her!"

Oh! why could she not die before he came? Seeing her dead body he would
forgive her. She should tell him she loved him still, should always love
him. She would withhold no comfort. Perhaps he would kill her, if so,
Jael must manage so that he should not be taken up or tormented any
more, for such a wretch as she was.

But I might as well try to dissect a storm, and write the gusts of a
tempest, as to describe all the waves of passion in that fluctuating and
agonized heart: the feelings and the agitation of a life were crowded
into those few hours, during which she awaited the lover she had lost.

At last, Jael Dence, though she was also much agitated and perplexed,
decided on a course of action. Just before four o'clock she took Grace
upstairs and told her she might see him arrive, but she must not come
down until she was sent for. "I shall see him first, and tell him all;
and, when he is fit to see you, I will let you know."

Grace submitted, and even consented to lie down for half an hour. She
was now, in truth, scarcely able to stand, being worn out with the
mental struggle. She lay passive, with Jael Dence's hand in hers.

When she had lain so about an hour, she started up suddenly, and the
next moment a fly stopped at the door. Henry Little got out at the gate,
and walked up the gravel to the house.

Grace looked at him from behind the curtain, gazed at him till
he disappeared, and then turned round, with seraphic joy on her
countenance. "My darling!" she murmured; "more beautiful than ever! Oh
misery! misery!"

One moment her heart was warm with rapture, the next it was cold with
despair. But the joy was blind love; the despair was reason.

She waited, and waited, but no summons came.

She could not deny herself the sound of his voice. She crept down
the stairs, and into her father's library, separated only by thin
folding-doors from the room where Henry Little was with Jael Dence.

Meantime Jael Dence opened the door to Henry Little, and, putting her
fingers to her lips, led him into the dining-room and shut the door.

Now, as his suspicions were already excited, this reception alarmed him
seriously. As soon as ever they were alone, he seized both Jael's hands,
and, looking her full in the face, said:

"One word--is she alive?"

"She is."

"Thank god! Bless the tongue that tells me that. My good Jael! my best
friend!" And, with that, kissed her heartily on both cheeks.

She received th