and yet there was an unacknowledged de- So the talk went on, and by the time sire in their hearts to see with their own the unexpected turn in the Cleasbys' foreyes something of glory and love and hon- tunes became known, Overton generally -those things of which the poets had made up its mind that Christina would sang; and this girl's life had come to agi- marry her cousin. It was clear that she tate their tranquil waters and make a stir must do something. in the passions which lay dormant. Our 66 Mamma, do you know they say that that girl Captain Cleasby was to have married is very ill. They say it is his fault; he broke off the engagement and went away so suddenly, you know." "I wish you would not listen to such gossip, Milly," said Lady Bassett; "is it poor dear Walter's fault that he lost all his money through the unkind behaviour of General Cleasby? I don't suppose it can have been any particular pleasure to him to go out penniless to America. I am sure, poor fellow, he looked wretchedly ill when he came to say good-bye; but he had always such nice gentle manners." "I don't see that nice gentle manners are any excuse for breaking a girl's heart,' said Milly, in her youthful severity. 66 Girls' hearts don't break so easily," said Lady Bassett, speaking from her long experience. This was early in the spring; but a few months later people's opinions had undergone a change. "She will marry her cousin," they said, "of course; she has suffered very much, but she is very young. She will get over it in time, and young Oswestry's devotion will be rewarded." Dear, dear! I am sure I hope so," said old Mrs. Gregson, sitting in her chintzcovered arm-chair by the parlour fire; for old Mrs. Gregson always had a fire, even in summer to-day she was giving her monthly tea-party, and her daughter-inlaw was pouring the tea for the friends collected round the table. "Dear, dear! I am sure I hope so," said the old lady, nodding her head at them. "She was as pretty a girl as ever I saw. Girls are not so pretty as they used to be in my young days; but still I will say I never saw a prettier girl than Christina North. How well I remember her at the school-feast at the Park; I was telling her about the time when I first married. I remember it as if it was yesterday. She should not have been in such a hurry to begin life; she should have waited a little; but I suppose Captain Cleasby was most in fault; young people will be hasty and he was a nice-looking young man too." "Young Oswestry is handsomer, though," said Mr. Sim; "the Norths are a handsome family; do you remember Dick North? He is very like him." Mrs. Gregson's granddaughter Louisa, who was a little inclined to be romantic, had indeed been heard to say that perhaps Christina might find it impossible to put anyone else in Captain Cleasby's place, and might remain unmarried after all; but this idea was vehemently rejected by all sensible people. Their convictions were not even disturbed by the news of Mr. Robert Cleasby's death, nor by the probability of Captain Cleasby's return to live once more at the Park. "Christina is so proud, she would never renew her engagement," they said; "and, besides, young Oswestry is all but accepted now." They were not sorry that Captain Cleasby should be disappointed. The public opinion, as was natural, was only rumoured in Augusta's ears, and it made little impression upon her. She had seen Christina too nearly to believe for a moment that anyone would ever occupy Walter's place; as to the rest, Christina was recovering, and she would be forgiving; they would be happy after all. She had telegraphed the news to her brother; she had written by the mail; and now there was nothing to do but to wait "It and, if only she might, to see Christina. But when she asked if she might go to the White House, Mrs. North wrote to say that she could not be received at present. Christina was not so well. It was nothing; the heat tired her; but they wished her to be kept quite quiet; above all, from any agitating topics or associations. "We tell her nothing that might disturb her mind," the mother said, giving Augusta to understand that she knew nothing of Walter's probable return. Augusta fretted and rebelled against the prohibition. would do her good to know," she said; " they are killing the poor child, keeping her like this, always in the dark. Walter cannot be here for five weeks, and she is to remain in ignorance of what everyone else knows for all that time." Augusta had not seen Christina for a long time; she had always been resting, or out of the way, or tired when she had called to see her; and the impression of that first meeting had been nearly effaced from her mind by all that had succeeded to it. She could do nothing now but follow her letter in imagination, and wait in a fever of suspense for the weeks to pass, which must elapse before Walter could almost unbearable. His nature was not reach home. CHAPTER XXXI. an anxious one; responsibility had never weighed upon him; but now there was no one to whom he could speak, and his suspense was torturing him. He thought of her in a multitude of different ways: proud and composed, reckless and defiant, THE entangled threads of human life are twisted and broken by human hands; they are ours to be turned and fashioned at will; mechanically, almost unconscious- as silent, and as crying aloud. He tried ly, we weave our fate; discerning but dimly the consequences of our actions; knowing but little of what we are doing and whither we are tending; seeing, as in the magic mirror, shadows of the world and believing them to be realities; not knowing that we ourselves have cast the shadows and flashed the light between them. It is our power of choice which makes the tragedy of our mistaken lives. It is not that we are miserable, but that we might have been happy; it is not that we are lost, but that we might have been saved; it