the very ones that had fed his youth? How everything was yet warm from his touch! how his presence yet lingered! how much of his life had passed into the dim beauty of the place! How each fresh waft from the blooms without came drowned in fine perfume, laden with delicious languor! What heaven was there! and, ah! what heaven was yet possible there! Something that had flitted from the table in the draught, and had hovered here and there along the floor, now lay at her foot; she caught it absently; it was her letter. To snatch it from its envelope, and so tear it the more easily to atoms, was her first thought; but as suddenly she paused. Was it hers? Though written and sealed by her hand, had she any longer possession therein? Had she more authority over it than over any other letter that might be in the room? Absurd refinement of honor! She broke the seal. Yet stay! Was there no justice due to him? That letter which had been read long before the intended time, whose delivery any accident might have frustrated, whose writer might have recalled it, -did it demand no magnanimity of reply on her part? Had he now no claim to the truth from her? As she knew what he never would have told her an hour later, had she a right to recede from the position she had taken in response, simply because she could and he could not? Should she ignobly refuse him his right? Whether this were a sophism of sin or the logic of highest virtue, she, who would have blotted out her writing with her heart's blood, did not wait to weigh. "To him, also, I owe a duty!" she exclaimed, dropped the letter where she had found it, and fled,-fled, hurrying through all the bewildering garden-walks, down from the fragrance, the serenity, the bowery seclusion, from all this conspiring loveliness that tempted her to dally and commanded her to stay,- fled from this dream of passion, this region of joy,-fled forever, as she thought, out into the wide, chill, lonely night. Pushing off the boat and springing in, once more the water curled beneath the parting prow, and she shot with her flashing sail and hissing wake heedlessly, like a phantom, past another boat that was making more slowly in to shore. "This way, Helen," murmurs a subdued voice. "There are some steps, Mr. Laudersdale. Here we are; but it's dark as Erebus. Give me your hand; I'm half' afraid; after that spectre that walked the water just now, these shadows are not altogether agreeable. There's the door, - careful housekeeper, this Mr. Raleigh! I wonder what McLean would say. Don't believe he'd like it." "What made you come, then?" asks Helen, as they step within. "Oh, just for the frolic; it was getting stupid, too. I suppose we've ruined our dresses. But there! we must hurry and get back. I didn't think it would take so long. He can't manage a boat so well as Roger," adds Mrs. McLean, in a whisper. "I We shall "Goodness!" exclaims Helen. can't see an inch of the way. certainly deal devastation.” "I've been exploring a mantel-shelf; here's a candle, but how to light it? Haven't you a match, Mr. Laudersdale?” That gentleman produces one from a little pocket-safe; it proves a failure, — and so a second, and a third. "This is the last, Mrs. McLean. Have your candle ready." The little jet of flame flashes up. "Quick, Helen! a scrap of paper, quick!" "I don't know where to find any. Here's a billet on the floor; the seal's broken; Mr. Raleigh don't read his letters, you know; shall I take it?" "Anything, yes! My fingers are burning! Quick, it's the last match! There!" Helen waves a tiny flambeau, the candle is lighted, the flame whirled down upon the hearth and trodden out. "I wonder what it was, though,” adds Mrs. McLean, stooping over it. "Some of our correspondence. No matter, then. Now for that Indian mail. Here, -no, "There isn't this the article? John says it's pitiful stuff, not to be compared with Virginia leaf. Look at this meerschaum, Mr. Laudersdale; there's an ensample. Prettily colored, is it not?" "Now are you coming?" asks Helen. "Would you? We've never been here without my worshipful cousin before; I should like to investigate his domestic arrangements. Needle and thread. Now what do you suppose he is doing with needle and thread? Oh, it's that little lacework that Mrs. Sketches! I wonder whom he's sketching. You, Helen ? Me? Upside down, of course. Yes, we may as well go. No, it's Come!" And in the same breath Mrs. McLean blows out the candle and precedes them. Mr. Laudersdale scorns to secure the sketch; and holding back the boughs for Miss Heath, and assisting her down the steps, quietly follows. Meantime, Mrs. Laudersdale has reached her point of departure again, has stolen up out of the white fog now gathering over the lake, slipped into her former place, and found all nearly as before. The candles had been taken away, so that light came merely from the hall and doorways. Some of the guests were in the brilliant dining-room, some in the back-parlor. Mr. Raleigh, while Fate was thus busying herself about him, still sat motionless, one hand upon the sofa's side, one on the back, little Rite still sleeping on his knee. Capua came and exchanged a few words with his master; then the colored nurse stepped through the groups, sought the child, and carried her away, head and arms hanging heavy with slumber. Still Mr. Raleigh did not move. Mrs. Laudersdale stood in the window, vivid and glowing. There were no others in the room. "Where is Mrs. McLean?" asked Mary Purcell at the door, after the charade in which she had been engaged was concluded. "Gone across the lake with Nell and Mr. Laudersdale for a letter," replied Master Fred Heath, who had returned that afternoon from the counting-room, with his employer, and now sauntered by. 66 Congratulations, and a recommendation of Mrs. McLean's cousin to her good graces,” he said. "Oh, it was not Helen's, then?" "No." "My young gentleman 's not in good humor to-night," whispered Mrs. Heath to Miss Purcell, with a significant nod, and moving off. "How did you know what was in Mrs. McLean's letter, Sir?" asked Mary Purcell. "I conjectured. In Mrs. Heath's place, I should have known." "There they come !