you feel as you do, but in the mean time, until my husband's return—"

The lawyer looked at her curiously. Then he was only just in time. Certain news had arrived.

Margaret's face expressed nothing. "—Who," she continued, "will manage my affairs?"

"It is on this very matter that I desired to consult you."

"Would it not be better to wait?"

"For the actual conclusion of the business?—yes, if you see fit. We could even have the papers ready, leaving the names a blank, until such time as you can consult your friends. Still, I must beg you to conclude the business that has brought me here to-day. I am anxious, without delay, to pay into your account at the bank the sum which has been matter of question between us—deducting from it, of course, as was previously arranged, the few trivial sums forwarded, the expenses of search and the inevitable legal charges. Of these I have brought you a full account, and shall be much obliged by your looking over it."

Margaret sighed: "I make no doubt it is all as it should be, Mr. Robinson."

She opened it listlessly, and the long rows of figures swam before her eyes.

"I should not have ventured to bring it had it not been so, Mrs. Grey. Still, it would be satisfactory. You will observe that I have myself paid up the sum so unfortunately invested. It may be I shall be reimbursed out of the debtor's property—it may be not; this I am content to leave. You will also observe that out of the capital sum I have deducted the total of this account. All is clearly stated in this document, which I am anxious for you to sign."

Adèle, while the lawyer was stating his views, had been listening and observing. At the moment when he brought his last harangue to a climax, Margaret was sitting at her writing-table. The account lay open at her side. The deed of release, fairly copied on parchment, was under her hand. She felt too utterly indifferent to all these business-matters to be able to question anything that was told her. All she desired was the cessation of this wearisome importunity. She dipped her pen in the ink. Adèle saw how it was with her. Her younger, stronger spirit recoiled from the oppression. She leaned forward suddenly and drew the pen from her friend's hand:

"Margaret, take my advice—sign nothing."

Margaret smiled, and then she sighed wearily. In this matter she would have preferred taking her own way, but she gave in.

"Impulsive child!" she said, a slight tone of irritation in her voice; then, turning to the lawyer, "Perhaps, Mr. Robinson, even for form's sake it will be wiser for me to try and make out what all this means. But for the moment I feel slightly bewildered. You must allow me to think over it. You are staying at the hotel, I suppose? If you will give us the pleasure of your company to lunch we can further discuss this in the afternoon."

The lawyer rose. Margaret's invitation was a dismissal. He was obliged to submit to the delay, although it was a matter of great importance to him that the business which had brought him to Middlethorpe should be settled at once; but Adèle's sharp eyes, rendered far-seeing by love and anxiety, were watching him narrowly, and he would show no sign of anxiety. "Take your own time, my dear Mrs. Grey," he replied benignantly. "You must have seen and understood all along that my special object in my business dealings with ladies is to persuade them to do everything intelligently—comprehending, that is to say, the why and the wherefore of the step they are advised to take. I find some too ready. They throw themselves entirely on their lawyer's superior knowledge, increasing, of course, our responsibility, and this I deprecate. Others"—he looked across at Margaret with his charming smile—"are inclined to be too timorous. They take fright at the sight of parchment, and when asked to sign imagine they are being defrauded of some right. Your position, Mrs. Grey, is the wisest—indeed I may say the most satisfactory to one's self, for when, by repeated explanations, I have made all this perfectly clear to your mind, my position will be the more tenable. Then if in the future subject of discussion should arise—which, understand me, I do not apprehend—I shall be able to call upon you and our young friend here as witnesses to the truth of what I assert—namely, that you did everything with your eyes open."

The lawyer bowed himself out of the room. This time he had struck the right chord. To Margaret, in her state of bewilderment, the "repeated explanations" sounded like a kind of threat. Her thoughts and hopes were all engrossed, given to the one absorbing subject, and this forced attention to foreign matters was very irksome.

"If Maurice come back," she said to herself, "he will manage everything for me. If not"—and at the bare supposition all her life and energy seemed to pass, leaving her cold and spiritless—"if not, what does anything matter?"

She turned to the table. Mr. Robinson, it should be observed, had pocketed the papers. He had not thought it well, probably, that the ladies should examine them without the commentary of his instructive explanations. Mr. Robinson professed to think little of the female intellect, probably because, as a general rule, he found ladies gullible.

Not finding the papers, Margaret arose and walked to the window.

"Adèle, my dear," she said after a few moments' pause, "I must sign this." In her voice were the querulous tones of weakness. "That man's explanations will send me wild. Can you give me any solid reason for objecting?"

"Only, that he has no right, in the present state of affairs, to ask you to sign anything. It all sounds plausible enough, but I think that if the man were really honest he would wait for this 'winding up,' as he calls it, until your husband's return."

"You see he wishes to pay over this sum, whatever it may be, at once," returned Margaret. She was inclined to take the lawyer's part. "I really think the man is honest, and certainly until just lately he has been a very kind friend to me—a friend in need."

"But why does he come in this sneaking way," persisted the young girl, "to make you write that you are satisfied with him? I may be wrong, but it seems to me that he only wants to stop your mouth and prevent accounts from being looked into by your friends."

"My dear child, are you not a little unjust? Confess, now, that Arthur prejudiced you. Mr. Robinson's vulgarity is, I know, quite enough to account for your cousin's dislike, and some of the things he did had a bad appearance; still, that need not make us all put him down as dishonest."

"But, Margaret, what can be his motive?"

"How can I tell?" Again Margaret's voice sounded querulous. She said nothing more for some time, and Adèle forbore to press the subject; she feared that already she had gone too far. It was Margaret who opened it again, for her mind had been working. "Allowing," she said, almost apologetically, "that this signature is unnecessary, I think I may as well oblige Mr. Robinson, if only in acknowledgment of his former kindness."

"Kindness!" The young girl shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly, but all further discussion was stopped by the return of Mr. Robinson and the appearance of lunch. During the meal the lawyer made himself, as he thought, perfectly charming, but after it was over he returned to the attack.

Margaret, as it will be seen, was predisposed in favor of what he desired; Adèle had done her best to prevent it, but in vain. The wily man gained his point. Margaret signed the deed with full knowledge of its contents. Mr. Robinson was protected, and his mind was once more at rest.

It was thus with him always. His escapes were wonderful. As at this point his connection with Margaret's history ended altogether, for that cooked-up account and the transactions which led to its concoction continued to be a sealed book, it may be as well, perhaps, to let him once for all disappear from our pages. He is practicing still, and it is more than probable that the Robinson name, on whose lustre he prides himself, has never been dimmed by action of his, although among solicitors of a higher class he has the name of being a sharp practitioner. He may be known by his frank address, his manly appearance, his deep and outspoken conviction of the necessity of not living for this world alone. He has been an actor in the play so long that at last he has almost come to believe he is what he makes so loud a profession of being.

Let him go on his way rejoicing. If other and more really honest people understood, as he does, the grand art of taking care of themselves, there would be less misery in the world. It may be, however, that it would be a doubtful advantage.

The poetry of chivalry and romance has died out in a great measure from our "Merrie Land," but woe worth the day when selfishness becomes the rule, and what Mr. Robinson would term "stupid Quixoterie" the exception!

---

[CHAPTER III.]

THREATENED SEPARATION.

The rainbow dies in heaven, and not on earth;
But love can never die: from world to world,
Up the high wheel of heaven, it lives for aye.

Adèle was in despair. By that evening's post a letter had arrived from her mother. Mrs. Churchill was on her way to Scarborough, and her niece was travelling with her. They were sleeping at York that night. On the following day they would call for Adèle at Middlethorpe, and take her on with them. Again and again the date of her return to her mother's care had been deferred, in obedience to her wishes repeatedly and earnestly expressed.

Mrs. Churchill, always indulgent to what she looked upon as Adèle's whims, had in consequence spent the month of September in Brighton, but her forbearance would extend no further. It was high time, she thought, that her daughter's absurd seclusion should come to an end. Her letter was written in a very decided manner. She wished to leave no loophole for excuse or further delay.

It seemed to Adèle that the announcement had come just at the wrong time. In the long, heart-sickening anxiety of suspense, Margaret's strength was failing, and the young girl knew she was her chief comfort and help. She trembled to think how the much-tried endurance of her friend might fail if she were thrown suddenly on her own resources.

And Margaret had been given into her care by Arthur. The patient fulfilling of her task was a pledge of her love. It was not a hard task, for Adèle's affection, which had partaken of the fervid nature of passion in the admiration of her young heart for Margaret's beauty, in the pity which had arisen on that first day of their meeting at the sight of her distress, had taken perhaps a calmer tone during these weeks of close intimacy, but withal a much deeper and firmer root.

Adèle loved her friend so truly that she would willingly have sacrificed any happiness of her own for her good, and the idea of leaving her, of returning to the old rounds of tedious gayety, of knowing that in her absence the strong, brave heart was failing, the weakened spirit was giving way, even when the end might be very near, made her heart ache and throb.

She would not tell Margaret that night, for the business and discussion of the day had wearied her, but there was an almost unusual tenderness in her manner, which Margaret attributed to her fear of having unduly urged the non-signature of Mr. Robinson's papers.

Old Martha was ready at her post to help Margaret to bed. Adèle sent her away peremptorily. "No one shall touch you to-night but me," she said, stooping over the arm-chair in which Margaret was sitting, and loosening her hair with gentle fingers; then, as Margaret smilingly protested, "Just for this once," she pleaded; and her friend did not see, for the long, blinding tresses, that slow tears were falling one by one from the young girl's eyes.

There was exceeding comfort in the passing to and fro of those busy fingers, for their every touch spoke eloquently of love. This it was that Margaret felt. Once she caught one of the busy hands and pressed it to her lips.

"What should I do without you, Adèle?" she said softly. "Little one, I begin to fear I am loving you too much. My loves are unfortunate. It is the old story of the fair gazelle. Scold me well; I deserve it for my sentimental folly; still, the feeling is here—I can't get rid of it."

Adèle had to choke back her tears before she could answer. When she did her voice was slightly husky: "I don't think loves can ever be unfortunate—quite altogether, I mean—for you know to lose for a time is not to lose for always, and where there is love, real true love, there must be lasting." She paused for a moment, as if in earnest struggle to express herself worthily, and then her voice grew more earnest and her eyes seemed to deepen: "It is charity—love—that abideth—the only earthly feeling we can never do without."

She had finished brushing and combing Margaret's long hair; she was sitting on a stool at her feet gazing into the fire.

"Adèle," said Margaret, "you are wiser than I, or perhaps there's something altogether wrong about me. I cannot take the comfort you do out of these generalities. Child, child," her voice grew intensely earnest, "it is not this beautiful something, this 'charity which abideth,' that I want; it is my personal loves—my husband, my child."

The young girl looked up into her eyes; she answered with the calm assurance of faith: "Margaret, be calm: you shall have them. But do you know I never look upon all these things as generalities; if love is to last, our personal loves are to last too." She sighed. "I know I express myself badly. I wish I could make you understand what I mean."

"I think I do understand," said Margaret thoughtfully. "Adèle," she said after a pause, during which perhaps almost the very same thought had been passing through their minds, "our love, yours and mine and your cousin's, the strange tangle which your straightforwardness and self-forgetfulness unravelled, is certainly of the lasting kind. The future may throw us widely apart, but I think that neither here nor hereafter can it ever be the same as if we had not loved."

This time Adèle did not answer, because she could not. The shadow of that dreadful separation was on her spirit. After a few moments' silence she said lightly that Margaret had talked quite enough—that it was time for her to rest; which dictum Margaret obeyed with great willingness.

The next day was that fixed upon by Mrs. Churchill for her visit. Adèle could no longer delay letting Margaret know that a summons from her mother had come; but the morning is generally more favorable to hopefulness than the evening. Adèle had begun to think matters were not so desperate as they looked. Possibly she might obtain further respite. She took in the unwelcome letter with Margaret's breakfast-tray, which had been delicately arranged by her own hands.

"Adèle, you must go," was Margaret's comment on the letter. And she tried not to show how sorely she would miss her comforter.

Adèle was slightly wounded: "Do you really mean it, Margaret?"

"I do indeed, dear. Your mother is quite right; you have sacrificed yourself too long."

"And you can think I have been sacrificing myself!" said the young girl. "But no, you only mean to tease me."

There was something of the disquieting jealousy of that feeling which is always supposed to be more engrossing than mere friendship in her further words: "Perhaps you would not even miss me, Margaret?"

But the tears Margaret could not restrain, the sudden weariness in her pale face, spoke more eloquently than words. Adèle threw herself down on her knees by her friend's side: "Forgive me, darling, but if you only knew—"

"—All the tenderness of this warm young heart," and Margaret smiled faintly, resting her hand, as if in silent blessing, on the bowed head.

"But look, dear," she continued after a pause, "your mother is coming, and I am anxious to see her, so she must not find me in bed. Will you help me to dress this morning?"

Adèle rose and brushed away her tears. "How stupid I am!" she cried, "and really I didn't intend to be so silly to-day, for, Margaret, I was just thinking—Mamma is so good and kind, she generally lets me do as I like; then, you see, she has never met you. I mean to dress you as you were dressed yesterday, and I want you to put forth all your fascinations. The result will be that mamma won't have the heart to carry me off."

"But, Adèle—"

"But, Margaret. Put yourself in my hands, madam. Remember I am responsible for your safe-keeping to somebody—my somebody, not yours, Margaret. By the bye, I will urge Arthur's wishes. Mamma never likes to offend him."

And so Adèle rattled on to hide her true, deep feelings, while once more she ministered tenderly to the friend she loved.

Mrs. Churchill, impatient as the time drew nearer to see her daughter again, had left York by an early train, and Margaret and Adèle had not been long seated over their work in the little parlor before a travelling carriage, heavily laden with luggage, drove up to the door. She had brought her carriage and horses so far by rail, her intention being to post for the remainder of the way.

It was long since Margaret had met any stranger, and she felt a little nervous when the rattle of wheels came to her ears; but as from her station by the parlor-window she caught a sight of Mrs. Churchill's pleasant, kindly face, some of her painful anticipations fled.

Adèle had run down the garden-path. She brought her mother in to introduce her to her friend.

The good Mrs. Churchill had been rather curious to see Margaret. Adèle's enthusiasm and Arthur's boyish admiration had made her look for something remarkable, but she was scarcely prepared for the refinement, the style, the exquisite grace of her daughter's friend. It was a rare combination, even in those circles in which the rich and highly-connected widow moved.

Mrs. Churchill knew enough of the world to be quite sure at once that she was in the house of a lady—not only highly born and bred, but accustomed to the usages of society. Her good sense and kindly feeling led her to treat her hostess with all due deference.

"I have long wished to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance, Mrs. Grey," she said when Margaret had persuaded her to divest herself of bonnet and shawl, "I have heard so much about you from these enthusiastic children of mine. I call them my children, because Arthur has been almost like my own son, and I presume you are in the confidence of this little girl, and that she has let out her secret." Mrs. Churchill looked at Margaret rather curiously.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Grey quietly, drawing down Adèle, who had been hovering about her nervously, to a seat by her side. "I heard long ago, both from your daughter and nephew, of this engagement; and much as I admire Mr. Forrest, I cannot but think, knowing your daughter as I do, that he is a very fortunate man."

Adèle blushed: "Margaret, be quiet; you shouldn't say such things." But her smile belied her words; it was so radiant that it transfigured her face.

Her mother turned to her: "Adèle, my dear, do you know that you ought to be very much obliged to Mrs. Grey for her long hospitality? Now I look at you I am surprised; I never saw such a change. When you left London you were colorless and sickly."

"Mamma, mamma!" protested Adèle, "how very uninteresting!"

But Mrs Churchill persisted: "Yes, my dear, I speak the bare truth; now your animation has come back, you have gained flesh and color, you are absolutely a different being. Mrs. Grey, what have you been doing with her?"

Margaret smiled: "I am so glad you think her looking well, and that her visit here has done her good, for I was beginning to think myself selfish for keeping her so long in this lonely place. I suppose the fresh sea-air has worked the miracle."

"The cure is not quite accomplished, mamma," said Adèle coaxingly; but Margaret interrupted her:

"We can talk about that presently, dear; just now your mother wants rest and refreshment. Would you mind hurrying Jane on with lunch for me?"

She turned to Mrs. Churchill: "Our establishment is small, and I have been delicate lately, so your daughter kindly helps me in many little ways."

"Small indeed!" thought Mrs. Churchill, but she would not have said so for the world. She was far too much of the real lady to be able to take upon herself any fine-lady airs of superiority, and then she began to interest herself strangely in her daughter's friend. Mrs. Churchill would have been very much displeased could she have heard herself called impulsive; indeed, it was only in a certain way that she was so. Her impulses were generally inspired by some tolerably solid reasons. In this case her keen eye had instantly detected the lady, also the absence of all those qualities which go to make up the intriguante. This set her at ease at once, while the gentleness, the evident weakness, the traces of profound suffering, moved her kind heart as it had not been moved for long. She had not been in the cottage half an hour before, with true motherliness of intent, she made up her mind to take Mrs. Grey in hand.

