Ever anxious for her! Her heart bounded with gratitude.

"Under cover to Mary Carr," she said.

"We must part now, my love," he whispered, as a faint rumbling broke upon their ears from the distance; " you hear my signal. It is fast approaching."

"You will come back as soon as you are at liberty?" she sighed. "Ay, the very instant. Need you question it, Adeline?"

you,

you,

He strained her to his heart, and the painful tears coursed down her cheek. "God bless and take care of and keep you in peace till I return, my dear, my dear, my only love!" And when he had passed into the room, Adeline asked herself if that last lingering farewell kiss which he had pressed upon her lips-she asked herself, with burning blushes, if she were sure it had not been returned.

II.

THE second evening after Mr. St. John's departure, before they had risen from the dinner-table, Silva brought in the letters. Two from England amongst them, bearing on their seals, as Rose Darling expressed it, the arms and quarterings of all the St. Johns. The one was addressed to Madame de Castella; the other was handed to Miss Carr.

Mary looked at it with unqualified surprise. The fact was, Adeline, not expecting they could hear from Mr. St. John till the following day, had put off the few words of explanation she meant to speak, feeling shy at the task.

"Why should Mr. St. John write to me?" exclaimed Mary Carr. But Adeline, who was sitting next her, laid her hand upon Mary's knee, under cover of the tablecloth, pressing it convulsively.

There was a slight general laugh at the remark. Some of them were beginning to think, for the first time, that Mr. St. John might possess a tender interest in Miss Carr.

66

Open it without ceremony, my dear," said Agnes de Beaufoy. "You are not amongst strangers."

Mary Carr raised her hand to break the seal: but that iron clasp of Adeline's became more urgent in its pressure. She began dimly to understand, and laid the letter down by the side of her dessert-plate.

"Why don't you open it, Mary Carr ?" repeated Rose, impatiently. "No," said Miss Carr, in a half-joking manner, "there may be secrets in it which I don't care to read before people." And Rose, whose curiosity was fully excited, could have boxed her ears.

"Mr. St. John writes that his mother is better," said Madame de Castella; "the injuries prove less serious than were at first supposed. By the next post, he hopes to send us word that she is out of danger."

"This letter, Adeline," exclaimed Mary Carr, when they were alone "I fancy it may not be meant for me.”

"You can open it," replied Adeline, timidly. "Perhaps I thinkthere may be one for me inside it."

Mary Carr opened the letter. It contained but a few polite words from Mr. St. John, requesting her to convey the enclosed one to Adeline, at a convenient opportunity.

"You see how it is?" faltered Adeline to her.

"I have seen it long, Adeline."

She carried the letter to her chamber to read, bolting the door that she might be free from interruption. It was a long letter, written far more sensibly than are love-epistles in general, for it was impossible to Mr. St. John to write otherwise, but there was a vein of impassioned tenderness running through it, implied rather than expressed, which surely ought to have satisfied even Adeline. But the embittered doubts which had possessed her, since that fatal night when Rose so randomly spoke of Miss Beauclerc, cast their gangrene over all. Not a moment of peace or happiness had she known since. Her visions by day, her dreams by night, were crowded by images of Mr. St. John, faithless to her, happy with another. Nor did the young lady in question want a "shape to the mind." The day after St. John's departure, they were looking over the last year's "Book of Beauty," or "Portraits of the English Nobility" -something of that, I forget the precise title-when Rose suddenly exclaimed, "Adeline, we were talking last night of Sarah Beauclerc: this very like her."

is

"Was it nonsense or sense, Rose, the tale you were telling us ?" questioned Adeline, with a desperate struggle to speak calmly.

"Sober sense, and sober truth, so far as I believe," blundered Rose, in reply. "Frank told me. He said St. John had been her shadow for months, until-so I understood it-until he came abroad here. Everybody thought they were engaged, Frank said; there was no room to think otherwise."

"It was only a flirtation," broke in Mary Carr, who had in vain endeavoured to interrupt Rose before.

66

"Very likely," assented Rose; an attractive fellow like Frederick St. John is allowed to go pretty deep in the game: roaming about, as a butterfly, from flower to flower, kissing all, but settling upon none." And off danced Rose, bringing her careless speech to a conclusion with the commencing lines of an old song, once in great vogue at Madame de Nino's,

"The Butterfly was a gentleman

Of no very good repute;

And he roved in the sunshine all day long,
In his scarlet and purple suit.

