But I thought I'd come and tell you-and, upon my word, this is the first drop of tea, deserving the name of tea, that I've tasted since I left England."

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CHAPTER XVII.

SUSPENSE.

He was led thither, it

HUGH, it appeared, was on the point of starting for Chambery when my aunt last heard from him, and had requested her, in case of emergency, to write to him at that place. seemed, by some vague report, hoping against hope, but prepared for the inevitable disappointment which always awaited him. "I go," he wrote, "but I know beforehand that I go in vain. She is lost to me for ever. Some day, perhaps, when I am quite worn out with long seeking, I may find her grave in some solitary spot, among the graves of strangers. God grant it! I would fain die there, and be laid beside her." My aunt gave me this letter. I carried it in my bosom by day; slept with it under my pillow at night;

blistered it all over with my tears. Mine was a mere make-believe stoicism, surface-deep and sadly transparent, after all.

From Rome to Chambery :-I looked in the map, and was dismayed to see how far apart they lay, and what a world of mountains lay between. I went down to the post office, and was told that letters to Chambery might be despatched via Turin or Marseilles. In either case they would take from five to six days-as long as if sent to London! I then made my way to the Hôtel d'Angleterre, to ask Mrs. Sandyshaft by which route she had directed her letter to be forwarded; and received for answer that she "hadn't troubled her head about routes, or branches either. Not she. She had just put Post Office, Chambery, Savoyand quite enough. The Where was all that concerned her; the How she left to those whose business it was to convey it."

Thus poorly comforted, I could only sit down patiently, counting out each lagging hour of the six long days, and feeding my imagination with conjectures of every possible calamity that might befall my aunt's letter.

Supposing, now, that the address was illegible! A hand more essentially crabbed and distort, when written in haste, it would be difficult to conceive. And she must have written in haste; for it was

past three when I left her, and the letter had to be posted by four o'clock. Supposing, on the other hand, that it went via Turin, and the mail was robbed among the mountains-or by sea, and the steamer were lost? Supposing, even, that it arrived safely at Chambery, and Hugh were gone before it came? Would it, in that case, be forwarded to Broomhill; or would it lie there month after month, dusty and unclaimed, with its words of hope and comfort all unread?

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Thus five days went by. On the fifth, I said, "To-morrow he will receive it." On the sixth, "To-day it is his." I fancied him calling listlessly at the post-office as he passed by; or finding it in the morning on his breakfast-table. I pictured to myself the impatient sigh with which he would toss it aside, incredulous of any good it might contain -the reluctance with which he would presently break the seal-the sudden flash lighting up his poor pale face-the bound that he would make to the bell; the ringing voice in which he would call for post-horses; the instantaneous transition from apathy to energy, from that state of hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, to hope fulfilled, glowing, radiant, and instinct with vitality.

As the day advanced, and the evening drew on, I said to myself, "He is on his way. He will

travel day and night. Every mile will seem a league to his impatience, and every hour a week.” Then I calculated how long the journey would take him, if he came by Turin, Genoa, and the sea; and found that he might quite possibly arrive by the evening of the third day. At this thought, I trembled and turned pale.

Only two days more! I could not believe it. My aunt came to sit with me in the morning, while I was painting; and Hilda brought her carriage to take me for a drive, later in the day. I forget where we went, or what was said or done by the way. I thought of nothing but Hugh.

Only one day more! I went through my morning's work mechanically, breaking off, every now and then, to kiss my baby, and whisper in his little uncomprehending ear—" to-morrow, to-morrow, my angel, thou shalt lie in thy father's arms!" To Paolo I said, "Wait with patience. We shall soon have news of Maddalena."

The last day passed as if in a dream. I could neither paint, nor talk, nor sit still; and so stole away quietly to the gardens of the Pincio, and wandered about the sunny walks alone. At dinner, I literally fasted. In the evening, my nervous excitement became so painfully uncontrollable that if only the ashes collapsed on the hearth, or the windows shook, I trembled from head to foot. He