brother returns (if he do return), I must
know whether you are married or whether
you are not married; the more so as, in two
months at latest I judge, you will be a mother."
She had never before spoken so plainly, and
her words gradually recalled Eusta's attention.

Eusta tried to speak, but her words swelled
her throat, and she could not. She looked
imploringly towards her questioner and sobbed.
Without avail; for Mrs. Calder did not move
her eyes from her work, and showed no
sort of impatience to hear the required
confession. She preferred the sound of the sobs;
and, when these grew louder and stronger,
she expressed a hope that Miss Levine would
not, like most vulgar young women, seek
shelter from discussion in hysterics. Poor
Eusta! it was her struggle to speak that made
hysterics so imminent. But the recollection
that her husband's interests and wishes
were at stake restored her, and she said, in
half-choked accents:

"I have told you frequently that my word
and honour are pledged not to reveal to
anyone, the nature of my engagement with
Mr. George Dornley. O, do have pity on
me! Do not seek to make me break my
word! Do not tempt me! I have borne
your scorn and your husband's anger. I
have heard you accuse him, whom I love
better than life, of being a libertine and a
traitor. This has been going on for months,
and will you not wait an hour longer?
Will you not wait until Mr. Dornley comes
to answer for me and for himself?"

"It is not certain that he will come. My
expectation is that he will be prevented from
coming. The government——"

"I am as sure he will come as that there
is a Providence now watching over me!"
Eusta exclaimed, fervently. "He must come.
What do I live for, but for him to come?"
She said this almost fiercely.

"The government," Mrs. Calder continued
placidly, "may find occasion to enforce his
presence elsewhere; in some secure place where
the seditious practices he was guilty of before
he went abroad, cannot be repeated."

"But he will come: here: to me. Stone
walls will not keep him from me: hosts of
enemies will not keep him from me. I feel it to
be as impossible for him not to come, as it will
be impossible for me to live, if he does not
come."

"In either case," said Mrs. Calder, making
an eylet-hole, "my question must be
answered. You need not hesitate; for, whether
you are married or whether not, your lot in
life will be wretched enough. If you are not
a wife, you will have to endure the disgust
which all right-minded persons——" She did
not finish the sentence; but complained that
it was too dark to work. "If you are married,"
she continued, letting her hands fall
into her lap, "your child will be a beggar;
born, without inheritance."

Eusta's mind had again shut out everything
except the devouring desire for George
Dornley's approach. She was once more
studying the clock, and computing time
against distance; reckoning that, at about
this moment he ought to be certainly within
hearing; for the appointed time had nearly
arrived. The servant, who had entered with
lights, aroused her, by attempting to close the
shutters. "They must not be shut!" Eusta
hastily said. "They would deaden the sounds
from the road."

When the girl had left the room, Mrs.
Calder resumed her sewing, "Dr. Bole," she
said, "and Mr. Bearshaw, the family lawyer,
have both pronounced old Mr. Dornley so
much better since his sojourn at Bath, that
he will soon be capable of transacting
business; and, should his eldest son have
married a person without family or fortune, the
first use of his recovery will be to cut
off the entail of the Crookston estates." Mrs.
Calder stopped to watch the effect of this
announcement, and looked up. She found
Eusta panting with expectation; her ear close
to the window; every faculty absorbed in
listening. Perceiving that all that had been
said went for nothing, the rigid moralist felt
it to be her duty to put the case somewhat
stronger. "I was saying, Miss Levine, that
positive beggary——"

"Hush!" exclaimed Eusta, raising her
finger. "I hear a tramp;" she paused, "Yes,
it is the tramp of a horse." She listened
again, her face flushed, the veins starting
out from her forehead.

"I really must claim your attention," Mrs.
Calder persevered, " to the disreputable——"

"No," Eusta said, sinking into a chair.
"There are two horses. It cannot be he!"
Then, willing to mitigate one agony by
courting another, she agreed to attend to her
lecturer.

Mrs. Calder described, in a few more acrid
words, the probable destitution that awaited
George Dornley; and Eusta, never having
before contemplated the possibility of her
husband's ruin, and attributing it if it
happened, to herself, felt her head burn and her
eyes swim; but was relieved by tears. Her
companion went on sawing the air with her
needle and thread, as mechanically and
regularly as the clock ticked. The Crookston
carriage was now heard driving towards the
door, and Eusta, dreading the entrance of
Calder Dornley, determined to make a last
appeal to his wife.

"You hate me, I know," she said, looking at
her through her tears. "You hate him—George
—the more that you once loved him." Mrs.
Calder bit her thin lip and her thread, hitherto
pulled out firm and straight, trembled in the
air; "but, as one woman appealing to another,
I implore you to have some tenderness for
me. I have no thought of unkindness towards
you. I could be as a sister to you. Utterly
bereft and alone, I have yearned for
sisterly sympathy, and compassion, I have