ence coming to her husband's
knowledge: would it not add to his contempt and scorn to know that she
was not even dead? Would he not at once conclude that she had been
contriving to work on his feelings, that she had been speculating on his
repentance, counting upon and awaiting such a return of his old
fondness, as would make him forget all her faults, and prepare him to
receive her again with delight?--But she must answer the creature! Ill
could she afford to offend him! But what was she to say? She had utterly
forgotten what he had said to her. She stood staring at him, unable to
speak. It was but for a few moments, but they were long as minutes. And
as she gazed, it seemed as if the strange being in the trench had dug
his way up from the lower parts of the earth, bringing her secret with
him, and come to ask her questions. What an earthy yet unearthly look he
had! Almost for the moment she believed the ancient rumors of other
races than those of mankind, that shared the earth with them, but led
such differently conditioned lives, that, in the course of ages, only a
scanty few of the unblending natures crossed each other's path, to stand
astare in mutual astonishment.

Polwarth went on digging, nor once looked up. After a little while he
resumed, in the most natural way, speaking as if he had known her well:

"Mr. Drake and I were talking, some weeks ago, about a certain curious
little old-fashioned flower in my garden at the back of the lodge. He
asked me if I could spare him a root of it. I told him I could spare him
any thing he would like to have, but that I would gladly give him every
flower in my garden, roots and all, if he would but let me dig three
yards square in his garden at the Old House, and have all that came up
of itself for a year."

He paused again. Juliet neither spoke nor moved. He dug rather feebly
for a gnome, with panting, asthmatic breath.

"Perhaps you are not aware, ma'am," he began again, and ceasing his
labor stood up leaning on the spade, which was nearly as high as
himself, "that many of the seeds which fall upon the ground do not grow,
yet, strange to tell, retain the power of growth. I suspect myself, but
have not had opportunity of testing the conjecture, that such fall in
their pods, or shells, and that before these are sufficiently decayed to
allow the sun and moisture and air to reach them, they have got covered
up in the soil too deep for those same influences. They say fishes a