no one who knew geoffrey ludlow would have recognised him in the round-shouldered man with the prone head, the earth-seeking eyes, the hands plunged deeply in his pockets, plodding home on that day on which he had determined that margaret should give him an explanation of her conduct towards him. although geoff had never been a roisterer, had never enlisted in that army of artists whose members hear "the chimes o'midnight," had always been considered more or less slow and steady, and was looked upon as one of the most respectable representatives of the community, yet his happy disposition had rendered him a general favourite even amongst those ribalds, and his equable temper and kindly geniality were proverbial among all the brethren of the brush. ah, that equable temper, that kindly geniality,--where were they now? those expanded nostrils, those closed lips, spoke of very different feelings; that long steady stride was very different from the joyous step which had provoked the cynicism of the city-bound clerks; that puckered brow, those haggard cheeks, could not be recognised as the facial presentments of the geoffrey ludlow of a few short months since.

in good sooth he was very much altered. the mental worrying so long striven against in silence had begun to tell upon his appearance; the big broad shoulders had become rounded; the gait had lost its springy elasticity, the face was lined, and the dark-brown hair round the temples and the long full beard were dashed with streaks of silver. these changes troubled him but little. never, save perhaps during the brief period of his courtship of margaret, had he given the smallest thought to his personal appearance; yellow soap and cold water had been his cosmetics, and his greatest sacrifice to vanity had been to place himself at rare intervals under the hairdresser's scissors. but there were other changes to which, try as he might, he could not blind himself. he knew that the very source and fount of his delight was troubled, if not sullied; he knew that all his happiness, so long wished for, so lately attained, was trembling in the balance; he felt that indefinable, indescribable sensation of something impending, something which would shatter his roof-tree and break up that home so recently established. as he plunged onward through the seething streets, looking neither to the right nor to the left, he thought vaguely of the events of the last few months of his life--thought of them, regarding them as a dream. how long was it since he was so happy at home with his old mother and with til? when the monthly meeting of the titians caused his greatest excitement, and when his hopes of fame were yet visionary and indistinct? how long was it since he had met _her_ that fearful night, and had drunk of the beauty and the witchery which had had such results? he was a man now before the world with a name which people knew and respected, with a wife whose beauty people admired; but, ah! where was the quietude, the calm unpretending happiness of those old days?

what could it mean? had she a wish ungratified? he taxed his mind to run through all the expressions of her idle fancy, but could think of none with which he had not complied. was she ill? he had made that excuse for her before her baby was born; but now, not merely the medical testimony, but his own anxious scrutiny told him that she was in the finest possible health. there was an odd something about her sometimes which he could not make out--an odd way of listening vacantly, and not replying to direct questions, which he had noticed lately, and only lately; but that might be a part of her idiosyncrasy. her appetite too was scarcely as good as it used to be; but in all other respects she seemed perfectly well. there might have been some difficulty with his mother and sister, he had at first imagined; but the old lady had been wonderfully complaisant; and til and margaret, when they met, seemed to get on excellently together. to be sure his mother had assumed the reins of government during margaret's confinement, and held them until the last moment compatible with decency; but her _régime_ had been over long since; and margaret was the last person to struggle for power so long as all trouble was taken off her hands. had the neighbours slighted her, she might have had some cause for complaint; but the neighbours were every thing that was polite, and indeed at the time of her illness had shown her attention meriting a warmer term. what could it mean? was there-- no; he crushed out the idea as soon as it arose in his mind. there could not be any question about--any one else--preying on her spirits? the man, her destroyer--who had abandoned and deserted her--was far away; and she was much too practical a woman not to estimate all his conduct at its proper worth. no amount of girlish romance could survive the cruel schooling which his villany had subjected her to; and there was no one else whom she had seen who could have had any influence over her. besides, at the first, when he had made his humble proffer of love, she had only to have told him that it could not be, and he would have taken care that her future was provided for--if not as it had been, at all events far beyond the reach of want. o, no, that could not be.

so argued geoff with himself--brave, honest, simple old geoff, with the heart of a man and the guilelessness of a child. so he argued, determining at the same time that he would pluck out the heart of the mystery at once, whatever might be at its root; any thing would be better than this suspense preying on him daily, preventing him from doing his work, and rendering him moody and miserable.

