and I carry my case wrapped in leather, so that he set this speech down to mere striving after effect, dampness cannot affect them. See here!" and answered more lightly than he would otherwise have done : The next instant a feeble, short-lived blaze lighted up their place of refuge, and showed Miss Loring a stone, on which she immediately sat down. "We are at least sheltered from the rain," said Thurston, as the temporary illumination died away, "and safe from the electricity, since water is a nonconductor. Now, if you can possess your soul in patience for a while, I hope that the storm will exhaust itself, and we may go home by moonlight after all." "I can possess my soul in patience very easily," she answered. "It is better to be here than to be riding along a forest-road in such a stórm as this. How the rain pours! And lightnings, as they play, But show where rocks our path have crossed, "You cannot be very nervous, Miss Loring, or you would not be able to quote poetry." "I am not at all nervous," she replied. "Pray set your mind at rest on that point. I have always felt that if I were called upon to face death itself I mean death in some sudden and violent form-I should be as calm and collected as I am this moment." "You might find yourself mistaken. Facing death is not such an easy matter as you think. I, who have faced it many times, know whereof I speak." "But there was always doubt in that, was there not? If you were absolutely certain that death was before you say, for instance, that you were on a sinking ship in mid-ocean-you would have no fear of losing composure, would you?" "I suppose not—the inevitable is said to have always a sustaining power. Under some circumstances, however, I can imagine that, apart from courage, a man might shrink from the prospect of leaving those whom he loved helpless behind him." "And would that be your case?" The abrupt question did not sound as it would have sounded at another time and in another place. So utterly unconventional were their surroundings, so strange the darkness encompassing them, that the ordinary rules governing social life seemed for the present laid aside, and Thurston replied without a moment's thought: "You have surely forgotten all your admirers." “Thank you for reminding me of them," she said, but her tone changed from earnestness to mockery. "I wonder how many among them would mourn me a week! Well, we reap as we have sowed, I suppose. People call me brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating, but many a commonplace woman is richer in love than I am." It was impossible even for Thurston to doubt the sincerity with which these words were uttered. Half bitter, and wholly sad, the magnetic voice sounded, and he felt his heart strongly stirred by its tones. A doubt of himself-of his own capabilities of resisting this woman's power-began for the first time to cross his mind. Had Mrs. Jennings been right? Was he, after all, playing with fire? "If you are poor in love," he said, "it is because you have flung it away from you in carelessness or scorn. I know, Miss Loring, that devotion the most passionate and true has been poured out like water at your feet." "Do you know it?" she asked; and there was not a little skepticism in her tone. "Then you are wiser than I am. But I confess I have always been incredulous where protestations of passion were involved. Perhaps I did not feel interest enough to put them to any test. Life is a riddle to which I have never found a key, and I have often thought that it is not worth searching for." There was something so pathetic in the halfweary, half-reckless ring of her voice that Thurston said, involuntarily : "You are too young, and far too liberally endowed with every good gift of Nature, to feel anything like that. Surely, you cannot seriously do so.' She did not answer, for as he spoke the most vivid flash of lightning which they had yet seen illuminated the whole wild scene with an unearthly glare, leaping from point to point among the crags, while the roar of the thunder overhead seemed to shake the solid rocks around them. When darkness again fell, veiling from sight the white sheets of rain, the surging, whirling torrent, Agatha said: "Can we not go farther back? The rain or the spray from the stream is falling over me." "Certainly we can," he answered. "Not at all. If this stream before us were able to rise and overwhelm us, I should have the satisfac-strike a match.