of one who once dearly loved you, and to the last had your happiness at heart.'

His softened tone set her heart beating with a

6

new hope. That phrase, once loved you,' froze it again, and held her silent as death. A dull blank shadow crept over her face; she stood looking at the ground, only just able to stand. When she looked up, with a blinding mist before her eyes, he was gone. And dimly perceiving the empty space which he had filled, and feeling in a moment that he had vanished out of her life for ever, the numbness of despair came over her, and she fell senseless across the spot where he had stood.

CHAPTER VII.

The good explore,

For peace, those realms where guilt can never soar;
The proud, the wayward, who have fix'd below
Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe,
Lose in that one their all-perchance a mite—
But who in patience parts with all delight?'

MRS. CHEVENIX, descending to her drawing-room in state, after the restorative effects of a leisurely breakfast in bed, and a gradual and easy toilet; her dress prepared for the reception of morning callers; her complexion refreshed with violet powder,—was horrified at finding her niece prostrate on the threshold of the back drawing-room. But when Mrs. Chevenix and her maid had administered the usual remedies, with a good deal of rushing to and fro, and the girl's haggard eyes reopened on the outer world, her first care was to assure them that the fainting fit was of no importance. She had been a little over-fatigued last night, that was all.

'I can't imagine what made you get up so preposterously early this morning, child,' said Mrs. Cheve

nix rather impatiently, 'instead of trying to recruit your strength, as any sensible young woman would have done. How can you expect your complexion to last, if you go on in this way? You are as dark under the eyes as if you had not slept an hour for the last fortnight. Good looks are very well in their way, Elizabeth; but they won't stand such treatment as this. Go up to your room and lie down for an hour or two, and let Mason give you one of my globules.'

Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders impatiently: globules for the cure of her disease! Infinitesimal doses for the healing of that great agony! How foolish a thing this second childishness of comfortable emotionless middle age is; this fools' paradise of pet poodles and homœopathy; this empty senile existence, which remains for some men and women, when feeling and passion are dead and gone!

'You know I don't believe in homœopathic medicines,' she said, turning her tired head aside upon the pillow of the sofa where they had laid her, with a look of utter weariness and disgust; 'or in any other medicines, indeed. I was never ill in my life, that I can remember, and I am not ill now. Let me lie here; I feel as if I could never get up again as long as I live.'

'A natural consequence of over-excitement,' said

Mrs. Chevenix.

Shut the folding-doors, Mason, in case any one should call; and bring Miss Luttrell the couvre-pied from the sofa in my bedroom. You shall have a mutton-chop and a pint of Moselle for your luncheon, Lizzie; and if Lord Paulyn should come before luncheon, I sha'n't allow him to see you.'

'Lord Paulyn!' cried the girl, with a shiver; 'let me never hear his name again as long as I live. He has broken my heart.'

Mrs. Chevenix received this wild assertion with the stony stare of bewilderment.

'My dearest Lizzie, what are you dreaming of?' she exclaimed; pleased to think that Mason had departed, in quest of the couvre-pied, before this strange utterance. 'I am sure that poor young man is perfectly devoted to you.'

'Who wants his devotion?' cried Elizabeth impatiently. 'Has he ever been anything but a torment to me? O, yes, I know what you are going to say,' she exclaimed, interrupting aunt Chevenix's halfuttered exclamation. 'In that case, why did I encourage his attentions? If I did so, I hardly knew that I was encouraging them. It was rather pleasant to feel that other people thought a great deal more of me on account of his silly infatuation; and he is not the kind of man who would ever be much the worse

for any disappointment in that way. It would be too preposterous to suppose that he has a heart capable of feeling deeply about anything except his race-horses.'

This was said half listlessly, yet with an air which implied that the speaker was trying to justify herself, and was half doubtful of the force of her own reasoning.

'No heart!' ejaculated Mrs. Chevenix indignantly; 'why, I do believe that young man is all heart. I'm sure the warmth of his attachment to you is a very strong proof of it. No heart, indeed. If you had spoken of your tall curate now, with his rigid puritanical expression of countenance (just the look of an icono-what's his name-a man who would chop the noses off the saints on the carved doors of a cathedral -I should think), if you had talked of his having no heart, I might have agreed with you.'

'Aunt Chevenix,' said Elizabeth, starting up from her pillow, if you ever dare to say one word in disparagement of Malcolm Forde, I shall hate you. I am almost tempted to hate you as it is, for being at the root of all my misery. Don't put your finger upon an open wound. You have no occasion to run him down now; he is nothing more to me. He came here this morning, not an hour ago, to give me up. I meant to tell you nothing about this; but you would have