and free. Free— free! How wildly I sometimes
grasped Alexis's hand as I repeated
that word.

He was young— so was I. At times, as on
this night, we would sit and laugh like children.
It was so glorious to know of a
surety that now we could think, feel, speak,
act— above all, love one another — haunted by
no counteracting spell, responsible to no living
creature for our life and our love.

But this had been only for a year — I had
thought of the date, shuddering, in the
morning— for a year, from this same day.

We had been laughing very heartily, cherishing
mirth, as it were, like those who would
caress a lovely bird that had been frightened
out of its natural home and grown wild and
rare in its visits, only tapping at the lattice
for a minute, and then gone. Suddenly, in the
pause between the acts, when the house was
half-darkened, our laughter died away.

"How cold it is," said Alexis, shivering.
I shivered too; but it was more like the
involuntary shudder at which people say,
"Some one is walking over my grave."  I
said so, jestingly.

"Hush, Isbel, " whispered my husband,
reprovingly; and again the draught of cold
air seemed to blow right between us.

We sat, he in the front, I behind the curtain
of our box, divided by some foot or two
of space and by a vacant chair. Alexis tried
to move this chair, but it was fixed. He
went round it, and wrapped a mantle over
my shoulders.

"This London winter is cold for you, my
love. I half wish we had taken courage,
and sailed once more for Hispaniola."

"Oh, no — oh, no! No more of the sea!"
said I, with another and stronger shudder.

He took his former position, looking round
indifferently at the audience. But neither of
us spoke. The mere word Hispaniola was
enough to throw a damp and a silence over
us both.

"Isbel," he said at last, rousing himself,
with a half-smile, " I think you must have
grown suddenly beautiful. Look! half the
glasses opposite are lifted to our box. It
cannot be at me, you know. Do you remember
telling me I was the ugliest fellow you
ever saw?"

"Oh, Alex! " Yet it was quite true — I
had thought him so, in far back, strange,
awful times, when I, a girl of sixteen, had
my mind wholly filled with one ideal— one
insane, exquisite dream; when I brought
my innocent child's garlands, and sat me
down under one great spreading, magnificent
tree, which seemed to me the king of all the
trees of the field, until I felt its dews dropping
death upon my youth, and my whole soul
withering under its venomous shade.

"Oh, Alex! " I cried, once more, looking
fondly on his beloved face, where no unearthly
beauty dazzled, no unnatural calm repelled;
where all was simple, noble, manly, true.

"Husband, I thank heaven for that dear
'uglinesss' of yours. Above all, though blood
runs strong, they say, that I see in you no
likeness to— "

Alexis knew what name I meant, though
for a whole year — since God's mercy made it
to us only a name — we had ceased to utter
it, and let it die wholly out of the visible
world. We dared not breathe to ourselves,
still less to one another, how much brighter,
holier, happier, that world was, now that the
Divine wisdom had taken — him — into another.
For he had been my husband's uncle; likewise,
once my guardian. He was now dead.

I sat looking at Alexis, thinking what
a strange thing it was that his dear face
should not have always been as beautiful
to me as it was now. That loving my husband
now so deeply, so wholly, clinging to
him heart to heart, in the deep peace of satisfied,
all-trusting, and all-dependent human
affection, I could ever have felt that emotion,
first as an exquisite bliss, then as an ineffable
terror, which now had vanished away, and
become — nothing.

"They are gazing still, Isbel."

"Who, and where? " For I had quite forgotten
what he said about the people staring
at me.

"And there is Colonel Hart. He sees us.
Shall I beckon?"

"As you will."

Colonel Hart came up into our box. He
shook hands with my husband, bowed to me,
then looked round, half-curiously,
half-uneasily.

"I thought there was a friend with you."

"None. We have been alone all evening."

"Indeed! How strange."

"What! That my wife and I should enjoy
a play alone together?" said Alexis, smiling.

"Excuse me, but really I was surprised to
find you alone. I have certainly seen for the
last half-hour a third person sitting on this
chair, between you both."

We could not help starting; for, as I stated
before, the chair had, in truth, been left
between us, empty.

"Truly our unknown friend must have been
invisible. Nonsense, Colonel; how can you
turn Mrs. Saltram pale, by thus peopling
with your fancies the vacant air?"

"I tell you, Alexis," said the Colonel (he
was my husband's old friend, and had been
present at our hasty and private marriage),
"nothing could be more unlike a fancy, even
were I given to such. It was a very remarkable
person who sat here. Even strangers
noticed him."

"Him!" I whispered.

"It was a man, then," said my husband,
rather angrily.

"A very peculiar-looking, and extremely
handsome man. I saw many glasses levelled:
at him."

"What was he like?" said Alexis, rather
sarcastically. " Did he speak? or we to him?"