-Now, give me your hand." tion of feeling that I left no human being in the world worse for my death, and but one person who would feel any active sentiment of regret." "Let me In the farthest corner of the rock-recess he placed her, and then established himself before her so as to shield her as much as possible from the blast and She laughed slightly-not a mirthful laugh, by driving spray which even here sought them out." any means. "Then you have an advantage over me in the possession of that one person. I should leave several human beings better for my death, inasmuch as my fortune would be divided among them, and not one who would mourn me beyond a week." The instinct of distrust was so strong in him with regard to everything which she said or did, that "I am afraid you are very uncomfortable," he said. "That ledge on which you are sitting is a tilting perch, I suspect. If you will rest one hand on my shoulder, you may be able to steady yourself better." "It is not necessary," she answered. "I can steady myself very well without troubling you fur ther." Then she added, abruptly: "It is very kind of you to take as much care of me as if-as if you liked me, Colonel Thurston. I assure you I appreciate it." Simply as the story was told, all its details were made very clear to the woman who listened. on. "I was forced to go to Egypt," Thurston went There was a minute's pause before Thurston "A career there was the only one which opened said, in a voice which sounded constrained: to me; but when I turned my face homeward at "Why should you think that I do not like you, last, after five years' absence, it was to see BertieMiss Loring?" "Pray do not ask such a foolish question," she answered. "You know as well as or better than I do that you do not like me; and you are very straightforward and thorough, Colonel Thurston-far too much so to pretend to be what you are not. On that account I liked you from the first," she added. "Don't be frightened because I say so-I mean don't think that I am bent on your conquest. I would not add you to the list of my captives if I could; but I should like to win you for a friend if such a thing were possible.” It is not possible," he answered, hoarsely. "It is absolutely impossible. So far from being your friend, Miss Loring, I have never felt such deep and bitter enmity toward any human creature as I felt toward you before I ever saw your face." He saw that face the next instant, for another vivid lightning-flash showed it turned toward him with an expression of astonishment on its pale, clearcut features. "Deep and bitter enmity !" she repeated. "Did what you felt go as far as that? Enmity is generally associated with the desire to injure-did you wish to injure me, Colonel Thurston?" Even in the darkness Thurston was conscious that a flush rose to his face. At that moment he felt as if his desire that Bertie's wrong might be avenged had been a very paltry thing. "If you will allow me to waive that question, Miss Loring-" he began, but she interrupted him impetuously: "I cannot allow it. I would rather-much rather -hear the truth, if you will tell it. Dislike is one thing, enmity another. Why should you have felt enmity toward me?" Bertie alone-and renew for a few months our old association. My thoughts were full of the sunnyhearted boy I left, and I found instead a man whose whole nature had been wrecked by passion, for whom all the hopes of life had turned to ashes, and whose reckless misery was pitiable to witness. He could not endure even my society; and when I came here I had just seen him start alone with his wretchedness to Europe. Considering this, you may judge how charitably I felt toward you, Miss Loring, who from beginning to end had wrought the work." "So Bertie Egerton is your brother," she said, slowly, after a moment's pause. "No one told me-I had no idea of it. Not," she added, "that Bertie Egerton is more to me than any other man, except that I knew him and liked him until—” Until, like Mr. Virien, he ceased to amuse you," said Thurston, bitterly. "I am sorry we began to speak on this subject. It can do no good, and, however cruel and heartless one may think a woman, one is in courtesy bound not to speak according to one's thoughts." Silence for a full minute. The storm by this time began to abate its violence, the lightning grew less frequent and vivid, the thunder rolled more remotely. One of the peals was dying away with many distant reverberations, when Agatha spoke : "You have only heard your brother's story, so I cannot blame you for thinking of me in this way -nor have I any intention of trying to change your opinion. I have never believed in men's hearts, as I told you once before - so perhaps I have not treated them very tenderly. Your brother seemed to me a pleasant, impulsive, undisciplined boy, who mistook fancy for passion, and who troubled me not a little before I dismissed him. I am very sorry that I should have caused him so much pain, but I could not help it." "Your "I do not arraign you," said Thurston. own conscience may some day do that-some day when even your heart, Miss