is not that we stand alone, but that we stand alone by our own choice: we have chosen and we must abide by our choice; we are hemmed in, and we cannot retrace our steps; our lost opportunities, our old desires and aspirations, lie far behind us; other things have taken their room, we find no place for repentance, though we seek it "carefully with tears." to put her name into his prayers and to pray that she might be comforted, but felt it almost a mockery to ask that what he had done might be undone. He had thought that all this was past, and now it seemed as if it was all to come over again. He strove to put it from him, but a vision would rise up of Christina standing before him, with those reproachful eyes gazing into his. It was folly it was madness, yet he could not escape them If she had spoken, he thought, it would not have been so hard; but she was silent as she had been when they met for the last time. The days passed slowly, and yet too quickly; when the day came on which he might expect his letter, he would have given all he possessed that it might not come. He feared, he hardly knew what. He sat for a long time with the letter in his hand before he broke the seal, and when he had read it he laid it down again, When Walter Cleasby started in his and hid his face in his hands and groaned new life, he told himself that the old life aloud. Was it for this that he had lived? was past. What had been done could not that he might win a girl's heart and leave be undone; the worst was over for him it to break; that he might put poison into and for Christina. Everything was new her life and leave it slowly to take effect? to him; there was all the excitement and It seemed to him all at once that he had enterprise of an adventurous pursuit to been false to her; that he had shivered engross him; and yet it was an effort and her faith and broken his trust: seeking to a strain. Do what he would he could not kill a love which could not die: he knew forget; could not forget what he had lost that he loved her, and he believed that by his own fault. Yet still he struggled she loved him still. He had severed the on; struggled through the dreary winter; outward bond, but there was one that was passing the months as best he might; invisible which he could not break. Why waiting with fierce impatience for the had he done it? He had suffered before, mail; dreading what he should hear, and for her, and for himself; but he had not yet hungering for news of Christina, and known the extent of his capacities for pain turning away impatiently from his sister's until he recognized that in obeying his letters which said nothing of her. Surely creed he had sinned against nature and if she had anything comforting to say she truth and God. And yet he thought that would say it; he was longing to hear, and the door was not shut, that as yet it was yet something prevented him from asking not too late. If they were once more face any questions; each time when he was to face, forgiveness and salvation might writing, he said to himself that it was useless to ask, he could get no answer for a month, and before that he would have received another letter from Augusta, telling him what he desired to know. At last he wrote. "You say nothing of the Norths," he said; "tell me what you can," In the meantime his anxiety was growing upon him, and his longing becoming be still within his reach. So he thonght in his ignorance, not knowing that repentance could not change what had been done, could not bring the dead to life again. Thus, whilst summer was still reigning, whilst Christina was still waiting, whilst Augusta's letter was being taken across the sea and her message had not yet reached the Transatlantic shores, he for whom it was intended was no longer there, | and many a league thence in mid-ocean a fate was shaping itself, and in another corner of the earth an unlooked-for visitant was drawing near. It was on a sultry day in August that Walter Cleasby came once again to the place that had been his home. The sun was blazing over the wide expanse of heath as he drove up to the little house they called the Parsonage. He had telegraphed from London, and his sister would be expecting him. It was nearly nine months since he had parted from her. Though as yet he did not know it, he was coming home to prosperity and riches; in his banishment he had so often yearned after Gusty's voice and the touch of her hands, and yet now, as he drove up and saw her standing at the door, he could not even summon up a smile for the sickness of apprehension that was upon him. false; it is impossible! You mean to say "Let me go," he said, freeing himself from her detaining hand. The little boarded passage resounded to his tread, as he turned abruptly and made his way out of the house. Augusta, no one, could do anything for him now. As he had sown so he must reap; it seemed impossible that a way was no longer open to him: but he must act alone; no one else could save him. 66 Walter, where are you going? You will come back?" "Come back! yes!" but he did not know what he was saying. She had said that there was little hope; but yet as he rapidly made his way across the heath, his heart was still beating fast with the excited fear which only belongs to hope. He was come back to recall her to life; for the time there was room for no other thought Augusta was standing upon the narrow but this, and that undefined apprehension doorstep, with the flush of agitation upon and horror which suspense brings with it. her cheeks, and a look in her eyes which The sky was one great burning vault above had not only love and welcome, but com- his head; it was still too early in the afpassion in it too. They neither of them ternoon for any freshness to come to him spoke, as she kissed him, and drew him af- in the evening breeze, and the level heath ter her through the passage into the tiny was bare of