knows it--and she is very,
very sad.

In South Kensington there lives a gay, world-loving woman who keeps open
house, and entertains perpetually. She has horses and carriages, and a
box at the opera, and is always to be seen faultlessly dressed and the
gayest of the gay at every race meeting, and at every scene of pleasure.

People admire her and flatter her, and speak lightly of her too,
sometimes, for it is generally known that Mrs. Kynaston is "separated"
from her husband; and though a separation is a perfectly respectable
thing, and has no possible connection with a divorce, yet there are ugly
whispers in this case as to what is the cause of the dissension between
the husband in Australia and the wife in London; whispers that often
do not fall very far short of the truth. And, gay as she is, and
light-hearted as she seems to be, there are times when pretty Mrs.
Kynaston is more to be pitied than any wretched beggar who toils along
the streets, for always there is the terror of detection at her heart,
and the fear that her dreadful secret, known as it is to at least two
persons on earth, may ooze out--be guessed by others.

There are things Mrs. Kynaston can never do: to read of some dreadful
murder such as occasionally fills all the papers for days with its
sickening details makes her shut herself in her own room till the
horrible tragedy is over and forgotten; to hear of such things spoken
of in society causes her to faint away with terror. To walk by a pond,
or even to speak of being rowed upon a lake or river, fills her with
such horror of soul that none of her friends ever care to suggest a
water-party of any kind to her.

"She saw that poor Miss Nevill drowned," say her compassionate
acquaintances; "it has upset her nerves, poor dear; she cannot bear the
sight of water." And there are a few who think, and who are not ashamed
to whisper their thoughts with bated breath, that she saw Miss Nevill's
sad death too near and too well to be utterly spotless in the matter.

That she allowed her to perish without attempting to save her, because
she was jealous of her, is the generally received impression; but there
is no one who has quite realized that she was actually guilty of her
death.

Did they think so, they could not eat her dinners with decency. And they
do eat her dinners, which are uncommonly good ones; and they flock to her
house, and they sit in her carriage and her opera-box, and they take all
they c