And he left his lady wife at home

In her own secluded bower,

Whilst he, like a bachelor, flirted about,

With a kiss for every flower."

Adeline listened to all in silence, gazing at the portrait. It was that of a fair girlish face, wearing a peculiarly sweet look of youth and innocence. No impartial observer could have pronounced it so lovely as her own, but the jealous film just now before her eyes caused her to take an exaggerated view of its charms, and to see in it something more than loveliness. It may have been little, if at all, like the young lady to whom Rose compared it; but no matter to Adeline it was Sarah Beauclerc and no other, and from that moment the image fixed itself indelibly in her mind as that of her envied rival. And yet she knew that Mr. St. John was seeking to win herself for his wife! Truly they are unfathomable, the ways and fears of jealousy.

More letters came from St. John to Mary Carr, and answers were sent in return to him, the address in Mary's handwriting, and the seal her

own "M. C.," and a dove with an olive-branch. It had become quite a joke at the château: Agnes openly wondered where all their eyes could have been; Rose, who was at first puzzled, a thing she detested, curled her lip, and asked Mary if she meant to set herself up for a rival to the beautiful Sarah Beauclerc; and good old Madame de Beaufoy told Mary she should make her a present of the wedding dress. Mary Carr winced sometimes, but she remembered Adeline's pale cheek and troubled spirit, and bore all patiently.

One day, while they were at dinner, who should arrive unexpectedly but the Baron de la Chasse. Some difficulty with the lawyers as to the marriage-settlements rendered necessary a personal interview with M. de Castella. The latter pressed him to remain a few days, and he consented. Adeline was both terrified and dismayed, and she wrote to Mr. St. John before she slept.

Three evenings later, the whole party were assembled in the billiardroom. The windows were open, and the hot breeze was whiffing in, blowing the lights about, and causing the wax to drop. It was between ten and eleven, and the baron and Signor de Castella were finishing their last game, when the door opened, and in walked Mr. St. John. Adeline started from her seat with a faint, involuntary cry; but, in the universal surprise, the movement was not observed.

He looked very well; and oh! how handsome! It seemed to strike them all, after this short absence, though he had no advantages from dress, being in his travelling attire. How could they blame Adeline for loving him? A hundred inquiries were made after Mrs. St. John. She was entirely out of danger, he answered, and progressing towards recovery.

"Will you allow me the honour of half an hour's interview with you to-morrow morning, sir?" he said, addressing M. de Castella, in a tone which the whole room might hear.

"Certainly," returned M. de Castella. But he looked somewhat surprised.

"At what hour?" inquired St. John.

66

Any hour.

Name your own."

"Ten o'clock then." And he took his leave.

He might well clasp Adeline's hand to reassure her, as he went out, for they could have heard her heart beat, as he made that request to her father. She retired to her chamber, but not to sleep: the anxiety of the coming day prevented rest. But, amidst all the suspense that turned her heart to sickness-amidst the dread of what the approaching hours might bring forth-amidst the strange doubt and agony which had come with the image of Sarah Beauclerc, there arose one bright, rapturous gleam of sunshine he was once more with her: she had heard his beloved voice, and felt the pressure of his hand, and the world was again Eden. Though with that yellow shade over it.

It was striking ten, the next morning, when Mr. St. John entered the house. He brought a roll of music in his hand for Rose, and presented Mary Carr with a handsome writing-case: an acknowledgment, she always thought, of the slight service she had rendered him and Adeline. He then passed into the cabinet of M. de Castella.

The interview lasted an hour-an hour!-and Adeline in suspense all that time. She could not remain for an instant in one place-now up

stairs, now down. She was crossing the hall, for about the hundredth time, when the cabinet door opened, and Mr. St. John came out. He seized her hand and took her into the yellow drawing-room. She trembled violently from head to foot, like she had trembled the night of his departure for England. It was the first moment of their being alone together, and he embraced her tenderly, and held her to his heart. "You have ill news for me!" she uttered, at length. "We are to be separated!"

"We will not be separated, Adeline. Strange! strange!" he continued, leaving her to pace the room, "that people can be so infatuated as to fancy an engagement of form must necessarily imply an engagement of hearts! M. de Castella does not understand-he cannot understand that your happiness is at stake. In short, he laughed at that." "Is he very angry?"

