ished, with his wife and child, she vehemently and
stubbornly refused her credence. It seemed impossible that envious
death could have so utterly snatched from her grasp the triumph upon
which her eager fingers were already closing.

Causing advertisements to be inserted in various journals, and
offering therein a reward for information of the missing passengers,
she forbade the topic broached in her presence, and quitting Paris
retired for a season to Lake Como, vainly seeking that coveted
tranquillity which everywhere her own harrowing thoughts and
ceaseless forebodings effectually murdered.

As time wore on she grew gloomy, taciturn, almost morose, and a
restlessness beyond the remedy of medicine robbed her of the power of
sleep. To-day she clung convulsively to her daughter, unwilling that
she should leave her even for an instant; to-morrow she would lock
herself in, and for hours refuse admittance to any human being. The
rich bloom forsook her cheek, deep shadows underlined her large
melancholy eyes, and her dimpled hands became so diaphanous, so
thin, that the black agate ring with difficulty held its place upon
the wasted fingers.

With patient loving care, Regina anticipated her wishes, indulged
all her varying caprices, devoted herself assiduously to the task of
diverting her mind, and comforting her heart by the tender
ministrations of her own intense filial affection. By day she read,
talked, sang to her. When in the tormenting still hours of night her
mother refused the thorns of a sleepless pillow, the daughter drew
her out upon the terrace against which the wavelets broke in a
silvery monologue, and directed her thoughts to the glowing stars
that clustered in the blue dome above, and shimmered in the azure
beneath; or with an arm around the mother's waist, led her into the
flowery garden, and up the winding walks that climbed the eminence
behind the villa, where oleanders whitened the gloom, and passionate
jasmines broke their rich hearts upon the dewy air; so, pacing to and
fro, until the moon went down behind myrtle groves, and the bald brow
of distant Alps flushed under the first kiss of day.

For Mrs. Laurance, nepenthe was indeed a fable, and while she
abstained from even an indirect allusion to the subject that absorbed
her, the nameless anxiety that seemed consuming her, Regina and her
uncle watched her with increasing apprehension.

This afternoon she had complained of headache, and, throwing