-you can always tell Mrs. McLean's laugh. You've lost all the charades, Helen!" They came in, very gay, and seemed at once to arouse an airier and finer spirit among the humming clusters. Mr. Laudersdale did not join his wife, but sat on the piazza talking with Mr. McLean. People were looking at an herbal, others coquetting, others quiet. Some one mentioned music. Directly afterward, Mr. Raleigh rose and approached the piano. Every one turned. Taking his seat, he threw out a handful of rich chords; the instrument seemed to diffuse a purple cloud; then, buoyed over perfect accompaniment, the voice rose in that one lovesong of the world. What depth of tenderness is there from which the "Adelaide does not sound? What secret of tragedy, too? Singing, he throbbed through it a vitality as if the melody surcharged with beauty grew from his soul, and were his breath of life, indeed. The thrilling strain came to penetrate and fill one heart; the passionate despair surged round her; the silence following was like the hand that closes the eyes of the dead. Mr. Raleigh did not rise, nor look up, as he finished. "How melancholy!" said Helen Heath, breaking the hush. please; but I, for one, detest melancholy! Don't you, Mrs. Laudersdale ?" Mrs. Laudersdale had shrunk into the shadow of the curtain. Perhaps she did not hear the question; for her reply, that did not come at once, was the fragment of a Provençal romance, sung,—and sung in a voice neither sweet nor rich, but of a certain personal force as potent as either, and a stifled strength of tone that made one tremble. "We're all alone, we're all alone! The moon and stars are dead and gone, "What care have we, though life there be? Tumult and life are not for me! Silence and sleep about us creep: "How late it is since such as this Her voice yet shivered through the room, he struck a chord of dead conclusion, the curtain stirred, she emerged from the gloom and was gone. Mr. Raleigh rose and bade his cousin good-night. Mrs. McLean, however, took "All music should be melancholy," said his arm and sauntered with him down he. "How absurd, Roger!" said his cousin. "There is much music that is only intensely beautiful." the lawn. "I thought Capua came with you," she remarked. “He returned in a spare wherry, some time since," he replied; and thereon they made a few paces in silence. "Intense beauty at its height always drops in pathos, or rather the soul does in following it, since that is infinite, the soul finite." "Nonsense! There's that song, Num- thought Helen was a coquette. ber Three in Book One". "I don't remember it." "Well, there's no pathos there! It's just one trill of laughter and merriment, a sunbeam and effect. Play it, Helen." Helen went, and, extending her hands before Mr. Raleigh, played a couple of bars; he continued where she left it, as one might a dream, and, strangely enough, the little, gushing sparkle of joy became a phantom of itself, dissolving away in tears. "Oh, of course," said Mrs. McLean, "you can make mouths in a glass, if you "Roger," said the little lady, taking breath preparatory to wasting it, “I I've changed my mind. The fault is yours." He turned and looked down at her with some surprise. "You know we haven't much more time, and certainly”. "That might have been advisable." "Don't be offended now, Roger!" "Is there any reason to suppose her to suppose me some one who, deceived by the false light, did not know the end to be so near, and walked forward firmly and confidently. Indeed, the quay had been erected in Mr. "Yes, there!" replied Mrs. McLean, Laudersdale's absence. The water was desperately. He was silent a moment. "Good God, Kate!" said he, then, clasping his hands behind his head, and looking up the deep transparence of the unanswering night. "What a blessing it is that life don't last forever!" "But it does, Roger," she uttered under her breath,- terrified at his abrupt earnestness, and unwitting what storm she had aroused. "The formula changes," he replied, with his old air, and retracing their steps. The guests were all gone. Helen Heath was eating an ice; he bent over her chair and said, deep there, the bottom rocky. Shout and warn him of his peril!" urged a voice in Mr. Raleigh's heart. "Let him drown!" urged another voice. If he would have called, the sound died a murmur in his throat. His eyes were on the advancing figure; it seemed as if that object were to be forever branded on the retina. Still as he gazed, he was aware of another form, one sitting on the quay, unseen in shadow like himself, and seeing what he saw, and motionless as he. Would Mrs. Laudersdale dip her hands in murder? It all passed in a second of time; at the next breath he summoned every generous power in his body, sprang with the leap of a wild creature, and confronted the recoiling man. Ere his foot touched the quay, the second form had glided from the darkness, and seized her husband's arm. "A thousand pardons, Sir," said Mr. Raleigh, then. "I thought you were in danger. Mrs. Laudersdale, good-night!" It was an easy matter to regain the boat, to gather up his oars, and shoot away. Till they faded from sight, he saw her still beside him; and so they stood till the last echo of the dipping oars was muffled in distance and lost. Summer-nights are brief; breakfast was late on the next morning, or rather, Mrs. Laudersdale was late, as usual, to partake it. "Shall I tell you some news?" asked Helen Heath. She lifted her heavy eyes absently. Mr. Raleigh trimmed the Arrow's sail, for the breeze had sunk again, and swept slowly out with one oar suspended. A waning moon was rising behind the trees, it fell upon the little quay that had been built that summer, and seemed with its hollow beams still to continue the structure upon the water. The Arrow floated in the shadow just beyond. Mr. Raleigh's eyes were on the quay; he paused, nerveless, both oars trailing, a cold damp starting on his forehead. Some one approached as if looking out upon the dim sheet,— for India." "Mrs. McLean has made her husband a millionnaire. There was an Indian mail yesterday. Mr. Raleigh read his letters last night, after going home. His uncle is dying,-old, unfortunate, forlorn. Mr. Raleigh has abandoned everything, and must hew his own way in the world from this day forward. He left this morning |