"I am glad to hear Adèle has been of any service to you," was her answer to Margaret, cordially spoken, and then she looked at Mrs. Grey as she had looked at her daughter. "I am sorry to hear of this delicacy, Mrs. Grey; you certainly look far from well, but I think so lonely a place as this would kill me in a few months. Why not try a change—a little gayety, for instance? Now, if you would allow me to return your hospitality to my daughter by taking you with us to Scarborough, I really think you would find the change would do you good. Then a little cod-liver-oil, quinine and port-wine, steel—But perhaps you are taking some of these?"

Margaret smiled: "Thank you very much for your kind interest in my health. No, I take none of these things, and I scarcely think they could do me good. As to a change, you are very good to propose it; I fear at present I could enjoy nothing. I could not enter into general society; I should only be a burden on your hands."

Mrs. Churchill looked across at Margaret's pale face and warmed into sympathy and interest: "But this is a dreadful state of things, Mrs. Grey. Nothing so insidious, I can assure you, as the creeping on of general ill-health; you ought to do something. Have you consulted a doctor?"

"A doctor could do me no good. My dear Mrs. Churchill, pray don't distress yourself on my account; I think you know enough of my history to understand me when I say that my illness is far more mental than physical. These weeks, which are bringing me hope, have been almost more trying to me than the years that went before."

"And how long is this state of thing to be supposed to last?" cried the impulsive and warm-hearted lady. "Now, Mrs. Grey, will you take my advice? I am many years older than you—old enough, I imagine, to be your mother. You look incredulous. Well, have it your own way. They say I bear my years well, and I believe that in this case the on dits are more correct than usual. You will allow, at least, that I have larger experience of the world than you. Shall I give you my secret—the true elixir of life, my dear? Never allow yourself to feel too deeply. Feelings have been the ruin of some of the finest constitutions."

"But what if they cannot be helped?" said Margaret, who was smiling through a half inclination to tears.

"My dear (child I was about to say, but I don't wish to offend you), an effort should be made, for what does all the crying over spilt milk mean?" This was a favorite theme with Mrs. Churchill. "Why, as I have told Adèle a thousand times, to fret one's self into a premature death because things don't go altogether as one could wish is clearly nothing more nor less than flying in the face of Providence; for how did we get our health and strength, and all the rest of it? and if we acknowledge that these are gifts of Providence, ought we to trifle with them? Come now, Mrs. Grey, what have you to say?" Her voice softened as she looked at the pale face and fragile form. "You must excuse me, my dear. You see I am given to speaking my mind, and I am interested in you; so it comes naturally somehow to speak to you as I might to this wilful little girl of mine." For Adèle had come in during the latter part of Mrs. Churchill's harangue. She was listening with real pleasure to the energetic words, for she knew her mother well enough to be aware that she never took the trouble of lecturing in this manner any one who had not first made great way in her affections.

"This is mamma's pet subject, Margaret," she said; "what have you to say? I always find her arguments unanswerable, but then they never converted me."

Margaret smiled: "I have to say, Adèle, that your mother is perfectly right, that I deserve every word of her lecture, and that I intend to make an effort in the way of getting rid of these tiresome feelings and becoming strong again."

"Only if you have me to help you, Margaret," pleaded Adèle.

But Margaret shook her head: "No, no; I have no right to keep you longer from your mother."

Adèle turned pleadingly to Mrs. Churchill: "Mamma, mamma, leave me here a little longer."

"Your 'littles' are elastic, Adèle. For how many weeks have you been saying this?"

"And I suppose I shall say the same"—the young girl looked up saucily at her mother, blushing ever so slightly—"until Arthur comes back, mamma. He wishes me to stay and take care of Margaret."

Mrs. Churchill was in a very good humor; she laughed outright: "You are certainly a pretty pair, and very well adapted to the task of taking care of yourselves. When that event, which you are always thrusting in my face, really happens, I shall have to engage an elderly female of strong common sense to look after you both and keep you in order—a pair of babies!"

"But, mamma, you haven't answered me."

"Mrs. Grey says nothing, Adèle; perhaps she is tired of you, or perhaps—which to my mind would be the best of all—you could persuade her to change her mind and become our guest at Scarborough."

Adèle's eyes glistened. Certainly her mother must have taken a strong as well as sudden fancy to her friend: "Oh, mamma, you have asked Margaret to stay with us? How good of you!"

Mrs. Churchill turned to her hostess in mock despair: "I believe this foolish child thinks I had nothing but her fancies in view. You must excuse her, Mrs. Grey; the excitement seems to have put her slightly off her head. Let me assure you once more that, purely for your own sake, I shall be most delighted if you will become our guest until your future is a little more decided."

Margaret put out her hand; she was touched by Mrs. Churchill's delicate kindness. "Thank you a thousand times," she said gently; "if I were even in a fit state for travelling I should not hesitate to take advantage of your kind offer, so attractive in every way. But Adèle will tell you how it is with me at times; I cannot even dress myself. No; I must say good-bye to Adèle, with many thanks both to her and to you, and return to my lonely life. I hope it may soon be over."

"What may soon be over?" Mrs. Churchill turned round sharply, for there was a sad ring in the voice, which Margaret had striven to render absolutely calm. She met Mrs. Grey's quiet smile. "I see you mean that you believe your husband will soon return, but I do wish people would say what they mean." There was something of fretfulness in Mrs. Churchill's voice; she did not like to be puzzled, and her daughter's friend was puzzling her.

"I really think," she continued meditatively, "that my best plan would be to put up here at the hotel for a few days. By the bye, Adèle, I left Mary there; I would not bring her on here until I knew more certainly about your arrangements. Yes, I think that will do. You and she could amuse yourselves together, and I should like very much to try the effect of quinine and port wine on Mrs. Grey. I brought a hamper of our own wine with me—exceedingly fortunate, as it turns out."

Margaret was weak. Do what she would she could not prevent the tears from filling her eyes. "You are too good to me," she said; "how shall I thank you?"

"By trying to get strong, my dear, and remembering first of all (you see you begin by breaking my rules) to take things quietly is the best policy. Now, Adèle, put on your hat and drive to the hotel. Make them unload the carriage and bring Mary back in it. Are we trespassing too much, Mrs. Grey? You young people will have plenty to talk about, so you need not hurry back. Mrs. Grey in the mean time must give me some account of her symptoms. It may be that the worldly wisdom of a worldly old woman will do as much to help her as the romantic enthusiasm of the young folk who in the present day rule the roast."

Adèle obeyed her mother to the letter. She left her and Margaret alone together for a good hour. She returned to find them fast friends. The cheerful optimism of the elder lady had strengthened the younger considerably, for Margaret wanted bracing, and Mrs. Churchill's sound common-sense was like a blast of north wind: it swept away sundry vapors, it invigorated the heart that a succession of evils had rendered distrustful of good. And Margaret's pathetic story, her truth, her goodness, her life of devotion—for all these had, insensibly to herself, shone out in her simple narrative—filled her hearer with admiration, elevated her conception of human nature, made her believe (a humanizing belief to many natures), in looking back upon her own mistrust, that her judgment was not always infallible.

For a whole week—and it was a real act of self-sacrificing friendship—Mrs. Churchill remained in the quiet village by the sea. The season was late, so she made up her mind to give up Scarborough and return from Middlethorpe to London. She dosed Margaret abundantly with quinine and port wine, she braced her mind by vigorous common sense, well-grounded cheerfulness and antipathetic banishment of any thing approaching morbidness or so-called sentiment. When she left she had the satisfaction of seeing her patient better. It is almost needless to add that the kind-hearted lady had not the heart to deprive Margaret of her friend. Adèle remained at the cottage till the chill winds of early winter swept the waters, while still no certain tidings came to them of their wanderers.

---

[CHAPTER IV.]

A DREAM INTERRUPTED AND A STRANGE REVELATION MADE.

Just as I thought I had caught sight of heaven,
It came to naught, as dreams of heaven on earth
Do always.

The Alpine mountains again—"silences of everlasting hills"—Nature and man face to face in the quiet, stealthy creeping on of night!

Maurice Grey sat in his little chalet alone; no friend was near to catch the outflowings of his heart—no watcher, not even a faithful servant, to note the changes that followed one another over his face. The untouched meal, prepared by old Marie, was on the table; he sat before his desk facing the little window, and looked out with sad, weary eyes.

For more than an hour he had been thinking, reviewing the tale Arthur had told him, trying frantically to rend the net of mystery that surrounded him, but trying in vain. A letter was under his hand. He had read it over by the failing light, and then crushed it together in his strong grasp. It was an old, faded, yellow paper which had evidently lain for years in his desk, but the sting of that it contained was still as fresh as on the first day when it had been read. The letter was one of those anonymous productions which perhaps show up in more lurid light than anything else the depths of cowardly spite that lie hidden in the hearts of men. This particular one, to give it its due, was well put together and plausible.

The writer began by acknowledging cordially the apparent cowardice of the step he had taken. Necessity and strong feeling were urged as the excuse. He represented himself as one who owed a debt of gratitude to Mr. Grey; it was therefore peculiarly painful to see him imposed upon. For in purport it was an accusation, cleverly drawn up, implying more than it revealed against Maurice Grey's wife. The history of stolen meetings between her and her former lover, of whose residence in England Mr. Grey was aware, was circumstantially given. They coincided strangely, as Maurice remembered with a pang almost as bitter as that first one had been, with Margaret's comings and goings; but further, a certain test was offered. It was proposed that on that very evening the husband should profess to leave his wife, that instead of returning to London he should remain in Ramsgate, and that if, at a specified time, he should not find her and the foreigner together, he might throw aside all that the letter contained as unworthy of belief. Maurice was naturally jealous. His wife's unusual beauty, the difficulty of winning her, the knowledge that he had not been the first to possess her heart, combined to make him distrustful. Instead of showing her the letter or treating it with merited contempt, he was weak enough to fall into the snare.

The event had been planned with a fatal accuracy. He found L'Estrange at Margaret's feet, and in the agony of wounded love, of despairing rage, left her altogether. For four long years he had wandered hopelessly and aimlessly, not daring, in case his worst fears should receive terrible confirmation, to find out anything about the woman whom through it all he loved so madly. And now, when, as he believed, his heart had grown callous, when he thought his retreat was surely hidden from all his former friends, this earnest champion came forward, sent evidently by her to plead her cause, to assure him of her continued love and unwearied faithfulness, to recall him to her side. But the mystery was unexplained. All she offered was a simple declaration of the falsehood of that of which Maurice believed he held incontrovertible proof.

What could it all mean? Was it, he asked himself—and his brows were fiercely knit—a plot to betray him? Did she wish to regain her position, only that she might the more surely carry on her intrigues? Had her paramour wearied her, and in his turn been cast off? He thought, but suddenly, as on the preceding evening, there came, like a gleam of light through his dark thoughts, the memory of that pale, pure face.

The strong man bowed his head, and tears such as only men can weep found their way to his burning eyelids. He covered his face with his hands. "It is possible," he cried—"possible! O my God, I may have been wrong." As he spoke he trembled like a child, this man who knew the world, whose wide experience had made him a cynic.

But if the thought held pain, it had also infinite sweetness. That first spasm past, Maurice gave way to it. He looked up again and the pale snows met his gaze. There was a soft, tender light in his dark eyes. Between them and those pale snows that fair, sad face was shining. "Margaret!" he whispered.

The man was weary with his mental struggles, overwrought by the physical exertions of the day. He allowed hope in its soft, tremulous beauty to take possession of his soul, old memories to steal over his heart. He leaned back in his arm-chair, folded his arms over his breast and fell into a kind of trance. Gradually, as his senses lost their hold upon the visible, the snow-laden pines, the white peaks, the swollen torrents passed away from his gaze, till at last it seemed that the sternness of winter had passed away—spring, life, green beauty took its place.

The four walls of his chalet fell; he was sitting on the green sward, innumerable delicious odors filled the air with fragrance, bright-eyed flowers were about him, the birds twittered gayly, everywhere was life and gladness; but in the midst of all was a something incongruous, like a minor chord in a fair melody—a sound of low, sad singing, the voice as of one in pain. Maurice thought he knew the voice; turning suddenly, he saw his wife. She was walking steadily forward with a gliding step; a black robe covered her from head to foot; her eyes were fixed on the distant horizon. He thought that he called her "Margaret!" but her eyes did not move, only her lips stirred as if in prayer. She glided past him, but before she had quite gone out of his reach he caught the hem of her dress. Then, while her heaven-turned face was slowly moving, while he was yearning to catch the gleam of her eyes, the vision passed, as visions will.

The whole had only lasted a few minutes, though it seemed to Maurice as if he had been long insensible. When reality and consciousness began slowly to assert their cold superiority it was absolute pain. At first he tried to deny them, in the vain hope that closed eyes and utter stillness would bring back the fair vision; then suddenly the vague uneasiness a watchful presence brings awoke him fully.

He started up, and saw by the failing light that he was not alone—he was being watched. Between him and the window a dark form was standing; keen, searching eyes scanned his face; they were those of his enemy. L'Estrange had found his way to the chalet. At last these two were face to face.

It was a rude awakening from a pleasant dream, and the very contrast between the fairness of the vision and the blackness of that reality which to Maurice's inflamed heart this man personified made his hatred more intense. It took him but a moment to start to his feet. His first impulse was to seize the intruder by the throat and cast him out; his very presence seemed a wanton insult. But L'Estrange met his gaze calmly, and Maurice checked himself: "Before I touch him I will get to the bottom of the mystery, and if he have betrayed her as well as me—"

He clenched his teeth and involuntarily smote his knotted fists together. For a few moments the men looked at one another in silence. Maurice spoke first, and his voice was like the growl of an angry lion: "What has brought you here?"

A sneer curled the Frenchman's lips: "No love to you, Mr. Grey, but—listen to me patiently, or I vow I will be silent for ever—a late repentance for an old wrong."

"Then—" There was a whole torrent of wrath pent up in the opening syllable.

"I tell you not to speak," cried his visitor, "or what I have come to say shall never be told. Maurice Grey, you are my enemy. You married the only woman I ever loved. This I could have forgiven; it was my fault, it was in the course of Nature; but you won her heart, the heart that once was mine. Yes, short-sighted Englishman, of this I can speak, for you knew it; she told you, and this it was that filled you with proud jealousy, that made you torment yourself. Yet it is true your wife loved you as she never loved me. I did not believe it then: now I know it. You gasp: well you may. That was my snare, and you fell into it. I see the letter; give it to me. Is it true, then, that with all your boasted knowledge of the world you could not read jealousy and spite under these fine phrases, made for me by a lying English servant? But yours is a strange nation. Clever and far-seeing where your money is in question, you are in knowledge of character, in all that touches your affections, easy to take in as little children. You frown impatiently. I shall soon have done. I tell you, Monsieur Grey, the meeting you interrupted that day was the first and only one that had taken place between your wife and me since your marriage. And the attitude in which you found me? Mon Dieu! nothing simpler—got up for you—un tableau vivant motivé. She was more surprised than you, la pauvrette!" His voice sank. "Since that day four long years have passed by. I have spent them in seeking her—persecuting her, if you like; so it was, so it must be. Her hatred is strong and bitter. I deserve it for misunderstanding her. But women have been my study all my life, and I never met her like before. You had less cause. What do you deserve? But do not answer me yet. Never fear, proud Englishman; your reckoning shall come by and by; my task must first be finished. She hid herself from me for a long time, but at last I came upon her in a miserable London lodging. The sight of me shocked and terrified her. She left London at once, and returned to the lonely place where she had lived in the closest retirement since your desertion. But, woman-like, she had left her address behind her. I found it out, followed her, forced myself upon her; and then at last, then first, I understood her. It was in the midst of deep loneliness—a loneliness which I saw by her face was killing her—that I found her out. She had one joy and consolation, a little daughter whom she had trained to love you, to wait and watch for your return. I spoke to her that day, but she repelled me with scorn and abhorrence. Maurice Grey, I offer for myself no excuse. I was mad with rage and pain. I determined to punish her. I stole her little one, and in such a way that she might think it had been done by you."

The Englishman could bear it no longer. He sprang forward, and seizing his enemy by the collar shook him vigorously:

"Villain! do you know what you deserve?"

"Patience!" replied the man when he had wrenched himself free from that strong grasp. "You shall have my life. Mon Dieu! it is worth little. But first you must listen to me."

