attractive; but now the house, the farmer's wife, the whole surrounding landscape seemed to borrow new dignity from the potent fact of this unknown artist having admired them.

She did not join in the conversation, but listened with feverish interest as Jane asked if Mrs. Battishill knew his name.

No, she had not asked it. He had said he was staying at the "Fountain Head," and, when she asked him how long he meant to stay in these parts, he laughed and answered "as long as the fine weather lasts."

"Eh, well, we'll hope the rain'll hold off till he's done his picture," said Jane, as she rose to take her leave.

The farmer's wife protested against such a short visit, but Jane reminded her that tea at Edge was at six o'clock, and that they were bound to be home in good time; and so they started out again into the golden evening, where a circle of rose-color was just beginning to rim the intense blue of the pure sky.

When they had shut the wicket-gate, and crossed the brook by the miniature bridge of three crazy planks, Elaine took her courage in both hands and ventured a petition.

"Jane," said she, "don't go across the waste. Let us go home by the road; it will be—a change."

As she spoke, she turned crimson, and almost despaired, for it was a longer way to go home by the road.

Jane guessed with perfect accuracy the thoughts which were busy in her young mistress' mind; but she herself was a true daughter of Eve, and she wished to go home by the road as much as ever Elaine could do. She just sent one keen look at the girl's flushed face, and then said:

"It was more than a bit boggy across the waste; you'll get home dry-shod if we go the other way."

So these two dissemblers, neither of whom would own her secret motive, turned into the road, and walked along until a sudden bend in it brought them in sight of the artist's easel, and then Elaine's heart seemed to spring up to her throat and choke her, and she cried out, regardless of whom might hear,

"Oh, Jane! He's gone!"

CHAPTER IV.

"Gone!" was Jane's quick response; "but he'd never go and leave his picture sticking out there by itself for the first shower to spoil—he can't be far off."

For a moment Elaine recoiled, every nerve thrilled with the thought that the stranger, concealed in some bush in the immediate vicinity, had heard her reckless and incautious exclamation. There was no movement and no sound, and, after a pause fraught with more suspense than she could remember to have ever felt before, she stepped about two paces forward, and took another timid look. Something was lying on the ground near the easel—a confused heap of gray, which outlined itself clearly in the long rank wayside grass; and for a moment Elaine turned white and looked as if she were going to faint; then, no longer hesitating, but urged on by a wild impetuosity, she ran to the spot, and stood gazing down at Allonby's pallid and stiffened features.

All her life long she would remember that moment—every detail, every sensation, stamped on her brain with indelible distinctness. The soft whisper of a newly-awakened diminutive breeze in the ash-trees, the grass all yellow as corn in the golden evening light, the hot sweet perfume that arose from the fragrant hedgerow, and the still hard face, bloodless under its newly-acquired bronze. It was death—she was certain of it. Death, that mystery in whose existence she had never really believed, though she knew, as matter of history, that both her parents were dead.

Into the heart of this strange, awful secret she seemed suddenly hurled with a force which bewildered her. For a few moments she stood quite speechless, swaying to and fro, and seeing through a mist, while Jane, with her back towards her, was staring down the lane in hopes of seeing the artist reappear.

Allonby had evidently come to the ground with force. His fall had crushed the camp stool under him. He had fallen forward, but slightly sideways; one arm was flung out under his head, and, owing to this, his face was turned upward, leaving clearly visible a livid purple mark on the left side of the forehead. The other hand was clenched, and the lower limbs slightly contracted, as if from a sudden shock; the eyes were closed and the brows drawn together with an expression of pain.

To this girl, who had scarcely in her life come into contact with a young man socially her equal, this strange experience was overwhelming. A moment she remained, as has been said, trembling and erect; then she dropped on her knees in the long grass, and cried out, pierceingly,

"Jane! Jane! come here! What are you doing? He is dead! He is dead!"

Jane turned as if she had been shot.

"Lawk-a-mercy, Miss Elaine," she cried, hurrying to the spot; and then, as is the manner of her class, she began to scream, and her shrill cries rent the air three or four times in rapid succession. "Oh, good Lord! Oh, mercy on me! What can have happened? He's been murdered, sure enough! Oh, Miss Elaine, come away! Come away from the corpse, my dear! You know your aunts would never hold with your touching a corpse. Oh, dearie, dearie, all the years I've lived I never come across such a thing! Never!"

"Murdered!"

The word dropped from Elaine's trembling lips with a wailing sound. Such a thing had never suggested itself to her mind. Probably had she had the usual training in the way of sensational novels, had she been accustomed to read of crimes and follow up the details of their detection with the zest of the true lover of late nineteenth-century romance, the idea of murder would have at once occurred to her, and she might have proceeded forthwith to search the long grass around for footprints, fragments of clothing, or a blood-spattered weapon. But she never once thought of the criminal, only of the victim. Neither did it dawn upon her that the mysterious danger which had lurked for the artist in that smiling landscape might lurk there also for her. She thought of nothing but him: that idea swallowed up and eclipsed all others.

Poor Allonby! Barely four hours ago he had rejoiced over the straightforward sincerity of the English summer. He had quoted with smiling satisfaction the words in which a French writer describes the Maremma:

"Cette Maremme fertile et meurtrière qui en deux années vous enrichit et vous tue."

Nothing less murderous could well be imagined than this peaceful Devonshire lane. Here were no ghastly exhalations, no venomous reptiles to glide through the long flowery grass: an Eden without the snake it seemed at first gaze, and yet some unseen malign power had exerted itself, and felled the lusty manhood of this young Englishman with a blow.

To Elaine, the sight was horror and agony untold; it acted physically on her nerves, and produced a dizzy faintness from which it took her several moments to recover. Feverishly she laid her hand on that of the young man, then on his brow, which was cold and rigid; she recoiled, filled with panic, from the touch, and leaped impulsively to her feet.

"Oh, help! Help! Will nobody help? Will nobody hear us if we call?"

"Oh, dear heart, he's bleeding under his coat here somewhere," cried Jane, holding out her hand, on which was something wet and glistening.

This sight robbed the girl of whatever nerve she might have possessed, and she recoiled with a gasp of terror.

"Stay with him," she cried, frantically, "I will run for help;" and, without waiting for reply, she started off to run at her topmost speed, feeling only that the one need of her