"She lies here."

The turf on that small grave had not yet
drunk deep enough of the autumn rains, to
look fresh and green.

"It has had no tears shed on it. It
is dry and scorched, like my heart, like
my heart!"

She stood motionless and speechless for
a time that seemed to me immense; her
drooped eyes seemed to be looking into
the earth. Presently she sank upon her
knees, then dropped upon the grave, pressing
her breast against it, and laying on
it, first one cheek and then the other.
By-and-by, she rose again to her knees.
When she spoke it was brokenly, piteously.

"I cannot do it, I cannot do it! The
mother in me will not let me. My child
will not let me. You were once kind to
her. You made her happy for one bright
blessed day. Bertram, poor boy! I had
thought to do it, when I was your wife.
But here, on my child's grave, I recal the
curse I invoked upon you by her deathbed.
I am only a weak miserable woman,
not even able to hate or to curse!
Everything, even revenge, is lost to me with
what lies here!"

She threw herself down again upon the
grave in utter abandonment of grief; and I,
leaning against the yew-tree, watched her,
weeping there. I have not much
consciousness of what transacted itself in my
brain, meanwhile. I think I realised
nothing clearly. I fancy I had a feeling of
saying to myself, " I told you so"—as if
something I had been expecting long, had
happened at last. A soft drizzling rain
that blotted out the distance, and blurred
the landscape, began to fall. Of this she,
lying always with her face pressed down
upon the turf, was not aware, though I
saw her shawl grow sodden under it. I
remember well the words with which I
recalled her to herself. They showed the
blankness of my brain and how little I
comprehended the situation; yet, even as I
spoke them, I was smitten by their
imbecility.

"It is raining," I said. "I am cold
and wet. It drips through this shelter.
I shall be ill again. Let us go home."

I was tired, benumbed, mind and body.
I stumbled and walked vaguely. She
made me lean on her arm, and led me
home. Even more silently than we had
come, we went.

I was trying to believe all the way, that
I believed that to-morrow everything would
be as it was to have been, in spite of this
episode, and in spite of my sense of my
utter powerlessness under my bondage to
her. When we reached the house she was
tenderly careful of me.

That evening she told me her history,
and what had been her proposed revenge.
She had designed to make me love her
madly. That she had done. She had
designed to let me marry her, who had been
a mother and not a wife. She had designed,
as the wife of my infatuated love and
unspeakable passion, to have cursed me as
her child's butcher, at her child's grave.
She had designed—or was the nameless
dread and horror of my illness taking this
terrific form in its flight?—when she had
thus slowly ground down my heart to its
last grain of misery and grief, to murder
me in my bed.

"I could have married you for hate,"
she said; " but for such love as has arisen
in my soul for you—if indeed it is love, or
anything but compassion and kindness
towards the poor wretch I have helped back
to life—never!"

She left the farm that night. I never
saw her again.

THE FIRST VOLUME
OF THE NEW SERIES OF
ALL THE YEAR ROUND.
To be had of all Booksellers.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S FINAL READINGS.

MESSRS. CHAPPELL AND CO. have great pleasure
in announcing that MR. CHARLES DICKENS, having some
time since become perfectly restored to health, will
resume and conclude his interrupted series of FAREWELL
READINGS at St. James's Hall, London,
early in the New Year.

The Readings will be TWELVE in NUMBER, and none
will take place out of London.

In redemption of MR. DICKENS'S pledge to those
ladies and gentlemen of the theatrical profession who
addressed him on the subject, there will be TWO MORNING
READINGS, one on Friday, January 14, and one on
Friday, January 21, 1870. The EVENING READINGS
will take place on Tuesdays, January 11, 18, 25;
February 1, 8, 15, 22; March 1, 8, and 15. The Prices and
all other arrangements will be as before. The announced
number of Readings will on no account be exceeded.

All communications to be addressed to Messrs.
CHAPPELL and Co., 50, New Bond-street, W.