but before he reached his home his resolution failed, and his heart sunk within him. what if margaret were silent and preoccupied? what if the occasional gloom upon her face became more and more permanent? had not her life been full of sorrow? and was it wonderful that the remembrance of it from time to time came over her? she had fearlessly confided her whole story to him; she had given him time to reflect on it before committing himself to her; and would it be generous, would it be even just, to call her to account now for freaks of behaviour engendered doubtless in the memory of that bygone time? after all, what was the accusation against her? none. had there been the smallest trace of levity in her conduct, how many eyebrows were there ready to be lifted--how many shoulders waiting to be shrugged! but there was nothing of the kind; all that could be said about her was that,--all that could be said about her--now he thought it over, nothing was said about her; all that was hinted was that her manner was cold and impassable; that she took no interest in what was going on around her, and that therefore there must be something wrong. there is always something to be complained of. if her manner had been light and easy, they would have called her a flirt, and pitied him for having married a woman so utterly ill-suited to his staid habits. he knew so little of her when he married her, that he ran every kind of risk as to what she might really prove to be; and on reflection he thought he had been exceedingly lucky. she might have been giddy, vulgar, loud, presuming, extravagant; whereas she was simply reserved and undemonstrative,--nothing more. he had been a fool in thinking of her as he had done during the last few weeks; he had,--without her intending it doubtless, for she was an excellent woman,--he had taken his tone in this matter from his mother, with whom margaret was evidently no favourite, and--there, never mind--it was at an end now. she was his own darling wife, his lovely companion, merely to sit and look at whom was rapturous delight to a man of his keen appreciation of the beauty of form and colour; and as to her coldness and reserve, it was but a temporary mannerism, which would soon pass away.

so argued geoffrey ludlow with himself,--brave, honest, simple old geoff, with the heart of a man, and the guilelessness of a child.

so happy was he under the influence of his last thought, that he longed to take margaret to his heart at once, and without delay to make trial of his scheme for dissipating her gloom; but when he reached home, the servant told him that her mistress had gone out very soon after he himself had left that morning, and had not yet returned. so he went through into the studio, intending to work at his picture; but when he got there he sunk down into a chair, staring vacantly at the lay-figure, arranged as usual in a preposterous attitude, and thinking about margaret. rousing himself, he found his palette, and commenced to set it; but while in the midst of this task, he suddenly fell a-thinking again, and stood there mooning, until the hope of doing any work was past, and the evening shadows were falling on the landscape. then he put up his palette and his brushes, and went into the dining-room. he walked to the window, but had scarcely reached it, when he saw a cab drive up. the man opened the door, and margaret descended, said a few hasty words to the driver, who touched his hat and fastened on his horse's nosebag, and approached the house with rapid steps.

from his position in the window, he had noticed a strange light in her eyes which he had never before seen there, a bright hectic flush on her cheek, a tight compression of her lips. when she entered the room he saw that in his first hasty glance he had not been deceived; that the whole expression of her face had changed from its usual state of statuesque repose, and was now stern, hard, and defiant.

he was standing in the shadow of the window-curtain, and she did not see him at first; but throwing her parasol on the table, commenced pacing the room. the lamp was as yet unlit, and the flickering firelight--now glowing a deep dull red, now leaping into yellow flame--gave an additional weirdness to the set intensity of her beautiful face. gazing at her mechanically walking to and fro, her head supported by one hand, her eyes gleaming, her hair pushed back off her face, geoffrey again felt that indescribable sinking at his heart; and there was something of terror in the tone in which, stepping forward, he uttered her name--"margaret!"

in an instant she stopped in her walk, and turning towards the place whence the voice came, said, "you there, geoffrey?"

"yes, darling,--who else? i was standing at the window when the cab drove up, and saw you get out. by the way, you've not sent away the cab, love; is he paid?"

"no, not yet,--he will--let him stay a little."

"well, but why keep him up here, my child, where there is no chance of his getting a return-fare? better pay him and let him go. i'll go and pay him!" and he was leaving the room.

"let him stay, please," said margaret in her coldest tones; and geoffrey turned back at once. but as he turned he saw a thrill run through her, and marked the manner in which she steadied her hand on the mantelpiece on which she was leaning. in an instant he was by her side.

"you are ill, my darling?" he exclaimed. "you have done too much again, and are over-fatigued----"

"i am perfectly well," she said; "it was nothing--or whatever it was, it has passed. i did not know you had returned. i was going to write to you."

"to write to me!" said geoff in a hollow voice,--"to write to me!"

