She crossed the room. Rymer saw her, and saw her stoopsaw how carefully she chose not to see him-saw that then she went away back, and most probably to her former seat at or near the piano.

The gamekeeper-who had stayed to the utmost verge of what he dared-now returned; and Rymer, who was standing so much nearer than before, could hear him give his not very confident explanation about the visitor outside.

A long and embarrassing silence followed, before Mrs. Rhys made any kind of comment. Then she said, with a tone of severity through which Rymer could feel every thrill of her heart

'I shall say nothing now, James, but if this happens again I am sure Mr. Rhys will discharge you. You need not wait.' Scarcely knowing how best to excuse himself, James uttered a few faltering words and hurried away; and being already angry at the reproof he had incurred, was still more angry to find the tourist almost close to the door, instead of being where he had left him—a long and respectful way off.

'I have got into trouble on your account, sir, and must beg you to hasten your departure,' he said somewhat roughly. 'Many thanks. You may want a friend some day—if so I shall remember this.'

The gamekeeper was mollified, and even showed him certain other objects of interest that did not involve further penetration into the recesses of the mansion; and he found that his visitor seemed to linger more over these comparatively trifling articles of vertu than he had done while examining the most priceless of the heirlooms of Dola' Hudol.

At last, though most unwillingly, the man was obliged to repeat his warning to Mr. Rymer, about his too long stay; and though again the latter, by his coolness and presence of mind, was able to say something which obtained him another minute or two, all resources and expedients were failing, and he was at the door, and still he had not heard the chord he had demanded in sign of acquiescence.

But when the door was opened—and it was a door that could only be noisily opened-Rymer understood the delay; for as its harsh, jarring sound, as it was thrown back against the wall, ceased, there came through an open window one ud, wild, stormy chord from the instrument, then sudden ence; and then the sharp, impetuous closing of the window

a moment later, which suggested to Rymer thoughts so confused and intricate, that he could not even in fancy disentangle them.

'No matter-she will meet me!' he muttered to himself.

CHAPTER X.

THE MAIDEN'S LAKE.

THE intervening hours were spent in wandering about in places where Rymer thought himself most secure from observation. As sunset drew on he loitered before a lane about three miles along the road to the right of Capel Illtyd tollgate.

It was a fine golden October afternoon; but he looked impatient with its very brightness, as if that for which he waited and watched would not appear till the evening, and yet he could not help waiting and watching, though the sun still burnished the spare autumnal boughs above him, so that they shone like wreaths and wands of dusky Indian gems.

He strolled up and down, and time lagged heavily. He grew sick of the thin-looking crops of the corn-fields, where children were gleaning on his left, because the shadows were so slow in creeping over them; sick of the tiny river flashing through the trees on his right, because its restless silver was still stamped with day's bright image; sick of the burnishing transforming sun, because it was so long in gathering to itself its beamy offspring, that lay sleeping on tree and field and dell, in such heavy languor.

He watched, and paced, and wearied, and as he looked at his watch often doubted if the hands really moved at all.

But the slow reaper and his scythe came on, as surely as slowly, and cut the day down like a flower; and as it lay dying and flooding the earth with sweetness, even in death, Rymer left the road by the lane on the right, and entered into a wonderful labyrinth of sylvan passages; airily roofed and walled by hazels, aspens, and willows; and paved with moss, red leaves, white stones and gray; lights and shadows all mingling and blending in mosaic richness.

Some slight sound meeting his ear made him start and pause to listen with head inclined forward, and eye kindling

and dilating. Then he pressed on with a rapid noiseless step, till he reached a small and beautiful sheet of water, walled on one side by the bending trees, dropping their foliage across like a curtain; and on the other by a quaint little bridge, from which the ivy hung so low as to touch the surface of the water.

There was a dainty elfish elegance about the spot; the blocks of rock that rose from the water in stately forms were as smooth and polished, and almost as white as alabaster, and suggested the idea of their having been the resting-places of some troop of tiny bathing nymphs. The lake itself was clear as glass, shallow, and paved with smooth fair pebbles.

Rymer stood at the water's edge, and listened till the faint sound he had heard became nearer and more distinct. It was, as he had thought, the sound of footsteps.

He listened as they fell-now light on the stones, now crisp on the dry leaves, now silent on the moss; and he never turned till they paused very close to him. Then with an expression in which mingled tender welcoming, self-abasement, fear, and reproach, he looked round into the face of the person who had come to keep this appointment with him at the Maiden's Lake.

