to irritate him if she told the truth, and
scorning to deny the love that was the crowning blessing of her life.
His anger grew in her silence. Again the dark flush arose in his face,
and his eyes flamed with fierce light.

Suddenly he caught sight of the gold locket she wore round her neck,
fastened by the slender chain.

"What is this thing you wear?" he asked, quickly. "You threw aside my
ring. What is this? Whose portrait have you there? Let me see it."

"You forget yourself again," she said, drawing herself haughtily away.
"I have no account to render to you of my friends."

"I will see who is there!" he cried, beside himself with angry rage.
"Perhaps I shall know then why you wish to be freed from me. Whose
face is lying near your heart? Let me see. If it is that of any one
who has outwitted me, I will throw it into the depths of the lake."

"You shall not see it," she said, raising her hand, and clasping the
little locket tightly. "I am not afraid, Hugh Fernely. You will never
use violence to me."

But the hot anger leaped up in his heart; he was mad with cruel
jealousy and rage, and tried to snatch the locket from her. She
defended it, holding it tightly clasped in one hand, while with the
other she tried to free herself from his grasp.

It will never be know how that fatal accident happened. Men will never
know whether the hapless girl fell, or whether Hugh Fernely, in his mad
rage, flung her into the lake. There was a startled scream that rang
through the clear air, a heavy fall, a splash amid the waters of the
lake! There was one awful, despairing glance from a pale,
horror-stricken face, and then the waters closed, the ripples spread
over the broad surface, and the sleeping lilies trembled for a few
minutes, and then lay still again! Once, and once only, a woman's
white hand, thrown up, as it were, in agonizing supplication, cleft the
dark water, and then all was over; the wind blew the ripples more
strongly; they washed upon the grass, and the stir of the deep waters
subsided!

Hugh Fernely did not plunge into the lake after Beatrice--it was too
late to save her; still, he might have tried. The cry that rang
through the sleeping woods, seemed to paralyze him--he stood like one
bereft of reason, sense and life. Perhaps the very suddenness of the
event overpowered him. Heaven only knows what passed in his dull,
crazed mind while the girl he loved sank without help. Was it that he