good, I dare say; but I wish to be alone."

"You have been too long alone, and I can not consent to leave you
here."

At the sound of his subdued voice, she turned her face towards him,
and, for a moment,--

"A strange slow smile grew into her eyes,
As though from a great way off it came
And was weary ere down to her lips it fluttered,
And turned into a sigh, or some soft name
Whose syllables sounded likest sighs
Half-smothered in sorrow before they were uttered."

"Dr. Grey, my loneliness transcends all parallels, and is beyond
remedy. Why should I not stay here? All places are alike to me, now.
That cold, silent corpse at the house, is not Elsie; and, since she
has been taken, I shall be utterly alone, go where I may."

She shivered, and he picked up a crape shawl lying in a heap under the
table, and wrapped it around her. The soft folds were damp, and, as he
lifted the veil of hair, to draw the shawl closer about her shoulders
and throat, he felt that it was moist from the humid atmosphere.

"Sir, I am not cold,--I wish I were. It is useless to wrap up my body
so warmly, and leave my heart shivering until death freezes it
utterly."

Dr. Grey took her beautiful white hands in his warm palms, and held
them firmly.

"Mrs. Gerome, you do not know what is best for you, and must be guided
by one who will prove himself your truest friend."

"Don't mock my misery! I never had but one friend, and henceforth must
live friendless. I knew what was before me, and therefore I dreaded
this dark, dark day, and begged you to save her. She was the world to
me. She supplied the place of father, mother, husband, society, and
because God saw that her loving sympathy and care made my existence a
trifle less purgatorial than He saw fit to render it, He took her
away. My poor Elsie would quit the highest throne in heaven to come
back to her desolate, dependent child; for only she knew how and why I
trusted and leaned upon her. Ah, God! it is hard that I who have so
long shunned strangers should be at their mercy, in the last hour of
trial that can be devised by fiends, or allowed by heaven to afflict
me."

She struggled to free her hands and hide her face, but her companion
clasped them in one of his, and attempted to draw her head down to his
shoulder.

"No, sir! The grave is the only resting-place for my poor, accursed
head. Do not touch me."

She shrank as far as possible from him, and her voice, hithert