"Florence dear, you are forgetting | the gate; then shrubbery and walls came yourself. We can only wish him fare- between them, and hid her from him. well, and pray that he may reach his He never saw her after that. home safely some day. We will not forget you, my poor fellow," she said, taking his hand once more. The young girl came toward him with both hands outstretched, and with tears dimming her bright eyes. "I suppose we'll never see you again, but, as mamma says, we will pray that you reach your friends safe and well; and I hope you will not forget us, for we will remember you. Good-by." Rex lifted her hand, as he had her mother's, and kissed it; then went with trembling limbs toward the ambulance. He was lifted in, and as they drove away he raised the curtain and looked out. She was standing with one hand against a pillar of the veranda, looking sadly after him. He watched her until he was whirled swiftly down the avenue and out of He often wondered whether, if he had known her better, she would have reigned supreme in his heart over all other women, or whether in a longer companionship the charm would have vanished. Now and then he would meet a bright, lovable girl who seemed not averse to win her way into his heart, and he would be half ready to admit her. But at the boundary line of that woman's kingdom a dream - maiden stood and waved back the intruder, and when he felt inclined to quarrel with her arrogant dominion, the dark eyes which met his accusations with conscious power smilingly lured him back to the past, and the shadowy hand which put away a rival was lifted tenderly to his lips to receive once more that farewell kiss, now grown into a pledge of constancy. THE CHAMBER OF SILENCE. ONE autumn day we three, Walked out beneath a dull and leaden sky. The fields were bare and brown; From the still trees the dead leaves fluttered down; There were no birds to sing, Or cleave the air on swift, rejoicing wing. We sought the barren sand Beside the moaning sea, and, hand in hand, Slow shaking each bowed head, Fall on no souls more utterly forlorn." But suddenly, across A narrow fiord wherein wild billows toss, High hung above the tide, a temple risc A temple wondrous fair, Lifting its shining turrets in the air, All touched with golden gleams, Like the bright miracles we see in dreams. Grief turned and looked at me. "We must go thither, O my friends," said she; Then, saying nothing more, With rapid, gliding step passed on before. Where Grief went, we went, following silently, Beneath the temple's vaulted roof we stood. 'Twas like a hollow pearl A vast white sacred chamber, where the whirl Of passion stirred not, where A luminous splendor trembled in the air. "O friends, I know this place," I and my kindred all shall lie in state." In this fair chamber, slumbering quietly. "Chamber of Silence, this; Who brings his Grief here doth not go amiss. Mine hour hath come. We three Will walk, O friends, no more in company." Then was I dumb. My Heart And I-how could we with our dear Grief part, Who for so many a day Had walked beside us in our lonely way? But she, with matchless grace, On noiseless hinge another door swung wide, Through which we onward passed T BOOK THE FOURTH.-SOMERSET, DARE, AND DE STANCY. CHAPTER I. HERE was no part of Paula's journey in which Somerset did not think of her. He imagined her in the hotel at Havre, in her brief rest at Paris; her drive past the Place de la Bastille to the Boulevart Mazas to take the train for Lyons; her tedious progress through the dark of a winter night till she crossed the isothermal line which told of the beginning of a southern atmosphere, and onward to the ancient blue sea. Thus, between the hours devoted to architecture, he passed the next three days. One morning he set himself, by the help of John, to practice on the telegraph instrument, expecting a message. But though he watched the machine at every opportunity, or kept some other person on the alert in its neighborhood, no message arrived to gratify him till after the lapse of nearly a fortnight. Then she spoke from her new habitation, nine hundred miles away, in these meagre words: "Are settled at the address given. Can now attend to any inquiry about the building." The pointed implication that she could attend to inquiries about nothing else breathed of the veritable Paula so distinctly that he could forgive its sauciness. His reply was soon dispatched: "Will write particulars of our progress. Always the same. The last three words formed the sentimental appendage which she had assured him she could tolerate, and which he hoped she might desire. He spent the remainder of the day in making a little sketch to show what had been done in the castle since her depart parture was the thought that I should hear early from you: my idea of being able to submit to your absence was based upon that. "But I have resolved not to be out of humor, and to believe that your scheme of reserve is not unreasonable; neither do I quarrel with your injunction to keep silence to all relatives. I do not know anything I can say to show you more plainly my acquiescence in your wish 'not to go too far' (in short, to keep yourself dear-by dear I mean not cheap-you have been dear in the other sense a long time, as you know) than by not urging you to go a single degree further in warmth than you please. When this was posted he again turned his attention to her walls and towers, which indeed were a dumb consolation in many ways for the lack of herself. There was no nook in the castle to which he had not access, or could not easily obtain access by applying for the keys, and this propinquity of things belonging to her served to keep her image before him even more constantly than his memories would have done. Three days and a half after the dispatch of his subdued effusion the telegraph