"He will not trouble you any more; and you will not surely throw up your engagement?"

"Of course not!" said she, half peevishly. over in a fortnight; and then I must have rest. see how I want rest?"

"It will be Don't you

Sabina had seen it for some time past. That white cheek had been fading more and more to a wax-like paleness; those black eyes glittered with fierce, unhealthy light; and dark rings round them told, not merely of late hours and excitement, but of wild passion and midnight tears. Sabina had seen all, and could not but give way, as Marie went on. "I must have rest, I tell you! I am beginning - I confess all to you· to want stimulants. I am beginning to long for brandy and water-pah! - to nerve me up to the excitement of acting, and then for morphine to make me sleep after it. The very eau de Cologne flask tempts me! They say that the fine ladies use it, before a ball, for other purposes than scent. You would not like to see me commence that practice, would you?"

"There is no fear, dear."

"There is fear! You do not know the craving for exhilaration, the capability of self-indulgence, in our wild Tropic blood. O, Sabina, I feel at times that I could sink so lowthat I could be so wicked, so utterly wicked, if I once began! Take me away, dearest creature, take me away, and let me have fresh air, and fair quiet scenes, and rest - rest! save me, Sabina!" and she put her hands over her face, and burst into tears.

0,

"We will go, then; to the Rhine, shall it be? I have not been there now for these three years, and it will be such fun running about the world by myself once more, and knowing all the while that" and Sabina stopped; she did not like to remind Marie of the painful contrast between them.

"To the Rhine? Yes. And I shall see the beautiful old world, the old vineyards, and castles, and hills, which he used to tell me of-taught me to read of in those sweet, sweet books of Longfellow's! So gentle, and pure, and calm so unlike me!"

"Yes, we will see them; and, perhaps

Marie looked up at her, guessing her thoughts, and blushed scarlet.

"You, too, think then, that that "she could not finish her sentence.

Sabina stooped over her, and the two beautiful mouthe

met.

"There, darling, we need say nothing. We are both women, and can talk without words."

"Then you think there is hope?"

'Hope? Do you fancy that he has gone so very far? Or that if he were, I could not hunt him out? Have I wan dered half round the world alone for nothing?"

"No, but hope - hope that

"

"Not hope, but certainty; if some one I know had but courage."

Courage to do what?"

"To trust him utterly."

Marie covered her face with her hands, and shuddered in every limb.

"You know my story. Did I gain or lose by telling my Claude all?"

"I will!" she cried, looking up, pale but firm. "I will!" and she looked steadfastly into the mirror over the chimney-piece, as if trying to court the reäppearance of that ugly vision which haunted it, and so to nerve herself to the utmost, and face the whole truth.

In little more than a fortnight Sabina and Marie, with maid and courier (for Marie was rich now), were away in the old Antwerpen. And Claude was rolling down to Southampton by rail, with Campbell, Scoutbush, and last but not least, the faithful Bowie, who had under his charge what he described to the puzzled railway guard as "goads and cleiks, and pirns and creels, and beuks and beuks, enough for a' the cods o' Neufunland."

CHAPTER XIII.

L'HOMME INCOMPRIS.

ELSLEY went on, between improved health and the fear of Tom Thurnall, a good deal better for the next month. He began to look forward to Valencia's visit with equanimity, and, at last, with interest; and was rather pleased than otherwise when, in the last week of July, a fly drove up to the gate of old Penalva Court, and he handed out therefrom Valencia and Valencia's maid.

Lucia had discovered that the wind was east, and that she was afraid to go to the gate for fear of catching cold; her real purpose being that Valencia should meet Elsley first.

"She is so impulsive," thought the good little creature, always plotting about her husband, "that she will rush upon me, and never see him for the first five minutes; and Elsley is so sensitive - how can he be otherwise in his position, poor dear?" So she refrained herself, like Joseph, and stood at the door till Valencia was half-way down the garden-walk, having taken Elsley's somewhat shyly-offered arm; and then she could refrain herself no longer, and the two women ran upon each other, and kissed, and sobbed, and talked, till Lucia was out of breath; but Valencia was not so easily silenced.

