Henceforth Mr. Garston saw her every time he came. Yet her manner to him continued always as it had been at first-not cold-that is no word for it, for his mere presence in the room agitated her-but so distant that the only signs even of common courtesy that he ever won from her were a slight motion of her head as he entered and departed, or a monosyllabic answer when he spoke. All through his lessons she used to sit as much as she could withdrawn out of his sight, with her face resolutely bent down upon her work-that face which, as time went on, was changing visibly its settled, sad repose of old all breaking up into restless anxiety and pain.

I said that she used to sit as far as it was possible from him, but after some time she could not do this always. One night when my master and Mr. Garston were with together, my master called to herMaddie, come here."

me

She rose up unwillingly, in some surprise, too, and went to him. He pointed to a portion of the page before him.

"Take this part."

"I?" she exclaimed; and she shrank back.

He turned round quickly. Why not you? Can you not sing?"

His keen bright eyes were on her; the impatient look was in them that often made a coward of her. Her head sank-she said no more. By her side, with his face all joy-lightened, stood Mr. Garston, and standing so they sang together.

They sang, but her voice came from her as I had never heard it beforetimid, feeble, effectless, drowned almost in his. Impatiently my master turned upon her.

"Are you ill? What is the matter with you?" he exclaimed.

"I cannot sing to-night: grandfather, let me go," she cried.

He let her go, but it was an escape only for that evening. Again and again on future evenings my master made them sing together.

Several months went past. One summer morning when my mistress was at home alone, a step that in the silence I heard ascending the stairs stopped at our door, and some one knocked. She bade the knocker

enter, and in a moment more I saw Mr. Garston standing on the threshold.

He came in hurriedly and closed the door. She had started up: he came to her and caught her hands; before she could take them from him, and before she could speak, his lips had broke forth

"Do not be angry with me-do not be angry with me; I have no other way of speaking to you."

"You had no need to speak to me," she said.

The words I thought came with difficulty: she was very white: she was trembling so that she could not free her hands from his hold.

He took up what she said passionately.

"No need !" he cried, (( no need, Maddie, when you have kept me starved for twelve months ?-When you let me come here night after night, and treat me as if I was the veriest stranger that ever looked on you !"

Suddenly she lifted up her eyes, and looked on him as no stranger could ever look. Her face all changed from what I had ever seen it, her voice all quickened and quivering, she cried

"Frank, Frank, can you not forget me?"

He caught her hands to his lips.

"I cannot! I cannot!" he cried

over them. "Not till I have forgotten all that has made life precious to me!"

Poor thing!-she sat down and burst into tears.

He came passionately and knelt beside her.

Maddie," he cried, "can you impose all this on me for nothing? I cannot bear it long-I will not bear it! Maddie, no living soul has the right to come between such love as

ours !"

"No;-no living soul," she said in a low solemn voice.

"Maddie !"-he cried vehemently -but he looked into her face, and there seemed to be something there that choked his words.

She went on speaking-not weeping now, but her voice firm and sad.

"It was no vain fear," she said, "that drew that promise from meit was no delusion, Frank. Oh! Frank," she cried, "you told me

once that you would help me to keep it-help me now! It may not be for long;"-her voice grew very soft"for the seed that was sown has begun to spring.”

He cried her name with a piteous cry that rang through the room; unchecked by her as he knelt, he cast his arms around her, he cried out with anguish

"It is not so! Maddie, you are deceived-it is not so! It is only anxiety that is wearing you. My Maddie!--my love-my love!"

Into her eyes the tears gathered fast again once she stooped to him, and touched his brow, she put back his hair-yet still when she spoke, her words bore the same stern sad burden.

"Frank, you must go," she said; "it is all true. They were wise and right, and all the passion and the folly were with us. Oh, Frank, it has been hard enough already-do not make it harder. Go, and give up hope now."

He looked up he looked into her face.

"I cannot !" he cried, passionately; and the next moment, before she could prevent him, he had sprung up and clasped her to his heart.

They neither of them heard a step crossing the passage without; they neither of them heard it pause before the door-then calmly enter. Mr. Garston's arm was close pressed round my mistress-I almost think his lips were joined to hers-when suddenly the silence round them, for her sobs were low and scarcely stirred it, was cleft by the utterance of her

name.

Magdalen!" burst passionately from my master's lips.

They both heard then. She gave a low bitter cry, and broke from her lover's arms: Mr. Garston faced my master, excited and keen-eyed, his handsome fair face flushed. He did not wait to be addressed.

"It is my fault-it is my doing !" he cried.

"Silence!" said my master, sternly; and he turned from him to my mistress, and again he spoke.

"Magdalen," he cried, “you have deceived me !"

"She has not!" Mr. Garston vehemently interrupted, "you have no right to reproach her! She has neverchanged-neverfaltered--never

broken her promise to you! I will not be silent-you shall hear me. Before you ever saw her, old man, I loved her-before she ever came to your house, she had given me her promise to become my wife; it is not you who have been injured. You took her from me you and your daughter; you wrested that cruel promise from her lips. She was all I had in the world, and you took her from me; you have kept her from me for three long years."

