:

his heart sank lower, lower. Upon her brow was the impress of suffering. Something in the fall of her eyelids spoke of utter weariness, something in the lines of her mouth, of that inward sickness which wears the life away. Suddenly she moved, and spoke. He bent his head, and caught the words:

"Never hereafter to wake or to weep—' He recognized the quotation; yet he shuddered.

"So you are here? That's quite unnecessary," said Cissy's voice behind him: "I beg you'll go again—Ah! I thought I should find her asleep."

66

Cissy, how delicate Gabrielle looks!" "Fearfully delicate," assented Cissy, with a thrill of vicious delight: "Exactly as though she were going into a consumption. And I believe she is."

He turned passionately upon her.

"What right have you to say that—and in such a flippant tone? Is it a thing to be talked of lightly? as if"

He paused, and bit his lip: his voice had failed.

At this moment, with a little sigh, Gabrielle awoke. James, taken unawares, had no time to turn away. She had read of a look like this which now met hers; she had never seen one, before. She did not start, or colour she only drank it in, as though she were dreaming. She forgot for the instant her own identity; forgot everything but those dark eyes, and their depth of unutterable love.

Suddenly she remembered; blushed crimson; and rose from her chair.

"Cissy, I have been asleep, I think. I hardly knew where I was."

"No; you are tired. Sit down

again."

It was James who spoke: his tone very

gentle, very low.

She obeyed, she sat down, strangely happy. He poured out a glass of wine, with his own hand; he bent, and gave it to her. "You will feel better, when you have drunk this," he said:"Cissy-take care of her."

And he was gone, as though he could trust himself no longer.

"When the night is darkest, the dawn is nearest." Only a few minutes ago, how dark had Gabrielle's night appeared! and now, when she least expected it, light was Whether real dawn, or merely a transitory ray, she did not know. But one thing she did know. One fact that look had revealed.

come.

"He does love me," she said to herself, as she sank back among the cushions. "I can't understand it. I can't tell why

he is like this. But he does love me." The bitterest drop in her cup of trouble had passed.

And James?

James had taken refuge in the cold silence of the chapel. There, alone, save for the passionless monuments, the oaken angels, the saints on the stained windows; his agony might give itself vent.

"It cannot be that she loves me . . . has

loved me all this time

that I have

I have gone too far to recede. . . .

. Oh, my

God-Oh, my God !"

108

CHAPTER V.

Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways, Where if I cannot be gay, let a passionless peace be my lot.

And most of all would I flee from the cruel madness of love, The honey of poison-flowers, and all the measureless ill. ALFRED TENNYSON.

AMES, as he left the chapel, felt that he

JAMI

was degraded. He mounted his horse, and rode slowly away: pondering this degradation. Every moment revealed to him his own conduct in a more despicable light. When he had fancied himself highest, grandest, he had been playing the part of a villain of an egotistical villain. He had closed his eyes to Gabrielle, and had opened them only to himself. His own aspirations,