ld. But I was sure she had not sounded his trouble, and in
my impetuosity was about to fly to his side when we saw him pause before
the image of Luxury that stands on the stair, look at it for a moment
with a strange intentness, then suddenly and with a gesture of
irrepressible passion, lift his arm as if he would fell it from its
place. The action was so startling, Ona clutched my sleeve in terror,
but he passed on and in another moment we heard him shut the door of his
room.

"Would he be down to dinner? that was the next question. Ona thought
not; I did not dare to think. Nevertheless it was a great relief to me
when I saw him enter the dining-room with that set immovable look he
sometimes wears when Ona begins one of her long and rambling streams of
fashionable gossip. 'It is nothing,' flashed from his wife's eyes to
mine, and she lapsed at once into her most graceful self, but she
nevertheless hastened her meal and I was quite prepared to observe her
follow him, as with the polite excuse of weariness, he left the table
before desert. I could not hear what she asked him, but his answer came
distinctly to my ears from the midst of the library to which they had
withdrawn. 'It is nothing in which you have an interest, Ona. Thank
heaven you do not always know the price with which the splendors you so
love are bought.' And she did not cry out, 'O never pay such a price for
any joy of mine! Sooner than cost you so dear I would live on crusts and
dwell in a garret.' No, she kept silence, and when in a few minutes
later I joined her in the library, it was to find on her usually placid
lips, a thin cool smile that struck like ice to my heart, and made it
impossible for me to speak.

"But the hardest trial of the day was to hear Mr. Sylvester come in at
eleven o'clock--he went out again immediately after dinner--and go up
stairs without giving me my usual good-night. It was such a grief to me
I could not keep still, but hurried to the foot of the stairs in the
hopes he would yet remember me and come back. But instead of that, he no
sooner saw me than he threw out his hand almost as if he would push me
back, and hastened on up the whole winding flight till he reached the
refuge of that mysterious room of his at the top of the house.

"I could not go back to Ona after that--she had been to make a call
somewhere with a young gentleman friend of hers;--yes on this very night
had been to make a call--but I took advantage of the