He retreated to the side of the little window, the evening light shone full on his face. He fixed his enemy with his piercing eyes, to which the fever of his brain had given strange brilliancy. "You want to know what brought me here," he continued. "I have told you—no love to you, albeit my hand and voice may restore you to life and happiness—to all life holds most precious and dear. And yet it is love as well as penitence that has brought me to this. Love—a truer love than I have ever known—to the woman and child whom you have forsaken; for your little daughter changed my mood. I dare not speak of her. It would make me soft when I should be stern. She has been with me ever since; she is with me now. See her for yourself. She is a living proof of what I tell." The man bowed his head. "I give her up to you. I have found you for this, that you may take my treasure. And now—for I read the fierce hunger of your eyes; you Englishmen are all alike, insatiate, uncontrolled—la revanche. Well! it is well. Monsieur Grey, I understand your nature, and my hand shall supply you with an instrument. I went into your room to-day. I found these; I have brought them with me."

He took from a chair on which he had laid them the pair of pistols, one of which Maurice had loaded and prepared for action only a few days before.

The sight inflamed him. It recalled to his mind what this man had done—how for these long years his life had been a blank of good—a burden from which he had even sought to free himself. He seized the offered case. "Yes," he said sternly, "it is well. Villain, it were a good deed to rid the world of such as you."

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. "Soit donc," he said calmly; then folded his arms with the equanimity of a red Indian, who looks death and all its horrors in the face without shrinking.

It was too much for Maurice Grey's patience. He drew near to his enemy and shook him roughly: "Do you take me for an assassin? Come out, if you have any of the feelings of a man left in you, and defend yourself," he said hoarsely, and led the way to the door.

L'Estrange followed with a calmness that was no longer real, for his nervous system had given way suddenly. The tension that had supported him through these long weeks of wandering, the iron purpose, the self-constraining force, had given way suddenly when the necessity had gone by, when his tale had been told, when he had read in his enemy's face that it was counted true.

For this time Maurice could not help himself. Perhaps even in his passionate longing for this, a restored belief in the truth and purity of her who had once been to him the embodiment of all that was best and fairest in womanhood, had kept him incredulous through Arthur's tale. This strange confirmation of its every detail, wrung out from the very torture of his enemy's heart, commended itself to him as true.

He disbelieved her no longer. Rather, his soul was overflowing with passionate repentance and pity—repentance for the cruel blow he had dealt her, pity for those years of loneliness, anguish for his own mistakes, for a past that would ever remain the past, that no future, however blessed, could recall. All this was surging in his brain as he listened to those few but fate-laden words, and the first impulse was indignation against her betrayer. He could not detach his past from his present; out of his own mouth he was condemned. Persecutor, villain, torturer of weak women and helpless children (for Maurice had not seen his child; how could he tell that she had not suffered ill-treatment at his hands?), he should die the death of a dog, be cast out into the frozen valleys to sleep the sleep of bitter ignominy.

It may be that in the glance cast at him by his enemy when he had seized him, when his pale face was close to his own, L'Estrange had read this wild determination, for as he followed his guide his knees trembled. He was no more the accuser, but the accused, the condemned.

Margaret was avenged. With head cast down and failing heart he followed his stern guide, while still the fitful twilight, reflected from the dazzling snow, shone cold and calm over the hills. The stricken man groaned in spirit. "It is the bitterness of death," he said to himself. "Mon Dieu! I am punished. I would have seen la petite. She will grieve for me."

His thoughts were broken in upon suddenly; they had reached the border of a deep ravine, and Maurice stopped. He looked round: "The light is uncertain, but we shall have the same chance. Whoever falls, falls there."

He pointed down to the abyss, fathomless in the dim evening light.

"We have no seconds—allow me to arrange everything."

He took out the pistols, examined their priming with minute care, and handed one to L'Estrange.

"I will give the word," he said; "we fire together."

With steady, measured tread he paced the distance that was to divide them, then took his place by the ravine, pale, calm, determined—the avenger.

Maurice Grey did not suppose for a moment that he would fall, though, a true Englishman, he would give his enemy a fair chance for life. Evil as he believed this man to be, deserving death for the traitorous wrong he had consummated, he would yet give him the power of defending himself. But as this man of iron nerve counted out unfalteringly the seconds that divided one of them from death, he showed his belief in the issue by the defiance he shouted out across the shadows: "But yesterday I would have taken my own life, and with this very weapon; now I take yours. Traitor, coward, slanderer of the innocent, prepare for death!"

Was it the knell of fate? No answer came from the condemned man, but before the fatal ball could cleave the air, before the word that might have meant death to one of them had been spoken, he staggered strangely, gave utterance to a gurgling cry and fell forward to the ground.

---

[CHAPTER V.]

ES IST NUR EIN KINDLEIN—ONLY A CHILD.

What wert thou then? A child most infantine,
Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age
In all but its sweet looks and mien divine?

Lights were glittering in the hotel at Grindelwald—something more than the paltry allowance of which Arthur had feelingly complained was being displayed, for, late as it was in the season, there had been arrivals, and the landlord's heart was light.

He could not understand this fancy of people for keen winds, frost and snow, but it suited his purpose and he rejoiced. The dull season would be rendered shorter, and his winter expenses proportionately lightened. In the fulness of his heart he made a great display in the way of illumination, lighted the large stove in the small saloon, and did all he could to make his friends forget the dreariness and desolation that reigned outside.

For the evening that had fallen with a certain calm, autumnal beauty had deepened into a blustering, stormy night. The wind whistled among the hills, the loose snow-drifts were driven blindingly hither and thither; it would not have been a pleasant night to face. Decidedly, the fireside, or, as at Grindelwald, the stove-corner, was the most comfortable resting-place. And so the new arrivals, two young Englishmen and a German (the very same, by the bye, who had annoyed Arthur by his vigorous "wunderschöns" and his dutiful "enthousiasmus" in the course of their journey across the St. Gothard), appeared to think.

As the household was principally composed of men, sundry indulgences were permitted, and unchecked they discussed their cigars and drank their "lager bier" in the saloon, gathered together in a close circle by the stove, their feet filling up by turns its narrow opening. But apparently every one in the hotel was not of the same mind. Several times in the course of one short hour the Englishmen were driven to indulge in strong language, and the German to splutter and fume, by the inroad of a blast of chill air.

The hotel had not been constructed in such a way as to exclude draughts, and whenever the outer door was opened the cold air sweeping up the passages made itself felt in the saloon.

"Donner wetter!" said the German at last as the blast of cold air came in a continued stream, "I must find out all about zis. What can, zen, be ze meaning of it?"

"Some one out in the snow," suggested a mild young man with auburn hair and pale whiskers.

"But, my good friend, why not bring him in?" asked the puzzled German.

"Lost, pewhaps," replied the young man, puffing calmly.

"Lost, lost! but what may zat have to do wid ze door?"

"Anxious fwiends," replied the Englishman calmly—"excitable foweigners, I should say."

The German looked at him in a helpless way, scarcely certain whether, as a unit in that generic body known by the English under the name of foreigners, he ought to take notice of the implied slight. His indecision ended in a walk to the door of the room. It was clearly useless to regard the eccentricities of those proud islanders, he said to himself. If they would persist in looking down on other and worthier nationalities, why so they might; they would find out their mistake some day. So absorbed was the German in his mental soliloquy that in passing out from the room he left the unhappy door open, and curses not loud but deep followed him from the proud islander he had left behind. The German found out in the mean time that his sensitive nature had not betrayed him. That the outer door was open became evident to him at once by the blast of keen air which swept up the dimly-lit passage.

Two figures were standing in the doorway, faintly shown by the light of the little oil-lamp that hung over the entrance. One was a fair-haired child, wrapped from head to foot in a scarlet cloak, the other was the landlord of the hotel.

He was stooping over the child, his face very red in the extremity of his effort to make her understand that it was impossible for her to go out in the snow.

"Mademoiselle—not go—snow cold—mademoiselle be wander—lose—nicht finden—" he was saying spasmodically, holding the door shut, while she, with her small strength, was struggling to open it.

"But—we can no permit—" he began more fluently.

The child interrupted him with tears and sobs: "Please let me only see if they are coming. Mon père said he would come back to-night. He is lost. I thought yesterday he was going to die. Oh, please, I know the way he went. It's not very dark. I can always make him better."

The landlord was in despair. He wanted the assistance of some interpreter, and yet he was afraid to leave the child, lest she should give him the slip and run out into the snow.

The appearance of the German was a great relief, for this young man had not been accustomed to hide his light under a bushel. Wherever he went he exhibited his knowledge of English. Already that day the landlord had been astonished by his fluency in this most intricate and embarrassing tongue.

In a few words he described the situation to the new-comer. The German immediately addressed himself to the weeping child: "Your papa is out in ze snow, my leetle maid."

The child's tears stopped; she raised her dark eyes pleadingly to his face: "Not my papa—mon père. Oh, please take me to find him."

This was rather embarrassing. The compassionate German looked out into the snowy night: "Wid all my heart I would help you, liebe fräulein, but you will no doubt perceive I know none of ze paths, and you—" He looked down at the tiny figure.

Almost unconsciously these two men had been answering that strange womanliness in the little face by treating this child as if she had been three times her age.

The German smiled and looked at the landlord: "Es ist nur ein kindlein." Then to Laura, with an assumption of sternness, "Leetle maids are sometimes weelful. Zey should understand zat ze elders know best. Come now wid me to ze fire."

He put out his hand to lead her, but Laura shrank back, her eyes growing large with fear. She did not understand being so treated by a stranger. It made her long all the more for her friend's protecting tenderness. She rejected the hand held out to her with all the dignity of one double her age: then suddenly her child-heart failed. She threw herself on her knees on the cold stones, pressed her forehead against the door and wailed out her childish plaint: "Mon père! mon père! come back to Laura."

The landlord shook his head helplessly, but the young German, who had always prided himself on a certain determination of character, looked stern. "Dis ees all folly," he said; "as I said just now, leetle maids must not be weelful. Komme mit, mademoiselle; or, as I should say, come wid me, mees."

He stooped to the little figure, all huddled together on the stones, and tried to raise it in his arms, but with sudden agility the child escaped him. She stopped crying and stood upright against the wall of the passage, facing her tormentor, her eyes and cheeks on flame.

"Go!" she cried, stamping her little foot. "Why do you speak to me? why do you touch me?"

And in spite of his boasted determination the German stood back abashed.

Proceedings were at this stage—the landlord helpless, the German doubtful about the next step that ought to be taken in the task of subduing this child, who partook so early of that proud island-nature which had already called for his reprobation, and Laura looking up at them both with more than a child's determination in her small face—when another actor appeared upon the scene.

Arthur had been sitting during all that afternoon alone in his room, thinking over the occurrences of the past days—now hoping, now despairing, as he reviewed in all its minutest details the interview of that day. He was torturing himself by recalling the eloquent words he had intended to use, but had not—the conclusive reasons he might have brought forward had he only remembered them at the right time—when there came to his ears the sound of a child's cry.

The voice was strangely familiar; at first he could not recall why it was so, for the memory of his humiliating defeat at Moscow had been swamped by the succession of exciting events that had followed it.

Curiosity led him to investigate the matter. He went down stairs, and the first sight of the little flushed face told its tale. This was Margaret's child. The second prize he had been seeking was actually within his grasp, and in his first excitement Arthur felt inclined to seize the child and carry her off whether she would or not. But experience, the two failures that preceded this most unlooked-for meeting, had taught him caution. This time he would not attempt to coerce the strange little being whom Fate had thrown in his way, but it was quite possible that he might win her over to confidence. Acting on this determination, he stood back in the shadow and bided his time.

The German was half ashamed of his irresolution. "Leetle maids must be sensible," Arthur heard him say, and as he spoke he tried once more to raise the child in his arms.

Laura gave a little frightened cry and turned hastily to run up the staircase, but only to find her way blocked by one she looked upon as another enemy. For even by that uncertain light she recognized in Arthur the man who had made an attempt upon her liberty at Moscow. But this time the child was desperate. She stood and faced him like a wild animal at bay.

"Let me pass, let me pass!" she cried.

He did not attempt to touch her, but, standing aside on the staircase, looked at her with kind, gentle eyes. "What is it, dear? is any one hurting you?" he asked.

The child looked up into the frank, boyish face and trusted him. "Perhaps you can help Laura," she said; "but—"

"I was foolish the other day," he said quietly; "I did not quite understand; you must forgive me."

"You wanted to take me away from mon père, and now"—the child burst into tears—"mon père is lost. Please, please take me to find him!"

"Come up stairs and tell me all about it, Laura. I will help you if I possibly can."

Then to the German, who was gazing at him open-mouthed, "Sir, this is the child of one of my dearest friends; I take her under my protection."

"As you like," replied he, and shrugged his shoulders. "Ze young man is offended," he muttered, "because I did not treat ze bébé like one great princess."

He returned to the stove, while Arthur drew from Laura all he desired to know. She had come there with "mon père," as she always called L'Estrange. They were looking for papa. Early that day he had told her that he knew where her father was—that he would go away alone, and return in the evening to let her know if her father had been found. He was not very far away, he had said, and the little Laura had been waiting and watching all the evening. The evening had deepened into night, and still her friend had not come back. He must be lost.

This was the burden of her simple tale. It made Arthur think. What could be the meaning of this? Had a sudden repentance seized this man? Had he really determined to find Maurice Grey and tell him the actual truth about his deserted wife? Or could any other motive have moved him to seek his enemy? No, no; human wickedness could not surely go so far. With this man's child in his grasp, this child, whose pure affection he had undoubtedly won, it was not possible; and yet if the enemies had met alone, face to face, in the great solitude—The young man shuddered.

"Laura," he said, turning to the little one, "I must find them at once."

The child clung about his knees: "Oh, take me with you! Please, please take me! I can make mon père well when no one else can—he says so."

Arthur did not answer at first. He was thinking. He rang the bell and made inquiries about a guide, for it would have been dangerous on such a night to have made the attempt alone. He ascertained that it would be possible to obtain one with very little delay.

The distance which separated them from the chalet was not great. They would be two men. The child might easily be carried between them, and it was more than probable that her presence would do more than anything else to allay the fever-heat of the two men, one of whom must love her instinctively, while the other evidently loved her deeply already. The only fear—and it shot through Arthur's heart like a pain—was that they might be too late—that already in the fierce anger of that moment, in the awful solitude one of these two might have taken the life of the other.

"If I had only known, if I could only have guessed, I should never have left him," he said to himself.

But Laura was still looking up at him anxiously. He answered her with a smile: "If you will wrap yourself up well, little one, and submit to be carried."

"Yes, yes," answered the child joyfully; "mon père carries me sometimes; but"—she stopped, and there came a cloud over her face—"I will tire you; I am heavy."

She was answered by a knock at the door. There appeared on the threshold the burly figure of one of the true sons of the soil. He was accustomed to much heavier burdens than the little Laura, wraps and all. The honest Swiss was at a loss to understand why this little maiden should go with them on such a search, but he did not express his feelings in any way. He lifted her as lightly as if she had been a bird, placed her on his shoulder, and in a few moments the hotel, the astonished landlord, the hurt German and the glimmering village-lights were left in the distance.

The little party—the two men and the child—were threading the dark, lonely mountain-path that led to the chalet.

It was a strange experience for a child like Laura, but happily for herself she did not understand its strangeness. All she knew was that her wish was being accomplished—that, guided and befriended, she was hastening through the night to find her two fathers.

Blessed is the faith of earth's little ones!

I wonder if the reason for it is that "in heaven their angels do always behold the face of the Father"?

---

[CHAPTER VI.]

HADST THOU THE SECOND SIGHT?

Digging thine heart and throwing
Away its childhood's gold,
That so its woman-depth might hold
His spirit's overflowing?
(For surging souls no worlds can bound
Their channel in the heart have found.)

Arthur would not allow his guide to do all the work. He wanted to know this strange child—Margaret's child; he wanted to try and understand what was this power, savoring to his mind of dark magic, that her mother's enemy had gained over her. After they had walked in total silence for about half an hour he insisted on a change.

Laura wished to walk, but upon Arthur pointing out to her that her small feet would be swamped in the snow, she submitted again. She was very grateful to this new ally for his prompt carrying out of her wishes, and with that strange woman-insight which belonged so peculiarly to this child she read in the face of her new guide that in submitting to his wishes she could best show her gratitude.

In Arthur's manner to her there was something of the reverent devotion that had been one means of drawing her heart so completely to the friend she was seeking in the desolate Alpine solitudes. The German had insulted Laura by treating her like a little child, for her late experiences had drawn her on, not from the sweet simplicity of childhood—for in this had consisted her power over the wild heart of L'Estrange—but from many of its feelings; Laura had become sensitive beyond her years, and this under the circumstances was scarcely wonderful. She had shared, and probably understood, her mother's sorrows; she had lived for her sake a life too intense for one of her tender years; she had taken a part in struggles of whose existence she ought to have known nothing; she had thought and dreamed and reasoned till the woman-nature that lies hidden in the heart of every girl-child had become unhealthily developed. Her childhood, in this sense, had passed by; Laura would never return to the gay carelessness of early youth.

