world's affairs.

He never missed an opportunity, and never seemed to go out of his way to create one. He was always perfectly in touch with the French world, and never obtrusively an influence in its midst. He always went to see the "right" new play in Parisian opinion, and never gave the impression that he went because it was the right play to see. He always did Parisian things naturally, not because they were Parisian; other princes coming to Paris have always made violent efforts to be Parisian. He was a great deal more naturally Parisian than Presidents of the Republic and their suites. When he came to Paris officially a strange composite gala performance programme at the Théâtre Français was, as usual for visiting monarchs, arranged by the Protocol, which, like all French State institutions, has immemorial traditions of provincialism, and submitted to Edward VII., who said, "Est ce qu'on me prend pour le Shah de Perse?" and chose Mr. MauThe Contemporary Review.

rice Donnay's then new piece, "l'Autre danger." He always saw the right people in Paris, and many people who mutually called each other the wrong people. He met Republican political men because they were the real men who were acting in the world; among his private friends of the Faubourg St. Germain society, which lives in a dream and looks upon the Republic as perdition pure and simple, he always took a delight in quoting the opinions of the sons of perdition, and the Faubourg St. Germain often learnt through him what was really going on in France. He paid particular courtesies to rather fluttered Republican ladies whom the Faubourg St. Germain would never think of receiving. In fact, compared with him, not only Presidents of the Republic but Parisian aristocracy seemed provincial to the Parisian. That is why Parisians are not in the least gushing when they talk of "their national loss" and feel that they have lost the King of Paris. Laurence Jerrold.

for the sound of the returning cart laden with peats. At first there was no sound beyond the dreary drip from the eaves of the house; but after an interval came the slow, far-off rumble of a laden cart along the road from Spor. Would it be their cart with Silver, John, and the peats? God grant it. But hardly had the prayer escaped her lips than a qualm of the nature seized her, a shrinking back from the coming of the cart, as from some appalling disaster.

She supported herself heavily against the window and listened.

The cart stopped at the gate. The men seemed strangely silent, were strangely long in bringing it through and turning to the back parts of the

Farm. She wanted to run down and meet them, but felt unable to stir from her position.

She heard the cart turn to the back at last. But Silver was not following. Silver was coming down the space to the front; she was sure of that, for she knew his step. Why had he not followed to help John unload the peats? And then she saw him. He turned the corner and came into her view, and she perceived that he walked slowly and heavily and carried in his arms a burden. She leant farther from the window, staring down in utter perplexity. The burden was a woman wrapped in a red cloak. What could have happened, what mishap, what accident? Her eyes were on his face, trying to read it; it was deathly white, and his appearance disordered. She watched him in heart-sinking perturbation. As he came nearer he raised his head, and his eyes clung to hers with a look of impassioned yet hopeless entreaty. And still she leaned from the window, unable to move her feet, gazing at the approaching figure and its burden. Each second seemed as an age of time through which with difficulty she fought a way, and through which tumbled one mad guess after another, until complete understanding came to her mind.

He was in front of the porch now, and stood with his head lifted, saying nothing, but looking up at her. Her eyes had drifted helplessly, aimlessly, to the woman in his arms, whose head lolled back like a dead thing's.

And then she saw that the face was Nanna's.

With that, the memory of her lie snatched at her heart. It had ever lain there, unforgotten, unforgiven, an unpaid debt to heaven, linking her to misfortune. Yet she had not dreamed

of recalling it. Even now her tenderness was stubborn. As she flew down the stairs to receive the fainting

girl and tend her, it passed like lightning through her mind that the truth concerning Nanna was not and never should be the business of her tongue.

Such was the disturbing element that Silver carried over the threshold of his home.

Nanna did not appear in the kitchen that evening; her swoon was prolonged and dangerous, and Jinny and Silence kept her upstairs. When at last she recovered consciousness, she opened her eyes in her own old room and found Silence bending over her.

Next day Silver went out to his labor as one who struggles against a dream that fastens on the brain. He got through an hour or two of work steadily; but at the back of his mind palpitated a delirious excitement, and he wished he could get out of the range of John's voice. For John sang

Sil

a hymn of thanksgiving for yesterday's deliverance from peril. That was the first time the man's habit jarred. ver wanted to be alone and in quietness so that he might parley with this excitement and discover its nature; and the melodious voice hindered him.

