persuaded Mrs. Forrest to follow her example; but she left her own maid with the invalid, with orders on no account to leave her for a moment. The maid felt the task somewhat irksome, but she obeyed her mistress in a certain degree; and though she varied her occupations by going from the young lady's chamber into the dressing-room, by reading scraps out of different books that lay about, and by examining every article of Edith's wardrobe, she did not even think of absolutely quitting the apartment till the bell rang for the servants' supper. For several hours Edith remained tolerably quiet and perfectly silent; from time to time, indeed, tossing on her couch with feverish heat, but uttering no complaint, and only asking for something to allay her thirst. Towards nine o'clock, however, as the medical man had predicted, the delirium began to return, and for about half an hour she talked a great deal in a rambling and incoherent manner, of her father, and Sir Andrew Stalbrooke, and Lady Mallory; and seemed to fancy that the scene which she witnessed in the morning was still going on in her room.

Before ten o'clock Edith sunk, as it seemed, into slumber, and the maid, when she perceived that such was the case, was seized with a longing for a little relaxation. Almost at the same time with the desire, as usual, came a temptation to gratify it, for the door quietly opened, and the stillroom maid, as she was called, appeared with the housekeeper's compliments to Mistress Margaret, and couldn't she come down just for a minute to supper, for there was such a nice dish of sweetbread in the housekeeper's room.

"Tell her I'll just come down in a minute," said the maid, "but I can't stay when I do come."

Thus saying, she walked on tiptoes to the side of Edith's bed, saw that she was in reality sleeping, and then stole out of the room, leaving the door ajar behind her, and persuading herself that she should hear if the young lady wanted anything, though the housekeeper's room was quite at the other end of the large building.

CHAPTER XV.

THE illness of Edith, and the reports that he heard thereof from Lady Mallory, had, of course, greatly added to the pain and anxiety of Ralph Strafford; and although a little note from his uncle on the Sunday morning, and another on the evening of the same day, had fanned up again the flame of hope in his bosomthe more strongly, inasmuch as he knew that Sir Andrew was truth itself, and on no account or consideration whatsoever would even insinuate a thing that he was not perfectly sure of yet his state of uncertainty with regard to Edith, and that longing anxiousness which we feel to be present with those that we love in sickness, to watch their every look, and mark every turn of their ailment, wore and distressed him even more than the care and grief he had previously suffered.

Each night, as soon as the sun had set, he bent his steps towards Mallory Park, and there, hanging about the woods or wandering through the slopes of the ground, he would watch the windows, and torment his own heart by manifold unsatisfactory imaginings.

Throughout the whole of the day of the funeral, however, he had been, of course, more than ordinarily gloomy and desponding; shut up in his solitary chamber, he had thought of all that was taking place without as consequences of the deed he himself had done. He pictured to himself the agony of Mr. Forrest, who, he had learned, was to attend the funeral; his bitter grief for one on whom he had so fondly doted; the carrying the body to the grave; the solemn service of the dead; the casting the first earth upon the hollow coffin; the feelings which every act would produce in the mind of the uncle or the father; and he thought of death as he had never thought before. He pictured to himself, or, rather, memory pictured for him, the form of the dead man as he had seen it, lying cold, rigid, meaningless, when but a few minutes before he had beheld it instinct with life, activity, and passions. He felt what an awful thing it is to sever the fine mysterious tie which unites the soul to its earth

ly companion; to dissolve the bond that God's hand has created; to send the spirit burdened with all its unrepented sins before the throne of Justice, and dismiss the weak but beautiful creature of earth to foul corruption in the dark grave. He had seen thousands of mortals like himself lie dead upon a field of battle; he had aided to pour out blood in the strife of nations, but he had never felt feelings like these; he had never regarded the dead with such thoughts as now, when he recollected that the deed had been done in an individual struggle, man to man and hand to hand, with all the fierce personal emotions of single combat.

All these thoughts and feelings oppressed him much. He received no tidings of Edith during the day, and at night, when he went forth to wander round the dwelling she inhabited, he felt as if some tidings of dark grief were about to reach him, some bitterer stroke than any yet endured was to fall upon him. The night was somewhat chilly, and he wrapped round him a cloak which he had procured from the castle; while, wandering slowly on through the dim woods that led towards Mallory Park, he waited for the hour at which he might expect to hear something from the lady of the mansion, which would either confirm or relieve his apprehensions. To prevent his steps from being traced, he usually leaped the palings of the park instead of entering by one of the lodges; and now having done so, he bent his steps towards the house without the fear of meeting any one.

