laughing; "what are you creeping about in that miserable manner for? Poor child! I startled you out of your sleep last night—you are quite pale."

She would have looked doubly so had she known his mad thoughts while she slept; as it was, she blushed painfully when he noticed her.

"I declare," he said, bending over her fondly, "you have been crying, dear child. What is grieving you?—have I unintentionally pained you?" And he kissed the bent brow.

"No, dearest Miles," she answered with quivering lips—she felt so nervous. "You are all kindness, all love. I——" and she was choking with her efforts to subdue her tears.

"My darling child—my own wife!" he said tenderly, raising her to his bosom, "do not give way to nervous depression—you can have no cause—I will not leave you so much alone; but you know, dearest, why it is—not choice, as heaven hears me—but necessity. Where will be our long-projected voyage to Gibraltar, for our good object, if I do not work? Every hour away from you is one of regret; and, as I am painting some grim portrait, I long to carry my model, easel, and all, to my quiet painting-room here, with my Minnie to hang over my shoulder."

She was silently weeping most bitter tears; they were standing near the table in the centre of the room. "Come, come," he said, cheeringly, "you shall not give way to this—come into my studio; I want you to mix my colours. Silly child—silly child! to cry so much for nothing."

She was on the point of telling him all, and imploring pardon, when he turned his head aside, and the eye caught sight of a sheet of paper on the table. "Since when has Minnie," he said laughingly, as he took it in his hand, "turned copyist, and whose writing is this she has been imitating? I have seen it somewhere before—where have I seen it?" She was almost sinking to earth. It was a note which Lord Randolph had commenced; yet, in her speechless agony, she clung to his arm. There were only a few words—they ran thus:—

"Dear Tremenhere,—I am much annoyed at not finding you at home——"

"What does it mean, Minnie?" he cried, still smiling, and yet a strange, uncertain light bursting over him. "Surely this is not your writing? has any one been here? I will ring, and ask Bruce." He had his hand on the bell: she had slid from his arm unperceived to a seat. Before the bell sounded, the servant boy entered the room with a letter, which he handed to Tremenhere.

"Has any one called during my——"

Tremenhere said no more, his eye fell on the letter—one glance sufficed; for in his other hand he held the slip of paper.

"You may go," he said hastily to the boy. Without uttering another word he tore open the letter, and read, (we have said Lord Randolph had not much variety of thought; this note was a copy, in the past tense, of the other one commenced.)

"Dear Tremenhere,—I was much annoyed at not finding you at home when I called to-day," (it had been posted the previous evening,) "as I particularly wished to see you. I know, under the emergency of the case, you will pardon my intrusion at your villa, the fair inhabitant of which did me the great honour of mistaking me for you, and, rushing in to meet you, brought me acquainted with the fairest face and form I ever beheld. 'Pon my life, Tremenhere, you are a lucky fellow, and a selfish one too, for possessing so fair an original. Surely you might bestow the copy on a friend, to create the loveliest Aurora ever seen! I am off to Uplands. As I most particularly wish to see you, come down without delay; I shall expect you to-morrow night, and you must stop a few days. Make my best compliments to your fair companion, and believe me to be, ever yours truly,

"Randolph Gray."

Miles read the letter through without a word uttered; it was only on his face his soul broke forth, and there it became, step by step, as he read on—surprise, grief, cold desolation—a man waking from a dream of home and love, to the rigid reality of a field of blood and battle. All these emotions, one by one, passed like shadows over his face, which grew paler with each. When he looked up, all had given place to a stern resolution, which sat on his troubled brow as he turned towards his wife. She, poor child, had covered her face with both hands, and was weeping bitterly. He laid a cold unearthly hand on her arm—"You have deceived me," he uttered; and, with that almost inarticulate sound, his soul seemed to pass, so great was his agony. "Whom can we trust?" he whispered almost, as though speaking to himself. "She has deceived me!" and a sigh, almost a sob, burst from his bosom.

Our readers must picture to themselves the jealous temperament of this man—his intense, all-absorbing love for his wife—and then they may form some idea of his present agony; for this it was. His heart-strings seemed tightened as if a breath would snap them, like a lute too finely strung, over which we pass the fingers in dread.

"Miles!" she cried, clasping his arm, "hear me—hear all! I—I—I was afraid to tell you!" and the tears gushed from her eyes anew.

He released her grasp, and quietly reseating her, but as some one he touched with repulsion, said, with his cold, stern eyes bent on her, "Afraid to tell me! Am I then so much an object of terror to you? I who——" The tone was unnatural, for his heart was bursting. "I," he continued, gradually raising his voice till it trembled with various emotions, "who have been gentle as a woman with you. I thought you so loving, so timid in your love, I feared to startle you by a rough tone—and you are afraid of me! All my love for you has only brought forth this—fear! Oh! when I said my heart was too old for yours, I was indeed right. I am not old—young still—but old at heart; and there, where I have given all, I meet only fear!" He passed his hand over his brow, as if his brain were burning within. "Only fear—only fear!" he muttered; "and I, fool, thought she loved me!"

"So I do, Miles, my own dear husband," she cried, dropping on her knees, and holding her trembling hands up to him in supplication, while the tears rolled heavily down her upturned face; "I do love you, Miles—on my soul, I do, more than all the world beside; but I feared to tell you, for Dora frightened me so much about this man's visit."

"Lady Dora!" he cried—"when was she here?"

"Yesterday, Miles," sobbed she. "In my trouble, I forgot to tell you;" and, rising, she dropped on a seat.

"There was a time, Minnie," he said bitterly, looking at the girl as he stood with crossed arms before her, where she sat trembling, "you never forgot or concealed any thing from me. Times are sadly changed; or, perhaps, 'tis I who have been self-deceived all this long time, and read you as I hoped, not as you really are. In good truth, we know no one till we try them. 'Tis your nature, perhaps, child. You tried your young wings at home, and now you are giving me the advantage of your perfected flight. I have walked with you against others on this crooked road: I deserve to meet with a path where you turn round upon—myself!"

"Miles! for pity's sake," she articulated, almost suffocated by emotion, "have mercy on me; you are unjust and cruel!"

He strode the room with clenched hands, endeavouring to subdue the many passions in his breast. She rose like a spirit so noiselessly, and, gliding beside him, grasped his arm again. "Forgive me, Miles," she whispered with quivering lips. Her touch roused all the indignation he was endeavouring to subdue.

"Forgive you!" he exclaimed, flinging her hand from him as if it burned him with its contact. "Forgive you!" and he stood before her with a wild look of passion. "You, who have so bitterly wounded and deceived me—and for whom? A man—the stranger of a day! Yet how do I know this? Perhaps you have met often; and now I think of it, he does not name in his note having been presented to