o picture things too vividly. It is, as you say, so very
horrible."

"Is he nothing to you? Don't you know him?"

"He is nothing to me--less than nothing. As to knowing him--I saw him
yesterday, when they put him into the pond. A man like that! I should
shudder to meet him!"

"Ay, indeed!" said Barbara, reassured. "You will understand, Madame
Vine, that this history has been given to you in confidence. I look upon
you as one of ourselves."

There was no answer. Madame Vine sat on, with her white face. She and it
wore altogether a ghastly look.

"It tells like a fable out of a romance," resumed Mrs. Carlyle. "Well
for him if the romance be not ended in the gibbet. Fancy what it would
be for him--Sir Francis Levison--to be hung for murder!"

"Barbara, my dearest!"

The voice was Mr. Carlyle's, and she flew off on the wings of love. It
appeared that the gentlemen had not yet departed, and now thought they
would take coffee first.

She flew off to her idolized husband, leaving her who had once been
idolized to her loneliness. She sank down on the sofa; she threw her
arms up in her heart-sickness; she thought she would faint; she prayed
to die. It _was_ horrible, as Barbara had called it. For that man
with the red stain upon his hand and soul she had flung away Archibald
Carlyle.

If ever retribution came home to woman, it came home in that hour to
Lady Isabel.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

MR. CARLYLE INVITED TO SOME PATE DE FOIE GRAS.

A sighing morning wind swept round the domains of East Lynne, bending
the tall poplar trees in the distance, swaying the oak and elms nearer,
rustling the fine old chestnuts in the park, a melancholy, sweeping,
fitful wind. The weather had changed from brightness and warmth, and
heavy, gathering clouds seemed to be threatening rain; so, at least,
deemed one wayfarer, who was journeying on a solitary road that Saturday
night.

He was on foot. A man attired in the garb of a sailor, with black,
curling ringlets of hair, and black, curling whiskers; a prodigious
pair of whiskers, hiding his neck above his blue, turned collar,
hiding partially his face. The glazed hat, brought low upon his brows,
concealed it still more; and he wore a loose, rough pea-jacket and wide
rough trousers hitched up with a belt. Bearing steadily on, he struck
into Bean lane, a by-way already mentioned in this history, and from
thence, passing through a small, unfrequented gate, he found himself in
the grounds