whose moods were becoming as variable as
though she were indeed the mad woman she had
tauntingly defied Theresa to call her. At times
she was miserable because Theresa looked so
ill, and seemed so deeply unhappy. At other
times she was jealous because she fancied
Theresa shrank from her and avoided her. So,
wearing her life out with passion, Victorine's
health grew daily worse and worse during that
summer.

Theresa's only comfort seemed to be little
Mary's society. She seemed as though she
could not lavish love enough upon the
motherless child, who repaid Theresa's affection
with all the pretty demonstrativeness of
her age. She would carry the little three-
year-old maiden in her arms when she went to
see Victorine, or would have Mary playing
about in her dressing-room, if the old French-
woman, for some jealous freak, would come
and arrange her lady's hair with her
trembling hands. To avoid giving offence to
Victorine, Theresa engaged no other maid; to
shun over-much or over-frank conversation with
Victorine, she always had little Mary with her
when there was a chance of the French waiting-
maid coming in. For, the presence of the child
was a holy restraint even on Victorine's tongue;
she would sometimes check her fierce temper, to
caress the little creature playing at her knees;
and would only dart a covert bitter sting at
Theresa under the guise of a warning against
ingratitude, to Mary.

Theresa drooped and drooped in this dreadful
life. She sought out Madam Hawtrey, and
prayed her to come on a long visit to the castle.
She was lonely, she said, asking for madam's
company as a favour to herself. Madam
Hawtrey was difficult to persuade; but the more
she resisted, the more Theresa entreated; and,
when once madam was at the castle, her own
daughter had never been so dutiful, so humble
a slave to her slightest fancy as was the proud
Theresa now.

Yet, for all this, the lady of the castle drooped
and drooped, and when Duke came down to see
his darling he was in utter dismay at her looks.
Yet she said she was well enough, only tired.
If she had anything more upon her mind,
she refused him her confidence. He watched
her narrowly, trying to forestal her smallest
desires. He saw her tender affection for Mary,
and thought he had never seen so lovely and
tender a mother to another woman's child. He
wondered at her patience with Madam Hawtrey,
remembering how often his own stock had been
exhausted by his mother-in-law, and how the
brilliant Theresa had formerly scouted and
flouted at the vicar's wife. With all this
renewed sense of his darling's virtues and charms,
the idea of losing her was too terrible to bear.

He would listen to no pleas, to no objections.
Before he returned to town, where his presence
was a political necessity, he sought the best
medical advice that could be had in the
neighbourhood. The doctors came; they could make
but little out of Theresa, if her vehement
assertion were true that she had nothing on her
mind. Nothing.

"Humour him at least, my dear lady!" said
the doctor, who had known Theresa from her
infancy, but who, living at the distant county
own, was only called in on the Olympian
occasions of great state illnesses. " Humour your
husband, and perhaps do yourself some good
too, by consenting to his desire that you should
have change of air. Brighthelmstone is a quiet
village by the sea-side. Consent, like a gracious
lady, to go there for a few weeks."

So, Theresa, worn out with opposition,
consented, and Duke made all the arrangements
for taking her, and little Mary, and the
necessary suite of servants, to Brighton, as we
call it now. He resolved in his own mind that
Theresa's personal attendant should be some
woman young enough to watch and wait upon
her mistress, and not Victorine, to whom Theresa
was in reality a servant. But of this plan, neither
Theresa nor Victorine knew anything until the
former was in the carriage with her husband
some miles distant from the castle. Then he, a
little exultant in the good management by which
he supposed he had spared his wife the pain and
trouble of decision, told her that Victorine was
left behind, and that a new accomplished London
maid would await her at her journey's end.

Theresa only exclaimed " O! What will
Victorine say?" and covered her face, and sat
shivering and speechless.

What Victorine did say, when she found out
the trick, as she esteemed it, that had been
played upon her, was too terrible to repeat. She
lashed herself up into an ungoverned passion;
and then became so really and seriously ill that
the servants went to fetch Madam Hawtrey in
terror and dismay. But when that lady came,
Victorine shut her eyes, and refused to look at
her. " She has got her daughter in her hand!
I will not look!" Shaking all the time she
uttered these awe-stricken words, as if she were
in an ague-fit. " Bring the countess back to
me. Let her face the dead woman standing there,
I will not do it. They wanted her to sleep—and
so did the countess, that she might step into her
lawful place. Theresa, Theresa, where are you?
You tempted me. What I did, I did in your
service. And you have gone away, and left me alone
with the dead woman! It was the same drug as
the doctor gave, after all—only he gave little,
and I gave much. My lady the countess spent
her money well, when she sent me to the old
Italian to learn his trade. Lotions for the
complexion, and a discriminating use of poisonous
drugs. I discriminated, and Theresa profited;
and now she is his wife, and has left me here
alone with the dead woman. Theresa, Theresa,
come back and save me from the dead woman!"

Madam Hawtrey stood by, horror-stricken.
"Fetch the vicar," said she, under her breath,
to a servant.

"The village doctor is coming," said some one
near. " How she raves! Is it delirium?"

"It is no delirium," said Bessy's mother.
"Would to Heaven it were!"