Loring, has been wakened to a sense of suffering." "I thought you were convinced that I have no heart?" said she, quietly. "How can I tell?" asked he, quickly. "Women are enigmas. God only knows what you are. I only know that you have ruined Bertie's life-and that you would ruin mine if I gave you the chance." Then he told her, with the accompaniment of the raging storm, in the obscurity which shielded their faces from sight, save when the fitful glare of the lightning revealed them for a moment. Who has not observed what strange capabilities of expression the voice develops in circumstances like these? Is it because our attention is not distracted by the play of eye and lip, that the cadences of tone reveal so much when we listen to them in darkness? Certainly Thurston's revealed a great deal to Agatha Loring. To make her understand how much more than an ordinary brother Bertie was to him, he touched briefly on the history of his childhood; he told her how his father's early death left his mother almost destitute of fortune; how her second husband had been a wealthy, generous man, whose kindness to him (Thurston) had been unvarying; how he was killed in battle, and with his dying lips commended Bertie to his step-son's care; how his mother repeated the charge when she died soon after, and how near to his heart the boy's happiness had always been. | who went on: He uttered the last words impetuously-uttered them without thought or calculation-and, if there had been a flash of light at that moment, he might have been surprised at their effect upon Agatha. She started and clasped her hands tightly together, while for the first time in her life her readiness of speech failed altogether. She desired to speak, but no fitting words occurred to her, and so it was he "I did not mean to say that, but, since it has been said, I owe you an explanation. I am not in love with you, Miss Loring, but since I have known you I have appreciated for the first time how a man might be fascinated by the charm of such a woman as you are, even while-" cannot take you until I have ascertained whether or not it is safe to do so." "Oh, pray do not leave me behind!” she pleaded., "Let me go with you. I will be very cautious, and surely if it is safe for you it is safe for me." "By no means," he answered. "To have you He paused, but she finished his sentence calmly on my hands would embarrass me greatly, and in and clearly: "Even while you do not respect her. you for being frank to the last, Colonel ton." Thank Thurs"You misunderstand me," he said. "I did not mean to be so rude as that. If I had completed my sentence I should have said, ‘even while it would be madness to trust her '-madness to suffer one's peace of mind and heart to be wrecked in order that a coquette might add one more victim to her list." Silence again. The rain had ceased now, and the distant roll of thunder proved that the clouds were drawing off like sullen battalions who fire as they retreat. Agatha's hand involuntarily went to her heart. It may be that Bertie and many another were avenged in what she suffered at that moment. But woman's pride is equal to most emergencies, and hers steadied her voice when at length she spoke : "It is as well, no doubt, that you are not 'in love' with me. I hardly think I am the kind of woman to make a man happy, even—even if I loved him. My nature is not likely to prove a soil in which the domestic virtues could ever flourish, and a woman without domestic virtues is-what shall I say?-only fit to live and die a coquette, for whom admiration takes the place of love, flattery of respect. Well!"-what a low, soft, bitter laugh it was she uttered!" one must pay a price for all empire, but you may rest satisfied that I am not a happy woman, Colonel Thurston." Strange to say-considering how ardently he had desired that she might suffer-this assurance did not satisfy Thurston. Mad though he knew the impulse to be, he would at that moment have given a great deal to make Agatha Loring happy-granting that it was in his power to do so. "I am sorry" he began, but she interposed hastily: "Do not think that there is any necessity to express what you cannot possibly feel. Extorted sympathy is not worth much-and I only mentioned the fact because you seemed to desire so much that I should suffer. The feeling is very natural, no doubt, and I do not blame you. Meanwhile I think it has ceased raining. Can we not leave here?" "I am afraid we shall find it very difficult to do so," he answered. The stream has probably increased in volume, and if it fills the gorge-as it may do-we shall be forced to stay here until it runs down." "That is a pleasant prospect; but do you mean to take it for granted that it has filled the gorge?" "So far from that "-he rose as he spoke "I mean to go and explore the passage. I am sorry to leave you here alone, but there is no help for it. I case of danger might be fatal to us both." "Then do not you go. It is better to stay here and wait for daylight than to risk anything." He put out his hand and touched her dress. "I thought so," he said. "You are as wet as possible, and yet you talk of staying here until daylight. We may be forced to do so, but I shall not think of such a thing unless it is a matter of necessity. You have a stout heart, Miss Loring, I know; but do you think it is stout enough to stay here in the darkness alone?" "Yes," she answered. "If you insist upon going without me, I am not afraid to remain; but I hope you will not be rash." "I shall certainly endeavor not to be drowned, since it would be very unpleasant for you to be left here in absolute solitude-a feminine Robinson Crusoe. I will leave some matches with you, but I beg you not to venture near the waterfall until I return." He gave her the matches, made her close her palm over them to preserve them from dampness, then struck one himself, reconnoitred in the neighborhood of the fall, reported that the stream did not appear to have risen very much, stepped around the angle of the rock, and disappeared. A stout heart, as he had said, Agatha possessed, but it challenged all its stoutness to keep nervousness at bay in the position in which she now found herself. Nor was this to be wondered at. Let any reader of moderate imagination figure to himself the situation, and he will be likely to decide that it was not conducive to serenity of feeling. Of course, the time of Thurston's absence seemed immeasurably long, and she had quite decided that he must have been drowned, when-by the light of a match struck at the entrance of the cave-she saw his figure. "I could manage to take you out, Miss Loring," he said, "but it would be quite useless to do so since the horses are gone." "The horses gone!" "Yes. I went to the place where they were fastened, and found that they had evidently broken loose-frightened, I presume, by the thunder-storm. With Sans-Souci ten miles distant, can you suggest anything better for us to do than to stay here?" "But there are houses nearer than Sans-Souci. We passed two or three." "We did, but the nearest is four miles distant. Can you walk four miles?" "I think I can—at least I can try, and it will be better than sitting here in wet clothes." He felt that this was true; so, having safely made their way through the gorge-a much more difficult matter after the late flood than Agatha had at all reckoned upon-they set out upon a four-mile walk. "Before you wake to-morrow-nay, this morning-I shall have left Sans-Souci. I made all my arrangements to do so before we started on our excursion." It was a walk which neither of them was ever'swered. likely to forget. The clouds had by this time parted, and the moon shone forth sufficiently to guide them on their way and prevent their wandering from the road-sufficiently, also, to reveal the loneliness and mystery of the forest which surrounded them. Everything above and below was wet as wet could be; but they walked on courageously, endeavoring the while to sustain their spirits by cheerful conversation. This conversation ranged over a very wide field, but it did not again touch in the remotest manner on the personal topics discussed in the cave. It was past midnight when they reached their destination. During the last mile Agatha had not declined Thurston's assistance, and for many a long day afterward he was haunted by the picture of that moonlit forest-road, and by the memory of the lissome figure that hung in weariness on his arm, of the pale, fair face on which the soft light fell through overshadowing boughs. All things end at last, and this ended when they emerged into an open space and saw before them a substantial farm-house standing in the moonlight, with that supreme air of quietude which houses wear at night when their inhabitants are wrapped in slumber. So deeply wrapped in slumber were these inhabitants, that Thurston thundered at the door until he was nearly exhausted before he succeeded in rousing them. When once fairly waked, however, they were more hospitable than might have been expected under the circumstances. Having heard who the visitors were, the farmer volunteered to hitch up his horses and drive them to Sans-Souci, while his sons kindled a fire and his wife made some coffee. All of these offers were gladly accepted, and after Agatha had somewhat dried herself, and the coffee had been made and drunk, they entered the obliging farmer's "jersey" and were driven away. Sans-Souci presented no appearance of life as they approached in the white moonlight, and Agatha said, smiling: She did not heed the