lowing the direction of his wild bright eyes, and taking the violin down from the wall.

He reached out two thin feeble arms for the instrument; but the smile upon his face nearly broke Nell's heart.

His hand trembled as he took the bow, and the first notes it drew were uncertain and quivering; but the spirit within the fragile form was stronger even than Azreal. Once more the little slender hand passed over the strings, and music that seemed an expression of more than mortal anguish went through the hut. It was the slow piteous cry of a human soul hovering on the brink of eternity.

Mrs. Keane, sitting alone in her room, heard it and wondered, then stole to the door of the cabin to listen. The lovers, strolling home wards, paused near, but feared to

enter.

As Ethel's foot touched the threshold, the magnetism of her presence made itself felt even in the music. That cry of the soul softened from anguish into pathos. It sounded like a spirit at the gates of Paradise entreating to be let in. Ethel's shadow fell across the open door. Her eyes, wet with unconscious tears, met the sad sapphire eyes that turned that way, yearningly and wistfully.

As the girl crossed the room a heavenly smile broke over the boy's face, the strings of the violin quivered under one wild expression of joy that was not fully uttered, and the instrument dropped from the lifeless fingers to the floor.

One wail it gave before it fell—a wail that seemed human, as it broke with the young life it had inspired.

CHAPTER LII.

'NEW YORK HERALD.'

THEY laid Lennard to sleep at the foot of a tall locust tree that shed its delicate misty white blossoms like fragrant snowflakes over his grave, and Ethel and Nell wove wreaths of wild violets-the very same shade as the boy's own eyes -to adorn his quiet resting-place.

They missed his exquisite beauty, his gentleness, and his music; and a shadow hung over the shanties that those who dwelt within them did not try to dispel; and yet even Nell did not grudge the boy his proper place in heaven where she

was.

'How happy it must make her to have him near again! the child murmured to Mrs. Keane amidst her blinding tears, and with a firm belief evidently that 'mother' was no disembodied spirit, but only just gone to live among the blessed angels.

Meanwhile the tenor of the betrothed couple's existence went on its even way. The days rolled calmly by, and Bernard forgot to count the time of his twelvemonth's probation in the content and happiness of the present.

'How much longer have we to wait, Ethel ?' he asked one evening, as, with his arm clasped round her, they strolled in their favourite spot close to the river.

'Don't you know, Bernard? Papa said that-' She stopped and coloured-that-'

She grew so wonderfully pretty in her bloom and her shyness that he liked to prolong the picture.

'We were to marry on the 20th of March, and this is the 20th of February.'

'So that in another month I shall have the loveliest little girl in the world for my own, own wife, eh, Ethel?'

Will it make you very happy?'

she asked, with a queer little laugh, and she nestled her face on the stalwart shoulder next to her.

'Will it make me happy, love? Let me look right into your eyes while I answer that.'

He took her fair face in his hands and lifted it up towards him. It was a sweet face, all smiles and dimples and blushes, and his artistic eye was charmed with its beauty and freshness. He caught her to him in a close embrace, kissed her on her rosebud pouting lips, her snow-white forehead, her child-like innocent eyes.

'Ethel,' he said, 'put your arms round my neck.'

She obeyed; obedience to the mandate was far from distasteful to her.

'Now, then, say after me- "I, Ethel, take thee, Bernard, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward."'

'But that is the marriage ceremony,' the girl interrupted. It is unlucky to say those words before the time.'

'Nonsense, child! Go on: "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth." She repeated the words after him.

'Now, Ethel, kiss me of your own accord and seal your troth.' She raised herself on tip-toe and kissed him.

'Nothing can separate us now, my own,' he said exultingly and confidently, drawing her arm through

his.

'Nothing,' she answered, in a low voice, her heart beating very fast, her face beaming with happy smiles.

It was but three days to the 20th of March, the date fixed for the wedding. Bernard-his work

over-went to the log cabin to see Mr. Seymour on railroad business. This gone through, he was on the point of seeking Ethel when his father-in-law elect called him back.

'I forgot to show you this, Bernard. I don't know if it is intended for you, but it's not probable there should be two "Bernard Keanes" about.'

He handed him a newspaper as he spoke. It was a New York Herald.

'Look down the "Personal" column.'

Bernard grasped the paper tighter. Somehow the printing seemed dim, or else his own eyes were at fault. Then he drew himself together, as it were, and read.

'If Bernard Keane should see this, let him call, without delay, at 970 East Seventy-eighth Street, Third Avenue. Ask for parlour floor.'