"My darling!- and you are looking so much better than I expected; but not quite yourself yet. That naughty baby is killing you, I am sure! And Mr. Vavasour, too, I shall begin to call him Elsley to-morrow, if I like him as much as I do now. But he is looking quite thin-wearing himself out with writing so many beautiful books, — that Wreck was perfect! And where are the children?—I must rush up stairs and devour them! - and what a delicious old garden! and clipt yews, too, so dark and romantic, and such dear old-fashioned flowers! - Mr. Vavasour must show me all over it, and over that hanging wood, too. What a duck of a place! And O, my dear, I am quite out of breath!"

And so she swept in, with her arm round Lucia's waist; while Elsley stood looking after her, well enough satisfied with her reception of him, and only hoping that the stream of words would slacken after a while.

"What a magnificent creature!" said he to himself. "Who could believe that the three years would make such a change?"

And he was right. The tall, lithe girl nad bloomed into full glory; and Valencia St. Just, though not delicately beautiful, was as splendid an Irish damsel as man need look upon, with a grand masque, aquiline features, luxuriant black hair, and though it was the fag-end of the London the unrivalled Irish complexion, as of the fair dame of Kilkenny, whose

season

"Lips were like roses, her cheeks were the same,

Like a dish of fresh strawberries smothered in crame."

Her figure was perhaps too tall, and somewhat too stout also; but its size was relieved by the delicacy of those hands and feet, of which Miss Valencia was most pardonably proud, and by that indescribable lissomeness and lazy grace which Irishwomen inherit, perhaps, with their tinge of southern blood; and when, in half an hour, she reäppeared, with broad straw hat, and gown tucked up à la bergère over the striped Welsh petticoat, perhaps to show off the ankles, which only looked the finer for a pair of heavy laced boots, Elsley honestly felt it a pleasure to look at her, and a still greater pleasure to talk to her, and to be talked to by her; while she, bent on making herself agreeable, partly from real good taste, partly from natural good nature, and partly, too, because she saw in his eyes that he admired her, chatted sentiment about all heaven and earth.

For to Miss Valencia-it is sad to have to say it admiration had been now, for three years, her daily bread. She had lived in the thickest whirl of the world, and, as most do for a while, found it a very pleasant place.

She had flirted - with how many must not be told; and perhaps with more than one with whom she had no business to flirt. Little Scoutbush had remonstrated with her on some such affair, but she had silenced him with an Irish jest, "You're a fisherman, Freddy; and when you can't catch salmon, you catch trout; and when you can't catch trout, you'll whip on the shallow for poor little gubbahawns, and say that it is all to keep your hand in- and so do I."

The old ladies said that this was the reason why she had

not married; the men, however, asserted that no one dare marry her; and one club oracle had given it as his opinion that no man in his rational senses was to be allowed to have anything to do with her, till she had been well jilted two or three times, to take the spirit out of her; but that catastrophe had not yet occurred, and Miss Valencia still reigned "triumphant and alone," though her aunt, old Lady Knockdown, moved all the earth, and some dirty places, too, below the earth, to get the wild Irish girl off her hands; "for," quoth she, "I feel with Valencia, indeed, just like one of those men who carry about little dogs in the Quadrant. I always pity the poor men so, and think how happy they must be when they have sold one. It is one less chance, you know, of having it bite them horribly, and then run away, after all."

There was, however, no more real harm in Valencia than there is in every child of Adam. Town frivolity had not corrupted her. She was giddy, given up to enjoyment of the present; but there was not a touch of meanness about her; and if she was selfish, as every one must needs be whose thoughts are of pleasure, admiration, and success, she was so unintentionally; and she would have been shocked and pained at being told that she was anything but the most kind-hearted and generous creature on earth. Major Campbell, who was her Mentor as well as her brother's, had certainly told her so more than once; at which she had pouted a good deal, and cried a little, and promised to amend; then packed up a heap of cast-off things to send to Lucia - half of it much too fine to be of any use to the quiet little woman; and, lastly, gone out and bought fresh finery for herself, and forgot all her good resolutions. Whereby it befell that she was tolerably deep in debt at the end of every season, and had to torment and kiss Scoutbush into paying her bills; which he did, like a good brother, and often before he had paid his own.

But howsoever full Valencia's head may have been of fine garments and London flirtations, she had too much tact and good feeling to talk that evening of a world of which even Elsley knew more than her sister. For poor Lucia had been but eighteen at the time of her escapade, and had not been presented twelve months; so that she was as "inexperienced" as any one can be, who has only a husband, three chil dren, and a household to manage on less than three hundred a year. Therefore Valencia talked only of things which would interest Elsley; asked him to read his last new poem,