string
they touched, or what prescience of evil they awakened? But they went
nigh to felling her. Clutching the mantel-piece, Lady Bellamy gasped
for air; then, recovering a little, she said:

"Thank God, that is over."

Mr. Fraser scarcely saw this last incident. So overwhelmed was he at
the sight of Angela's agony that he had covered his face with his
hand. When he lifted it again, Lady Bellamy was gone, and he was
alone.

CHAPTER L

Three months had passed since that awful Christmas Day. Angela was
heart-broken, and, after the first burst of her despair, turned
herself to the only consolation which was left her. It was not of this
world.

She did not question the truth of the dreadful news that Lady Bellamy
had brought her, and, if ever a doubt did arise in her breast, a
glance at the ring and the letter effectually quelled it. Nor did she
get brain-fever or any other illness; her young and healthy frame was
too strong a citadel to be taken out of hand by sorrow. And this to
her was one of the most wonderful things in her affliction. It had
come and crushed her, and life still went on much as before. The sun
of her system had fallen, and yet the system was not appreciably
deranged. It was dreadful to her to think that Arthur was dead, but an
added sting lay in the fact that she was not dead too. Oh! how glad
she would have been to die, since death had become the gate through
which she needs must pass to reach her lover's side.

For it had been given to Angela, living so much alone, and thinking so
long and deeply upon these great mysteries of our being, to soar to
the heights of a noble faith. To the intense purity of her mind, a
living heaven presented itself, a comfortable place, very different
from the vague and formularised abstractions with which we are for the
most part satisfied; where Arthur and her mother were waiting to greet
her, and where the great light of the Godhead would shine around them
all. She grew to hate her life, the dull barrier of the flesh that
stood between her and her ends. Still she ate and drank enough to
support it, still dressed with the same perfect neatness as before,
still lived, in short, as though Arthur had not died, and the light
and colour had not gone out of her world.

One day--it was in March--she was sitting in Mr. Fraser's study
reading the "Shakespeare" which Arthur had given to her, and in the
woes of others striving to forget