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this night, to one room-that smaller room within the rest, just now enumerated. Seen from the hall, where a lamp was feebly burning, through the dark perspective of open doors, it looked as shining and precious as a gem. In the heart of its radiance sat a beautiful woman-Edith.

She was alone. The same defiant, scornful woman still. The cheek a little worn, the eye a little larger in appearance, and more lustrous, but the haughty bearing just the same. No shame upon her brow; no late repentance bending her disdainful neck. Imperious and stately yet, and yet regardless of herself and of all else, she sat with her dark eyes cast down, waiting for some one.

No book, no work, no occupation of any kind but her own thoughts, beguiled the tardy time. Some purpose, strong enough to fill up any pause, possessed her. With her lips pressed together, and quivering if for a moment she released them from her control; with her nostril inflated; her hands clasped in one another; and her purpose swelling in her breast; she sat, and waited.

At the sound of a key in the outer door, and a footstep in the hall, she started up, and cried "Who's that?" The answer was in French, and two men came in with jingling trays, to make preparation for supper.

"Who had bade them do so?" she asked.

"Monsieur had commanded it, when it was his pleasure to take the apartment. Monsieur had said, when he stayed there for an hour, en route, and left the letter for MadameMadame had received it surely?"

"Yes."

"A thousand pardons! The sudden apprehension that it might have been forgotten had struck him;" a bald man, with a large beard from a neighbouring restaurant: “with despair! Monsieur had said that supper was to be ready at that hour: also that he had forewarned Madame of the commands he had given, in his letter. Monsieur had done the Golden Head the honor to request that the supper should be choice and delicate. Monsieur would find that his confidence in the Golden Head was not misplaced."

Edith said no more, but looked on thoughtfully while they prepared the table for two persons, and set the wine upon it. She arose before they had finished, and taking a lamp, passed into the bed-chamber, and into the drawing-room, where she

hurriedly but narrowly examined all the doors; particularly one in the former room that opened on the passage in the wall. From this she took the key, and put it on the outer side. She then came back.

The men-the second of whom was a dark, bilious subject, in a jacket, close shaved, and with a black head of hair close cropped-had completed their preparation of the table, and were standing looking at it. He who had spoken before, inquired whether Madame thought it would be long before Monsieur arrived?

"She couldn't say. It was all one."

"Pardon! There was the supper! It should be eaten on the instant. Monsieur (who spoke French like an Angel—or a Frenchman-it was all the same) had spoken with great emphasis of his punctuality. But the English nation had so grand a genius for punctuality. Ah! what noise! Great Heaven, here was Monsieur. Behold him!"

In effect, Monsieur, admitted by the other of the two, came, with his gleaming teeth, through the dark rooms, like a mouth; and arriving in that sanctuary of light and color, a figure at full length, embraced Madame, and addressed her in the French tongue as his charming wife. "My God! Madame is going to faint. come with joy!" The bald man with the and cried out.

Madame is overbeard observed it,

Before the words

Madame had only shrunk and shivered. were spoken, she was standing with her hand upon the velvet back of a great chair; her figure drawn up to its full height, and her face immoveable.

The

"François has flown over to the Golden Head for supper. He flies on these occasions like an angel or a bird. The baggage of Monsieur is in his room. All is arranged. supper will be here this moment." These facts the bald man notified with bows and smiles, and presently the supper came.

The hot dishes were on a chafing-dish; the cold already set forth, with the change of service on a side-board. Monsieur was satisfied with this arrangement. The supper table being small, it pleased him very well. Let them set the chafingdish upon the floor, and go. He would remove the dishes

with his own hands.

"Pardon!" said the bald man, politely. "It was impos

sible!"

Monsieur was of another opinion. He required no further attendance that night. "But madame ".

the bald man hinted.

"Madame," replied Monsieur, "had her own maid. It was enough."

"A million pardons! No! madame had no maid!" “I came here alone," said Edith.

"It was my choice to do so. I am well used to travelling; I want no attendance. They need send nobody to me."

Monsieur accordingly, persevering in his first proposed impossibility, proceeded to follow the two attendants to the outer door, and secure it after them for the night. The bald man turning round to bow, as he went out, observed that madame still stood with her hand upon the velvet back of the great chair, and that her face was quite regardless of him, though she was looking straight before her.

As the sound of Carker's fastening the door resounded through the intermediate rooms, and seemed to come hushed and stifled into that last distant one, the sound of the Cathedral clock striking twelve mingled with it, in Edith's ears. She heard him pause, as if he heard it too and listened; and then come back towards her, laying a long train of footsteps through the silence, and shutting all the doors behind him as he came along. Her hand, for a moment, left the velvet chair to bring a knife within her reach upon the table; then she stood as she had stood before.

"How strange to come here by yourself, my love," he said as he entered.

"What!" she returned.

Her tone was so harsh; the quick turn of her head so fierce; her attitude so repellant; and her frown so black; that he stood, with the lamp in his hand, looking at her, as if she had struck him motionless.

"I say," he at length repeated, putting down the lamp, and smiling his most courtly smile, "how strange to come here alone! It was unnecessary caution surely, and might have defeated itself. You were to have engaged an attendant at Havre or Rouen, and have had abundance of time for the purpose, though you had been the most capricious and difficult (as you are the most beautiful, my love) of women."

Her eyes gleamed strangely on him, but she stood with her hand resting on the chair, and said not a word.

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"I have never," resumed Carker, seen you look so handsome, as you do to-night. Even the picture I have carried in my mind during this cruel probation, and which I have contemplated night and day, is exceeded by the reality."

Not a word. Not a look. Her eyes completely hidden by their drooping lashes, but her head held up.

"Hard, unrelenting terms they were!" said Carker, with a smile, "but they are all fulfilled and passed, and make the present more delicious and more safe. Sicily shall be the place of our retreat. In the idlest and easiest part of the world, my soul, we'll both seek compensation for old slavery."

He was coming gaily towards her, when, in an instant, she caught the knife up from the table, and started one pace back. "Stand still!" she said, "or I shall murder you!"

The sudden change in her, the towering fury and intense abhorrence sparkling in her eyes and lighting up her brow, made him stop as if a fire had stopped him.

"Stand still!" she said, your life!"

66 come no nearer me, upon

They both stood looking at each other. Rage and astonishment were in his face, but he controlled them, and said lightly, "Come, come! Tush, we are alone, and out of everybody's sight and hearing. Do you think to frighten me with these tricks of virtue ?"

"Do you think to frighten me," she answered fiercely, "from any purpose that I have, and any course I am resolved upon, by reminding me of the solitude of this place, and there being no help near? Me, who am here alone, designedly? If I feared you, should I not have avoided you? If I feared you, should I be here, in the dead of night, telling you to your face what I am going to tell?"

"And what is that," he said, "you handsome shrew? Handsomer so, than any other woman in her best humour?"

"I tell you nothing," she returned, "until you go back to that chair-except this, once again-Don't come near me ! Not a step nearer. I tell you, if you do, as Heaven sees us, I shall murder you!"

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"Do you mistake me for your husband? he retorted, with a grin.

Disdaining to reply, she stretched her arm out, pointing to the chair. He bit his lip, frowned, laughed, and sat down in it, with a baffled, irresolute, impatient air, he was unable to

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