Cruel Geraldine! Let me look at the face, and see who is dead. Ha! It is Maggie Hastings. Poor girl! Why should such a merry, happy creature, die? Let me look again.” And he turned Margaret's pale face full to the moonlight, and looked at it fixedly for some minutes.

A new thought took possession of his mind; and gathering her still senseless form in his arms, he carried her across the room, and passing behind the organ, went through the open door into the conservatory. As soon as he was out of hearing, Mr. Morton escaped quickly, and made his way back to his own room—pondering upon all that he had heard and seen. Arundel bore his burden to the edge of the fountain, and laying her down gently, took water in the hollow of his hand and threw it on her face. At that moment Dr. Wynn and François appeared on the staircase. They hastened down and joined their patient.

"Who is this that is ill ?" asked Dr. Wynn, who generally fell in with the present fancy of his patient, and took his cue from him.

Arundel put his finger on his lips in a solemn manner. "Hush! she is not ill—she is dead. It is my mother. I told you she often comes to talk to me. She has gone away tonight and left her corpse in my arms. I am going to wash away the stains of tears from her cheeks.”

Again he took water and threw it on Margaret's face. She sighed deeply, and opened her eyes. Arundel started back as a man might who had seen a dead body restored to life. He clutched François' arm.

“See, see! She moves, she is alive!" he said, watching Margaret's return to consciousness. "She is changing again -dying. Death is only change. Just now I had my wife, Geraldine, in my arms—and she responded to my love; but suddenly she changed-died-in my embrace, and left a corpse instead. It was like little Maggie Hastings, at the Rectory; -you remember her, François ?"

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Yes, milor. What did you do with the dead body ?”

"We were in the oak room, there. We met in the moon

light," continued Arundel, in a low, impressive tone, still addressing François while he watched Dr. Wynn rub the palms of Margaret's hands and fan her face with a great leaf he had gathered hastily from a plant near him. The moonlight made us happy-when suddenly I felt the air about me tainted. Some bad spirit was hovering near!-some spirit adverse to our love. She was snatched away from me, and that body was left in my arms. It was the body of Maggie Hastings there. I knew it by the pale gold hair, and the kind face. How stiff and cold she was. It was the icy breath of something near us that chilled her so. I tried to revive her, but my pity was not warm enough. It is only lovepassionate love-that can wake the dead, François. I tried to see the spirit, that I might command it to cease its evil work;-but I could not. My spiritual power is failing me; I am becoming like other men. I remembered the sweet breath of these flowers and the cool water; and I knew that no evil influence could have power over us, here. I carried her here, and when I put her down, I saw that it was not Maggie, but my own mother." Here he paused, and kneeling down, took the hand of the poor girl, and kissed it gently. She was quite conscious, now.

"Oh, take me away!" she said faintly to Dr. Wynn. "I am too weak to be of use. I shall only do harm."

"You shall go, my dear young lady. But make an effort to speak to him," he whispered. "He has recognised François. His fixed delusion about you is changed. Thank God! He will recover soon, I trust."

Arundel was bending over the little basin of the fountain, and watching with a pleased expression the undulating reflexion of the lamps and plants. François spoke to him, and he replied. A bell was heard, and Dr. Wynn then helped Margaret to rise, and supported her on his arm, so that she could stand.

"Mr. Raby," said the physician, in a strong, clear voice, "will you give this lady your arm to that bench, and stay with her till I return? I am called away."

"With pleasure!" Arundel spoke, and turned round with the quiet dignity peculiar to him when sane. He advanced politely; but meeting Margaret's gaze fully, he paused a moment, as if striving to recall something to mind. Dr. Wynn pressed her arm to encourage her. She kept her eyes fixed on him, and smiled. Trembling, yet full of hope, she stretched out her hand, saying:

"It is I—Margaret Hastings. Don't you know me, Arundel ?"

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"Yes! yes!-It is Margaret!" and he sprang forward. Why—where have you been all this long time?—I have been very ill, and have missed you." He had drawn her arm within his own, and was looking into her face with all his old brotherly affection. François turned away to hide his tears of joy; and Dr. Wynn, satisfied by this fulfilment of his expectation, hastened up the stairs in obedience to the unusual summons of that bell, which told that his presence was required elsewhere.