"to write to you. i had something to tell you--and--and i did not know whether i should ever see you again!"

for an instant the table against which geoffrey ludlow stood seemed to spin away under his touch, and the whole room reeled. a deadly faintness crept over him, but he shook it off with one great effort, and said in a very low tone, "i scarcely understand you--please explain."

she must have had the nature of a fiend to look upon that large-souled loving fellow, stricken down by her words as by a sudden blow, and with his heart all bleeding, waiting to hear the rest of her sentence. she had the nature of a fiend, for through her set teeth she said calmly and deliberately:

"i say i did not know whether i should ever see you again. that cab is detained by me to take me away from this house, to which i ought never to have come--which i shall never enter again."

geoff had sunk into a chair, and clutching the corner of the table with both hands, was looking up at her with a helpless gaze.

"you don't speak!" she continued; "and i can understand why you are silent. this decision has come upon you unexpectedly, and you can scarcely realise its meaning or its origin. i am prepared to explain both to you. i had intended doing so in a letter, which i should have left behind me; but since you are here, it is better that i should speak."

the table was laid for dinner, and there was a small decanter of sherry close by geoff's hand. he filled a glass from it and drank it eagerly. apparently involuntarily, margaret extended her hand towards the decanter; but she instantly withdrew it, and resumed:

"you know well, geoffrey ludlow, that when you asked me to become your wife, i declined to give you any answer until you had heard the story of my former life. when i noticed your growing interest in me--and i noticed it from its very first germ--i determined that before you pledged yourself to me--for my wits had been sharpened in the school of adversity, and i read plainly enough that love from such a man as you had but one meaning and one result,--i determined that before you pledged yourself to me you should learn as much as it was necessary for you to know of my previous history. although my early life had been spent in places far away from london, and among persons whom it was almost certain i should never see again, it was, i thought, due to you to explain all to you, lest the gossiping fools of the world might some day vex your generous heart with stories of your wife's previous career, which she had kept from you. do you follow me?"

geoffrey bowed his head, but did not speak.

"in that story i told you plainly that i had been deceived by a man under promise of marriage; that i had lived with him as his wife for many months; that he had basely deserted me and left me to starve,--left me to die--as i should have died had you not rescued me. you follow me still?"

she could not see his face now,--it was buried in his hands; but there was a motion of his head, and she proceeded:

"that man betrayed me when i trusted him, used me while i amused him, deserted me when i palled upon him. he ruined, you restored me; he left me to die, you brought me back to life; he strove to drag me to perdition, you to raise me to repute. i respected, i honoured you; but i loved him! yes, from first to last i loved him; infatuated, mad as i knew it to be, i loved him throughout! had i died in those streets from which you rescued me, i should have found strength to bless him with my last breath. when i recovered consciousness, my first unspoken thought was of him. it was that i would live, that i would make every exertion to hold on to life, that i might have the chance of seeing him again. then dimly, and as in a dream, i saw you and heard your voice, and knew that you were to be a portion of my fate. ever since, the image of that man has been always present before me; his soft words of love have been always ringing in my ears; his gracious presence has been always at my side. i have striven and striven against the infatuation. before heaven i swear to you that i have prayed night after night that i might not be led into that awful temptation of retrospect which beset me; that i might be strengthened to love you as you should be loved, to do my duty towards you as it should be done. all in vain, all in vain! that one fatal passion has sapped my being, and rendered me utterly incapable of any other love in any other shape. i know what you have done for me--more than that, i know what you have suffered for me. you have said nothing; but do you think i have not seen how my weariness, my coldness, the impossibility of my taking interest in all the little schemes you have laid for my diversion, have irked and pained you? do you think i do not know what it is for a full heart to beat itself into quiet against a stone? i know it all; and if i could have spared you one pang, i swear i would have done so. but i loved this man; ah, how i loved him! he was but a memory to me then; but that memory was far, far dearer than all reality! he is more than a memory to me now; for he lives, and he is in london and i have seen him!"

out of geoffrey ludlow's hands came, raised up suddenly, a dead white face with puckered lips, knit brows, and odd red streaks and indentations round the eyes.