called to tell him the good news that Will "Your letter and drawing are just received. Thanks for the latter. reply to the former by post this afternoon." It was with cheerful patience that he attended to his three draughtsmen in the studio, or walked about the environs of the fortress, during the fifty hours spent by her presumably tender missive on the road. A light fleece of snow fell during the second night of waiting, inverting the position of long-established lights and shades, and lowering to a dingy gray the approximately white walls of other weathers: on this account he could trace the postman's foot-marks as he entered over the bridge, knowing them by the dot of his walking-stick; on entering, the expected letter was waiting upon his table. He looked at its direction with glad curiosity; it was the first letter he had ever received from her. "HOTEL NICE, February 14. "DEAR MR. SOMERSET" (the "George," then, to which she had so kindly treated him in her last conversation, was not to be continued in black and white), only a compound of evasions, disguises, and caprices is very disagreeable. "Do not write very frequently, and never write at all unless you have some real information about the castle works "Your letter explaining the progress to communicate. I will explain to you of the work, aided by the sketch inclosed, on another occasion why I make this regave me as clear an idea of the advance quest. You will possibly set it down as made since my departure as I could have additional evidence of my cold-heartedgained by being present. I feel every ness. If so, you must. Would you also confidence in you, and am quite sure mind writing the business letter on an the restoration is in good hands. In independent sheet, with a proper beginthis opinion both my aunt and my uncle ning and ending? Whether you inclose coincide. Please act entirely on your another sheet is of course optional. own judgment in everything, and as "Sincerely yours, soon as you give a certificate to the builders for the first installment of their money, it will be promptly sent by my solicitors. "PAULA POWER." Somerset had a suspicion that her order to him not to neglect the business letter was to escape invidious remarks from her uncle. He wished she would be more explicit, so that he might know exactly how matters stood with them, and wheth press disapproval of him as her lover. "You bid me ask myself if I have used you well in not sending intelligence of myself till a fortnight after I had left you. Well, let me remind you that there are a thousand things, not bad in them-er Abner Power had ever ventured to exselves, which, nevertheless, custom and circumstance render inexpedient to be done. I say this, not from pride in my own conduct, but to offer you a very reasonable explanation of it. Your resolve not to be out of humor with me suggests that you have been sorely tempted that way, else why should such a resolve have been necessary? "If you only knew what passes in my mind sometimes, you would perhaps not be so ready to blame. Shall I tell you? No. For if it is a great emotion, it may afford you a cruel satisfaction at finding I suffer through separation; and if it be a growing indifference to you, it will be inflicting gratuitous unhappiness upon you, if you care for me, as I sometimes think you may do a little." ("Oh, Paula!" said Somerset.) "Please which way would you have it? But it is better that you should guess at what I feel than that you should distinctly know it. Notwithstanding this assertion, you will, I know, adhere to your first prejudice in favor of prompt confessions. In spite of that, I fear that upon trial such promptness would not produce that happiness which your fancy leads you to expect. Your heart would revolt in time, and when once that happens, farewell to the emotion you have told me of. Analyze your feelings strictly, and you will find this true. At the same time I admit that a woman who is But not knowing, he waited anxiously for a new architectural event on which he might legitimately send her another line. This occurred about a week later, when the men engaged in digging foundations discovered remains of old ones, which warranted a modification of the original plan. He accordingly sent off his professional advice on the point, requesting her assent or otherwise to the amendment, winding up the inquiry with 'Yours faithfully." On another sheet he wrote: 66 in the world, may express them upon the sweetest subject. "You say nothing of having been to look at the chapel of ease, the plans of which I made when an architect's pupil, working in mètres instead of feet and inches, to my immense perplexity, that the drawings might be understood by the foreign workmen. Go there and tell me what you think of its design. I can assure you that every curve thereof is my own. of the windows-Early English, are they "How I wish you would invite me to run over and see you, if only for a day or two, for my heart runs after you in a most distracted manner. Dearest, you entirely fill my life! But I forget; we have resolved not to go very far. But the fact is, I am half afraid lest, with such reticence, you should not remember how very much I am yours, and with what a dogged constancy I shall always remember you. Paula, sometimes I have horrible misgivings that something will divide us, especially if we do not make a more distinct show of our true relationship. True, do I say? I mean the relationship which I think exists between us, but which you do not affirm too clearly.