It was useless to deny that his heart trembled under yesterday's event. Yesterday, the face longed-after during years of waiting had come near again; yesterday his arms had clasped Nanna Scaife; and the thought created an unparalleled joy.

He laid aside his hoe, and walked to the pasture and found a sunny spot under the hedge and sat down. The cattle lazily turned their heads, one or two moved restlessly, and then went back to their feeding. From mere habit, his eyes passed over them to test their condition. Then he sat staring at the earth.

Her face, he thought, was more beautiful than he had remembered it; still and white, the eyes closed under the spreading eyebrows and the dark lashes lying on the cheek, it had pre

sented an incomparable loveliness. He had not seen Nanna's face in this absolute stillness before. And, in truth, unconsciousness had left the mould per

fect.

How cold, how empty had been his welcome of this exquisite event! He remembered that he had not kissed the face which had lain marble white near his own-the face of his one love. Now he regretted that. Reverence and a sense of duty had prevented him yesterday; to-day he wondered how the singleness of his emotion could have been divided in that supreme moment.

The discovery of Nanna in the cart had fallen upon him as a miracle, discomposing his attention from the scarcely sensible signs by which he was guided, and causing him to miss the passage. But would it have been hard to die then with Nanna? He sat on and on, one sad thought pursuing another in his brain.

A cry from the house warned him that the midday meal was ready, and he rose to his feet. Would Nanna be in the kitchen when he came there?

She was not there. His mind received the fact between relief and disappointment. He took his place opposite Silence, and straightway discovered how impossible it is to keep the circle of one's own deep disturbance within oneself. Silence, he perceived, shared it; her eyes were thinking steadily, and the tenor of her thought was apart from his own. He felt the divergence; and remarked that she made no effort to assume that the situation between them in their home, had suffered no material change through Nanna's return. That surprised while it relieved him. He no more than Silence was good at pretence. He turned his attention to his little son; the children at least kept something of the old closewoven quiet; the parents bending together over them breathed it gratefully and found it possible to speak.

Meanwhile surprisingly little had passed between the women upstairs. Nanna was sparing of information; the motive for this chariness in speech sprang from a highly-colored desire to pique curiosity. She surmised in Silence an inquisitive determination to ferret out the how and the why of her being at the peat-fields, and meant to parry every question and keep her secret snug.

But there is a muteness which differs from this shifting policy between speech and an assumed reluctance to speak. Silence was one who could stand aside and let circumstance go by. Her reserve was a simple strength and directness of soul in the front of life. Nanna awaited questions in vain. SIlence attended to her needs with grave beneficence and uttered no unnecessary words. As for information, neither asked nor gave it.

she

Old Jinny would have enjoyed a little more loquacity. When Nanna was in bed, she "overlooked" her garments. The gown had been handsome; the linen was fine and lace-trimmed but neglected.

"Massy, how the lace is torn!" cried Jinny. "It's a shame to see it."

"I can mend it at neets and at byetimes and find her something to put on instead," said Silence.

A portion of Nanna's old wardrobe still existed; some of her mother's clothes were still laid away in lavender; these things Silence carried to her for her choice.

When Silver came into the kitchen for the evening meal, Nanna was there, wearing an old-fashioned gown which had been hers when a girl. The circumstance awakened pangs of recollection and association. She had endeavored to correct the girlish fashion of the garment by folding a muslin kerchief of her mother's about her neck and shoulders, and by smoothing her bright hair on either side her fore

head. No actress dressing for a hoped-for triumph could have taken more deliberate pains to assume her part and attire herself for it than did Nanna for hers upon the quiet, hospitable hearth. The kerchief and the method with her hair enhanced her beauty and changed it, lending her the aspect of a young and saintly matron. She was sitting in Silence's chair when Silver entered, still weak with the shock and willing to be idle; so quiet was her demeanor that the awkwardness and excitement in his mind died at sight of her; he found it easy to step forward and be kind.

"I'm glad to see thee up and looking thysen again, Nanna," said he. "How art ta to-day?"

"Better, thank you, Silver. But glad to rest."

She explained that her faint had followed upon illness.

