let
her, so she said I might learn for myself, and should never leave off
until I knew the lesson by heart. I think she has kept her word," she
added, with a heartsick sigh.

"You surely would not believe her if she said the same thing fifty times
over," said I, not very reasonably, certainly.

"I do not know," she replied, hesitatingly. "It is very difficult to
know."

"Well, I would not. If the whole world accused him I would believe
nothing except from his own lips."

"I wish I knew all about Anna Sartorius," said she, slowly, and she
looked as if seeking back in her memory to remember some dream. I stood
beside her; the motley crowd ebbed and flowed beneath us, but the
whisper we had heard had changed everything; and yet, no--to me not
changed, but only darkened things.

In the meantime it had been growing later. Our conversation, with its
frequent pauses, had taken a longer time than we had supposed. The crowd
was thinning. Some of the women were going.

"I wonder where my sister is!" observed Miss Wedderburn, rather wearily.
Her face was pale, and her delicate head drooped as if it were
overweighed and pulled down by the superabundance of her beautiful
chestnut hair, which came rippling and waving over her shoulders. A
white satin petticoat, stiff with gold embroidery; a long trailing blue
mantle of heavy brocade, fastened on the shoulders with golden clasps; a
golden circlet in the gold of her hair; such was the dress, and right
royally she became it. She looked a vision of loveliness. I wondered if
she would ever act Elsa in reality; she would be assuredly the loveliest
representative of that fair and weak-minded heroine who ever trod the
boards. Supposing it ever came to pass that she acted Elsa to some one
else's Lohengrin, would she think of this night? Would she remember the
great orchestra--and me, and the lights, and the people--our words--a
whisper? A pause.

"But where can Adelaide be?" she said, at last. "I have not seen them
since they left us."

"They are there," said I, surveying from my vantage-ground the thinning
ranks. "They are coming up here too. And there is the other gentleman,
Graf von Telramund, following them."

They drew up to the foot of the orchestra, and then Mr. Arkwright came
up to seek us.

"Miss Wedderburn, Lady Le Marchant is tired and thinks it is time to be
going."

"So am I tired," she replied. I stepped back, but before she went away
she turned to me, holding o