Arundel led Margaret tenderly to a seat, and sat beside her, "in his right mind.”

"Have you any pain here, now?" asked Margaret, laying

her cold hand on his forehead.

"No;-I feel very weak; but I am not in pain. I seem to have awaked from a strange dream about my mother. Did I speak of her?”

"Yes," replied Margaret; "you mistook me for your mother."

"Did I?-That is natural!--You have been as kind to me as a mother. Ah, Margaret, I am glad to be restored to you again !—It was a horrid dream !—I thought my mother's dead body lay in my arms, and that I bore her to the edge of a vast lake surrounded by dark trees. It was night, and great stars were gleaming down on the water. The waving of the boughs and the splashing of the waves brought her to life, but she spoke no loving words. She looked cold and stern. I asked her why she had come to me? To take from you what you love best,' she said. As she spoke, I heard a bell toll as for

one dead, and I saw my mother no more. Did you hear a bell? It sounded to me as loud as that of a cathedral !" "Yes!" replied Margaret. "It was a bell to call Dr. Wynn. Some one in the house must be dangerously ill. Shall François go and inquire?"

"No," said Arundel. "There is no need. I know what is the matter! My mother came to fetch Lady Geraldine Trevor. She is dead! Is it not so, François ? Come and give me your hand, old friend.”

François took the offered hand; but he could not speak, except in broken exclamations of joy at this complete recovery of reason. He did not give a second thought to the import of that bell. Not so Margaret. She sat pale and motionless, and listening for any unwonted sounds. Arundel turned to her again.

"What is it pains you, dear Margaret? I am quite sane now. Do not look so aghast and terror-stricken."

She firmly believed that what Arundel had said was true. "It is too late! She is dead already. I am not wanted there." She could not answer him, for she was stricken to silence by this thought.

In after-years she remembered that something like a flash. of pleasure crossed her mind at that moment; something which, if put into words, would have been like this: "Now she is gone, perhaps, one day he may love me!" She was amazed and frightened at her own feeling; she crushed it; it was not distinct enough for a thought-certainly it had not assumed the form of a hope. Yet such as it was, it had existed, though only for the hundredth part of a second, and she never forgot that, at such a time, it had been possible for her heart to entertain such a selfish instinct. It was a source of humiliation and self-reproach to her; it was also a source of a large and sympathetic charity, for the sad selfishness and hardness of heart which is revealed too often by the best of us in our weakest hours.

CHAPTER VIII.

HASTINGS OF NORTH ASHURST-HOPES OF AN HEIR.

"With renunciation life begins."

GOETHE.

THE industrious man never waits for his work. If the work that presents itself be not fitted for him, he makes himself fitted for the work. This was the case with James Hastings. By taste and early education, a life devoted to learning, science, and art would have been proper for him. But his father's unforeseen money difficulties and death prevented the completion of his education at a university, and frustrated the young man's own scheme of life. To maintain himself in the position of a gentleman he was obliged to earn money early, and he accepted a post in Mr. Harrington's bank. Here he developed considerable talent for the arrangement and conduct of large and complicated financial affairs. In short, he was a rare union: a man of original thought and of practical skill and activity—a man born to govern. But his mind never took a strong political turn, though at one period of his life he had ample opportunity of trying his skill in politics. The department of this world's work in which he took most interest was the social and intellectual improvement of all classes of society -though he devoted his time chiefly to the class of working men in the manufacturing and mining parts of the country, as circumstances threw him into long and intimate connexion with them.

A field of activity opened before him just at the time when he was prostrated, heart and soul, by the marriage of his dearest friend with the only woman he could ever love. When he recovered the first stunning blow to his affections and hopes, he examined the matter with philosophical calmness, and decided that the pain he had endured was inevitable; but that it was not his duty to sit down and brood over that or any other calamity. It was his business to gain strength that he might be of some use in the world, though he had lost all that had made this world delightful to him. He had come