"No; but vexed. I have not time now to relate to you all that passed, liable as we are to interruption. I told him that the passion which had arisen between us was not of will-that I had not purposely placed myself in your path to gain your love-that we had been thrown together by circumstances, and thus it had arisen. I pointed out that no blame could by any possibility attach to you, but it might be due to me; for I did not deny that when I saw an attachment was growing up between us, I might have flown before it was irrevocably planted, and did not."

"Did you part in anger?" she shuddered.

"On the contrary. M. de Castella is anxious to treat the affair as a jest, and hinted that it might be dropped as such. I did not reply: thinking it better not to venture too far at the first interview. Perhaps he imagined he had convinced me, for he asked me to dinner." "Frederick! You will surely come ?"

“I shall come, Adeline, for your sake."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, with a shiver, "how will it end ?"

it, you

"My dearest," he said earnestly, "you must be calm. Fear nothing, now I am by you. Rely upon shall be my wife." "Mr. St. John," cried Rose, as they went into the west drawingroom, "you have brought the music for me, the writing-case for Mary Carr, but what have you brought for Adeline ?"

"Myself," he quietly answered.

"There's many a true word spoken in jest," laughed Rose. "You don't think you have been taking me in all this time, Mr. St. John, with your letters to Mary Carr, and her envelopes back again? Bah! pas si bête," cried Rose, waltzing on to the colonnade.

Mr. St. John turned to Miss Carr, and thanked her for the very thing Rose had named. "I presume you know," he said, "that our correspondence was perfectly justified, though I did not wish it declared until my return-that we are affianced to each other?"

"I have feared it some time, Mr. St. John." "Feared it?"

"Yes. Adeline is promised to another: and the French look upon such engagements as sacred."

"In a general way. But there are cases of exception.

good wishes, I hope.'

May-VOL. CIV. NO. CCCCXIII.

We have your

D

"Indeed you have. For I fear it may be a matter of life and death to Adeline as it is decided. She is a sensitive plant.”

"And shall be cherished as one."

It was a most uncomfortable dinner that day. Mr. St. John was present, looking haughty and resolute, and De la Chasse furious. Somehow, the pretensions of Mr. St. John had oozed out-Mary Carr thought through poor old Madame de Beaufoy-and De la Chasse had aspersed St. John, in no measured terms, before them all. After dinner, Signor de Castella led the way to the billiardroom, hoping, probably, that the knocking about of balls might dissipate the constraint. But it came to an open rupture. Some difference of opinion arose about the game: St. John was calm, but unbending; De la Chasse gave way to his anger, and so far forgot himself, as personally to attack, by words, Mr. St. John. "A spendthrift, who had run through his own fortune, to come hunting after Adeline's"

"Vous êtes menteur !" shouted Mr. St. John, turning short upon the baron. But what further he would have followed up with was stopped by Adeline, who, terrified out of self-control, darted across the room, and touching St. John's arm whispered him to be calm for her sake. De la Chasse advanced and offered his hand to remove Adeline, but St. John threw his arm round her waist with haughty defiance.

"Mademoiselle, you are degrading yourself!" uttered De la Chasse. "Come from his side."

There was no answer from St. John, but a quiet smile of contempt, and his retaining hold of Adeline. The baron was foaming, but as to his attempting to remove Adeline by force, he knew he might as well have attempted to move the château, and have got pitched out at window, probably, into the bargain.

"Sir, I appeal to you," he stuttered, turning to M. de Castella, for the scene had really passed so quickly that the latter had found no breath to interfere. "Is it fit that my promised wife should thus be subjected to insult in my presence ?"

"Adeline," interposed M. de Castella, sternly, "return to your mother."

"She is my promised wife," said Mr. St. John to the baron, “and I have a right to retain her here-the right of affection. A right that you will never have."

"I will not bandy words with him, I will not," foamed De la Chasse. "Monsieur de Castella, when your salon shall be freed from that man I will re-enter it." He turned upon his heel, and left the billiard-room, banging the door after him.

"Mademoiselle," reiterated M. de Castella to his daughter, who was sobbing aloud in her terror and agitation, "do you disobey me? Return to your mother."

"She does not disobey you, sir, and never has done willingly," cried Mr. St. John, as he released Adeline, and conducted her across the room to Madame de Castella.

"These scenes must be put a stop to, Mr. St. John. You received my answer this morning."

"Only to re-enter upon it, sir. The particulars which I spared then I will relate now."