of his life. It was the first sorrow that had
befallen him, and he was overwhelmed by it.
His wife had been so constantly his
companion ; she had met all his requirements
with a sympathy so ready and so intelligent ;
that he felt as though the dearer half of his soul
were taken away, and as if it were impossible
for the other half to linger behind. The caresses
and necessities of his son, a child of some
three years old, were powerless to rouse him.
He was unhappy in having nothing to force
him from his sorrow. His ample means, his
obsequious retainers, his anxious friends—all
ministered to it. Toil, the hard but sweet
necessity of the sorrowing multitude, brought
no aid to him : he nursed his woe and fed it,
till his bodily strength gave way. Friends
interfered ; doctors were consulted ; his affection
for his child was appealed to ; and he
submitted passively to be sent to Italy, that
change of scene and change of climate might
be tried. He went without hope—without
desire of recovery. Italy or England—what
mattered it to him ? The world was one
graveyard, with one barren mound of earth, by
which his heart sat and wept. So he said,
and so he thought.

He took his child with him ; for, though in
his saddened mood the sight of the pretty
boy only served to whet his sorrow, he clung
to him as all that remained of her he had
lost ; and watched over him with a nervous
solicitude grievous to behold. The contrast
between the healthy child and the sorrow-
stricken father could hardly fail to strike
the most careless observer ; it very quickly
awakened the attention of Mrs. and Miss
Macdonald, who happened to occupy an
adjoining palazzo in Florence, whither Sir
Edward had betaken himself by the direction
of his physicians. The simple story
of his bereavement roused the interest
of both ladies—an interest which, in the
younger, quickly assumed the character of
passion.

Young, beautiful, and undisciplined, Helen
Macdonald revelled in wild notions of an all-
consuming and imperious love. Her ardent
temperament had been exaggerated by the
loose morality of the unprincipled South, and
she easily accepted the handsome stranger as
the incarnation of an ideal, which already at
eighteen she had despaired of meeting. Sir
Edward's sunken eye and wan cheeks, his tall,
worn person, and his rare and sorrowful smile,
moved her, as the perfection of health and
manly vigour might have failed to move her.
What was not the love worth which could set
such a mark on the bereaved one ? She
sympathised with, she admired his sorrow ; and to
soften it, to pour balm into the wound which
he loved to keep open, became the ambition
—the object of her life.

Occasion is rarely wanting to those who
heartily seek it. In the present instance the
child naturally opened the way to the father.
The little boy's heart was easily won by the
smiles and caresses of the beautiful stranger,
who spoke to him in the language of his
mother, and folded him in her arms almost as
tenderly. The name of Helen Macdonald was
constantly on his lips, until it became familiar
and grateful to his father's ears. Courtesy
required that Sir Edward should rouse
himself to show some sense of the kindness
lavished on his child. The first step taken, the
rest followed naturally. Secure in his grief,
Sir Edward submitted to the attentions of his
neighbour. Her profound admiration, her
sympathy unuttered, but spoken in every
look, in every gesture, were a flattery which
he accepted without suspicion. The meeting
with her became the event of the day, until the
sweet pale image of his lost love passed from
his mind like breath from the face of a
mirror, and the living passionate Helen
reigned supreme. One bitter struggle he
endured—one sickening attempt to return to his
past state of feeling ; but the flesh overcame
the spirit, and with a sigh, half of sorrow at
his instability, half of relief, he yielded himself
to the intoxicating rapture of his new
passion.

Helen was so very beautiful ; so tender,
yet withal so jealous, so imperious, that she
kindled for a time his more placid temper
into a semblance of her own. She was his
tyrant and his slave ; but in all her moods, so
full of witchery, that she left him no time
for backward thought, but filled him heart
and soul with her own image.

No obstacles stood in the way of their
union except such imaginary difficulties as the
restless fancy of Helen created. Her mother,
who in many respects resembled her daughter,
was still in the meridian of her beauty, and
was not ill-pleased to be relieved of a child
whom she could not govern, and who had
become a rival, and to have her creditably
established as the wife of one of the oldest
baronets in England. Sir Edward, on his
side, had no near relations but his sister,
and he had been so little in the habit of
consulting her, that it was only on the eve of his
marriage that he wrote to her. And the same
letter which announced to her his complete
recovery and approaching marriage, informed
her of his intention of bringing his wife
immediately to England.

CHAPTER II.

IN spite of the dissatisfaction which Mrs.
Wilton Brook had expressed at her brother's
marriage, she was by no means deficient in
anxiety to see her new sister-in-law, and she
appreciated her brother's position too highly
not to be anxious to ingratiate herself with a
wife who she felt would exercise a strong
influence over him. She accordingly dressed
her pretty person in the most approved
fashion, and prepared her lips for smiles and
compliments, as she drove to visit the bride
at Mivart's Hotel.

If her prejudice had been stronger than it