olive skin. The darkly handsome face, with pride
in every feature, was blanched now almost to the hue of the dying man's;
but that glittering bride-like figure, with its misty point-lace and
blazing diamonds, seemed in strange contradiction to the idea of death.

"My lady! my lady!" cried Mrs. Hilliard, with a suppressed sob, moving
near her.

The deep, dark eyes turned upon her for an instant, then wandered back
to the bed; but she never moved.

"Ada," said Sir Noel, faintly, "come here. The rest of you go. I want no
one but my wife."

The graceful figure, in its shining robes and jewels moved over and
dropped on its knees by his side. The other three quitted the room and
closed the door. Husband and wife were alone with only death to
overhear.

"Ada, my poor girl, only five months a wife--it is very hard on you; but
it seems I must go. I have a great deal to say to you that I can't die
without saying. I have been a villain, Ada--the greatest villain on
earth to you."

She had not spoken--she did not speak. She knelt beside him, white and
still, looking and listening with strange calm. There was a sort of
white horror in her face, but very little of the despairing grief one
would naturally look for in the dying man's wife.

"I don't ask you to forgive me, Ada--I have wronged you too deeply for
that; but I loved you so dearly--so dearly! Oh, my God! what a lost and
cruel wretch I have been!"

He lay panting and gasping for breath. There was a draught which Dr.
Gale had left standing near, and he made a motion for it. She held it to
his lips, and he drank; her hand was unsteady and spilled it, but still
she never spoke.

"I cannot speak loudly, Ada," he said, in a husky whisper, "my strength
seems to grow less every moment; but I want you to promise me before I
begin my story that you will do what I ask. Promise! promise!"

He grasped her wrist and glared at her almost fiercely.

"Promise!" he reiterated. "Promise! promise!"

"I promise," she said, with white lips.

"May Heaven deal with you, Ada Thetford, as you keep that promise.
Listen now."

The wild night wore on. The cries of the wind in the trees grew louder
and wilder and more desolate. The rain beat against the curtained glass;
the candles guttered and flared; the wood-fire flickered and died out.
And still, while hour after hour passed, Ada, Lady Thetford, in her lace
and silk and jewels, knelt beside her young husband, and listened to the
da