shadows. It seemed to him drawing-room. He sat down on the sofa that there was something awful in the stillbeside her, and put with his eyes the in-ness and the unshaded light. The White quiry which his lips could not frame. Then he saw that there was something she was seeking to hide. She looked at him still with that strange pitiful regret; she had manifested no surprise; she had received him as if his arrival had nothing unexpected about it; there was something which had superseded her natural gladness and agitated joy at seeing him again. "You are tired, Walter," she said, with a quiver in her voice. She was clinging to him and leaning her head upon his shoulder, perhaps that he might not see her face. "Oh, Walter, I have wanted you so often." "Gusty, what is it? You are keeping something from me." Then she made an effort to speak, and gathered up her strength to tell him as best she might. "I will tell you the truth, Walter," she said; "I do not know how to put it into words: Christina is very ill." "You mean that she is dead?" he said hoarsely, staring blankly at her. "No, no, not that," she said; and then she burst into tears. 66 No, not that; but they say they cannot give us hope.” It is faise," he said, standing up suddenly, and putting her from him. It is 66 66 House dazzled his eyes; the gate was shut; there was no sign of human life; but the windows were all open to the sultry air. He walked up the garden path, not knowing what he was about to do, and stayed his hand for a moment, dreading by any sudden sound to break the stillness; and as he hesitated a shadow darkened the doorway, and Bernard Oswestry stood upon the threshold. 66 Stop there!" he said, standing as if to bar his entrance, with his hands against the door-posts. Walter looked at him as if he had been a stranger; indeed, at the moment, he did not recognize him. "Can Mrs. North see me?" he said; "you will not refuse to take my message? "I will take no message," said Bernard, with a ring of passionate scorn. His hands were clenched tightly over the edges of the wood-work with an effort at self-control, but his face was bloodless. "What do you mean?" said Captain Cleasby. He did not put the question with any anger or impatience, nor yet with a shrinking from the answer; he had forgotten his sin and his remorse, and everything but the fierce anxiety and desire of the moment. The pale faces confronted each other and the eyes met- Bernard's gleaming with passion and scorn; Walter Cleasby's made intense by suspense and pain. "You mean," he repeated, "you will take no message, because "Because she is dying, and you have killed her." Bernard had spoken in the low tones of passion; but every word fell distinctly as it was uttered. It made no difference to Walter; it brought no change over his face; such words could be nothing to him now. He made no answer, but after a moment's thought he tore a leaf from his pocket-book and wrote a few words upon it. Then he laid his hand upon the bell. The flash of passion had died out of Bernard's face, as he stood still in the passage, looking on. "Wait," he said, as he saw Captain Cleasby's purpose; "I have been wrong. God knows, this is no time. . . Give me your note; if you wait here, I will take it." He had hated the man, and for the moment his hatred had flamed out, when they stood so suddenly face to face; but it could not but die out in the presence of a paramount sorrow, and almost within the gates of death. Walter Cleasby never knew how long he waited. He lay upon the parched grass beside the door in the shadow of the wall; and the shadow lengthened, and the breeze began to flutter in the leaves, and the evening glow spread itself over the land. He was not unconscious, and he had sufficient manliness not to long for unconsciousness, or to seek in any way to escape from the darkness and horror which was closing him in. The palpitating fear and the whirl of recollections and the horrible certainty had made chaos in his mind: he was altogether confused, and nothing could take a distinct shape in his imagination. He looked back to the time when he had spoken to her first; he looked back to their parting, and to her words and his own; but it was as if he had been looking back at some one else's life; he had suddenly risen to a height of suffering which left those things in the far distance. Some one had told him a dreadful thing; it was not true; it was quite impossible; he did not for a moment believe it; but yet it had made him forget everything else. He tried to remember, and he could not. He had had a horrible dream: some one had come and told him that Christina was dying; that he had killed her. It was false; it was a lie she could not be dying; she would come to the door presently and speak to him; she would come with her old smile, and with her hands stretched out; she would call him by his name. But the stillness was not broken; it never would be broken by her voice thrilling his heart through the summer air. Everything was still as death, still as the grave; but it could not be that she was dying, with peacefulness all around her — with the sun setting behind the hill, and the shadows slowly creeping further towards the east. Why had they said it? What was it they had said? He could not remember. And then, in the midst of his bewilderment, a picture rose up before his mind. The vision which had so long haunted him did not come back to him now; he did not see Christina as when they parted; but it seemed to him that he was once more walking in the spring-time through the tangled wood, in the hollow between the hills, and she was coming to meet him with the light of happiness in her eyes, and that smile upon her lips, and the fresh green boughs above her head making quivering shadows on her path. It could not be that she would never tread that path again. Some one had wanted to take her away; some cruel hand had