oves with love that can not tire,
And when, ah, woe! she loves alone
Through passionate duty love flames higher
As grass grows taller round a stone.

COVENTRY PATMORE.

Never! 'tis certain that no hope is--none?
No hope for me, and yet for thee no fear,
The hardest part of my hard task is done;
Thy calm assures me that I am not dear.

JEAN INGELOW.

Erle was quite shocked at Fay's changed appearance, but he said very
little about it. He had an instinctive feeling that the shadow had
deepened, and that Fay was sick at heart; but he only showed his
sympathy by an added kindness, and an almost reverential tenderness,
and Fay was deeply grateful for his delicacy, for she knew now that,
though she had been blind, others had had their eyes open; and she had
a morbid fear that every one traced her husband's restlessness and
dissatisfaction with his life to the right cause, and knew that she
was an unloved wife. Fay was very proud by nature, though no one would
have guessed it from her exceeding gentleness; and this knowledge
added largely to her pain. But she hid it--she hid it heroically, and
no one knew till too late how the young creature had suffered in her
silence.

Erle and she were better friends than ever; but they did not resume
their old confidential talks. Erle had grown strangely reticent about
his own affairs, and spoke little of his _fiancee_ and his approaching
marriage. He knew in his heart that Fay had read him truly, and knew
that his warmest affections had been given to Fern, and he had an
uneasy consciousness that she condemned his conduct.

Fay never told him so; she congratulated him very prettily, and made
one of her old mischievous speeches about "the young lady with the go
in her"--but somehow it seemed to fall flat; and she asked him a few
questions, as in duty bound, about his prospects, and how often he saw
Miss Selby, and if he would bring her down to Redmond Hall, one day;
"for I mean to be very fond of your wife, Erle, whoever she may be,"
she continued; "and I hear from the Trelawneys that Miss Selby--but I
must call her Evelyn now--is very nice indeed, and that you are to be
congratulated."

"She is far too good for me," returned Erle, with a touch of real
feeling, for his _fiancee's_ unselfish devotion was a daily reproach
to him. Could any girl be sweeter or more lov