ide's taking private leave of
these two valued friends. But somehow the mysterious things that had
preceded made the guests look with half-suspicious eyes into every
thing; and Coventry's manifest discomfiture, when Dr. Amboyne was sent
for, justified this vague sense that there was something strange going
on beneath the surface.

Neither Raby nor Amboyne came down again, and Mr. Beresford remarked
aloud that the bride's room was like the lion's den in the fable,
"'Vestigia nulla retrorsum.'"

At last the situation became intolerable to Coventry. He rose, in
desperation, and said, with a ghastly attempt at a smile, that he must,
nevertheless, face the dangers of the place himself, as the carriage was
now packed, and Mrs. Coventry and he, though loath to leave their kind
friends, had a longish journey before them. "Do not move, I pray; I
shall be back directly."

As soon as he had got out of the room, he held a whispered consultation
with Lally, and then, collecting all his courage, and summoning all his
presence of mind, he went slowly up the stairs, determined to disown
Lally's acts (Lally himself had suggested this), and pacify Grace's
friends, if he could; but, failing that, to turn round, and stand
haughtily on his legal rights, ay, and enforce them too.

But, meantime, what had passed in the bride's chamber?

Raby found Grace Carden, with her head buried on her toilet-table, and
her hair all streaming down her back.

The floor was strewn with pearls and broken ornaments, and fragments of
the bridal veil. On the table lay Henry Little's letter.

Jael took it without a word, and gave it to Raby.

He took it, and, after a loud ejaculation of surprise, began to read it.

He had not quite finished it when Dr. Amboyne tapped at the door, and
Jael let him in.

The crushed figure with disheveled hair, and Raby's eye gleaming over
the letter in his hand, told him at once what was going on.

He ceased to doubt, or vacillate, directly; he whispered Jael Dence to
stand near Grace, and watch her closely.

He had seen a woman start up and throw herself, in one moment, out of
a window, for less than this--a woman crushed apparently, and more dead
than alive, as Grace Carden was.

Then he took out his own letter, and read it in a low voice to Mr. Raby;
but it afterward appeared the bride heard every word.

"MY BEST FRIEND,--Forgive me for neglecting you so long, and writing
only to her I love with all my soul. F