established himself as a kind of paternal keeper
near her, and never minded her insolence, but
provoked it by his aggravating tone of bland
patronage, sometimes left his post to whisper
confidentially to his friends that, poor thing, she
was worse this evening than ever, and that Mr.
Grantley was much to be pitied.

So he was; and indeed he might have gone
mad himself, were it not for the thought which
possessed him, and the hope it gave of a
speedy freedom. For surely public opinion
would support him now; and would not all
the world say, after what they saw this evening,
that an asylum was the only sure place for his
wife?

The report of Annie's strange alienation of
mind reached May Sefton; near to whom was
standing Mr. Clarke Jones. Mr. Clarke Jones
had managed to be standing pretty often near
to May Sefton this evening, and Laurence,
whose eyes were seldom far from her, soon grew
darkly conscious that the vulgar country lawyer
was presuming to admire her, and daring to
show his admiration: an insolence, by-the-by,
he would never have been guilty of, but for the
lift Mr. Grantley's great patronage of him had
given him in society.

How very shocking!" said May, a little
blanching. " How terrible for poor Mr. Grantley!
how I feel for him!" And eyes full of
gentle pity turned tenderly upon him.

"He has one consolation," said Jones, in
a thick voice: " he has the sympathy of the
prettiest young lady in the county."

"Sir!" said May, turning on him a look of
ineffable disdain. May had no affectation, and
never pretended that she did not understand a
compliment.

"No offence, miss, I hope. I only spoke as
I felt, and honest hearts have free tongues,"
said Jones, colouring.

Pretty May turned the tip of her round white
shoulder; and just then Laurence, who had seen
and divined her glance, came up to her hurriedly
and asked her to waltz with him.

"Bless you, dear Miss Sefton!" he murmured"
—God bless you, for your sympathy to
a broken-hearted man!"

May meant no evil. She thought only to be
kind; but she was impulsive and full of
passionate feeling; and the blessing touched her
inmost soul. She looked up into Laurence
Grantley's face, and tears were in her eyes.
Then she said, in a sisterly, gentle voice: " Poor
Mr. Grantley! I do feel for you!" Laurence
started and pressed her tenderly to him;
his face paler than the marble bust looking
serenely down from its height; then he whirled
her rapidly from the waltz, and led her to her
mother.

"Miss Sefton is tired of me," he said, with
forced gaiety, and going off smiling; leaving
May bewildered and terribly ashamed.

"I will go and talk to Mrs. Grantley," she
said, after a moment. " Poor Annie! she wants
comforting too."

Accepting the arm of one of her numerous
cavaliers always ready to do her service, she
went across the room to Annie, who sat alone,
not speaking to any one but those who went up
to her, and then shortly and disagreeably;
assuming nothing of the hostess, and paying as
little attention to the guests as to the arrangements.
She had never looked worse than tonight;
her heavy face had never worn a more
stolid, more uuamiable expression; ill as she
always dressed, to-night she was execrably
attired in a pale dull grey, the colour of her
skin, with pale yellow flowers, the colour of
her hair. May, in her floating, diaphanous robe
of blue and white, looked like an angel by the
side of a corpse

."You had better go and dance with Mr.
Grantley again," said Annie, not looking up.

"I want to talk to you instead," said May,
smiling. " It is long since we had a nice long
talk, and you have never told me of your
travels."

"I don't want to talk," said Annie; " and
you had better go and dance with Mr. Grantley."

"When Annie once began to iterate her sentences
it was lost labour to attempt to move her.
It was her favourite form of obstinacy, and her
obstinacy was of iron. So May was at last
driven away by a shower of hard, cold insolences
which never softened and never relaxed.

The weary evening came to its end; pronounced
a failure; and every one went away
convinced that Mrs. Laurence Grantley was
mad, and might do anything—kill her husband,
kill herself, set fire to the house, or do something
shocking, my dears. There ought to be a keeper
got, said the gossips, confidentially.

The next day was dull, gloomy, miserable;
a little rain tell in the morning, but, towards
noon it ceased, though the clouds hung
heavy and low, and the mist wreaths clung
about the ravines and clefts. It was one of
those days of unutterable gloom and sadness,
when the earth lies like dead, and the heavy
sky sweeps downward like a pall; when the
whole expression of nature is of gloom and
sorrow; and when even crimes do not startle us
so much as they would at a brighter moment.
Laurence would not meet his wife to-day. He
breakfasted early, by himself, and, after writing
several letters in his library (one to Dr. Downs,
asking him to appoint a colleague and sign the
necessary certificate for his wife's admission
into an asylum), he went out, again taking
the direction of Black Tarn, his favourite
place of refuge when sad or sorrowful. Deep
in a sunless rift—where the very eagles built
no nests, and where no trace of life nor
vegetation was to be seen, with the grey crags
striking sheer and sharp from the edge, as if
torn asunder by some mighty throb which had
rent mountains and destroyed cities, and where
the very mountain sheep could find no footing
Black Tarn lay like a lake of the dead, or, as
the country people believed it was, like the
mouth of the oottomless pit. All sorts of fierce
traditions and mournful tales lingered about the
spot. Murders in the olden time of lawlessness