Once more sobs choked her utterance, and
she hid her face.

"Mabel, Mabel," he cried, seizing her hand
almost roughly, "you drive me mad. You force
me to say what I had never thought to utter
more. When you speak of friendship and
sympathy, you speak words that sound like an
empty mockery in my ears. Coming from others
they might be dear and precious, from you they
are utterly valueless to me."

She drew back, trembling from head to foot,
and looked at him.

"What have I done—how have I so fallen
in your esteem that you should dare to say
so?"

"Mabel, you will not understand me. What
I desire, what my soul thirsts for, is not your
friendship, not your compassion, but your love!
I know it is all vain and wild. I know—I have
long known, that there is no hope for me, and
that if there were I should be a wretch to seek
to bind you to the lot of a ruined man, who
seems destined to meet sorrow and failure at
every turn. But I love you, Mabel. I love you
as I shall love no other woman to the last hour
of my life!"

"I think, my dear child, that we must be
going. Penelope is remaining up-stairs, and
Mrs. Charlewood is really much more composed
now, and—good gracious, Mr. Charlewood!
Clement! I should scarcely have known you!
Ah, anxiety tells upon one with astonishing
rapidity, as I well know to my cost."

Mrs. Saxelby had softly entered the room,
and stood opposite to Clement with a dismayed
countenance.

"Why, Mabel," she resumed, turning to her
daughter, "what is the matter? You have been
crying!"

"I have distressed Miss Earnshaw by the
recital of my miseries," said Clement, sadly.

"Oh, but I hope they will soon be at an end,
my dear Mr. Charlewood. It is impossible to
suppose as I have been endeavouring to
impress on your mother that Walter's absence
can endure much longer. You will hear from
him, or of him—most probably from him, I
should say—in a day or two, I have no doubt."

Mrs. Saxelby had no reason in the world for
making this confident assertion, but she con-
ceived she was doing her duty in making it.
It was her idea of consolation.

When Mabel and her mother were on their
way home in the cab together, Mrs. Saxelby
observed, in a plaintive voice, "I am grieved
that you should have been moved so much, my
darling, but it is in truth a sad household to
visit; most depressing."

Mabel, strange to say, did not appear to be
altogether depressed. There was a dreamy
light in her eyes, and a bright flush on her
usually pale cheek.

"I feel for them with all my heart, mamma,"
she said.

"No doubt you do, love. But the hardest
part fell on me. I'm glad it did. I don't complain.
To have passed the half hour I passed
at that poor woman's bedside would have quite
unfitted you for your duties this evening. Such
a pitiably weak condition of mind I never saw.
And the worst is, Mabel, that there is no hope
for her."

"No hope, mamma? How do you mean?"

"I have a firm presentiment—an instinct—
a conviction almost—that Walter has drowned
himself!"

"Oh, mamma! For Heaven's sake——"

"My pet, it is very shocking; but I cannot,
help the feeling. You know it is whispered that
poor Mr. Charlewood, the father——Well, and
that sort of thing frequently runs in families."

When they reached their home, Betty
informed her young mistress that a person had
been there asking for her, and that on being
told she was from home, but would return to
dinner, had said that he would call again. "He
wouldn't leave no message nor nothing," said
Betty.

"What sort of person was he, Betty? Any
one whom you know?"

"Well, I can't hardly say for sure, miss.
He were a strange-looking old fellow as ever I
clapped eyes on. But somehow I think he was
gentle bred, too. And as for seeing of him,
why cook and me, we have see'd him once or
twice, or oftener, maybe, walking about the
lanes close by, with his dog. And I believe it
must have been him as brought the little girl
here that day, miss; for the instant after I'd
let her in at the garden gate, I heard the dog a
barking, and next minute I see the beast
tearing down the lane full tilt."

Mabel hardly seemed to listen to Betty's
voluble speech. There was a tumult within,
her breast that deadend her senses to outward
things. She shut herself in her own room and
leaned her throbbing head upon her hands.
For a long time she could not think. She
could not even remember clearly. Only one
sentence kept ringing in her ears: "I love you,
Mabel. I love you as I shall love no other
woman to the last hour of my life."

"Can it be?" she murmured with lips that
scarcely parted to let the words pass them.
"Ah! can it ever be?"

Beatrice had never been so brilliant, so
vivacious, so charming, as on that evening. The
Thespian Theatre vibrated to peal on peal of
thunderous plaudits.

"By George," cried Mr. Alaric Allen,
contemplating Mabel admiringly from the wing,
"what an actress that girl is! She improves
night after night. Such nerve, such spirit,
such—such go! Bravo, bravissimo, Miss M.
A. Bell! The town owes me something for
having discovered you. And I'll venture to
predict that you have the greatest career before
you of any actress that has come out in my
day!"

     CHAPTER V.     A RAY OF LIGHT.

MABEL'S anonymous visitor returned the
following morning to Desmond Lodge,
accompanied by his dog; and she was surprised and