'A queer advertisement, isn't it?' Mr. Seymour said, with a laugh. 'Very strange,' muttered Bernard.

And again a peculiar giddiness crept over him, and he clutched the back of a chair to steady himself.

'You had better go at once; it may be a fortune,' suggested the elder man.

'Or a misfortune,' Bernard half whispered to himself, with a sinking at the heart he could not understand. 'I'll go at once,' he went on, in a higher key. And you'll tell Ethel I shall come back as soon as ever I can.'

'Yes, do, or my little girl will be crying and spoiling her eyes. I believe she'd break her heart if you weren't back by the 20th!'

'Nothing can prevent that if I am alive!' he cried.

But something did.

No. 970 East Seventy-eighth Street was a dreary-looking house enough, situated at the corner of

one of the commonest avenues in

New York.

Bernard surveyed the building from top to bottom with a doubt in his mind as to whether that advertisement had not been a trap to do him some bodily mischief. But he was not of a nervous temperament, and, striding up the small flight of steps, he gave a hard pull at the bell.

The summons was answered by a repulsive-looking negress, stout and tall, and possessing, to an inordinate degree, the coarse protruding lips of Africa's sons and daughters.

'I wish to see the person in the parlour floor.'

'Yes, saar,' she replied, in the peculiar tone of her kind, displaying her sole attraction, two magnificent rows of teeth, large but wellshaped, and white as ivory.

Bernard followed her down the passage to its farthest extremity. She flung open a door, and, making a gesture for him to enter, disappeared down a staircase dark as night.

A woman sat facing the entrance of the room. Bernard looked at her. He did not speak, he did not move, but stood like a statue in the doorway, with all warmth and life apparently stricken out of him.

As for the woman, she attempted to rise, struggled with herself wildly for a moment, half screamed, and fell back insensible.

A tall spare man, with silvery hair and lean haggard face, ran into the room, pushing Bernard on one side in his anxiety and dis

tress.

'Is she dead ?'

The voice that asked this question was so cold and hollow that it startled Ralph Pierce.

'No, she is not dead. It is that we wanted to tell you.'

Bernard stared wildly from the old man to that face which ap

peared like death. All at once he cried out,

'O my God, what does it all mean ?'

Hush whispered Ursula's father; 'she is reviving. Have mercy; find some pity for her in your heart! If she has sinned, the God in heaven alone knows how deeply she has suffered !'

At this moment the woman came to.

When she saw her husband before her, a faint smile flitted across her face, and she lifted her arms wearily towards him.

Bernard shrank back involuntarily, and the feeble arms dropped heavily, while a sob, hard and dry, broke from her. She was fully conscious now, stung into life by mental pain.

Forgive me! she whispered humbly. I forgot the gulf, the awful black gulf, that lies between you and me. Yet if you could have kissed me without knowing— only once without knowing!'

She muttered this in a broken voice.

'Ursula,' he said, struggling for calmness, 'you are here and alive; I mourned for you, believing you were dead.'

'Did you? O Bernard, did you really grieve?'

Ursula started up, put back the still golden and glorious waves of hair from her temples, and searched eagerly in his features for some sign of the love and grief he spoke of. She saw only a hard-set face, cold as the marble that covers the dead. All the passion of youth seemed to have gone out of it for

ever.

Bernard turned away to Ralph Pierce, glad to be free of the searching imploring eyes.

'I ought to hear how Ursula is in America. I am cruelly in the dark.'

'Let me speak with him; let

me tell him,' Ursula interrupted eagerly, sitting upright with that sudden strength that springs from desperation. Go away, father; let me be alone with him once more. This once, Bernard, Bernard! I will never ask it again. Sit down here. Will you touch my hand? See how thin and wasted it is. Yours is strong and healthy, but how it trembles. It is my presence that has made it shake. Never fear; I am dying. Cannot you see, Bernard, that a very little while will end it all?'

He did not answer, but his clasp closed over the fragile fingers and held them firmly. After all she was his wife, and he had loved her.

'Bernard, they told me you were killed in a railway accident. I believed it, and I married another man.'

He dropped her hand, and stared at her in dumb horror. He could not comprehend the thing she told him.

'You cannot believe it ; no wonder. Still it is the solemn truth; but for that horrible lie my love for you would have saved me. I was going to you; we tried to get away from him.'

'Ursula, for God's sake, what do you mean?' cried Bernard, snatching her hand again and crushing it in his till she moaned with pain. 'Tell me clearly, and be brief.'

Ursula clung to him.

'Let me be, let me be; touching you gives me strength. I want to tell you everything; it is for that I wished to see you before I died.'