last words-in fact, she did not hear them. As he said, "I shall have left SansSouci," a change swift as thought came over her face-an expression of wonder, appeal, and, above all, pain-which no art on earth could have simulated, and which, like a flash of lightning, laid bare her heart before the man who looked at her. In that instant it was borne to him with the force of a revelation that his revenge was more complete than he had ever dreamed of making it. For one wild moment his heart leaped up madly-but it was only for a moment. He was one of the men who in an emergency cannot only think but act promptly, and, as he was about to speak again, the door suddenly opened, and on the threshold appeared Mr. Jennings, arrayed in dressing-gown, with a lamp in his hand. "By Jove!" he said. "So you are here! Lucy insisted that she heard the sound of horses' feet. Where on earth have you been all this time?" "In the Devil's Gorge, where you were kind enough to leave us," Thurston answered, dryly. "I will give you an account of our adventures, but we will not detain Miss Loring, who is very much fatigued.-Good-night,” he added, taking the hand of the latter as they entered the hall. "I hope you will feel no ill effects from your drenching and exercise." "Is it good-by?" she asked, in a low voice. "It is good-by," he answered. If his life had depended on the effort, he could have said no more, nor did she utter another word. She only drew her cold, slender hand from his clasp, and, with a slight salutation to Mr. Jennings, passed up the broad staircase and out of sight. VI. By the time the inmates of Sans-Souci were as "Our friends certainly do not seem to be suffer- sembled round the breakfast-table, discussing their ing any anxiety on our account." "I suppose they quieted their minds by fancying that we took refuge at some wayside house," Thurston answered, "and the horses have probably not arrived." After they had alighted at the door and the worthy farmer had been dismissed with many thanks, Thurston turned to his companion. "Before we part, Miss Loring," he said, abruptly, "I should like to hear you say that you pardon— that is, if you can honestly do so-the many harsh speeches I have uttered to you. I had no right whatever to utter them, and I should be glad if you would promise to forget them." adventurous expedition, Thurston was many miles away, traveling as fast as steam could take him from the scene of it. He hardly knew he certainly did not care-where he was going. He had spoken truly when he told Miss Loring that he had decided to leave Sans-Souci after Mrs. Jennings had uttered her warning the day before; but, since that determination was taken, an age seemed to have passed, so entirely do we "live | in feeling, not in figures on a dial." Those hours in the storm, the lonely midnight walk, above all that glance of Agatha's which revealed so much of which he had not dreamed-these things made a gap be-tween his life as it had been and his life as it was, She looked up with a sort of startled wistfulness which even his thoughts could scarcely bridge. on her face and in her eyes. It is not to be supposed that, in the course of thirty-three years, he had not suffered more or less in matters of the heart, yet he now found himself for the first time under the dominion of a passion-no fancy or sentiment, but a feeling strong as death and "Because now is my only opportunity," he an- overmastering life. Agatha Loring's face was con "You have uttered no harsh speeches that were not honest speeches, Colonel Thurston," she said, simply-" none which I have not already pardoned. But why do you ask this-now?" VOL. III.-3 stantly before him, the music of her voice dominated every sound that filled his ears, but he thought that he could find a cure for the infatuation in absence, as he had found a cure for the fever-fits of his younger days. siring to go direct to France, Thurston, therefore, took passage on a French steamer, which chanced to be that vessel of tragic fate, the Ville du Havre. Before taking his departure he had one last struggle with himself. Since he left Sans-Souci he had heard nothing of Agatha Loring; and it cost him no slight effort to go away with the silence around her name unbroken. That it was better so he was well aware-for what good end could knowledge serve? The idea of yielding, as many men would have yielded, did not for a moment occur to him. He knew that with his whole soul he loved the woman who had ruined Bertie's happiness, and who would ruin (he felt assured) the happiness of any man who-but what is there on earth can so persistently igtrusted his life in her hands; but he said to himself that this love was a mere temporary madness, since no deep passion could flourish where trust was lacking. "It