Gravely she allowed Arthur to gather her up into his arms, and as, in their momentary stoppage, the light of the guide's lantern shone upon her pale fair face and deep earnest eyes, the young man wondered. He wondered at her unchildlike beauty—he wondered at his own instinctive reverence.

"Are you quite comfortable, Laura?" he inquired as he drew her cloak over her tiny feet.

"Quite, thank you," replied the child; "and you are very kind. Mon père will thank you; but oh, I wonder shall we find him soon?"

"Do you know that we are going to find some one else, Laura?" asked Arthur, rather shocked to find her head so full of her false father that she had no thoughts to spare for her true one.

"Yes, I know," she answered gravely; "and sometimes I'm sorry that I can't love my own papa so much as mon père; but, you see, I've never seen him: at least, mamma says I have; I don't remember at all." She paused a moment, then added in a grieved, puzzled tone, "Oh, please tell me—for I want so much to know—ought I to love my own papa as well as mamma and mon père?" The question had evidently been tormenting her.

"You ought to put such ideas out of your little head," said Arthur lightly.

"But I can't," replied the child in a grieved tone; and Arthur, quite perplexed, tried a new set of tactics:

"What makes you love this person so much whom you call mon père?"

"What makes me?" Unconsciously Arthur had started another bewildering question. She raised her head and knit her small brows: "It's not because he's good to me, for other people have been good to me, and I didn't love them. You know loving and liking are different. Mamma told me I ought to love my papa, but you see there isn't any ought in love, and I must love mon père best. Oh, I wonder why!"

This was certainly a strange child. Arthur had not laid his hand upon the magic; her answer only made it appear the more mysterious. He put another leading question: "Is he very good to you, Laura?"

"Mon père, do you mean? Oh, he is so good! I want him to come back with me to mamma, but when I talk about it he looks at me in that sad way, like people do when they are going to say good-bye. Do you think I shall be able to get him to say he will come? Oh"—the child's face brightened, a happy thought seemed to have struck her—"will you ask him to come? Perhaps he will do it for you." She went on rapidly, for the child-nature was beginning to assert itself: "He left a great big dog in the village—big enough to carry me on its back, mon père says. And just fancy! it's to be all mine. I wonder how long we shall be getting back to mamma, and won't she be pleased?" For at the thought of the great dog, the sea, the village and mamma the painful questioning had passed away from Laura's mind. She was the child again—her mother's darling—the tender little one whom Margaret loved.

Arthur's throat contracted strangely as he listened. It was such a contrast. The night, the darkness, the desolation around them, the horror that might only too possibly be before them, and the child's innocent dreams, her unconsciousness of evil, her calm certainty of hope. The idea made him press forward almost fiercely for a few moments, but his stolid guide called him back to reason. The torch-bearer would not hasten; he went forward with quiet, plodding step, and to distance him would have been in the highest degree dangerous.

Laura's question remained unanswered, for Arthur had not L'Estrange's strength of muscle or iron nerve, and he was passing through a mental experience intense enough to draw away some of his physical force. His arms began to ache and his knees to tremble. He was obliged to give up Laura to the guide, and to stop one moment to gather up his strength for a new effort.

Laura was concerned. "I knew I was too heavy," she said.

But the young man answered with a smile, and again they plodded on in silence. Their task was not an easy one. In some places the ice had gathered in a thin frost-work over the snow, so that where they thought to find sure footing they sank to their knees in the soft, white mass; in others, the path intersecting a meadow was almost undiscoverable by reason of the white unity that did away with all known landmarks. But happily, their guide was a good one and the path was well trodden. He knew it thoroughly; then, before midnight had chimed from the village-clock the mists had partially risen, the wind had fallen, and the glamour of moonlight shone cold over the snow. By its light Arthur saw a thin wreath of blue smoke rising from beyond the pine wood they were nearing. He pointed it out to Laura, his heart almost standing still with the conflict of fear and hope that possessed him.

The child smiled up into his face. "Mon père is there," she said.

"Your father is there," was the answer sternly spoken, and the little one was checked. She said no more, but watched till the dark pines, looking weird and gaunt in the moonshine, rose high above their heads, shutting out that first glimpse of Maurice Grey's dwelling.

"I will go first," said Arthur; "I know the way."

He began to think he had been wrong in bringing the tender child. He feared the effect upon her mind of some terrible discovery, she was so utterly unprepared for the horror that had been in his mind during the latter part of that weary journey.

The chalet was on the outskirts of the wood, just where an Alpine meadow opened out. As Arthur drew near he looked up earnestly. No light shone from the little window. He trembled, but there was no time for delay; he knocked long and desperately, as one might do who had come on an errand of life and death.

Marie in her night-cap appeared at the window. Her face had a scared look; she shook her head and refused to let him in.

Arthur had forgotten, in his impatience to press on, that if those he sought should not be within, the old woman, obtuse at the best of times, might fail to recognize and refuse to admit him.

He was obliged to wait until his guide, a person well known to Marie, could come up with Laura. His decided summons brought out the old woman again; she obeyed her countryman, and opened the door after very little further delay.

They entered, and Arthur found that his fears had been only too well grounded. The chalet was empty. It was clear, further, from the excited signs made by the old woman as she told her story to the guide, that there had been some kind of quarrel, and that the enemies had gone out together.

Arthur wrung his hands. For the first time his heart failed him. Had Maurice been found only for this—either that his own life should fall a prey to his enemy, or that the stain of blood-guiltiness should rest for ever on his head?—for their departure, their long absence, the scared looks of the old woman, all pointed to one suspicion; the two men had left the solitary dwelling with no friendly motive actuating them. It was more than probable that a fierce conflict had taken place—that the meeting in the snows had been fatal to one, perhaps to both of them. And then—what then? He scarcely dared to think.

The old woman had lit Maurice's lamp in the interval. Its light shone upon the face of his child. She was gazing with lips parted, and eyes in which a certain instinct of some unknown horror was gleaming, into Arthur's face. She went up to him and touched his arm with her small hand. "Why does the old woman look at me like that?" she whispered, lifting up a pale, scared face. "And what have they done with mon père? He's not here." And she looked round inquiringly.

"I am afraid they have lost themselves in the snow," replied Arthur as calmly as he could. "Laura, we must leave you here and go out again to look for them."

"Them?" repeated she in a low tone. "Then my own papa is with him. But what's the matter? why do you all look so frightened? Is mon père dead? Oh, please, please, let me go to him!"

"Laura, you must be sensible. We cannot take you, my poor child! Stay here with Marie! Listen, dear! We may go into dangerous places; we may be lost."

But the child did not seem to hear him. There had come a strange, sudden look into her face, as though she could see more than others saw. She held up her hand. "Hush!" she said in a tone that made Arthur shiver, it was so unchildlike in its earnestness; and even as she spoke that dawning consciousness of a certain mysterious horror paled her cheek and made her dark eyes large and deep. "Mon père is calling me," she said. "They are hurting him. Come, come!"

She rushed to the door, and opening it stood for a moment on the threshold, mute, in the attitude of deep attention, her hands plunged forward into the darkness, as though she were appealing to some unseen power, her golden hair thrown back from her uncovered head, her face peering out into the night.

Within, no one stirred. It almost seemed as if they were waiting for the development of a mysterious power in this strange child. And as they stood, silent, motionless, watchful, there came to their ears a sound. It was distinct from the moaning of the wind among the trees, distinct from the rush of the torrents, distinct from the rattle of the leafless pine-branches. The sound was a groan. It spoke as plainly as words of human anguish.

For a moment none of them stirred, and yet the sound had fallen on the ears of all, but this certainty of an unseen, nameless horror acted on them like a spell. It was only when the child started forward into the night that Arthur was aroused from the momentary inaction to a sense of the necessity for immediate exertion.

He rushed after Laura, caught hold of her, and for the second time gathered her up into his arms. "My child," he said hoarsely, "you must come back. God only knows what we may find out there! Be calm. We shall do our best to bring them to you." The child looked up at him; she never struggled when she knew all struggling would be useless, and there was wonder as well as a certain awe in her gaze.

"What do you mean?" she asked; "none of you understand. Mon père is ill, and papa is taking care of him; and it's cold out there in the snow, but he won't leave him. He wants us to help him."

"Us!" Involuntarily Arthur smiled as he held the tiny figure in his grasp.

"We can find them without you, Laura," he said. The guide had joined them with the lantern. "Go in, like a good child."

In her turn Laura smiled. "Which way will you go to find them?" she asked. "Listen to me: I know all about it. Just now, when I wanted to listen and you would talk, God showed it to me in a dream. Mon père is ill. He wants me—I'll take you to find him."

Marie stood at the door holding out her arms; the guide motioned peremptorily that the child should return to the chalet. Arthur stood irresolute. He felt half inclined to trust to the little one's instincts, and in the delay, while the precious moments that might mean life or death to one of the two men in the snow were passing, that sound came to their ears again—a heavy groan, drawn, it would seem, from a heart's agony.

It was more than Laura could bear, for she, and she alone of that little company, knew the sound; she had heard it before.

In his excitement Arthur's hold on her hand relaxed. With a sudden cry she wrenched herself free, and before the two men could seize her again her white dress and scarlet cloak made a blot on the moonlit snow far on in advance. What could they do but follow in her track? and when they had come up with her, when she had allowed herself once more to be caught, the light from the open door of the chalet gleamed far away in the distance. The wilful little maiden was perched once more on the shoulder of the stolid Swiss guide. She arrogated to herself the right of directing her companions, and it was well. Once, at least, from her tower of observation she scented danger and warned them away from the brink of a ravine. But the men had a surer guide than the dreams of a child. In a part of the meadow that was sheltered from the wind Arthur had found the traces of footsteps in the snow.

Strange to say, the discovery was made in the very direction which Laura had taken when she started on her wild flight. Had her loving instincts guided her, or was there really something supernatural in her knowledge?

Arthur asked himself this question repeatedly as he followed his guide in silence. He never found an answer. The events of that night were always wrapped in a partial mystery.

Was it so very unnatural? Who that has looked into the far-seeing eyes of some children, who that has carefully noted their strange ways, will be able to answer unhesitatingly that it was? They are nearer to heaven, nearer to the invisible, than those who have weathered a hundred storms, who have lost their faith in humanity, who have travelled for long years along the dusty highways of the world, tarnishing much of their soul's beauty, and forgetting too often the grandeur of their high destiny.

What wonder that the little ones sometimes see farther than we? for the invisible chord which binds their soul to heaven is, at their tender age, free for the passage to and fro of the angels, and it may be that they whisper to the children of the things that no eye can see. And the child is ready for these beautiful intuitions. It does not question—it believes.

---

[CHAPTER VII.]

FOR THE SECOND TIME SAVED FROM HIMSELF.

Oh, unsay
What thou hast said of man; nor deem me wrong.
Mind cannot mind despise—it is itself.
Mind must love mind.

The two men and the child pressed on. They had left the path behind them, they were winding between huge boulders, the débris from some devastating avalanche; like a mighty wall the mountains rose above them, hedging them in on the one side, while on the other was the continuation of the pine wood.

The guide had given up the lantern to Arthur; he could not manage both it and the child, and the young man, a few yards in advance, was seeking on hands and knees for further traces of footsteps in the snow.

The groans had not been repeated, and from this Arthur augured badly. It might be that the dying had passed into the dead. The young man's heart was sad. He had reckoned so entirely on the success of his enterprise, he had been so full of hope, and now it seemed as if the whole—all his hopes, all his efforts—was to be swamped in this sudden horror. For even if Maurice had escaped unhurt, even if the life of his enemy had fallen by his hand in his first horror at the discovery of that enemy's dark treachery, what would the result be on his own mind, on those of others?—to Margaret, who above all things had entreated that this man should be unharmed; to Laura, who loved him with all the strength of her young soul; to Maurice himself, who would feel when the deed was done that it was wrongly done, for this man had thrown himself, alone and helpless, into his hands, carrying as a peace-offering the act of expiation for his past wrongs, the confession of Margaret's spotless innocence. Arthur had gathered from Laura's words, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that this, and only this, had been the intention of L'Estrange in seeking an interview with Mr. Grey.

If he could only have foreseen all this, he said to himself mournfully, it might have been so different.

The voice of the child awoke him from his sad musing. It was very low, but in the stillness of that snowy night the slightest sound wrote its impress on the air. The earth itself seemed to be listening. "We're very near them now," she said; "I am sure we are. There, there! listen! The trees are shaking."

Almost instinctively the two men obeyed her imperative gestures. They rounded a great shoulder of rock. It led them on to a kind of plateau, studded here and there with stunted, snow-laden pines, ending abruptly in a depth of darkness, for what lay beyond the ravine that bounded it was hidden by the snow-vapors.

At first they saw nothing, but a certain feeling warned them to pause and look round attentively.

"Put me down," cried the child, and as if in answer to her call the branches of the pine that overhung the precipice crackled and stirred.

This excited Laura. She broke loose from the guide, and once more outstripping her companions rushed forward over the snow. A moment more, and her cry, partly of joy, partly of pain, drew Arthur to the spot. It was on the very brink of the ravine, under an overhanging pine tree, whose black shadow on the moonlit snow had prevented them from discovering what lay beneath it.

L'Estrange was outstretched there, silent, motionless, to all appearance dead. Laura was on her knees beside her friend, calling out to him piteously to open his eyes and speak to her. In her excitement the little one had not seen at first that there was another there—that the head of her friend was on the knees of a man who sat upright on the cold snow, his back resting against the stem of a pine tree. That man was her father—Maurice Grey.

Just before they came up he had fallen into that most dangerous of all states, a sleep among the snows—a dull, numb insensibility induced by the constrained posture, the long watching, the extreme cold. His child's wail aroused him. He opened his eyes, but his first thought was that he was dreaming, for as Arthur's lantern was turned slowly on the little group he saw in the golden hair from which the scarlet hood had fallen back, in the fair, delicately-chiselled face, in the dark, mournful eyes, so like his own, the little one he had deserted—Margaret's child. How had she come there? Gradually, as the film passed from his senses, he began to remember the events of the night, and the latter part of L'Estrange's strange confession flashed over his mind. While horror withheld Arthur from speaking, while the guide, whose movements were slower than his, was coming up to their assistance, a glimmering of the truth dawned upon Maurice's mind. His child had come out to seek this man, his enemy—his child was pouring out on her mother's betrayer the treasures of her young heart's affection. It smote him with a sudden pang.

But no answer came from the stricken man to the child's impassioned cries, and suddenly she raised her eyes. They met those of her father. She looked at him for a moment in silence, and involuntarily Maurice trembled. He was thinking of what might have been if the hand of God had not forestalled his.

In his first burst of anger against this man, the destroyer of his peace, the slanderer of her who was dearer to him than life, it had seemed no crime to avenge himself once and for ever of his enemy. But with the silence of that solemn night other thoughts had come. In the unlooked-for ending of their strife that evening God had rebuked him. "Vengeance is mine!" seemed to be crying in his ears. What was he, that he should arrogate to himself the functions that belong to the Divine? And say what one will, under any circumstances it is an awful thing—a thing that can never be forgotten or put away—to destroy human life.

Maurice Grey was neither weak nor sentimental, but that night as he hung over his enemy, tending as a brother might have done the man he had intended to destroy, he shuddered at the remembrance of what might have happened in the fever of his just indignation. And now, when the child—his child—looked up at him, her eyes large with fear for his enemy, asking him mutely for an account of this strangeness, Maurice was thankful that his answer might be no revelation of a tragedy that would have chilled her warm young blood and filled her with loathing of him—her father.

"Who has hurt mon père?" asked Laura.

"Little one," replied Maurice gravely, "he is ill; he will be better soon."

By this time Arthur was close beside them. He stumbled over something hard, stooped, and found a pistol at his feet.

"Don't touch it!" cried Maurice hastily; "it is loaded."

"Loaded!" repeated the young man slowly; "then—"

"Foolish boy!" replied Maurice with meaning. "I tell you this man was taken ill near my door. In the impossibility of getting assistance to move him, I have been watching him ever since his first seizure; but, for Goodness' sake, don't stand looking at us, or we shall die of cold out here! Get your burly friend to help you, and between you perhaps you may be able to carry this man as far as the chalet. As for myself, I am so cramped and numb that it will be all I can do to creep."

Maurice spoke cheerfully. It was as if a great load had suddenly been lifted from his soul.

Margaret pure, his hands free from blood-guiltiness, his little daughter within his grasp! It was like the opening of heaven to a spirit long tormented in the purifying fires.

Laura looked up triumphantly as she heard her father's words. "Didn't I say so?" she cried; "mon père was ill, and my own papa was taking care of him?" She stooped over L'Estrange: "Mon père, pauvre, cher père!" Then to Arthur and the guide: "Oh, please, lift him very gently. We must put him beside the fire. It will make mon père better."

She made an effort to raise his head on her small arm. And at her touch L'Estrange opened his eyes. "Ma fillette!" he whispered. Laura was satisfied.