He waited for her in silence to go on.

'Give me a glass of brandy,' she asked faintly.

He looked round, saw a flask near, and gave her what she wanted.

'Now listen,' she said, holding his arm, while a hot flush swept over her cheek, and her great black eyes shone like stars. 'I am as

strong as a lion now; and I will tell you everything.'

Ursula tried to tell him all, the whole of her sinful and miserable story from the hour she had parted with him at the railway station at Liverpool.

'You recollect when John Lock came-I can hardly go on; to think of that time kills me. He brought accusations against father. He seized upon me when we were going to you, made me believe that you were dead, and in the madness of my grief and terror made me his wife. Even from the very first I dreaded the man, Bernard. From the time he forced me to marry him I hated him; and when I had lived with him a year, hatred turned to absolute loathing. Just then I found your letter, and learned that in our hideous marriage John Lock had added falsehood to compulsion that you, my true husband, were alive! O Bernard, I cannot tell you what I suffered; how I detested myself, and went wild with a longing to go to you, to throw myself at your feet and beg you to have compassion; for I loved you, Bernard,-do not, for heaven's sake, shrink away from me!-I did, I did!'

Bernard covered his face with both his hands, and shook from head to foot.

'I broke down then. During the whole year I had been struggling for peace as drowning men beat the waters in a storm. It was all one wild whirling stream full of vanity, and yet unutterable desolation, the life I led. I broke down utterly; the disease that is killing me flourished apace, and I was glad of it.'

Bernard uncovered his eyes and looked at her. It was hard to be angry with a woman so faded and prostrate, a woman whose face was already shadowed by the death angel's wing.

Thank you, Bernard, for that

look,' she said, beginning to cry a little. 'Bear with me while I tell you the rest, and pity me just a little. I told that wretch how dearly I loved you, and how bitterly I hated him; how resolute I was never on this earth to be his wife again in anything but name. I was very brave, but he conquered me with threats against you. I believe he would have found you and killed you, if I had left his house. One thing I never told John Lock, and that was of my marriage with you; but I never forgot it, not for one moment. From the hour I knew of your being alive, I repelled him. His roof sheltered me, his wealth surrounded me with the luxury I had learnt to loathe, but he knew well how abhorrent his very presence had become. And at last I won my freedom out of his crimes. When he married me, I believed it was from all-absorbing love; for I was vain, arrogant, and ignorant. But I learnt later that it was as much avarice as love that prompted him. He wanted a safe tool in his wife, by which to grasp more evil wealth. One night I discovered that all the wealth which tempted me was obtained by fraud, and that he had craftily made me an accomplice. I had the proofs in my hand; I held him tight in my grasp. He threatened you, and I had him caged like a wild beast. "For life," they said; and he knows that I put the shackles on his hands. When the whole world looks black before me, I think of that night's work, and rejoice!

Tell me, Bernard, if I had crept to your feet would you have spurned me from them?'

'It is useless to ask such questions,' he said. All the time you were deceiving me, I was working for you, waiting, longing for you. Then I thought you dead, so help me, Heaven! I saw you dead, or

believed so. Would to God it had been the truth!'

'Oh, if it had, if it only had,' she moaned, wringing her shadowy hands, I should have been spared the knowledge that you hate me !'

'Was that death-scene a fraud as well?' he questioned gloomily.

'No; the girl you saw was my sister, and we were exactly alike. Nell Weston was deceived by the likeness too.'

'And why was I not undeceived before ?'

'I did not wish it. I was afraid; and-'

'A cruel evil has sprung from the concealment,' cried Bernard, with a burst of sorrow at Ethel's misery when she should hear of all this. Nothing could separate them, he had said; and now !

'Bernard, I had but one hope, one longing on earth-to see you, to tell you the whole truth, and die. I felt that I must confess all, for the sake of my soul's salvation. I could not rest in my grave without your forgiveness. I shall soon be gone; let me go in peace.'

'I forgive you, Ursula: you have sinned against me, but you have suffered sorely, my poor girl. You are weary now. I will leave you, and come again to-morrow.'

Ursula leant back in her chair with a sickly smile on her lips; her eyes were closed. She was white and still, her features all sunken ; only her hair shone up like a crown of gold, making, by the contrast of its radiance, the face more ghastly.

'Leave her to me,' whispered Ralph Pierce, who had stolen into the room. 'You have been kind and pitiful, Mr. Keane; and the great God will bless you for it.'

Bernard wrung the old man's hand; and giving one more look at the woman whom he had loved and married, he went out of that house like a man in a horrible dream.

'Ethel, I said nothing could part