-ery, gayeties, and gambling going on in Yours always." Away southward like the swallow went the tender lines. He wondered if she would notice his hint of being ready to pay her a flying visit, if permitted to do SO. His fancy dwelt on that further side of France, the very contours of whose shore were now lines of beauty for him. He prowled in the library, and found interest in the mustiest facts relating to that place, learning with æsthetic pleasure that the number of its population was fifty thousand, that the mean temperature of its atmosphere was 60° Fahrenheit, and that the peculiarities of a mistral were far from agreeable. He waited overlong for her reply; but it ultimately came. After the usual business preliminary, she said: "As requested, I have visited the little church you designed. It gave me great pleasure to stand before a building whose outline and details had come from the brain of such a valued friend and adviser." ("Valued friend and adviser," repeated Somerset, critically.) "I like the style much, especially that "I should like to receive another letter from you as soon as you have got over the misgiving you speak of, but don't write too soon. I wish I could write anything to raise your spirits, but you may be so perverse that if, in order to do this, I tell you of the races, routs, scen this place and neighborhood (into which, of course, I can not help being a little drawn), you may declare that my words make you worse than ever. Don't pass the line I have set down in the way you were tempted to do in your last; and no Dearests-at least not yet. This is not a time for effusion. You have my very warm affection, and that's enough for the present." As a love-letter this missive was tantalizing enough, but since its form was simply a continuation of what she had practiced before she left, and not a change from that practice, it produced no undue misgiving in him. Far more was he impressed by her omitting to answer the two important questions he had put to her. First, concerning her uncle's attitude toward them, and his conduct in giving such strange information to the reporter. Second, on his, Somerset's paying her a flying visit some time during the spring. But he was not the man to force opinion on these points, or on any others; and since she had requested it, he made no haste in his reply. When penned, it ran in the words subjoined, which, in common with every line of their correspondence, acquired from the strangeness of subsequent circumstances an interest and a force that perhaps they did not intrinsically possess. shortest of all he had received, and beyond the portion devoted to the building-works it contained only the following sentences: "I am angry with you for being vexed because I will not make you a formal confession. Why should the verbal I love you be such a precious phrase? During the seven or eight months that you have been endeavoring to ascertain my sentiments you must have fairly well discovered them. You have discovered my re "People can not" (he wrote) "be forever in good spirits on this gloomy side of the Channel, even though you seem to be so on yours. However, that I can abstain from letting you know whether my spirits are good or otherwise, I will prove in our future correspondence. I admire you more and more, both for the warmgard for you; what more can you desire? feeling toward me which I firmly believe you have, and for your ability to maintain side by side with it so much dignity and resolution with regard to foolish sentiment. Sometimes I think I could have put up with a little more weakness if it had brought with it a little more romantic tenderness, but I dismiss all that when I mentally survey your other qualities. I have thought of fifty things to say to you of the too far sort, not one of any other; how unfortunate, then, is your prohibition, by which I am doomed to say things that do not rise spontaneously to my lips, but have to be made, shaped, and fashion-ognize! This is what I should style pleaed! You say that our shut-up feelings are not to be mentioned yet. How long is the yet to last? Would a reiterated confession of passion really do any good? Instead of pressing a lady upon this point, you should endeavor to conceal from her the progress of her interest in you. You should contrive to deeply involve her heart before she perceives your designs; hiding her, as it were, from her own observation. Then, on your side, can one imagine a situation more charming than that of perceiving a woman interested without herself being exactly conscious of the depth of her interest! What a triumph, to rejoice in secret over what she will not rec sure indeed. Women labor under great difficulties: believe me that a declaration of love is always a mortifying circumstance to us, and it is a natural instinct to retain the power of obliging a man to hope, fear, pray, and beseech as long as we think fit, before we confess to a recip "I am now going to own to a weakness about which I had intended to keep silent. It will not perhaps add to your respect for me. My uncle, whom in many ways I "But, to speak more solemnly, matters grow very serious with us, Paula-at least with me; and there are times when this restraint is really unbearable. It is possible to put up with reserve and circum-rocal affection. spection when the reserved and circumspect being is by one's side, for the eyes may reveal what the lips do not. But when absence is superadded, what was piquancy becomes harshness, tender rail-like, is displeased with me for keeping up lery becomes cruel sarcasm, and tacit understandings misunderstandings. However that may be, you shall never be able to reproach me for touchiness. I still esteem you as a friend; I admire you and love you as a woman. This I shall always continue to do, however undemonstrative and unconfiding you prove." CHAPTER II. WITHOUT knowing it, Somerset was drawing near to a crisis in this soft correspondence which would speedily put his assertions to the test; but the knowledge came upon him soon enough for his peace. Her next letter, dated March 9, was the He this correspondence so regularly. I am |