"I have done him good already," she said, looking round at Arthur; "I said I could."

It was only when she had seen her friend raised, the burly Swiss supporting his head and shoulders, Arthur his feet, that she had eyes or words for Maurice. He rose with difficulty, the little one standing beside him and offering her small hand by way of assistance.

"Have you nothing to say to me, Laura?" he asked rather sadly as he walked, painfully at first, after Arthur and the guide, the little one trotting joyfully through the snow by his side.

She looked up at him: "You are my own papa?"

"Yes, Laura."

"And you are coming back home with us?"

"Yes."

"And you really want to see mamma again?"

"Yes."

"Then"—the child gave a deep sigh—"I am very glad."

That was the end of the first conversation between Laura and her father. They were obliged to look carefully to their footing, for two or three times the child had fallen upon the frozen snow. She did not seem to care much, but her father did; when at last the congealed blood began to flow through his veins, and his wonted vigor to return, Maurice Grey stooped and in his turn gathered her up into his arms.

Laura had found her true place at last. After her wanderings, her strange adventures, her fears and her dreams, she was able to lay her head on her father's breast. He was a stranger to the child. As yet her love for her false father was much stronger than any feeling for the true; but the consciousness perhaps of this, that he was her father, that her task was ended, her childish work accomplished, made a deep rest steal over her. With her arms round Maurice's neck and her head upon his shoulder the child fell fast asleep after her fatigues. It was childhood's sleep, dreamless and unbroken.

So Maurice brought her in to his house, solitary now no longer. He would not give her up into Marie's care, but taking the blankets from his bed, he arranged them with his pillows in a corner near the stove, and laid the little one down. There was a soft look in his face as he stooped over her. Where was all his cynicism? It had gone. He was thinking of Laura's mother, and reckoning how long the time might be before he could himself give back her child to her arms.

And in the mean time the cold dawn was beginning to creep over the snow. Maurice turned to his companions and held a council of war. They examined L'Estrange carefully, and found that one of his arms and part of his side were perfectly dead and helpless. He seemed to be partially paralyzed.

The question was, What should they do with him? In the solitude of Maurice's little chalet it would be impossible for him to obtain the necessary treatment, yet to move a man in his condition so far as the hotel would be a serious matter, and required more hands than they could muster.

They had improvised a kind of bed on the floor of the small sitting-room; they were standing round him, Maurice and Arthur talking earnestly, the guide only waiting for a sign to do anything that might be desired of him, when suddenly, to their astonishment, the man they had thought utterly insensible looked up and tried to raise himself. He fell back helpless. Then he opened his lips and tried to speak. Maurice stooped over him to catch the words, for his voice was thick and changed. "La fillette!" he murmured; "I saw her." Then, as Maurice pointed out the child fast asleep among the pillows: "It is well," he said quietly, and his head fell back again. He was thinking.

Gradually the events of the night were shaping themselves out of the mists which his long insensibility had thrown over his mind. "I remember," he said at last in a faint, low tone. He beckoned to Arthur, who wondered at the recognition which he read in the face of the stricken man. But the dying have their privileges. Arthur overcame his repugnance and stooped down to listen to his words. "Tell me—" was all he said, pointing to the bed where Laura lay asleep.

The young man understood what he wanted. In as few words as possible he told of his discovery, of Laura's anxiety, of their midnight journey, and once or twice, as his tale went on, a tear rolled down L'Estrange's face, for in spirit as in body the man was overcome.

When it was ended he called Maurice to his side, and held out the only hand over which his will had any power, whispering as he did so, "Is it peace?"

Maurice took the hand and held it in his own. "Forgive me—" he began, but the man interrupted him with something of his old imperiousness.

"Young people," he said, "lie down—rest."

It was, after all, the most sensible, suggestion. They gave him some brandy and hot water, which seemed to revive him; then, as utter weariness had taken possession of Arthur and the guide, they thought it best to obey, Maurice, who had piled fuel on the stove, declaring his intention of watching it and L'Estrange. But he too gave way before long, and the morning light streamed in upon the little chalet parlor, full of prostrate forms stretched out on the floor and wrapped in every kind of material.

Before the full morning light had aroused the weary men Laura had risen from her bed, and had knelt down by her friend to place one of the pillows her father had arranged for her under his head.

He was awake, and he opened his eyes with a smile, but the smile passed into a frown, and Laura feared she had offended him. The fact was, L'Estrange was steeling his heart and hers. He wanted to detach himself from his darling—to accustom himself to do without her—to teach her, if possible to care for him less.

But the little one put it down to pain, and tears filled her eyes "Mon père is worse," she murmured.

She remained by his side till the full light, breaking in upon the room, had aroused the sleepers.

Then another discussion took place. It was very strange. But the night before Maurice Grey would have thought it no sin to deprive his enemy of life. Another hand than his had smitten L'Estrange, and instead of deserting him, as he might have done, leaving him to find his death among the snows, Maurice Grey had risked his own life (for the numbness which had been creeping over him when his friends came up might soon have proved fatal) to watch over his. Perhaps the reason might be found in his helplessness. On the previous evening he had stood before Maurice as an accuser and a judge, arraigning him for the folly and short-sightedness which, according to his showing, had been far more instrumental than anything else in bringing about his suffering and Margaret's. And his biting words had found their echo in Maurice's own heart, being gifted with a double sting. In the man's attitude there had been a certain power, and this it was that had inflamed his opponent, till he had longed with a fierce, sudden passion of hatred to punish him to the uttermost.

For the second time Maurice Grey had been saved from himself, and now, as the man he had hated lay helpless at his feet—the brain that had conceived and the hand that had written that cruel letter torpid, the tongue which had given forth its biting irony silent—all his feelings changed. The helplessness of the strong man recommended him to his compassion; the remembrance of the service he had rendered him, the consciousness of his penitence for the wrong he had committed, softened Maurice toward him. He saw, for the first time, in L'Estrange's strange conduct the return to itself of a soul that had wandered from his own nobility. Bowing his head, the man who had been known as a bitter cynic confessed his wrong to humanity, his distrust of God. Maurice Grey was a changed man. He felt it in the lightness of heart with which he rose that morning; for, say what we will, it cannot but be that this hatred of their kind on which some men pride themselves is a bad and heart-degrading thing. It recoils upon itself. A man cannot despise his own nature and be happy. Maurice during these wretched years had been heaping up misery to himself. But it was over, once and for ever. In Margaret's faithful devotion and forgiving love, in his enemy's return to a better mind, in his child's simplicity, in Arthur's high-hearted chivalry, Maurice saw the other side of the picture he had so long been contemplating.

In the course of his life of wandering he had been pleasing himself by drawing out and marking the weaknesses of his fellows, and he had not found his task difficult; but now in his God-given nature, the nature he had despised, he began to see there was something underlying all these superficialities For humanity had shown itself to him in its beauty—the beauty which made God Himself pronounce it good on that creation-dawn when "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Maurice Grey thanked God and took courage. The discussion between himself and Arthur (for the guide was a silent assistant) resulted in very little.

Something in the way of a litter would be necessary to take the sufferer over the hills, and at least four strong men who could relieve one another. They were only three, and it seemed perfectly impossible to construct a litter out of the materials at hand.

The best plan seemed to be for the guide to return to the hotel and bring back with him men and litter, also provisions of some kind, for Marie's black bread and sausages had been so seriously besieged by her numerous invaders that very little, even of this uninviting food, was to be found in the small kitchen upon which Arthur made a raid. There was fortunately enough coffee to supply them each with a strong cup, only it had to be taken with goat's milk that had been standing for some days in Marie's pans.

Arthur and Laura, the two most fastidious of the little party, made many a wry face over the poor fare. These two had become fast friends; indeed, the child was in a fair way to be spoilt. She reigned like a queen among these men, so strangely met together in the solitary's dwelling. The general devotion did not much impress her. Most of her thoughts were given to one, and he seemed to take very little notice of his darling. Once or twice the tears filled Laura's eyes as she noticed how he would refuse what nourishment he could take when she offered it, and then receive it from another hand. It gave the young heart, premature in its development, a bitter pang to feel that the affection of this friend might possibly cease. But of all this the child said nothing. Breakfast—if breakfast it might be called—was over, the guide was about to start for Grindelwald, Arthur was busying himself about domestic matters, trying by his rapid movements to quicken the perceptions of old Marie, who had been rendered even more stupid than usual by the strange events of the night; Maurice sat by the side of his stricken guest, with his little daughter on his knees, when over the snow outside there came the sound of voices.

Laura ran to the window. "Four men," she cried, "and a mule, and one of those chairs to carry people, and rugs, and a big bundle, and—Oh, I hope there's some white bread; but perhaps they're not going to stop here."

She appealed to Arthur, the person with whom she felt most on terms of equality: "Do go out and see if they'd give us just one little bit."

Her summons drew the whole of the little party to the door, just in time to see the small cavalcade draw up, and to meet the questioning, reproachful gaze of the good Karl.

To explain his appearance on the scene, it will be necessary to relate how the ungrateful Arthur had quite forgotten his friend's servant, who according to his own showing had earned for him the favor of that tête-à-tête dinner at the hotel with the man to find whom he had traversed Europe in its length and breadth.

It was only when the good German showed his round face, in which sentiment and joy were struggling for the mastery, at the door of the chalet that Arthur remembered his intention of letting him know of his own return to the hotel and his master's whereabouts. The rapid start with Laura and the guide, following on the interval of regretful meditation in his own room, had put everything else out of his mind, and Karl, who, as was his wont, had been making himself useful and entertaining in the kitchen of the hotel, only found out when it was too late to do any good that uneasy rumors were afloat in the house about the two Englishmen, one of whom was his master.

Karl was eminently practical. He lost no time in dreaming about their probable fate. Something—perhaps an accident to his master, since the younger man had returned for assistance—was detaining them at the chalet. The chalet was ill-provided with food and necessary comforts. As soon as it could be possible to gather together a company large enough to be useful in any emergency, he would find his way to his master.

He spent the rest of the night in making every arrangement. Before dawn he and his party of three stalwart men were on foot. Hence their arrival at a comparatively early hour of the morning.

Karl's astonishment at the appearance presented by the chalet was very great, and it was blended with reproach. His master and his master's friend were on their feet, apparently uninjured; they seemed to have plenty of assistants, for the guide, Marie, Arthur, Maurice and the child made an imposing show in the small doorway; it was impossible to tell how many more might be behind them. Why, then, had he, the Englishman's faithful servant, been forgotten in this strange jubilee?

But his helpful nature reasserted itself when he found how very much his services were needed. In the course of a few minutes he was bustling about, acting as interpreter, preparing a substantial meal for Maurice's half-starved little company, presenting everybody with shawl or rug, and making himself generally useful.

Laura had her white bread and some sugar and milk. Arthur and Maurice rejoiced in the dissection of a fowl, and the guide had a fresh and unlimited supply of sausages; they were therefore soon sufficiently strengthened to think with equanimity of a new start. The poles of the chaise-à-porteur, brought up in case of emergency by the provident Karl, formed, with mattresses and ropes, an excellent litter. On this they laid L'Estrange, well wrapped up in rugs and blankets.

Before the sun had risen very high in the heavens the little cavalcade was in motion—Laura mounted on the mule which her father led; L'Estrange, passive as an infant, in the litter they had prepared for him; the rest of the party on foot.

As they entered the pinewood, Maurice turned, and shading his eyes from the morning sun, took one last look at his temporary dwelling. It had been the home of his solitude, the mute witness of despair that had reached its climax in those last days when his life had seemed a burden too heavy to be borne, and he was leaving it—leaving it and the past life for ever.

His pride had been rebuked, his self-reliance had fallen. But a few months before he had thought himself sufficient to himself: that madness had gone; human interests had already begun to throw their sweet influence around him; from the hermit's dwelling he was going out once more into the great world. It had done its work. The trial-time was over. He was stronger and better. His faith in God and humanity had returned. He could now look forward with hope—not, perhaps, the sanguineness of youth, which hopes simply because to despair would be impossible, but hope resting on a well-grounded confidence in himself, in humanity, in God.

Maurice Grey's after-life was not without its troubles, but through them all he never lost sight of the lessons learnt in his hermit life. Painfully gained, they were earnestly held.

---

[CHAPTER VIII.]

A PARTING.

Thou whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul's immensity;
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage; thou eye among the blind:
Thou over whom thy immortality
Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by!

In the hotel they returned, for the moment, to their old arrangements. The faithful child would not forsake her friend; his illness had, if possible, only endeared him to her.

L'Estrange was better. The shock had only been very partial. On the day following that of his return to the hotel he was already able to speak intelligibly, and to understand everything that went on around him. It was the morning of that day. Laura had been busy about the room putting everything tidy, as she said in her childish way, for her father had sent his servant to say that he would pay them a visit. She noticed that the eyes of L'Estrange followed her painfully about the room. There was a trouble in his face the child did not quite understand. Except for his illness—which, childlike, Laura looked upon as something very transient—she could not see in their present circumstances any cause for sadness. Her mind was troubled with no doubts about the right course to pursue. They were all to go back to her mamma as soon as ever her friend could be moved. It had never crossed her gentle mind that he was to be shut out of their happiness, and, so far as she was concerned, she had no intention of leaving him.

The heart of the little child was light. Everything had come about as she had hoped.

But Laura, young as she was, had been too often in the presence of suffering not to recognize it, and her friend had taught her to observe. She read the sorrow in his face and went to his bedside: "Mon père, what is it? Are you worse?"

"Come to me, fillette," he answered, and with his left hand he drew her face to his.

The child smiled: "Pauvre cher père, why do you look so sorry? You ought to look glad, because we're all going back to mamma. Oh, I am so happy! That night, mon père, you remember, when you were out in the snow, and I thought you were lost, and I was to be left alone with people who said cross things, I wasn't happy then; but now it's all right. My papa is found—and," she lowered her voice as if speaking in confidence, "I think I shall love him too—then we shall see mamma again—"

She stopped suddenly, for the tears were falling one by one over her companion's face. To a stronger heart than Laura's the sight would have been pitiful. This stern, self-contained man did not often express his feelings. Even the child he loved had trembled sometimes as she looked at his dark, strong face—even she had feared to intrude upon his silence; now all was broken down. Weakness as of a little child had taken hold upon him. Laura was very much distressed. With tears of sympathy in her own eyes, she stroked the dark, passionate face, murmuring gentle words.

He spoke at last, and there was a sternness in his voice that might have repelled the child had she not known her friend so well. "Laura," he said, "you must not again say such things as these; you must try and understand, little one. What must be, must be; and thou and I must part. Hush! hush!"

For Laura's face was averted; she had hidden it in the bed-clothes; she was weeping in the silent, unchildlike way that once or twice before had moved L'Estrange so deeply. In his weakness the man had much difficulty in preventing himself from giving way once more and weeping with her, but he controlled himself, for he was determined that no one but himself should make her understand.

"Laura," he said very tenderly, laying his left hand on the soft, golden head he loved so well, "it is necessary—you must go. I am not worthy of this love, and your mother is waiting for you."

"But, mon père—" Laura lifted up her tear-stained face and met his deep, stern eyes. Her voice faltered, for, child as she was, she read his resolve. "You will be better," she said, "and come too."

"Never," he answered slowly. "Listen, little one." He put away the hair from her face and looked at her long and tenderly: "In years to come—ah, petite, long, long years—after your friend has been put away under the ground, ma fillette will be a woman, tall and beautiful and good; then she will know and understand that this thing is right; then she will know that her friend, who loved her, acted for the best in this—that what my Laura desires would not be possible. She must say to her old friend good-bye; she must go away to those who love her; not better—that could not be—but to those who have a greater right to her love. Why do you care for me, fillette? Ah, mon Dieu! it is painful," he added as if to himself, for the child's sobs had never ceased.

He drew her face down to him again: "Little bird, it is not well. These deep feelings give me grief. Thine is the age of laughter. Think then of la pauvre maman—she is weeping too."

"Yes," replied the child through her tears. "I want to go back; but oh"—a happy thought had struck her; she clasped her hands and looked up into her friend's face—"if papa and I go away now, at once, you'll get well and come afterward. This won't be saying good-bye for always: please, please, say it won't."

He felt inclined to give her an indefinite answer, to let her think that it should be as she wished; but when he looked into her dark, imploring eyes—the eyes from which shone out the tenderest, most innocent soul that had ever loved him in all his wild career—he felt that to deceive her would be impossible. He answered slowly and calmly, with the manner of one who for ever puts away some beautiful thing out of his sight: "Thou hast said it, fillette. Good-bye for always."

"Always! always!" The child repeated the word, her large dark eyes dilating as if with some hidden awe. "Mon père," she said almost in a whisper, "it is so long—always, for ever. Do you mean that I am never, never to see you again?"

