' No,' she said, ' I am not afraid now.' I asked
why not. She suddenly bent forward into the
boat-house, and said, ' Can't you guess why?'
I shook my head. ' Look at me,' she went on.
I told her I was grieved to see that she looked
very sorrowful and very ill. She smiled, for the
first time. 'Ill?' she repeated; 'I'm dying.
You know why I'm not afraid of him now. Do
you think I shall meet your mother in heaven?
Will she forgive me, if I do?' I was so
shocked and so startled, that I could make no
reply. ' I have been thinking of it,' she went
on, ' all the time I have been in hiding from
your husband, all the time I lay ill. My
thoughts have driven me here—I want to make
atonement—I want to undo all I can of the
harm I once did.' I begged her as earnestly as I
could to tell me what she meant. She still
looked at me with fixed, vacant eyes. ' Shall I
undo the harm?' she said to herself, doubtfully.
' You have friends to take your part. If you
know his wicked secret, he will be afraid of
you; he won't dare use you as he used me.
He must treat you mercifully for his own sake,
if he is afraid of you and your friends. And if he
treats you mercifully, and if I can say it was my
doing——' I listened eagerly for more; but
she stopped at those words."

"You tried to make her go on?"

"I tried; but she only drew herself away
from me again, and leaned her face and arms
against the side of the boat-house. 'Oh!'
I heard her say, with a dreadful, distracted
tenderness in her voice, ' oh! if I could only be
buried with your mother! If I could only
wake at her side, when the angel's trumpet
sounds, and the graves give up their dead at the
resurrection!'—- Marian! I trembled from head
to foot—it was horrible to hear her. ' But there
is no hope of that,' she said, moving a little, so
as to look at me again; ' no hope for a poor
stranger like me. I shall not rest under the
marble cross that I washed with my own hands,
and made so white and pure for her sake.
Oh no! oh no! God's mercy, not man's, will
take me to her, where the wicked cease from
troubling and the weary are at rest.' She
spoke those words quietly and sorrowfully, with
a heavy, hopeless sigh; and then waited a little.
Her face was confused and troubled; she
seemed to be thinking, or trying to think.
* What was it I said just now?' she asked, after
a while. ' When your mother is in my mind,
everything else goes out of it. What was I
saying? what was I saying?' I reminded the
poor creature, as kindly and delicately as I could.
' Ah, yes, yes,' she said, still in a vacant,
perplexed manner. 'You are helpless with your
wicked husband. Yes. And I must do what I
have come to do here—I must make it up to you
for having been afraid to speak out at a better
time.' 'What is it you have to tell me?'
I asked. ' A Secret,' she answered. ' The
Secret that your cruel husband is afraid of.'
Her face darkened; and a hard, angry stare
fixed herself in her eyes. She began waving her
hand at me in a strange, unmeaning manner.
' My mother knows the Secret,' she said, speaking
slowly for the first time; weighing every
word as she uttered it. ' My mother has wasted
and worn away under the Secret half her lifetime.
One day, when I was grown up, she told
it to me. And your husband knew she told it.
Knew, to my cost. Ah, poor me! knew, knew,
knew she told it.'"

"Yes! yes! What did she say next?"

"She stopped again, Marian, at that point"

"And said no more?"

"And listened eagerly. 'Hush!' she whispered,
still waving her hand at me. ' Hush!'
She moved aside out of the doorway, moved
slowly and stealthily, step by step, till I lost
her past the edge of the boat-house."

"Surely, you followed her?"

"Yes; my anxiety made me bold enough to
rise and follow her. Just as I reached the
entrance, she appeared again, suddenly, round
the side of the boat-house. ' The secret,' I
whispered to her 'wait and tell me the secret!'
She caught hold of my arm, and looked at me,
with wild, frightened eyes. 'Not now,' she
said; ' we are not alone—we are watched.
Come here to-morrow, at this time—by yourself
—mind — by yourself.' She pushed me roughly
into the boat-house again; and I saw her no
more."

"Oh, Laura, Laura, another chance lost! If
I had only been near you, she should not have
escaped us. On which side did you lose sight of
her?"

"On the left side, where the ground sinks and
the wood is thickest."

"Did you run out again? did you call after
her?"

"How could I? I was too terrified to move
or speak."

"But when you did move—when you came
out—-?"

"I ran, back here, to tell you what had hap-
pened."

"Did you see any one, or hear any one in.
the plantation?"

"No—it seemed to be all still and quiet,
when I passed through it."

I waited for a moment, to consider. Was
this third person, supposed to have been secretly
present at the interview, a reality, or the
creature of Anne Catherick's excited fancy? It
was impossible to determine. The one thing
certain was, that we had failed again on the very
brink of discovery — failed utterly and irretrievably,
unless Anne Catherick kept her appointment
at the boat-house, for the next day.

"Are you quite sure you have told me everything
that passed. Every word that was said?"
I inquired.

"I think so," she answered. " My powers
of memory, Marian, are not like yours. But I
was so strongly impressed, so deeply interested,
that nothing of any importance can possibly
have escaped me."

"My dear Laura, the merest trifles are of
importance where Anne Catherick is concerned.
Think again. Did no chance reference escape