xpression of fear swept across Lady
Bellamy's face, but it went as quickly as it came, and the hard,
determined look returned. The mysterious eyes grew cold and glittered,
the head erected itself. At that moment Lady Bellamy distinctly
reminded Mr. Fraser of a hooded cobra about to strike.

"Am I to speak before Mr. Fraser?"

"Speak!"

"What is the good of this high-flown talk, Angela? You seem to know my
news before I give it, and believe me it pains me very much to have to
give it. _He is dead, Angela._"

The cobra had struck, but as yet the poison had scarcely begun to
work. There was only numbness. Mr. Fraser gave a gasp and half
dropped, half fell, into his chair. The noise attracted Angela's
attention, and pressing her hand to her forehead she turned towards
him with a ghost of a laugh.

"Did I not tell you that this evil woman would bring evil news." Then
addressing Lady Bellamy, "But stop, you forget what I said to you, you
do not speak the truth. Arthur dead! How can Arthur be dead and I
alive? How is it that I do not know he is dead? Oh, for shame, it is
not true, he is not dead."

"This seems to me to be a thankless as well as a painful task," said
Lady Bellamy, hoarsely, "but, if you will not believe me, look here,
you know this, I suppose? I took it, as he asked me to do, from his
dead hand that it might be given back to you."

"If Mr. Heigham is dead," said Mr. Fraser, "how do you know it, where
did he die, and what of?"

"I know it, Mr. Fraser, because it was my sad duty to nurse him
through his last illness at Madeira. He died of enteric fever. I have
got a copy of his burial certificate here which I had taken from the
Portuguese books. He seems to have had no relations living, poor young
man, but Sir John communicated with the family lawyer. Here is the
certificate," and she handed Mr. Fraser a paper written in Portuguese
and officially stamped.

"You say," broke in Angela, "that you took this ring from his dead
hand, the hand on which I placed it. I do not believe you. You
beguiled it from his living hand. It cannot be that he is dead; for,
if he were, I should have felt it. Oh, Arthur!" and in her misery she
stretched out her arms and turned her agonized eyes upwards, "if you
are dead, come to me, and let me see your spirit face, and hear the
whisper of your wings. Have you no voice in the silence? You see he
does not come, he is not dead; if he were dead, Heaven could not hold
him from m