is an insanity which will pass as quickly as it has come," he thought. "As for that expression in her eyes last night, I must have imagined it—it is simply impossible that such a woman could find her heart for such a man as I am!" But to think this was one thing, to feel it another. Trust her? No, he did not trust her. He believed her to be coquette and actress through all her nature; | but nevertheless her face as he saw it last-pale, appealing, with eyes that revealed a hundred-fold more than speech could utter-haunted him, turn where he would, do what he would. Nor was this the record of one day, one week, one month. He put the breadth of States between himself and Sans-Souci ; he plunged into the business which partly brought him to America; he sought social distractions; but the end was as the beginning. "When Aagatha Loring is done with a man he is fit for nothing but to go to the devil as fast as may be," Bertie had said in the mad recklessness of his passion; and this in lesser degree Thurston felt now. He was not ready to go to the devil; but he found existence robbed of its savor as it had never been robbed before. Tormented by passion, by longing, by regret, by self-contempt-what wonder that all things seemed to him worse than empty, less than uninteresting? If Agatha Loring had treated him as she had treated many another, had flirted with and discarded him, he fancied that his cure would have been rapid and complete. But he could not forget that she had showed him glimpses of her nature which he felt sure she had showed to no other man-of its weariness, of its yearning, of its capabilities for higher things-and so, between opposing opinions and wavering feelings, the fight went on. Nothing on earth is more weary than such a combat, and it was no slight addition to Thurston's trouble that he shrank from meeting Bertie, though the cause of this shrinking would not bear analysis. His affection had not altered in the least; but he felt as if the influence which had entered the lives of both with such fateful result would stand as an estranging shadow between them. So the months slipped away, and November found him still lingering in America. By this time he determined that he must leave the country. He had exhausted his last excuse for remaining, and Bertie, who had been waiting in Paris for weeks, was growing restless and inquisitive. De nore wisdom as the human heart? Thurston, however, turned a deaf ear to all that it could urge, and, being a man who held his desires in a strong leash of control, he found himself at last on shipboard without having received a single item of information regarding the woman whom he had vainly tried to banish from his memory. There is no doubt that Fate seems sometimes to take a malignant pleasure in baffling us when we feel ourselves most secure. So Thurston felt—though it was a very dreary kind of security-as he paced the deck of the Ville du Havre, and saw the great expanse of ocean in front, the land receding far and faint behind. "The fight is over, the victory won," he said to himself, and at that moment a woman's laugh floated to him. A woman's laugh! There was surely nothing remarkable in such a sound, yet, as it fell on his ear, his heart seemed to stand still. He turned abruptly and found himself face to face with Agatha Loring! She was as much astonished as himself, and perhaps as much agitated; but, beyond a certain change of color and expression perceptible on both faces, neither of them betrayed this agitation. To people of their class conventionalities are second nature, and the lookers-on had no reason to suppose their meeting to be other than that of two ordinary acquaintances. They shook hands and uttered a few commonplaces. Then Thurston said: "I had no idea of meeting you here." I certainly had not the least idea of meeting you," she answered. "No doubt you are on your way to Egypt?" "I am on my way to Paris at present. I shall not return to Egypt until the end of the year. You, I suppose, are merely going abroad for pleasure?" "For pleasure, yes-and for health also." He noticed then that she looked frailer, more shadowy, than when he saw her last-the alabaster complexion was more transparent, the lines of the face more attenuated, the limpid eyes larger. "Have you been ill?" he asked, quickly. “I did not know-I have not heard." "Do you remember our drenching in the Devil's Gorge?" she asked. "I took a cold at that time which cost me a severe illness, from the effect of which I have never recovered. The doctors, therefore, have ordered me abroad-which is a pleasant prescription." "I have often wondered if you did not suffer from that adventure," he said. "But I did not fear anything like this. You must have been very seriously ill. If I had known—” |