He noted a refinement in her speech beyond his and Silence's. It raised something of a barrier between them and created a feeling of timidity. He was glad of the barrier. Silence with an everyday air was moving about preparing the meal, and pending its arrival, he took his wonted seat and followed her movements with his eyes. The door between the two kitchens was open, and he could see old Jinny carrying his baby-girl over one shoulder while with the other hand she stirred the broth. A series of small chuckling laughs and exclamations revealed there the presence of his boy happily engaged in a child's perpetual journey of discovery about his little world. The atmosphere of home seemed to gather closely and tranquilly about him. He was relieved to feel the accustomed things taking hold of him again and the agitation of the morning dying down. It began to seem as though the presence of Nanna was, after all, no more to him than the presence of a very beautiful picture.

But presently glancing at her, he found her eyes fixed upon him with a look that went straight to his heart, disturbing anew his emotions, and sending a flight of arrowy questions through his mind, and a memory of the past straight through the barrier of the present. He was dismayed at the agitation he was in, and at the feel of color rising to his cheek and the leap of fire to his eyes. But at the moment, his little son broke from the back kitchen, and with shouts of joy rushed towards him and compelled his attention.

With a sigh of relief, and an answering word, Silver lifted the boy to his knee and pressed his lips upon the child's curls.

CHAPTER XXV.

No one spoke of Nanna's leaving. After a few days, it seemed to Silver that the amazing situation had been accepted. Nanna had come home and Iwas in the house with them. He did not see her often, the encounters being in chief limited to the midday and evening meals. In her bearing was something elusive, self-withdrawing; and when the day's work was over, and the leisure hour of evening had arrived, she rarely came to them, but went to her bedroom or remained with Jinny. If she appeared in the front kitchen, Silence would receive her with a kind bright word; but he noticed that his wife never directly invited her to come

in.

Silence's conduct excited in his mind both admiration and amazement; he could not see that she deviated from her ordinary manner; she went about her daily work; she was tranquil, natural, and with her children cheerful and tender as she was wont to be. But he felt that her heart was hidden from him. Had he ever-the question surprised him one day-read the heart of Silence?

He would follow her with his eyes when evening and the leisure hour pressed the problem close. He did this to avoid Nanna's glance if she was present, and again because the sight of Silence's composure enfolded him with a sense of safety.

For there were thoughts and thoughts in the air. Two wills, differing in quality as hurt and healing, as grasping and setting free, sought after the soul of the man.

"Oh my God!" sighed Silence, lifting up her heavy burden with a voiceless cry. Now and then a flashing, clear thought came to Silver. He began to understand how little a man knows of the man's heart within. He had moments of scare and chill-moments when he saw his wife and children weeping apart from him. Whither was he going? And who taking him? Sometimes the blood rushed in his ears as though from some impetuous speed and hurry. Even as his eyes hung on Silence, the thought of an inadvertent moment, when his glance had become locked in Nanna's-as in some glory from which he could not tear himself away-burned in his mind. In the glances there were whispers, words, noisy betrayals! On the hearth of his home, in the presence of wife, children, and servants, he was beginning, without choice of his own, to live a double life, and he knew it.

but sprang from a virile strength which had lain latent all these years. He had not drunk of the blissful cup that most men taste. His passion might have been no other than legitimate. For was not she the only woman he had ever loved? It was circumstance -the malice in things, as he thought -that had tricked him.

But what to do with the passion now? A twinge of tenderness for wife and little ones moved in his breast.

The children were effectual in those moments when the unconscious trust claimed him; then he found himself tranquilly back in the life he had deliberately chosen-the wholesome life that sweetly and gently straightened out the furrows and angles in his nature. When the boy stood at his knee, beating there with his small hand to call attention, or when he lifted the baby girl and felt her soft toes kick against his chest and brought near to his face the firm little body with its delicate clean odors of babyhood-in those moments he was safe.

He became conscious of something he had not noticed in the old days; and that was the mysteriousness of Nanna. An indefinable alteration, beyond the changes consequent on the lapse of time and the possible history of her life between, struck him when his eyes could rest on her, without encountering her glance. He thought that, in a sense, she was more beautiful. Nor was he wrong. Her attitudes had ac quired a polished grace without losing the pictorial fawnlike movements. If there was art in the change she could conceal it; for in beauty she had genius, playing it lightly as a game and with consummate skill. What had the fabric of change which clothed her as with a garment?

Woven

His curiosity dwelt on the question. The position of Nanna was not, he reflected, easy to read. Where was her husband? Had Silence learnt the name