telegraphed to say
that he would return in the morning. Stella had spent the evening alone;
Adela found her in the boudoir with a single lamp, reading.

'Are you still feverish?' Stella asked, putting to her cheek the
ungloved hand.

'I think not--I can't say.'

Stella waited to hear something about the evening, but Adela broke the
silence to say:

'I must leave at ten in the morning. My husband will call for me.'

'So early?'

'Yes.'

There was silence again.

'Will you come and see me before long, Stella?'

'I will,' was the gentle reply.

'Thank you. I shall look forward to it very much.'

Then Adela said good-night, speaking more cheerfully.

In her bedroom she sat as before dinner. The fever had subsided during
the past two hours, but now it crept into her blood again, insidious,
tingling. And with it came so black a phantom of despair that Adela
closed her eyes shudderingly, lay back as one lifeless, and wished that
it were possible by the will alone to yield the breath and cease. The
night pulsed about her, beat regularly like a great clock, and its
pulsing smote upon her brain.

To-morrow she must follow her husband, who would come to lead her home.
Home? what home had she? What home would she ever have but a grave in
the grassy churchyard of Wanley? Why did death spare her when it took
the life which panted but for a moment on her bosom?

She must leave Stella and go back to her duties at the Manor; must
teach the children of New Wanley; must love, honour, obey her husband.
Returning from Exmouth, she was glad to see her house again; now she had
rather a thousand times die than go back. Horror shook her like a palsy;
all that she had borne for eighteen months seemed accumulated upon her
now, waited for her there at Wanley to be endured again. Oh! where was
the maiden whiteness of her soul? What malignant fate had robbed her for
ever of innocence and peace?

Was this fever or madness? She rose and flung her arms against a hideous
form which was about to seize her. It would not vanish, it pressed upon
her. She cried, fled to the door, escaped, and called Stella's name
aloud.

A door near her own opened, and Stella appeared. Adela clung to her, and
was drawn into the room. Those eyes of infinite pity gazing into her own
availed to calm her.

'Shall I send for some one?' Stella asked anxiously, but with no weak
bewilderment.

'No; it is not illness. But I dread to be alone; I am nervous.'