He looked at her curiously. In his old way he was analyzing. He was trying to understand the sudden emotion that had blanched the little one's cheek and brought that look of awe into her eyes. It was not the first time that this vague terror of the unknowable had taken possession of this strange child's mind.

She shivered slightly as, standing by her friend's side, she reasoned out the matter with herself: "Mon père, what does it mean? To-day ends, and to-morrow will end; and this year and next year, and every year, I suppose, till we die; and then—after then—there is heaven and for ever—always, always, for ever. I can't understand it. Oh, mon père, is it true?" The child was in an agony. This was the mental torture that had, several times, racked her brain.

"And," she added under her breath, with the look and tone of one treble her age, "in all this for ever—so long, so long—I must not see mon père any more."

It was L'Estrange's turn to tremble. Rapidly as in a dream the remembrance came of that first day when for his own purpose he had implanted into the little one's mind thoughts and ideas too great and strong for one of her years.

"Mon Dieu!" murmured the stricken man, "and must it always be thus? I only love to blight and poison."

"Laura," he answered aloud—and his voice was grave and earnest—"you take things too much to heart. Try now to understand me, little one. Words have a certain meaning of their own, but people may give them too much meaning or too little. When ma fillette is older she will know that 'always' may sometimes mean a day, a week, a year—sometimes indeed this for ever of which she speaks so earnestly, but very, very seldom. Look up, petite. My always is not at all so very terrible. All I mean is this: you must go back home with your own father, and leave your friend here. See! I have made a letter be written to Paris, to the person whom you will remember there. Marie will come and help me to move to her little house; then if ever ma fillette comes to Paris she will know where to hear of her old friend."

"Oh, please let me have it," cried the child. She took the letter from the hand of L'Estrange, sat down before the table, and copied the address, letter by letter, in her large childish handwriting, her friend spelling it over for her that there might be no mistake. Then she folded up the paper and clasped it in both hands. "Mon père," she said, "I will never lose it."

In the practical action Laura's dreamy fears had fled. Hope, the hope of a young child, reasserted itself once more. "I will show it to mamma," she said, "and we'll come together to see you; then perhaps—"

She was interrupted by a knock at the door. Her father was outside waiting for admittance.

As might have been expected, Maurice Grey had lost no time in making all needful preparation for their journey to England. He was in a fever of anxiety to be moving once more, to be on his way to his injured wife, to assure himself of her forgiveness and continued love. And there had been certain points in the story told by Arthur which had alarmed him. Margaret's poverty: the thought of this gave him perhaps the keenest pang he had experienced. He could not understand it, for, as has already been seen, Maurice Grey was not exactly to blame for this; but in his after review of all the circumstances he blamed himself bitterly for what he now looked upon as his own weak-minded folly in preserving this total silence. He had thought of his own pain in the event of all his fears receiving fatal confirmation, and his wife, so tenderly reared, had been suffering.

Then her delicacy, the sudden collapse of her powers. The thought of this was almost too hard to be borne, for if—if there should be disappointment before him—if he could never ask her forgiveness for the cruel wrong he had committed, never hold her again to his heart, never let her know how deeply through it all he had loved her—the man felt as if it would be better even to die himself. The bare idea maddened him.

He would willingly have cut through the air to reach her, and the necessary delay chafed his spirit. Since the moment of their return to the hotel the Englishman had been busy in making every preparation for departure.

Happily for him, the season had not yet entirely closed. Sledges would have to be used in various parts of the journey, and guides and drivers would probably require to be highly feed; but this was a matter of very small import. All he desired was speed. Arthur seconded his efforts ably. As the diligence had ceased running between Grindelwald and Interlachen, and the steamers no longer made their daily journey on the lake, a visit to Interlachen had been necessary, that special arrangements might be made as well for this as for their further journey; the railway connecting Thun with Berne had not then been completed.

It was arranged that Arthur should act as courier, preceding them to Thun to have relays prepared, and that Maurice should return to Grindelwald for Laura.

The child had not seen him since their journey through the snow from his solitary chalet in the mountains. She was a little shy of this new father, though inclined, as she had expressed herself to L'Estrange, to think that she should love him.

The fact was, that Laura, too much given to reason upon every point, could not quite reconcile to herself his love for her mother and his long absence. This had tormented the little one considerably during these last days. She took his caresses that morning very calmly. She would have run away then and left her father and friend alone together, but L'Estrange detained her. She obeyed his gesture and sat down again by his side.

Maurice drew her toward him, "Laura," he asked, "are you ready to come home?"

"Now?" said the child, "at once?"

"You want to go back to mamma, Laura?" he said gravely.

The child stood silent, trembling from head to foot. She was afraid to show what she felt before her father.

"Come," said Maurice, "we must thank your friend who has been so kind to you, and say good-bye to him."

Laura looked at L'Estrange. The proud face was turned to the wall. Weak as he was, he would yet show nothing before Maurice Grey. She went close up to his side. He motioned her away from him, and the heart of the little child could bear no longer. "Mon père will die if I go away," she cried piteously. She covered her face with her hands and began to cry. It was difficult for Maurice to know what to do. The child's tears made him feel perfectly helpless. He was not accustomed to little ones, and he felt inclined not only to wonder, but to feel rather angry, at the strange power this man, her mother's bitterest enemy, had gained over the child's mind.

He answered her with a man's impatience. Like others, he forgot for the moment, in her strange womanliness, that Laura was only a little child. "My dear Laura," he said sternly, "I must have no more of this. Leave off crying at once, and do as I tell you. Say good-bye to Mr. L'Estrange, find your cloak and hat and come with me. I have told the maid to put your things together, and a sledge is waiting at the door."

Her father's voice checked the child so suddenly that the moment he had spoken he reproached himself for having spoken too strongly.

She left off crying at once, looked up with a pale, resolute face, and went into her own room to get ready for the journey. Then, when the scarlet cloak and hood had been put on by the sympathetic Gretchen, Laura returned and stood once more beside her friend.

"Papa," she said, turning to Maurice, "I'm quite ready, and you may go down now. I shall come presently. Please, I want to say good-bye to mon père alone."

Maurice could not have been more astonished if he had suddenly seen his little daughter put on her womanhood than he was at this calm demand. He even hesitated a moment. But the little one stood her ground.

Laura's instincts had told her what it was that had made her friend so suddenly cold and distant. She could not leave him without one more kind word; then, on the other hand, the presence of her father, and his stern forbidding of her ready tears, prevented her from letting her friend see some at least of the love and gratitude that filled her small heart.

Maurice looked at the tiny figure and smiled: "My daughter has her father's will. Well, little one, I suppose I must give in this time. It is natural, perhaps, that you should feel this, only don't be too long about your adieus."

He turned to L'Estrange, thanked him for his kindness to the child, asked if he could do anything for him before he went away; then, when the question had received a decided negative, bade him a courteous farewell.

Once more, and for the last time, the child and the man—the child so near heaven in her simplicity, the man world-weary and travel-stained—were left alone together, and now the little one felt that it was really for the last time.

He turned his face toward her. She threw herself down on her knees by his side, sobbing convulsively. "Mon père," she cried piteously, "is it for ever?"

For a few moments he was silent. In the sorrow of parting from this only creature in the world who purely loved him, the memory of that night when God's peace had been shed abroad in his soul, when the tumult of his heart had been stayed by the consciousness of a presence above and around him, returned to his mind. He was alone and hopeless no longer. "Little one," he answered, drawing her soft cheek to his, "you must look for me there—in heaven."

"I will, I will," answered the sobbing child, for heaven at this moment seemed near and real to her.

She was about to rise, but he drew her down again: "Laura, remember, if I go there ever it will be through thee. My child! my child!"—his voice broke down suddenly—"the great God bless thee, now, every day of thy life, and even for ever!"

A knock at the door; the child's father was becoming impatient. Laura rose, kissed her friend once more, smoothed his bed-clothes as she had been accustomed to do, then turned away, choking back her sobs. The little one could not trust her own father yet. She was afraid he would be angry. She did not dare to look back at the door: she went, and L'Estrange was left alone.

The excitement had been almost too much for him in his weak state. That night L'Estrange thought that he would die. They were very kind and attentive to him in the hotel, did everything that could be done to lighten his sufferings, but all he wished was to be left alone, that he might die in peace. He was mistaken, however, as he had often been before. This stroke did not mean death. A few days after Laura's departure he was able to sit up, a day or two later he was trying to teach his left hand to do the duties of the right, and before a fortnight had passed his friend from Paris had arrived.

Sorely in those days of enforced solitude he had missed his little comforter, but Marie's bright, helpful presence did much toward restoring him. He recovered in time to a certain measure of health and strength, and yet the man was changed.

The spirit that had faced the world's storms, that had made joys for itself wherever fate had thrown him, was broken down. He had no aims, and to begin again his life of wandering seemed desolate beyond measure.

Perhaps his intercourse with Laura, and that parting which had wrung both their hearts, had stung him in this: it had brought before his mind the torment of that "might-have-been" which lurks in the background of pleasure and self-seeking to seize upon the remnant of a wasted life. It was his retribution, the portion he had prepared for himself, but none the less was it bitterly hard to be borne.

L'Estrange never regained his former vigor of body or strength of mind. He spent the rest of his life in wandering, for no ties held him to any particular place, and he was restless.

He wrote to Margaret as soon as ever he had acquired sufficient power over his left hand (the right remained for some time comparatively helpless). The letter was a pouring out of his heart, a confession of her wrongs. He took no merit to himself for having been instrumental in restoring her to happiness. He only offered this as a proof of his sincerity, he only asked for a line to let him know he was forgiven.

They never met again; indeed, L'Estrange did not live very much longer, but his end was peace.

"After the burden and heat of the day,
The starry calm of night."

---

[CHAPTER IX.]

THE NEST IS EMPTY.

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the year
On the earth, her deathbed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.

One evening—it must have been in the month of November, when the days had grown short and the nights long, when the autumn winds whistled bleakly and the waves were given to lashing the shore—a young girl sat alone at the window of a room which only the red fire and flickering twilight redeemed from total darkness. She was looking out, gazing with dreamy eyes that saw very little of that upon which they were apparently fixed, at the desolation of the world that lay outside. And yet that desolation was writing its impress on her brain, giving to the inner life the images of dreary hopelessness that belonged for the moment to the outer.

The young girl scarcely saw the leafless giants shivering in their nakedness, or the leaden clouds driving restlessly over the sky, or the dark sea moaning, plunging like a mighty thing tied down—a power compelled by a higher power to miserable inaction; yet these things were with and around her; they helped to call that deep look into her eyes, to cause the impatient sigh that escaped her now and then. Inside, there was nothing to disturb her meditation. In the room and in the house was an utter stillness. It was the stillness of watchers engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with man's last and darkest foe. For that struggle had been going on in the little house during three or four long days and nights, and now, at last, a lull had come. The patient slept.

Poor Adèle! It could scarcely be matter for wonder that her cheek looked pale and her blue eyes deep, that impatient sighs broke from her, that she was ready to sympathize with the gray desolation of a winter night. For Adèle had been passing through a time of anxiety such as she had never before experienced.

Margaret dying, Arthur gone—no word, no line to let them know the fate of the wanderers—no possibility of being able to give the sufferer the news for which her soul was craving—nothing in all the here and hereafter but vague uncertainty, but cruel delay.

And Adèle, in the bitterness of her spirit, had begun to doubt about everything. It had been so hard to watch the patient sufferer, to know that in any moment she might be the prey of death—that the pure, noble life, worn away by sorrow, might pass into the invisible without one gleam of light to cheer it on its progress; it had been so hard to listen in the sombre light of the sick room to the passionate ravings of the faithful wife, and to realize the utter impossibility of bringing her that for want of which her life was waning.

These things preyed upon Adèle's mind. In the darkness and solitude, in the suspension of immediate anxiety, her heart sank, her spirit began with itself humanity's dreary questioning.

Everywhere, everywhere—in the angry cries of the young child, in the quiet sorrow of those of riper years, in the patient sadness of the aged, in the pallor of young faces—it can be read—the why that rises evermore to Heaven, the great mystery of human woe. Shall it be answered one day? Ah, who can doubt it? Else were we wretched beyond compare.

The why was in Adèle's heart that evening, welling up from its innermost depths, proving itself too strong and terrible for her young brain to fathom. And still she sat there, her arms folded and her pale face looking seaward, thinking, thinking.

Once or twice she turned to look at her companion. Margaret was on the sofa. For the first time since that attack of brain-fever which had so terrified her devoted nurses she was dressed, and her dress was of the soft, pale material which Maurice loved.

They had been afraid of the fatigue, for Margaret was very ill. Emotion, anxiety, suspense had told upon her to such a degree that at last her life had been despaired of.

For three days her mind had been wandering. Such strange, pathetic wandering it was that often and often tears had poured down the cheeks of those who watched over her. But early in this evening her senses seemed suddenly to return. There came a light into her eyes; she sat up and looked round her. And then she insisted upon being dressed and taken into the little parlor. They could not refuse her, though the old woman shook her head ominously. "It's well to be seen," she whispered to Adèle, "what the end of it a' will be. Puir leddie!" and she wiped her eyes, "the sair heart hae dune it. Humor her bit fancies, bairnie; 'twill be the same, ony gait."

Weeping in spite of herself, Adèle obeyed the old nurse. They dressed Margaret with minute care, combed the waving hair—short now, alas!—from her white forehead, put on her the trailing lavender-colored dress and the pretty lace ruffles, wrapped the Indian scarf round her shoulders, and laid her down, exhausted but happy, on the parlor sofa.

She thanked them with her gentle smile, gave a sigh of intense contentment; then, after a few moments, fell into a quiet, healthy sleep.

It was this sleep which Adèle had been watching in the dark room until, so quiet and peaceful had been the sleeper's face, the tension on her watcher's nerves was partially relaxed. She turned from that earnest gazing at the pale face, so beautiful in its pure outlines, to look at the outside world—to think and dream and hope. For in the heart of the young hope is ever rampant. It is only when years of experience have shown hope's futility that the radiant companion forsakes the soul. Forsakes! Ah, in thousands of instances scarcely forsakes—rather takes a higher ground, shows a larger prospect. In the dreariness of wintry age hope is still busy, gilding not the transitory here, but the lasting beyond.

Adèle had not reached that stage of experience. Her young heart, though ready at times to look forward even to that shadowy beyond, was yet very busy with the here, the sweet earthly happiness which all young humanity is earnestly craving.

That evening there seemed very little to feed her persistent hopefulness. Another day and yet another, with no line from Arthur, the consciousness of his devotion, of his thoughtful affection, making his silence the more strange and ominous; winter in its dreary desolation looking in at her from sea and land, telling loudly of the difficulty—even perhaps the danger—of travelling; the life of her friend waning, passing in its miserable famine of all that makes a woman's joy. These were the gloomy thoughts with which the hopefulness of the young soul struggled that evening.

For a few moments they overpowered her. In a dark phalanx rose before her mind tales of sorrow and wrong; pallid faces passed her by, tones of bitter misery rang in her ears. She covered her face with her hands. "They are the many," she cried, "the great multitude! Why should any think to be happy? God help us! for this is a dreary world." The words were spoken half aloud, for in the momentary despair she had forgotten everything but this—the aching of her own heart, the sadness of a hope-forsaken world.

She was aroused by a slight rustling among the leaves outside.

The house was very solitary, and the lonely women had more than once experienced that nervous terror which shudders at a sound and sees an intruder in every shadow. However, they kept nothing of great value in the house, and they had hitherto had no real cause for uneasiness. But Adèle in all her night-terrors had never heard anything so meaning as this stealthy rustling among the branches. She leaped to her feet and peered out into the night. This time she had not been deceived. At the gate there was a vision of fluttering garments. Adèle thought she recognized the form that was passing out into the night. With blanched face and trembling limbs she flew, rather than ran, across the room. It was almost too dark to see, but feeling on hands and knees the young girl discovered, to her horror, that the sofa was empty. Those fluttering garments were Margaret's. An access of fever had come on. In its delirium she had rushed out to meet certain death in the cold and desolate night.

For a moment Adèle was almost paralyzed by this new misfortune—fruit, as she told herself bitterly, of her own carelessness; then gathering her wits rapidly together, she threw a shawl round her head and rushed out in pursuit of the fugitive. She did not even wait to let the landlady and the old nurse know of their patient's flight. Time was the great consideration. Margaret might be stopped and brought back before any serious mischief should have happened.

And thus it came about that the two elder women, who were in the lower part of the house enjoying a cup of tea and a chat, in the pleasant relaxation of that anxiety which had been oppressing them all, knew nothing whatever of the strange commotion, of the mysterious flight of the two younger, for whose safety either of them would have staked her life.

The little parlor was deserted, the red fire flickered and waned, the door of the house stood open, through the dark hall the wind whistled and shrieked; while all the time, outside in the darkness, by the shores of the moaning sea, life and death, reason and madness, love and folly were carrying on their fierce, impatient strife.

