A flood of recollection was let loose. It
was all too true! I turned my face to the
wall—I wept bitter tears. "Oh! that I had
a mother to comfort me."

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

THREE years passed. As soon as I
recovered from my illness I resumed my
household duties. I even went out in the town,
after I heard of Sir Edward's departure for
London; for I knew that the longer it was
deferred the more painful would it be to me
to revisit the places which his presence had
made so dear. I strove hard to conquer my
grief. In the daytime, by constant occupation,
to which I forced myself, I contrived
to drive it from me; but, at night, when I
was alone, it sprang from its hiding-place,
like some horrid spectre, and stared me in
the face with relentless eyes. Sir Edward
seldom came to Lichendale, and, during these
rare visits, I never left the house. His career
in public was brilliant. Had I not paid for it
dearly? Even in his absence he continued
to do much good amongst his poorer tenants;
and if ever, by chance, they forgot my past
history and in my visits named him to me, it
was with love and respect for his character.
If, instead of receiving this approbation, he
had been branded and condemned by the
world, would he not have sunk in his own
self-respect, and have verified the unjustly
harsh opinion of the public?

My love for him never wavered. The
recollection of those few happy weeks when I
had been his, gradually became more and
more dream-like; but my love continued
unquenched. For many months Paul and
I led a life of silent antagonism. Although
I tried to forgive, I could not forget what
he had done, and I do not think I considered
enough how little he had ever understood,
or even been capable of understanding,
my devotion to Sir Edward, or how much
of his childish experiences had been
calculated to increase his naturally harsh,
unforgiving disposition. Hannah, loving Lawrence
the most for his little winsome, sportful
ways, had often unknowingly checked Paul's
affectionate impulses. Once as I watched him
reading, and noticed the lines of care and
thought deepening on his face, I was startled
into a painful consciousness of what a loveless
life we led; only brother and sister to
each other as we were. I was humbled by
my sorrow, and I did not repress the thought
that perhaps it was my fault for always
striving and chafing against his will, instead
of showing him a loving submission. With a
sudden impulse I sprang up, and flung my
inns round his neck. "I do love you, Paul,"
I murmured, "I really do." I feared he
might put me coldly from him. I felt half
ashamed that I had not restrained myself;
but his low, "God bless you for this,
Helena," dispelled all doubts, and thrilled
me with joy. Those few words seemed to
draw us closer together than I could once
have deemed possible; and I strove my
utmost to hold fast what I had gained by
them.

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

ONE day I was returning slowly home,
after a morning spent at the school, when I
saw the doctor rush past me without a nod
or word of recognition. A servant followed
him, hot and out of breath. I glanced at the
livery—it was Sir Edward's!

"Who is ill at the Hall?" I asked. The
man, a stranger to me, stared at me; for, I
suppose, I looked wild and eager.

"Sir Edward," he said,"he's got a fever.
I told him last night he had better have
the doctor, but he wouldn't listen to me,
and now he'll want the doctor and the parson
both."

Terror seemed to give me strength. I got
to the Hall without stopping to think. I
opened a side-door that I knew was left
unlocked, and sprang up the wide stairs, and
on—on—into Sir Edward's presence. A wild,
ringing laugh greeted me—

"Ha! Helena!" he screamed in his delirium,
"is that you? and where is Lawrence?
—poor, bleeding Lawrence!" His eyes glared
with fever.

Paul stood at the bedside; brought there,
face to face with his enemy, by a summons
which he had not dared to disobey—a
summons to give spiritual peace and comfort to
one, who, the messenger had said, lay at the
point of death. He saw me as I entered;
but he did not send me away. The past was
forgotten in that awful present.

Long, weary days of watching followed.
Out-of-doors, I remember, everything was so
bright and joyous in the summer-weather.
All day the belling of the deer, and the low,
sweet notes of birds calling to each other,
came floating through the open window into
the darkened room; and I could hear, too,
the people passing through the park laughing
gaily in the sunshine. It seemed as if the
full measure of my misery, beneath the
weight of which I thought my heart must
surely break, were but a little drop of sorrow
in the great stream of glad life, that
eddied sparkling on, untroubled, unpitying.
It was terrible to see Sir Edward suffer, and
to be able to give him no relief: to hear
him shriek in his delirium like one
tormented, and have no power to soothe.
Lawrence's death-scene seemed to haunt him like
a ghastly vision. He mentioned his name
perpetually, in rapid, incoherent sentences,
that were sometimes half-Italian, and of which
I could only guess the sad meaning. Often
his voice sank to a low moaning for Helena;
but, when I came forward and spoke to him—
hoping that as at first he would recognise me—
he shrunk shuddering away with shut eyes,
seeing in rne only my likeness to Lawrence;
whose face, as he last looked upon it, was