"And for ten times three years I will keep her from you!" my master broke in, but his eyes flashed, and his voice was high only for a moment. There was an instant's pause, and then, sadly, and even gently

66

Young man," he said, "I pity you! I pity you," he repeated, for I once suffered as you are doing, but -as you have not done--I prevailed on the woman I loved to marry me. She died of consumption: her daughter also married and died of consumption: Magdalen now is all that is left to me, and though the same terrible disease will kill her, too, she shall not-I tell you, she shall not marry, and like her mother and grandmother, leave it a fearful inheritance to her children. You have heard me now, Mr. Garston, go.”

He did not go. Yielding to a paroxysm of emotion he flung himself on a sofa near him, and turned his face upon its cushions. There was a sudden deep pause-and then my mistress softly crept to him. She knelt down by his side: she took his hand and kissed it.

"Frank, for my sake," she whispered. "Oh, Frank-my love!"

He turned and wildly clasped her in his arms. She did not resist him : my master for a few moments could not pressed close to his heart she lay, till my master came and sternly laid his hand upon her.

"Magdalen, let this cease," he cried. She raised up her face.

"I am going-hush!—it is the last time!" she said.

She turned back, and once-openly and passionately-she kissed her lover's lips. Then her arms sank from him. She whispered softly—

"It will not be for long-not for long!"

There was a moment's silence, ard then I heard, ringing upon the air, a

wild cry on her name-but she was gone.

Once and only once more did I ever hear her utter Mr. Garston's name. It was a week after their separation-one night when, as usual, my master and she were in the room together,

Grand-father, may I speak to you?" she asked,

He was reading, but he put down his book,

"I had a letter this morning from Frank Garston," she said,

"You had ?" he broke in, angrily.

"Let me speak," she said, sadly. "He wrote to tell me that he was leaving England."

There was suspicion in my master's look- suspicion when he spoke in his voice.

"To what place does he go?"
"To America," she said.

He was silent, but his keen eye rested on her: hers did not fall before it. Sadly and half reproachfully, she spoke again.

"Grand-father, I have never told what was not truth, though I once concealed it."

"You have not; I believe you," he said.

He rose up, and came and laid his hand upon her brow.

"Magdalen, you have behaved well," he said. Through much suffering you have gained the victory, I thank and bless my child !"

He solemnly stooped and kissed her forehead. She took his hand and silently pressed it.

Henceforward she never spoke his name. The romance of her life was ended.

The grave had closed over it; and our existence, when it was buried, went its course calmly. It had been summer then; and autumn and winter passed over us, and left few marks. But with another spring came change. There came to my master a great illness, which so smote him that when he rose again from his bed he rose up like a broken shadow. The life and the light were gone.

He lived for many months, but the keen-eyed, stern-hearted old man had become weaker than a child. His temper was an utter wreck; his memory was almost gone; daily for hours he would sit before me, mourn

fully trying to recal-images and thoughts that haunted him, till, as his fingers vainly wandered over the keys, the tears would gather and roll down his hollow cheeks.

Yet broken as he was, once more there came a light-one flash of illumination before the end,

He sat one day in his constant seat before me, and by chance he fell into some opening familiar notes of a great symphony. Suddenly-mysteriously -I know not how, the well-known sounds awakened him: slowly he sat erect, the feeble hands grew strong, the dimmed eye burnt again. It was no broken reminiscence: with its strange rapturous sadness, quivering and crying, the music swelled and rose it filled the room; higher and higher broke the wild wail; higher and higher rolled the trumpet notes; gladder and gladder, leaping from long earth imprisonment, sprang up the great triumphant final song.

It was played and ended. The wondrous tones died down. As the sunshine fades from a fair prospect, so faded back the light that had shone upon my master's face, The eye grew dim again, the figure drooped, the hands lay powerless: without a sound or word he fell back on his chair.

My mistress came in a moment to his side, and at her request he rose up mechanically, and leaning on her, let her lead him away. Only, as he went, he turned once back, and gave one mournful look at me. My master! it was our farewell.

She placed him on the sofa, and did for him what she could, but he never spoke, Once she begged him to let her send for help, but he forbade her by an angry gesture. Once again, and more passionately, she begged him to see a priest.

"Let me die in peace," was his stern answer,

When it was given, she knelt down beside him and hid her face.

It was summer time, and the evenings were long. When the sun had set, the dews of death were on him. Then came her last wild cry

"Grand-father, let me read one prayer beside you!"

Dying as he was, his dimmed eye flashed.

"Have I not prayed?" he cried. "Did you not hear me? Such a

prayer as priest never uttered! Magdalen, do you think that I will change the faith now that I have held through life? Be content! I believe in a God-and in another life. Get up from your knees! Go there, and let me hear the sounds I love to the last." “I cannot sing," she cried. "Oh, grand-father, let me stay!"

He looked upon her in dumb reproach. She gave a cry, and threw her arms about him, and then rose and went.

She came and sat before me. Her face was white and fixed as death, but mingled with its anguish was a look of stern and strange resolve. She struck a few slow chords, and then her full rich voice, unsteady at

first, but strengthening with a wild ringing strength, began to sing a great and terrible hymn that they call the "Dies Iræ."

It rose throughout the room. Over my master's face there came a wild expression of fierce anger: once more he raised himself with a stern gesture -but he could not speak; with that last look upon him he fell back; and his spirit passed, in its dim faith, into the great eternity.

It is more than a year ago. I have lived alone with my mistress since; but her cheek is hectic and hollowed now, and her step is feeble and slow. Like the rest, she, too, is vanishinga shadow departing from a world of shadows. G. M. C.