on put an end to doubt. The friends prepared to
set forth.

As they were entering the carriage there arrived the postman, with
letters for both, which they read driving down to the dale. One of
Irene's correspondents was her brother, and the contents of Eustace's
letter so astonished her that she sat for a time absorbed in thought.

"No bad news, I hope?" said Helen, who had glanced quickly over the few
lines from her husband, now at Ostend.

"No, but startling. You may as well read the letter."

It was written in Eustace Derwent's best style; really a very good
letter, both as to composition and in the matter of feeling. After duly
preparing his sister for what might come as a shock, he made known to
her that he was about to marry Mrs. John Jacks, the widow of the late
member of Parliament. "I can quite imagine," he proceeded, "that this
may trouble your mind by exciting unpleasant memories, and perhaps may
make you apprehensive of disagreeable things in the future. Pray have
no such uneasiness. Only this morning I had a long talk with Arnold
Jacks, who was very friendly, and indeed could not have behaved better.
He spoke of you, and quite in the proper way; I was to remember him
very kindly to you, if I thought the remembrance would not be
unwelcome. As for my dear Marian, you will find her everything that a
sister should be." Followed sundry details and promise of more
information when they met again in town.

"Describe her to me," said Helen, who had a slight acquaintance with
Irene's brother.

"One word does it--irreproachable. A couple of years older than
Eustace, I think; John Jacks was more than twice her age, so it's only
fair. The dear boy will probably give up his profession, and become an
ornament of society, a model of all the proprieties. Wonderful I shan't
realise it for a few days."

As they drove on to the bridge at Aysgarth, Piers Otway stood there
awaiting them. They exchanged few words; the picture before their eyes,
and the wild music that filled the air, imposed silence. Headlong
between its high banks plunged the swollen torrent, the roaring spate;
brown from its washing of the peaty moorland, and churned into flying
flakes of foam. Over the worn ledges, at other times a succession of
little waterfalls, rolled in resistless fury a mighty cataract; at
great rocks in mid-channel it leapt with surges like those of an angry
sea. The spectacle was fascinating in its grandeur, appalling in its