---

Had Adèle waited for one more moment, she might have been startled by another sound. Scarcely had she left the little house, wild with anxiety, to discover and bring back her friend, before there came from the direction opposite to that she had taken the sound of horses' hoofs that echoed through the silent night.

For this was what had been happening in the mean time. A carriage had been driving as rapidly as a very poor horse could take it in the direction of the cottage. Inside it were a young man and a child, neither of whom spoke a word for the intensity of their outlook into the night.

A horseman rode beside them, and at times it seemed as if his impatience could scarcely be restrained, as if it were impossible for him to suit himself to the slow movement of the carriage.

There was a cry at last from the child, which the horseman heard. He half stopped and bent over her, then rose again erect and vigorous, for the little hand had pointed out his goal, and the dark spot, still in the distance, but faintly showing against the background of sea by the solitary lamp that shone before it, was the shrine that held his treasure. A moment, and Maurice Grey was tearing wildly along the road. Would that faint light ever grow nearer? Maurice was wont to say in after years that those minutes spent in rushing through the darkness were the longest he had ever known.

But the longest minutes have an end. The panting horse was drawn up at last before the solitary lamp. Blindly and madly, not thinking of what might become of it, Maurice threw himself from his saddle, burst open the little garden-gate, and trying, but in vain, to steady his trembling nerves, walked up the path.

But as he looked at the cottage his fierce pace slackened, and a sudden horror seized him, for in its dreary solitude it looked like death.

Maurice stopped for a moment. The heart of the strong man, the heart that had borne so much, beat violently. He thought he must have fallen to the ground, but gathering himself together he pressed forward, trying to reassure his coward heart.

"They are in the back part of the house, of course," he muttered. The door of the cottage stood wide open. "Strange," he thought, "on so cold a night!"

Noiselessly the husband, who was a stranger in his wife's house, passed into the little hall, and still that sickening silence, that dreariness of solitude, met him. A faint light glimmered from the remnants of the parlor-fire. He peered into the room; it was dark and seemingly empty. Maurice struck a match and looked round him. The red ashes, the position of the chairs, the tumbled covers, the crushed sofa pillow, all told of recent occupation; and indeed the two fugitives could scarcely have gone many yards from the house. As he gazed the haggard face relaxed. Crossing to the sofa, he stooped and pressed his lips to the pillow, for something told him that Margaret's head had been there. But his match died down; he was left again in darkness.

"Was anything stirring," he asked himself, "in this house of death? Where was she the traces of whose presence he was finding in the deserted room?"

He decided to remain there for a moment. It could not but be that before many moments should pass the music of her voice would meet his ears, and then he could discover himself. But waiting met with the same fate as searching. Not a sound, not a breath broke the stillness. It was a strange coincidence. In the very room, by the very spot where the deserted wife, the bereaved mother had thrown herself down, almost lost, even to herself, in her anguish, he stood, he waited, his heart sinking with vague dread, his spirit fainting in its sickening suspense, the man who had deserted her, the husband who had misunderstood, who had lightly judged her.

The first sound which met Maurice's ear was the rattling of the wheels that announced the approach of his companions. He rose and went to the door of the room. Surely this new sound would be heard. In the little hall, on the narrow staircase, he might catch the fluttering of her dress. Before she knew of his coming he might clasp her in his arms.

As the little Laura sprang from the carriage, and danced rather than walked along the path, up the steps, through the hall, the driver rang the outside bell with some violence, and this at last proved effectual. Maurice's hungry ears detected movement, but it came from below. There was the sound of chairs being pushed back, of steps on the lower passages and stairs.

The fact was this: Jane and the old nurse, worn out by nursing and anxiety, having ascertained that Margaret was sleeping calmly, had allowed themselves to be beguiled by the pleasant fumes of tea and the kindly warmth of the kitchen fire into giving way themselves. During Margaret's flight and Adèle's pursuit, during the arrival of Margaret's husband and the subsequent drawing up of the carriage, they had been sleeping, one on each side of the kitchen fire.

Jane was the first to be aroused—the first, that is to say, to gain full possession of her senses, for the violent ringing of the outside bell had startled the old woman so much that at first she scarcely knew where she was. Jane got up at once, straightened her sprightly figure, smoothed her hair and apron and struck a light. "Who in the world may it be?" she muttered indignantly: "I'd be bound it's one of them boys. The mistress just gone off too, and frightening her out of her wits. Them sort hasn't got a spark of feeling about them."

She walked leisurely up the stairs with her candle, and opened the door that led into the hall. She had scarcely done so before a blast of wind sweeping through the hall put it out. In the next moment her arm was seized, she was dragged into the semi-light outside and confronted with Maurice's fierce eyes. For while Jane was preparing herself to answer the importunate bell the child had been up and down; she had opened the door of the different rooms, all well known to her; she had come down trembling and weeping to say that they were dark and empty, and where—where was mamma?

There was reproach in the wailing cry; in her rapid journey, in her enforced separation from L'Estrange, in her weariness, in her childish sorrow, this had been the one consolation: at the end of it she should see her mother, she should rest in her arms. And now, when the end had come, when the home so intensely longed for had been found, the promised remained unfulfilled.

The blow to Laura was all the more cruel that it was utterly unexpected. No sad forebodings had crossed her young mind. She had pictured the little parlor and the lighted lamp and her mother's gentle face and open arms, and then the rest in those arms, the telling out of her pent-up woes.

The cottage had been found, but within it was only empty darkness. Laura threw herself down on the sofa, and her wailing cry reached the ears of her father as he dragged the landlady out into the light: "Mamma has gone, and mon père is dead." That and his own disappointment made him almost mad for the moment. Seizing Jane by the shoulder, he shook her roughly as he looked down into her white face: "What have you done with her, woman? Speak, or by Heaven I will make you!"

---

[CHAPTER X.]

LAURA AND HER FATHER.

Oh, there is never sorrow of heart
That shall lack a timely end,
If but to God we turn and ask
Of Him to be our Friend.

It was an awful moment for the bewildered landlady. The wildness of the night, the mystery of that empty room, the violence of the disappointed man, brought vividly to her mind that other night when, but for the interposing power of God, her hands might have been imbrued with the ineffaceable stain of crime. It had passed, it had been forgiven, but in this moment, her senses scarcely awake, the suddenness and mystery around her, it seemed almost as if the deed had been done, as if the accuser were before her.

Instead of answering she cowered and shrank, while Maurice in his agony, without ever relaxing that vice-like grasp, repeated his fierce inquiries. "You know; I can read it in your coward face. Great God, give me patience!" And as he spoke he shook her roughly, making the poor woman all the more powerless to utter a word.

Only a few moments had passed, but they seemed ages to them both, before Arthur came out among the trees. His face was very pale, for in the interval the old woman had been telling him all that had happened—at least all she knew. It appeared that they were totally unexpected, for although both Maurice and Arthur had written to announce their arrival, in the uncertainty of the winter-post from Switzerland they had preceded their letters.

The continued suspense after Mrs. Churchill's cheerful presence was withdrawn had been too much for Margaret to bear up against, but her sudden disappearance was as much of a mystery to the old woman as it had been to them; she connected it, however, with her illness, and the conclusions she drew were very gloomy. In the whole circumstance there was only one ray of hope—Margaret's faithful friend was with her, as Adèle was missing too. But how had she allowed her to leave the house? why had she not called for assistance?

Arthur, as he went out to meet the disappointed man, felt hope sink down in his heart. But though pale and sad his face was resolute. It would be necessary to act, and to act at once. Taking Maurice by the arm, he drew away from his grasp the terrified woman. "Mr. Grey," he said, "listen to me. Your wife is out there in the night. Be calm or nothing can be done. My cousin is with her."

Maurice gave a sudden start. "What? how?" he gasped.

"I tell you," replied the younger man, "you must command yourself. She has had a dangerous fever; it may be delirium—no one knows. In any case they must be instantly followed. We certainly did not pass them in the direction of the station. Take you the road to the sea; I with Martha will go inland. Mr. Grey, do you hear?" for Maurice was staring wildly about him.

"In the night, by the sea," he muttered, staggering blindly against the wall.

Arthur was in despair. This was worse than all; how could he make him understand? But at that very moment help came from an unexpected source. A little soft hand was put into that of the bewildered man, large spiritual eyes looked up into his face. Laura had heard the last words. Her father's emotion had for the first time brought him near to her.

"Dear papa, you will find mamma. Come!"

He submitted to the leading hand, walked with the little one down the garden-path to the gate, outside of which the saddled horse was standing, quietly cropping the wayside grass.

The fearless child caught the bridle and put it into her father's hand. Then first Maurice seemed to understand what was wanted. He took the bridle from the child's hand and stooped to kiss her on the brow. "Pray for us, Laura," he whispered—"your father and mother."

A moment, and the good horse was spurred forward again, this time on the sandy road that led down to the sea.

Happily, the moon came out from a rent in the clouds.

The child looked up. "He will see mamma," she whispered; then, as the horseman disappeared behind the trees, her strong little heart failed.

She threw herself down on her knees in the wet grass by the garden-gate, and clinging to its posts poured out her sorrow: "O God, save mamma. O God, bring her back to Laura."

It was the landlady who found her there.

After her first terror about the strange events of the evening, Jane vaguely remembered to have caught a glimpse of the little one, and her first thought was to search for her in every direction, for she was alone in the house, Nurse Martha having at once started off with Arthur to look for the wanderers.

She found Laura at last by the garden-gate, and in spite of resistance carried her in to the warm fireside, for, practical in the midst of her excitement, Jane had rekindled the parlor fire, and it was blazing merrily.

"Miss Laura, my dear, think what your mamma will say if you're ill too; and you know you'll be ill if you stay out in the cold."

This made her submit at last to be wrapped up warmly and laid on the parlor sofa. It was well for her. The fatigue and subsequent excitement, the exhaustion of her sorrow, and the pleasant warmth combined to cause a drowsiness that could not be restrained.

Laura forgot all her troubles. While the fate of her parents still trembled in the balance she slept childhood's unbroken sleep, and Jane was set free to run up to her own little charge, who had been aroused by the commotion and was crying out for her lustily.

She found him so excited that as it was impossible to divide herself between parlor and bedroom, she thought it well to wrap him up warmly and bring him down.

The bright fire was as effectual with Willie as it had been with Laura. Jane laid him down on the sofa, and the hard, unsympathetic woman felt her eyes grow dim and her heart soft as she watched the quiet sleep of the little ones—the one round and rosy as the day, the other pale, with a troubled look even in sleep, but fair as one of God's angels.

---

[CHAPTER XI.]

UNITED AT LAST.

One moment these were heard and seen—another
Past; and the two who stood beneath that night,
Each only saw or heard or felt the other.

Adèle had been swift—swift as the wind. Instinctively in her rapid departure she had chosen their favorite road, that which led down to the sea, but at first it seemed as if all her efforts were destined to be in vain. The fluttering garments had disappeared; on the white road, stretching away into the distance, was no sign of the wanderer.

Choking down the horror which possessed her, the young girl tried to collect her senses. A few moments ago their patient had been sleeping so peacefully that their fears had been set at rest, they had believed her out of danger; now—Adèle was inexperienced, but rapidly in her despair old stories of disease, madness, delirium, unnatural strength crowded in upon her mind.

What if at last the long anguish had destroyed the fair mind? What if a dull horror was to swamp their hopes for ever? If—if—She dared not look this last woe in the face. Impulsively she pressed on, her trembling limbs endowed with a new strength, her young heart breathing out its resolves upon the night: "I will save her—I. Great God, in Thy mercy help me."

She had come to a turn in the road. Rounding it, she made an eager bound forward, for there through the darkness she could distinguish at last the outlines of Margaret's form.

Pressing her hands to her head, Adèle tried to think. If only the old nurse had been with her, or their landlady! How was she to act? how in her single strength to arrest and bring back the fugitive?

Yet there was something in Margaret's gliding movement which made the girl think rather of somnambulism than of delirium. If this should be the cause of her flight Adèle knew that a sudden awakening might possibly be dangerous to health or reason.

Struggling with her terror, trying to come to some right conclusion, she at last reached her friend. Close by was a little path which Adèle and Margaret know well. It led off from the road, through a wilderness of stunted grass and tangled weeds, to the sea.

Here Margaret paused a moment, as if in hesitation. During that moment's pause Adèle looked at her fixedly. The young girl's last suspicion had been true. By the wide-open, sightless eyes, by the groping of the hands, by the soft, continuous murmuring of the lips, she saw her friend was asleep.

Straining her ears, she distinguished through the moaning wind and sobbing sea some of the words that were falling from Margaret's lips. "Which way?" And then groping forward, with that blind, pitiful movement of the hands, "To the sea? Cold, so cold, but," with a smile that made Adèle weep, "Maurice is there."

As she spoke, Margaret turned into the winding path, and Adèle shivered. What awful dream was bewildering her brain?

Throwing her arm gently round the sleeper, she tried to draw her back to the road.

"Maurice is here," she said in a tone as dreamy as her own; "come."

To her intense relief, Margaret obeyed her guidance, the shore was left behind, they were passing on to their quiet home; but the relief was transient. Scarcely had they lost sight of the sea before Margaret stopped—the bewildered look returned to her face—there began that dark, dreary groping of the hands. "I have lost him," she cried in a voice pitiful as a child's wail, and turning once more she pressed forward to the sands with a swift-gliding step. What could the young girl do? In her powerlessness the tears rolled down her face.

Her arms were still round her friend, but she did not dare to constrain her. "Margaret," she whispered pleadingly, her lips close to her friend's ear.

Quietly Margaret turned her pale face, over which a strange, sweet smile was beaming. "Coming, my beloved," she answered softly.

They had left the grass and tangled weeds behind them; they were treading the soft yellow sands; behind them was the warm earth, touched by the light of a young crescent moon, set like a silver bow in the parting clouds; before them, dark and hungry, roaring evermore like a monster chained, lay the awful sea.

Adèle groaned. If indeed a conflict were before them, she wished it had taken place above, while those terrible waters were comparatively distant, and Margaret was now pressing forward as though they were her goal. "Margaret, my darling! for pity's sake awake!" she cried in her desperation.

But Margaret only answered the voice of her dream. Again came that strange, sweet smile—again her lips moved: "Coming, Maurice, coming." Then, as Adèle with all her force tried to drag her back to the path, "Patience, my beloved!" and as she spoke the young girl felt in her quiet resistance the strength of madness.

Lifting up her heart in a passionate prayer for help to the one Being who seems in these awful moments near and real to weak humanity, Adèle made another effort. "Margaret!" she cried, and the ring of her young voice sounded clear above the tumult of wind and waves—"Margaret, listen to me."

Had she been understood at last? Was the terrible moment over? Certainly her voice had pierced the films of sleep. Into the fixed eyes came a sudden meaning. Margaret shivered, and pausing in her mad flight looked before her wildly. But not yet was the danger over—rather it was prolonged and intensified. The quiet somnambulism had given place to the worst kind of delirium.

With a shriek Margaret threw her hands above her head and tore herself free from the detaining grasp. "Maurice!" she cried in the strange exaltation of this madness. "I saw him there—they shall keep me from him no longer. Beloved, wait for me; I am coming."

One despairing glance Adèle threw around her; no human being was in sight; she felt numb and powerless, while the frail being, the faint pulsations of whose ebbing life they had been watching through those anxious nights and days, seemed endowed suddenly with a giant's strength. Sobbing convulsively, Adèle threw herself upon Margaret, and seizing her by the waist dragged her backward with all her remaining strength. A moment of struggle; then she felt herself being borne along the sands, her arms still round Margaret, but all her weight as nothing in comparison with this fierce energy of disease. Cooler and damper blew the wind, nearer and nearer came the sound of beating waves; at last the light foam began to sprinkle their faces; yet the faithful girl would not loosen her grasp—rather she would die with her friend.

A moment, and memory, grown acute in the death-agony, showed her pleasant scenes and soft home-pictures, children's faces, blazing fires, fair poetic dreams of beauty and use, Arthur and the to-come which was to have been so bright,—all to pass away for ever in the pitiless suction of those on-creeping waves.

Another moment, and she felt the crawling foam about her; a wave fell thundering even at their feet, throwing over them its cold salt spray; and the young girl moaned. There would still be time to escape, to return to life and its warm beauty. Would she draw back? A thousand times no. In the numbing of every faculty, in the passing away of every joy, that grasp of the slender arms grew only the mightier. She would save her friend if she could. If not, all she had left was to die with her. Like a black cloud that wave hung over them. What delayed its onward sweep? Adèle used to say afterward that it was a miracle, for if it had fallen they were lost, beyond the possibility of salvation.