"yes, geoffrey ludlow," she continued, not heeding the apparition, "i have seen him,--now, within this hour,--seen him, bright, well, and handsome--o, so handsome!--as when i saw him first; and that has determined me. while i thought of him as perhaps dead; while i knew him to be thousands of miles away, i could bear to sit here, to drone out the dull monotonous life, striving to condone the vagrancy of my thoughts by the propriety of my conduct,--heart-sick, weary, and remorseful. yes, remorseful, so far as you are concerned; for you are a true and noble man, geoffrey. but now that he is here, close to me, i could not rest another hour,--i must go to him at once. do you hear, geoffrey,--at once?"

he tried to speak, but his lips were parched and dry, and he only made an inarticulate sound. there was no mistaking the flash of his eyes, however. in them margaret had never seen such baleful light; so that she was scarcely astonished when, his voice returning, he hissed out "i know him!"

"you know him?"

"yes; just come back from australia--lord caterham's brother! i had a letter from lord caterham to-day,--his brother--lionel brakespere!"

"well," she exclaimed, "what then? suppose it be lionel brakespere, what then, i ask--what then?"

"then!" said geoffrey, poising his big sinewy arm--"then, let him look to himself; for, by the lord, i'll kill him!"

"what!" and in an instant she had left her position against the mantelpiece, and was leaning over the table at the corner where he sat, her face close to his, her eyes on his eyes, her hot breath on his cheeks--"you dare to talk of killing him, of doing him the slightest injury! you dare to lift your hand against my lionel! look here, geoffrey ludlow: you have been good and kind and generous to me,--have loved me, in your fashion--deeply, i know; and i would let us part friends; but i swear that if you attempt to wreak your vengeance on lionel brakespere, who has done you no harm--how has he injured you?--i will be revenged on you in a manner of which you little dream, but which shall break your heart and spirit, and humble your pride to the dust. think of all this, geoffrey ludlow--think of it. do nothing rashly, take no step that will madden me, and drive me to do something that will prevent your ever thinking of me with regret, when i am far away."

there was a softness in her voice which touched a chord in geoffrey ludlow's breast. the fire faded out of his eyes; his hands, which had been tight-clenched, relaxed, and spread out before him in entreaty; he looked up at margaret through blinding tears, and in a broken voice said,

"when you are far away! o, my darling, my darling, you are not going to leave me? it cannot be,--it is some horrible dream. to leave me, who live but for you, whose existence is bound up in yours! it cannot be. what have i done?--what can you charge me with? want of affection, of devotion to you? o god, it is hard that i should have to suffer in this way! but you won't go, margaret darling? tell me that--only tell me that."

she shrank farther away from him, and seemed for a moment to cower before the vehemence and anguish of his appeal; but the next her face darkened and hardened, and as she answered him, the passion in her voice was dashed with a tone of contempt.

"yes, i will leave you," she said,--"of course i will leave you. do you not hear me? do you not understand me? i have seen him, i tell you, and every thing which is not him has faded out of my life. what should i do here, or any where, where he is not? the mere idea is absurd. i have only half lived since i lost him, and i could not live at all now that i have seen him again. stay here! not leave _you!_ stay _here!_" she looked round the room with a glance of aversion and avoidance, and went on with increasing rapidity: "you have never understood me. how should you? but the time has come now when you must try to understand me, for your own sake; for mine it does no matter--nothing matters now."

she was standing within arm's-length of him, and her face was turned full upon him: but she did not seem to see him. she went on as though reckoning with herself, and geoffrey gazed upon her in stupefied amazement; his momentary rage quenched in the bewilderment of his anguish.

"i don't deny your goodness--i don't dispute it--i don't think about it at all; it is all done with, all past and gone; and i have no thought for it or you, beyond these moments in which i am speaking to you for the last time. i have suffered in this house torments which your slow nature could neither suffer nor comprehend--torments wholly impossible to endure longer. i have raged and rebelled against the dainty life of dulness and dawdling, the narrow hopes and the tame pleasures which have sufficed for you. i must have so raged and rebelled under any circumstances; but i might have gone on conquering the revolts, if i had not seen him. now, i tell you, it is no longer possible, and i break with it at once and for ever. let me go quietly, and in such peace as may be possible: for go i must and i will. you could as soon hold a hurricane by force or a wave of the sea by entreaty."

geoffrey ludlow covered his face with his hands, and groaned. once again she looked at him--this time as if she saw him--and went on:

"let me speak to you, while i can, of yourself--while i can, i say, for his face is rising between me and all the world beside, and i can hardly force myself to remember any thing, to calculate any thing, to realise any thing which is not him. you ask me not to leave you; you would have me stay! are you mad, geoffrey ludlow? have you lived among your canvases and your colours until you have ceased to understand what men and women are, and to see facts? do you know that i love him, though he left me to what you saved me from, so that all that you have done for me and given me has been burdensome and hateful to me, because these things had no connection with him, but marked the interval in which he was lost to me? do you know that i love him so, that i have sickened and pined in this house, even as i sickened and pined for hunger in the streets you took me from, for the most careless word he ever spoke and the coldest look he ever gave me? do you know the agonised longing which has been mine, the frantic weariness, the unspeakable loathing of every thing that set my life apart from the time when my life was his? no, you don't know these things! again i say, how should you? well, i tell them to you now, and i ask you, are you mad that you say, 'don't leave me'? would you have me stay with _you_ to think of _him_ all the weary hours of the day, all the wakeful hours of the night? would you have me stay with you to feel, and make you know that i feel, the tie between us an intolerable and hideous bondage, and that with every pang of love for him came a throb of loathing for you? no, no! you are nothing to me now,--nothing, nothing! my thoughts hurry away from you while i speak; but if any thing so preposterous as my staying with you could be possible, you would be the most hateful object on this earth to me."

"my god!" gasped geoffrey. that was all the utter, unspeakable horror with which her words, poured out in a hard ringing voice, which never faltered, filled him overpowered all remonstrance. a strange feeling, which was akin to fear of this beautiful unmasked demon, came over him. it was margaret, his wife, who spoke thus! the knowledge and its fullest agony were in his heart; and yet a sense of utter strangeness and impossibility were there too. the whirl within him was not to be correctly termed thought; but there was in it something of the past, a puzzled remembrance of her strange quietude, her listlessness, her acquiescent, graceful, wearied, compliant ways; and this was she,--this woman whose eyes burned with flames of passion and desperate purpose--on those ordinarily pale cheeks two spots of crimson glowed,--whose lithe frame trembled with the intense fervour of the love which she was declaring for another man! yes, this was she! it seemed impossible; but it was true.

"i waste words," she said; "i am talking of things beside the question, and i don't want to lie to you. why should i? there has been nothing in my life worth having but him, nothing bearable since i lost him, and there is nothing else since i have found him again. i say, i must leave you for your sake, and it is true; but i would leave you just the same if it was not true. there is nothing henceforth in my life but him."

she moved towards the door as she spoke, and the action seemed to rouse geoffrey from the stupefaction which had fallen upon him. she had her hand upon the door-handle though, before he spoke.

"you are surely mad!" he said "i think so.--i hope so; but even mad women remember that they are mothers. have you forgotten your child, that you rave thus of leaving your home?"

she took her hand from the door and leaned back against it--her head held up, and her eyes turned upon him, the dark eyebrows shadowing them with a stern frown.

"i am not mad," she said; "but i don't wonder you think me so. continue to think so, if you needs must remember me at all. love is madness to such as you; but it is life, and sense, and wisdom, and wealth to such as i and the man i love. at all events it is all the sanity i ask for or want. as for the child--" she paused for one moment, and waved her hand impatiently.

"yes," repeated geoffrey hoarsely,--"the child!"

"i will tell you then, geoffrey ludlow," she said, in a more deliberate tone than she had yet commanded,--"i care nothing for the child! ay, look at me with abhorrence now; so much the better for _you_, and not a jot the worse for me. what is your abhorrence to me?--what was your love? there are women to whom their children are all in all. i am not of their number; i never could have been. they are not women who love as i love. where a child has power to sway and fill a woman's heart, to shake her resolution, and determine her life, love is not supreme. there is a proper and virtuous resemblance to it, no doubt, but not love--no, no, not love. i tell you i care nothing for the child. geoffrey ludlow, if i had loved you, i should have cared for him almost as little; if the man i love had been his father, i should have cared for him no more, if i know any thing of myself. the child does not need me. i suppose i am not without the brute instinct which would lead me to shelter and feed and clothe him, if he did; but what has he ever needed from me? if i could say without a lie that any thought of him weighs with me--but i cannot--i would say to you, for the child's sake, if for no other reason, i must go. the child is the last and feeblest argument you can use with me--with whom indeed there are none strong or availing."

she turned abruptly, and once more laid her hand upon the door-handle. her last words had roused geoffrey from the inaction caused by his amazement. as she coldly and deliberately avowed her indifference to the child, furious anger once more awoke within him. he strode hastily towards her and sternly grasped her by the left arm. she made a momentary effort to shake off his hold; but he held her firmly at arm's-length from him, and said through his closed teeth:

"you are a base and unnatural woman--more base and unnatural than i believed any woman could be. as for me, i can keep silence on your conduct to myself; perhaps i deserved it, seeing where and how i found you." she started and winced. "as for the child, he is better motherless than with such a mother; but i took you from shame and sin, when i found you in the street, and married you; and you shall not return to them if any effort of mine can prevent it. you have no feeling, you have no conscience, you have no pride; you glory in a passion for a man who flung you away to starve! woman, have you no sense of decency left, that you can talk of resuming your life of infamy and shame?"

the husband and wife formed a group which would have been awful to look upon, had there been any one to witness that terrible interview, as they stood confronting one another, while geoffrey spoke. as his words came slowly forth, a storm of passion shook margaret's frame. every gleam of colour forsook her face; she was transformed into a fixed image of unspeakable wrath. a moment she stood silent, breathing quickly, her white lips dry and parted. then, as a faint movement, something like a ghastly smile, crept over her face, she said:

"you are mistaken, geoffrey ludlow; i leave my life of infamy and shame in leaving _you!_"

"in leaving me! again you are mad!"

"again i speak the words of sanity and truth. if what i am going to tell you fills you with horror, i would have spared you; you have yourself to thank. i intended to have spared you this final blow,--i intended to have left you in happy ignorance of the fact--which you blindly urge me to declare by your taunts. what did i say at the commencement of this interview? that i wanted us to part friends. but you will not have that. you reproach me with ingratitude; you taunt me with being an unnatural mother; finally, you fling at me my life of infamy and shame; i repeat that no infamy, no shame could attach to me until i became--your mistress!"

the bolt had shot home at last. geoffrey leapt to his feet, and stood erect before her; but his strength must have failed him in that instant; for he could only gasp, "my mistress!"

"your mistress. that is all i have been to you, so help me heaven!"

"my wife! my own--married--lawful wife!"

"no, geoffrey ludlow, no! in that wretched lodging to which you had me conveyed, and where you pleaded your love, i told you--the truth indeed, but not the whole truth. had you known me better then,--had you known me as you--as you know me now, you might have guessed that i was not one of those trusting creatures who are betrayed and ruined by fair words and beaming glances, come they from ever so handsome a man. one fact i concealed from you, thinking, as my lionel had deserted me, and would probably never be seen again, that its revelation would prevent me from accepting the position which you were about to offer me; but the day that i fled from my home at tenby i was married to lionel brakespere; and at this moment i am his wife, not merely in the sight of god, but by the laws of man!"

for some instants he did not speak, he did not move from the chair into which he had again fallen heavily during her speech: he sat gazing at her, his breathing thickened, impeded, gasping. at length he said:

"you're--you're speaking truth?"

"i am speaking gospel-truth, geoffrey ludlow. you brought it upon yourself: i would have saved you from the knowledge of it if i could, but you brought it upon yourself."

"yes--as you say--on myself;" still sitting gazing vacantly before him, muttering to himself rather than addressing her. suddenly, with a wild shriek, "the child! o god, the child!"

"for the child's sake, no less than for your own, you will hold your tongue on this matter," said margaret, in her calm, cold, never-varying tone. "in this instance at least you will have sense enough to perceive the course you ought to take. what i have told you is known to none but you and me, and one other--who can be left with me to deal with. let it be your care that the secret remains with us."

"but the child is a----"

"silence, man!" she exclaimed, seizing his arm,--"silence now,--for a few moments at all events. when i am gone, proclaim your child's illegitimacy and your own position if you will, but wait till then. now i can remain here no longer. such things as i absolutely require i will send for. goodbye, geoffrey ludlow."

she gathered her shawl around her, and moved towards the door. in an instant his lethargy left him; he sprang up, rushed before her, and stood erect and defiant.

"you don't leave me in this way, margaret. you shall not leave me thus. i swear you shall not pass!"

she looked at him for a moment with a half-compassionate, half-interested face. this assumption of spirit and authority she had never seen in him before, and it pleased her momentarily. then she said quietly:

"o yes, i shall. i am sure, mr. ludlow, you will not prevent my going to my husband!"

when the servant, after waiting more than an hour for dinner to be rung for, came into the room to see what was the cause of the protracted delay, she found her master prostrate on the hearth-rug, tossing and raving incoherently. the frightened girl summoned assistance; and when dr. brandram arrived, he announced mr. ludlow to be in the incipient stage of a very sharp attack of brain-fever.