been outstretched to drag her beneath the cold waters, but he had come back to save her, and he would not let her go. Who was it that said she was dying! She could not be dying; he would not let her die! He saw the white curtains blowing in the wind, he heard the swing of the gate, he saw Mr. Warde pass into the house, and was vaguely conscious that he was gone to pray for her. It was not true; but still, they thought that Christina was dying. He could not pray for her himself, because everyone was against him; he would keep her, but no one else could. He was struggling, and we cannot pray when one wild rebellion against God has filled our hearts. It seemed as if he might have been lying there for days or weeks, when at last the summons came. It was Mrs. North who called to him by his name, and met his dazzled, bewildered, horrorstricken eyes with that look of patient endurance which is more pathetic than tears. "It could not have been if there had been hope, Captain Cleasby," she said; "but nothing can hurt her now. If it is any comfort for you to come, I will not deny it to you. She cannot be harmed. She will not know you." This was not the trembling, murmuring woman he had known before; he hardly recognized her in the dignity of sorrow. He did not be lieve it even now, as she motioned to him to follow her. He stepped softly up the old oak staircase; he passed along the winding passage, where the light fell in glimmering patches and the corners remained in darkness; he stood at the open door of the little room, where the wind was blowing through from the window; and there he paused and clasped his cold hands together and shuddered; for in the stillness he heard the sweet low voice, and the wandering talk. "The birds are singing so loud," it said; "the clouds are moving so fast. I am going... they will come too.... Keep me safe, O Lord God, this night and for evermore. Amen. Bless my father and mother, and Bernard, and all Thy people. I am so tired... I have forgotten my prayers., . where is the book, mother?. forgive us our sins." O God! this was what they meant it had come to him now. The truth was flashed upon him, and he could no longer hide his eyes from it. Struggle as he might it must remain; his passion was strong, but death was stronger. It had not conquered as yet, but he felt that it would be victorious. The strife was still manifest in his face amidst the anguish, when Mrs. Oswestry signed to him to come forward; but hope had already given place to a crushing certainty. He came forward in the silence, and knelt down by the bed. They thought that she could not know him; the last prayer had been offered up; the last moment was near at hand. She lay raised up upon the pillows, and her breath came in gasps. The soft wind, blowing through the creepers which clustered round the window, stirrred her brown waves of hair; her hands were clasped together; her lips were slightly parted, and her rapt eyes fixed upon the glow which lay like a glory over the heath. 66 Christina," he said, with a moaning cry, "stay with me stay here! Pray to stay, and God will hear. Come back Christina, because I cannot die with you." She turned her eyes upon him for a moment and smiled. "God bless Walter," she said softly, as if ending her prayer. She looked again towards the glow the large leaves of the magnolia framed it in; the scent of the blossoms was in the air; the bare room, with the narrow white bed and the uncarpeted floor and the scanty curtain drawn aside, was flooded by the splendour of the sinking Christina's eyes were looking be sun. yond it. He felt that she was already gone from him. His cry could not reach her. Life and sin, parting and misery, and the passion of his love lay already far behind her. He could not bring her back. The mysterious halo of death was round her head; the glory of eternity was within her grasp; heaven was opening to her eyes; she must enter in and the golden gates must be shut and he must remain outside. Yet there was a Presence within the room which forbade him to cry out and awe had silenced his anguish. They waited in the stillness, knowing that they stood in the valley of the shadow of Death. There is a grave in the little churchyard upon the heath, and a cross which marks the place, and letters which tell that Christina North, aged twenty years, died on the first of August, 1854. They give to strangers the common record of a girl's life cut short: but there are others to whom they tell a longer story. And some, whilst the winds are blowing in the woods, the sun blazing on the road, and the children's laughter coming up from the valley, are unconscious of all except that the White House is empty; the gate broken from its hinges; the shutters closed and the rooms silent and deserted. The Vicar's little children are making daisy-chains upon the lawn at the Park; their mother watches them from the Terrace. The place belongs to her brother, but people say that he will never live there again; he comes to England every year, but they say that there is a history belonging to that grave in the churchyard which makes it impossible for him to live at his home. He is a rich man now, but his riches do not seem to have brought him happiness; he looks sadder, and his mouth has grown stern, like that of a man who has suffered. For a time his sister hoped that he would come back and live with her; but now it is said that he is going to be married, and will always remain abroad. The separation is a great grief to his sister, for she was always so fond of him, and she is not fond of many people. She often goes to the Homestead on the Hill; but it is almost the only house in Overton in which she is a familiar guest. The Homestead is as peaceful as ever; a place for roses and bees and sunshine; and Mrs. Oswestry is not lonely, for her son lives with her still. Bernard is prospering in his profession; the beauty of |