It was Mrs. Rhys.

As he turned towards her she lifted her veil, and he saw that her cheeks were very white, and her blue eyes and rounded lips were contorted with an expression of scorn and bitter grief.

From old habit he held out his hand, but she refused it by a slight, ever so slight a gesture, and looked steadily into his face.

And is this you?' she said in a voice whose trembling weakness she tried to turn to sternness. 'Is it possible it is John Cunliff who has brought me here to meet him, by this --this honourable letter; this delicate threat which he knows I can no more help trembling at, than I can help despising it and him now that I have come.'

Cunliff was silent. He was reminded at that instant of how he felt when, a child suffering from ghostly horrors in the night, he had cried aloud and brought the household to his room; his relief, his acute shame, and acute joy, then resembled that which he now experienced. 'Why did

you not let me see your true character before?

continued the voice that made his heart tremble with its

sweetness and anger. 'It might have saved me some misery. I thought you braver, more humane, more chivalrous than most men; and what must I now think of you-you who could write this letter, threatening me, threatening my husband's peace, your own lifo, anything-anything to frighten and terrify my already most miserable heart."

'Oh Catherine, Catherine! have you been brave? Must it not be a cruel and unjust judge who passes a sentence she dares not deliver with her own lips?'

'Well, I have come now. I will deliver it with my own lips if you demand it. This is to be the last time we two meet. Is that plain?'

He looked down on the grass and repeated the words as though they were of a language but half known, and he was uncertain of the accent of each

'This is to be-the-last-time-we meet.'

'And may you be forgiven,' said Catherine turning away her face, for bringing upon us the bitterness of such a last meeting.'

He did not reply, and she moved as if she would leave him. At the first few steps his eyes looked up with a gleam of water in them; then, as if drawn towards her in spite of her stinging words, which chained his feet, he fell or threw himself after her retreating form, and his clasped hands fell on the edge of her dress, as it swept the grass, and detained her.

She turned and looked down upon him. Her fair girlish forehead was drawn up in such lines as belong to age, her round under lip was held from quivering by the pressure of

her teeth.

'Take care,' she said in a voice of great anguish; 'Cunliff, we are not alone.'

No? Who is here-Rhys? With his pistols, perhaps ? Is there any such merciful end in store for me?'

'Mr. Cunliff, one is here without whom I dared not have come.'

'Ah! your confessor at the church, to whom you have exposed me, I suppose?'

No, he knows nothing-shall know nothing, but that you are one whom it is not for my soul's health to be permitted to stay here,'

'And this meddler is near us now?'

'He is.'

'I thank you, Catherine.'

‘Oh, don't make me repent more than I already do having obeyed your command!

She seemed to feel how deeply he was stung and humiliated, for she said in a softened tone

'It is useless to speak of my regret in giving you this pain -must not everything that brings us together be painful now? There, I will wait-I will sit down.' And gently drawing her dress from his hands, she sat on a piece of the beautiful white rock that rose from the moss. 'Say what you wish to say, I will be patient if you will be generous. We will part as friends-as dear ones if you will; only I conjure you reflect well beforehand on all you say to me. The present is very, very, bitter-the past has been humiliating-let us leave some possible consolation for the future. We are neither of us very fervent Christians, Mr. Cunliff, but we have I think a little real faith in a life to come, where the evil or the goodness of our acts here will be of consequence to us.'

" Oh yes how glibly a woman can talk when she is mistress of herself, when she knows and acts out all her own secret purposes with the most admirable self-command; when, in a word, the man loves her with his whole heart and soul, while she only loves him with strict attention to the proprieties.'

She seemed about to answer him in his own way, but the angry impulse died out: she sighed deeply and said

You shall not offend me by this wild talk, for I can only too well understand it. But I must tell you my husband is at this moment not many miles away. It is dangerous for me to be here, he is so likely to arrive during my absence. Do not then, I entreat you, waste the time in meaningless reproaches.'

Then, as he lay, he began to pick up the small pebbles that lay about him, and throw them into the stream, now with an affectation of utter indifference, now with a quick, passionate, vindictive gesture; and as one after another fell into the water, and sank, deeper grew the gloom in both their hearts, sadder the sense of their utter hopelessness. Cunliff was the first to renew the discourse—

'I have found a profitable occupation, you see, but still it is