The moon had not yet risen; low, gray, mysterious vapours hung about the dells and amid the trees, and there was nothing to be heard or seen but an occasional rustle in the branches over his head, or the filmy form of a large bat, whirling close round and round him as he

went.

The side of Mallory House which he approached was that towards which the windows of Edith's chamber were turned, and all was dark except where, from those windows, stole forth the dull and shaded light of the nightlamp. After remaining, and listening, and gazing for some time, he struck his watch, and found that it still wanted a quarter to ten.

"They did not come till near eleven last night," he said; and, after pausing for a minute or two more, he turned again into the wood, and wandered on thoughtfully for some little time. But his impatience soon

mastered him, and he turned upon his steps again to keep his watch before the house.

Leaning by an old fountain-which, having fallen partly into decay, had been left by Lady Mallory in the same picturesque state in which she had found it when she came the bride of an old man to that hall-Strafford stood and looked up towards the house, thinking, alas! not of her, but of Edith Forrest. It was the hour in which imagination seems to have the greatest power upon us, when the coarser world of reality is veiled by the robe of night, and when the universe of fancy appears more peculiarly open before us, to take whatsoever colouring the mind's mood may cast upon it. Doubt not, then, that the light in which Ralph Strafford saw it was gloomy and evil. He thought of Edith; of her he loved so dearly and so tenderly; of her so fair, so beautiful, to whom he was fond to fancy that a harsh word could never be applied; whose fine and graceful frame seemed fitted alone for tenderness and care; whom he had hoped to watch over, to guard, to defend; from whose eyes he longed to wipe away all tears; whose lip he hoped to see smiling through life with light like that of a long summer's day; whose bosom he had thought to fill with hope, and happiness, and remembered joy. He thought of her, and painted her to himself withering under her father's harshness, separated from him she loved, stretched upon the bed of sickness, without a memory but pain, without a comfort in the present, without a hope in the future; the soft tints of her delicate cheek faded away to ashy paleness, the light of her blue eye dimmed or extinct, the healthful rounded limbs prostrate and unhinged in the restless languor of fever.

He was not far from the spot where he had parted with Lady Mallory two evenings before; but he was a little to the westward, where the woods of the park, sweeping away, left room for the eye to pass over a sloping variety of undulations down to the extreme horizon, so that the moon was comparatively earlier seen on that spot than where the deep masses of the trees upon the hills lay between the house and the eastern sky.

Strafford's eyes were turned towards the Hall, indeed; but, as he gazed and communed with his own thoughts, he saw, in the clear water that filled the old basin of the fountain, the edge of the yellow moon

rising slowly up, reflected in the clear mirror which nature offered to it. It was lovely though sad, and seemed to Strafford like the memory of a dead friend.

He bent down his eyes upon it for some minutes, and when he raised them again to look towards the house, he suddenly saw a figure in white approaching rapidly towards him from the terrace. The steps seemed to waver and to stagger as it came, but the heart of Strafford beat with strange and unaccountable expectations At that distance and in that dim light his eyes could serve him but little to distinguish who the person that approached was, but yet a greater degree of agitation took possession of his bosom at that moment than any other sight had ever produced in life. It was like a vision, a dream, an idle, insane fancy; but yet he could not free his mind from the thought that it was Edith whom he saw. For a few instants he remained almost motionless; but then, unable to resist his feelings, he sprang forward to meet the figure that approached.

It came on straight and rapidly, and every moment his conviction became more and more strong. The moon shone full upon the face; she held out her arms towards him; he darted forward, and in a moment Edith was clasped to his heart.

Strange and extraordinary were his sensations, however. Everything was unaccountable. She was dressed in her night clothing; a thin dressing-gown, through which he could feel the warm and feverish blood beating against his bosom, seemed to have been cast over her in haste; the feet that were in the small slippers were otherwise bare; and while for a moment or two she remained panting in his arms, with the speed with which she had come, Strafford's mind was filled with the strangest and wildest imaginings.

"Save me, Strafford!" she cried at length. "Save me! save me! He will follow me here if you do not save me! He is cursing me now; do you not hear him? he is cursing me now. He came and stood by my bedside and shook me by the arm, and cursed me again. Hark! do you not hear him? Take me away! oh, take me away!"

"Whither should I take you, dearest Edith?" demanded Strafford, now terribly convinced that she had quitted the house in the delirium of fever.

"Where