But while they stood, their feet in the foam and that ominous cloud above them—for Margaret's impetuous rushing had ceased, and Adèle lacked power to drag her backward—there was a shout, a cry. Another of those long moments, and a strong arm was extended; they were drawn on to the dry sands, and even as they stood there shivering the mighty wave fell, sucking back into the watery waste that lay beyond the treacherous foam where their feet had been. Margaret fell back unconscious, while Adèle for the moment scarcely thought either of her or their preserver.

As she felt the solid ground beneath her feet and the cool air around her she fell on her knees. "Saved, saved!" she cried, and the labored hysteric sobs showed how terrible her excitement had been.

But then came other thoughts. Had they escaped the sea only to meet worse dangers? Who was this deliverer? She turned round to look at him. By the light of the moon, which still struggled through the clouds, she was able to see his face. There was about it a wildness that seemed to confirm her worst fears, and his arms were about Margaret—he was gazing into her face.

She did not seem to be aware of it. She was all but inanimate, for, although not alive to the terrible danger of her situation, Margaret had been exhausted by the struggle.

The sight aroused Adèle. Though her knees were trembling under her from fatigue and exhaustion, though her bosom was heaving with sobs that refused to be choked down, the brave little champion had still a work to do. Her friend was helpless; she must defend her.

Adèle got up, and showing a pale but resolute front touched the stranger on the arm. He turned to her with a sudden start and muttered apology for his neglect; he did not seem to have been aware of her presence, and as she caught a nearer view of the dark face, lined with suffering, convulsed with emotion, some suspicion of the truth began to dawn upon her mind.

A flutter of hope, more exciting than all the previous agitation, nearly choked her; the dignified little sentence in which she had intended, while thanking him for his timely assistance, to rebuke his presumption and recall him to a sense of his duty as a man and a gentleman, died away on her lips; she could only stammer out incoherently, "Who are you? For pity's sake tell me!"

The dark eyes which had been scanning the pale calm beauty of Margaret's face were turned on her. "I am her husband," he said simply; his voice trembled, he spoke with difficulty. "And you have saved her," he added softly. But this Adèle scarcely heard. She had turned away. She was passing as fast as her wearied limbs could carry her along the path that led to the road. She would leave them alone together, and—the cottage held her Arthur.

---

They were united at last. By the shores of the surging sea, the desolate night around them, they stood together, and at first, so overpowering were the emotions that swept over the man's soul, he could think only of this—that they were together, that she was in his arms, safe from harm and danger—that once more he was gazing into her face—a face so calm and pure that even in this moment Maurice cursed himself for not having understood better the strong purity, the beauty, the loveliness of the soul it revealed.

After the delirium which had so nearly been fatal a great calm had fallen upon Margaret. With the touch of Maurice's hand, with the encircling of his arms, the unrest seemed to have fled. She did not look up, apparently she did not know him; but her eyes closed, her breathing became soft and regular, she lay back in his arms contentedly, like a weary child that has found its resting-place.

In times of intense feeling a life seems to be condensed into a moment. Scarcely more than a moment had Maurice been holding her to his throbbing heart before he recovered from his stupor to a knowledge of the necessity for immediate action.

The winds of the wintry night were beating about his darling. She was ill, unconscious, it might be dying. Her clothes were drenched with the sea-foam that had besprinkled them in their wild flight, her hair, damp with the night vapors, was clinging about her face, the shoes in which she had started from the cottage had been carried out to sea, the delicate lavender dress and soft lace ruffles with which she had adorned herself that she might look fair in the eyes of the husband she had gone out to meet in her delirium, were torn in the struggle that had taken place, were bespattered with mud and sea-sand. It was not in such a plight as this that Margaret had thought of presenting herself to the long-absent. But when does anything in this world correspond with those same dreams and ideas of ours? In Maurice's eyes she was fair—perhaps all the fairer for her weakness. Hastily he took off his fur-lined cloak and wrapped it round her, then he raised her in his arms to carry her up the road.

This time the horse had been tethered. Maurice had caught sight of the light dresses in the moonlight just at the moment when Adèle had succeeded in arousing Margaret from the dangerous sleep, and there had been a moment's hesitation. Totally unprepared for the impetuous rush upon the sea, he had taken the precaution, before following the fugitives on foot, of tying up the horse, that it might be ready for any emergency.

He was glad he had done so, for the emotion of that evening seemed to have affected his physical power. Under the weight of his wife, his recovered treasure, he staggered and almost fell.

Margaret remained unconscious, and Maurice fervently hoped that for the moment she would continue in the same state. He was fearful of the effect upon her mind of a sudden awakening in his arms: but it was not to be. Just as they reached the point of junction between the path and high-road a faint tremor convulsed her; she opened her eyes and turned them on the dark face that was stooping over her.

Maurice was afraid the delirium was about to return; but gazing at her anxiously he saw, to his astonishment, that there was no bewilderment in her eyes; only, as she met her husband's gaze, she glided from his arms, and before he knew what she meant to do she was kneeling at his feet on the moonlit road. Her hands were clasped, her pale face looked haggard in its earnestness. "Maurice! Maurice, forgive me!" she cried.

At the sight of her husband the memory of that one moment of weakness had flashed over her soul with such a bitter force that until his forgiveness had been gained, she could not forgive herself.

But Maurice! If an angel had knelt to him he could scarcely have been more astonished. In his agitation he seized her almost roughly, and raising her from the ground pressed her once more to his breast, while the hot tears fell on her face and neck.

"Margaret, you will kill me! Beloved, it is I who should kneel—I who should make my life one long repentance."

Then she twined her arms about his neck and laid her head upon his shoulder, but she was not altogether satisfied. To the craving of her weakness his answer was like an evasion: she persisted in her demand: "You are good to me, dear, but you have not answered. Tell me, tell me! Is my miserable folly forgiven?"

"Margaret, for pity's sake—" he began.

But she stopped him, and in her look and tone there was some of the wildness of disease. "I see how it is," she moaned; "he is too kind to say it, but I know my folly was beyond forgiveness. Have I not felt it? O God! O God! pity!" Her voice sank into a moan. Her head fell heavily on her breast: she began to cry plaintively, like a child that has been crossed in its whim.

They were close now to the spot where the horse had been tethered; the moon shone brightly above them; their dark shadows made a blot on the whiteness of the moonlit road. Maurice paused a moment, and the drops of agony stood on his brow.

He felt the urgent necessity for getting her home with as little delay as possible, but in the state in which she was he dared not put her out of his arms. He bowed his head over her till his cheek touched hers: "Be comforted, my wife, my own—mine now and for ever. Forgive you?—yes, yes." And then looking up he turned his pale face to the skies, as if calling Heaven for a witness to his extremity: "I have forgiven her—I who wronged her, who tortured her, who vexed her pure soul by mistrust! God preserve my reason!"

But Margaret took his answer to her heart. She smiled again, the wildness left her eyes, and a deep, restful calm took its place. She said no more, but for the first time since their meeting by the waters she pressed her lips to his.

Without demur she allowed him to lift her into the saddle and to support her with his one hand, while with the other he took the bridle and led the horse at a quick walk to the cottage, which was about half a mile distant from the little path that led down to the sea.

Before they had gone very far Margaret had relapsed into total unconsciousness, and Maurice was obliged to mount the horse himself, taking her before him on the saddle.

Meanwhile, Adèle had reached the cottage, just in time to stop Arthur and the old nurse from starting on another fruitless search.

As the horse with its double burden paced along the road, she and her cousin, their arms lovingly intertwined, stood at the gate of the cottage-garden waiting for its approach out of the shadows. They were together and alone—Nurse Martha and the landlady being busy indoors, making everything ready in Margaret's room, for the young girl had told her tale of horrors, and they feared it would be impossible for Margaret to survive so much.

But Adèle had seen her calm face, and she answered the doleful prophecies of the nurses by a smile: "You'll see, nurse; our Margaret will soon be better now."

They had been extremely anxious to seize the young girl, after her breathless entry and thrilling tale, and put her to bed as an invalid, but Adèle decidedly refused submission. The sight of Arthur was like a tonic to her trembling nerves. She would only allow her poor little wet feet to be dried and warmed by the parlor fire, close to which the children were still sleeping, and her wet clothes to be changed. As to shutting herself out from Arthur when she had just found him, it was simply cruel to ask it.

She was the heroine of the moment, for although her own tale had barely done justice to the self-forgetfulness with which that terrible struggle had been conducted, they yet heard enough to know that in her faithful devotion she had risked her own life, and Arthur, the old woman, the landlady looked upon the young girl with a new respect.

"What did you think of, Adèle," asked her cousin as, wrapped up warmly, she stood clinging to him by the garden-gate—"what did you think of when that ugly wave was so close to you?" Doubtless, Arthur knew what the answer would be. Of course the heroine had thought about her hero. How could it possibly have been otherwise?

"Dear," she replied softly, and the ready tears flowed down her cheeks, "I thought of you, and how miserable and lonely you would be. Margaret gone, and—and—"

"My Adèle gone," he said very softly, filling up the pause.

And then—ah yes—and then all kinds of foolish things no doubt were said and done, for these young people were, as it will be seen, very young, and what is more very much in love; and as we all know the kind of things, perhaps it is scarcely necessary to put them down in black and white.

Black and white is not the dress for lovers' nothings, especially the sweet almost childish nothings that would flow from lips like Adèle's and Arthur's. They should be written in such colors as the blushing east can give, inscribed by the pen of one of God's angels.

For young as Adèle and Arthur were, they knew what they were doing. They had passed through the hand of the Great Instructor, so terrible in His aspect, so wise, even loving, in His ways of dealing with weak humanity. In the furnace of suffering their hearts had been tried, and they knew how to value their happiness, how to prize one another.

---

[CHAPTER XII.]

A LONG SLEEP.

O wind!
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Everything was ready in Margaret's room—warm blankets, steaming cans of water, hot fomentations, cordials of many a different kind—for her nurses were afraid that the unconsciousness of which Adèle had spoken might, after her previous excitement, be very difficult to conquer. They were surprised, then, when Maurice at last carried her in and laid her down, to find that she bore every appearance of being wrapped in a quiet, healthy sleep; indeed, so convinced was her husband that this, and this only, was the cause of her unconsciousness, that he would allow no means to be used for her restoration, at least until the morning, when the doctor from the neighboring town had already promised to look in upon them.

Nurse Martha shook her head. There was something mysterious about it all. "Who ever heard," she asked Jane in whispers, "of a body sleeping awa' that gait, and she in a dangerous fever that had wellnigh ta'en her life?"

But in spite of protest Maurice's wishes were obeyed, Margaret's wet things were removed as quietly as possible by the experienced old woman, and she only stirred once during the process. Her husband watched her sleep that night. Kindly but peremptorily he sent everyone away, and sat himself by his wife's side, counting the very pulsations of her heart as the hours of the night passed by. The old nurse and the landlady (they had insisted upon sending the younger people to bed) watched by turns during the night in the little parlor adjoining the bedroom, for neither of them had much belief in the efficiency of this new care-taker. But no sound came from the room where the husband was watching the death-like repose of her he had wronged and deserted, the woman who was suffering, as he told himself bitterly, for his uncomprehending folly. Once or twice during that long watch he grew alarmed, the rest was so deep; but putting his ear to her heart he heard the pulsations, faint yet regular, and he was comforted.

So the night went by, and in the morning he could no longer keep his treasure to himself; they would all come in to know how she was, to watch and wonder. The little Laura was the first to creep into the room. She had been told on the preceding night that her mother had been found, but was too ill to see her—that she would doubtless be better in the morning. Submitting to the inevitable had become a habit with Laura. She had allowed herself to be undressed and put to bed, but very early, in night-dress and bare toes, she made a voyage of discovery to find out where her mamma could be.

When, as she softly opened the door of Margaret's room, the little child saw her father sitting dressed on a chair by the bedside, and her mother, so white and silent, in the bed, she stopped suddenly, trembling from head to foot. Laura had heard of death, though she had never seen it, and this solemn hush, this silent watching, struck like a chill upon her heart; she turned very pale, and seemed half afraid to cross the room, but her father called her: "Mamma is asleep, darling; come here and see her." He took her up and laid her down on the bed beside Margaret, telling her to be very still. Laura scarcely required the warning. She crept close to her mother. The strange child could not have spoken at that moment, she was so absolutely content. And Maurice had to turn away from her searching gaze; he would not have his child see that tears were gathering in his eyes at the sight of them together—the mother and child united one to the other, given back to his arms.

But still that sleep went on, and all but Maurice grew uneasy. The doctor came in at a tolerably early hour, but went away again after giving utterance to a few commonplaces. It was evident that he was puzzled. He asked repeatedly whether any narcotic had been given to her, and when he was answered in the negative shook his head ominously. She had better, he said, be left to herself; it might possibly be dangerous to arouse her. Nature in some cases was the best guide; he would call again.

The hours of the day passed by—morning, noon, evening, and still Maurice watched, and still he hoped, while still there was no cessation of that death-like trance. Evening passed into night, and all but Maurice gave up hope. They were allowed to come into the room and share the watch, for there was not one in the little house who did not enter deeply into the anxiety. The night deepened, and still no sign of life from the sleeper. Adèle's cheeks became pale and her eyes red with frequent weeping; this seemed so desolate an ending to their hopes and anxieties. On the child's young face the shadow deepened. She had found her mother, but that mother was deaf to her little one's voice, unconscious even of her presence; the old nurse's gestures grew more and more mysterious, only Maurice retained his quiet confidence.

The hours of the night passed by; none of them would go to bed. If those eyes were ever again to open, each one wished to be the first to hear the joyful news. The night waned, and even Maurice grew restless. His face resumed the old haggard look; oftener and oftener he applied to her lips the testing mirror, which still at each trial gave the answering dimness. The night passed into morning, the night-lamp showed a yellow flame, the white dawn began to struggle with the darkness; only Laura and her father were in the room. The child was watching her mother's face, Maurice had turned away to draw up the blind; perhaps the breaking of the morning-light might arouse the sleeper; they were afraid as yet to use stronger means. Suddenly the child gave a cry. He looked hastily at the bed; Margaret was in the same position. There was the same death-like immobility of face, the same rigidity of attitude.

But Laura's eyes were rapt and eager. "Mamma moved, she will soon awake," she cried, and before her father could stop her she had danced out of the room to proclaim the joyful news.

Adèle was dozing on the parlor sofa, Arthur was pacing the room restlessly. He saw the light in the little one's eyes and stopped. Laura to Arthur was a kind of prophet, a superior being.

"Mamma will soon awake," she said, and passed on to tell the old nurse, who was in the kitchen preparing restoratives of various kinds, for she had made up her mind that some means would have to be used to break this death-like sleep.

Adèle had heard the child's voice. She started from the sofa. "Let us go to her," she cried, and Arthur and she went into the room together.

They were joined after a few moments by the child, the nurse, the landlady, all eager to find the happy news confirmed.

The child was right. Margaret was certainly waking. The death-like stillness had gone from her face, her hands moved, she sighed now and then.

Maurice hung over her, breathless in his anxiety; he would meet her first glance. Adèle and Arthur stood together at the foot of the bed; the child had crept on to it, and lay very silent close beside her mother. It seemed a long time that they waited there together, but when the end came it was like a shock to them all.

A shiver convulsed her, her eyelids quivered; slowly she raised them, and first fixed her eyes upon her husband, then looked in a bewildered, half-frightened way about the room.

Maurice raised her on his arm. "Margaret," he whispered, and she looked at him again.

"Is it morning?" she asked, and when he had answered in the affirmative, "I knew it would come," she said, then lay silent, smiling calmly.

Evidently as yet she did not know where she was, and Maurice was perplexed.

Adèle came to the rescue. Motioning to him to give up his place, she stooped over her friend. "Margaret darling," she whispered, "Maurice has come, and little Laura and Arthur."

The familiar face and well-known voice seemed to arouse her. "It is not a dream, then," she said. "No," for the little Laura's clasping arms were about her neck, "my child is here, and Maurice; I thought I saw him last night and that he forgave me. Was it true, Adèle?"

Her voice sank, for she was very weak, but the old nurse came forward with a cordial, which restored her so much that her mind began gradually to take in all that had happened.

Later in the day they dressed her and laid her down once more on the parlor sofa. Until then she had not spoken much, she had been in a quiet, passive state, but with the familiar surroundings a full sense of the reality of her dream-like happiness seemed to come to her. The first person for whom she asked was Arthur.

In his boyish timidity he had vanished as soon as ever he had become certain that she was really awake. Adèle found him and brought him into the room. Margaret held out her hand. "How can I ever thank you, my best, my most untiring friend?" she said.

And then—for he seemed as if he did not know how to answer—she drew Adèle toward her and joined their hands.

"You will be happy," she said smiling—"perhaps all the happier for this. Maurice"—he was sitting close beside her, his arm round her shoulders—"we shall be happier too, for if God will we shall understand better." Her voice sank, she looked dreamily over the sea: "Morning is all the fairer for the black night that goes before. Dear, we should thank Him even for our darkness."

THE END.