ich he regretted.

When her father thus retracted his own words, away went Grace's last
faint hope that Henry lived; and now she must die for him, or live for
others.

She thought of Jael Dance, and chose the latter.

Another burst or two of agony, and then her great aim and study appeared
to be to forget herself altogether. She was full of attention for her
father, and, whenever Mr. Coventry came, she labored to reward him with
kind words, and even with smiles; but they were sad ones.

As for Coventry, he saw, with secret exultation, that she was now too
languid and hopeless to resist the joint efforts of her father and
himself, and, that some day or other, she must fall lifeless into his
arms.

He said to himself, "It is only a question of time."

He was now oftener at the villa than at Hillsborough, and, with
remarkable self-denial, adhered steadily to the line of soothing and
unobtrusive devotion.

One morning at breakfast the post brought him a large envelope from
Hillsborough. He examined it, and found a capital "L" in the corner of
the envelope, which "L" was written by his man Lally, in compliance with
secret instructions from his master.

Coventry instantly put the envelope into his pocket, and his hand
began to shake so that he could hardly hold his cup to his lips. His
agitation, however, was not noticed.

Directly after breakfast he strolled, with affected composure, into the
garden, and sat down in a bower where he was safe from surprise, as the
tangled leaves were not so thick but he could peep through them.

He undid his inclosure, and found three letters; two were of no
importance; the third bore a foreign postmark, and was addressed to
Miss Carden in a hand writing which he recognized at a glance as Henry
Little's.

But as this was not the first letter from Henry to Grace which he had
intercepted and read, perhaps I had better begin by saying a few words
about the first.

Well, then, the letters with which Coventry swam the river on the night
of the explosion were six, viz., to Mr. Bolt, to Doctor Amboyne, to Mr.
Baynes, to Jael Dence, to Mrs. Little, and to Grace Carden. The
letter to Grace Carden was short but touching, full of devotion, hope,
resolution, and grief at parting. He told her he had come to take leave
that afternoon, but she had been out, luckily; for he felt he ought to
go, and must go, but how could he look at her and then leave her? This
was the general purport, and exp