rget him? Can she? No; unless in that land, whither
her face is set, she find the fabled Lethean stream. Oh! it is bitter--
keenly bitter!

It reaches the climax of its bitterness, when the barouche rolling along
opens out a vista between the trees, disclosing a cottage--Clancy's.
Inside it sleeps the man, who has made her life a misery! Can he sleep,
after what he has done?

While making this reflection she herself feels, as if never caring to
close her eyelids more--except in death!

Her emotions are terribly intense, her anguish so overpowering, she can
scarce conceal it--indeed does not try, so long as the house is in
sight. Perhaps fortunate that her father is absorbed in his own
particular sadness. But her sister observes all, guessing--nay, knowing
the cause. She says nothing. Such sorrow is too sacred to be intruded
on. There are times, when even a sister may not attempt consolation.

Jessie is glad when the carriage, gliding on, again enters among trees,
and the little cottage of the Clancys, like their own great house, is
forever lost to view.

Could the eyes of Helen Armstrong, in passing, have penetrated through
the walls of that white painted dwelling--could she have rested them
upon a bed with a woman laid astretch upon it, apparently dead, or
dying--could she have looked on another bed, unoccupied, untouched, and
been told how he, its usual occupant, was at that moment lying in the
middle of a chill marsh, under the sombre canopy of cypresses--it would
have caused a revulsion in her feelings, sudden, painful, and powerful
as the shock already received.

There would still be sadness in her breast, but no bitterness. The
former far easier to endure; she would sooner believe Clancy dead, than
think of his traitorous defection.

But she is ignorant of all that has occurred; of the sanguinary scene
enacted--played out complete--on the edge of the cypress swamp, and the
sad one inside the house--still continuing. Aware of the one, or
witness of the other, while passing that lone cottage, as with wet eyes
she takes a last look at its walls, she would still be shedding tears--
not of spite, but sorrow.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

WHAT HAS BECOME OF CLANCY?

The sun is up--the hour ten o'clock, morning. Around the residence of
the widow Clancy a crowd of people has collected. They are her nearest
neighbours; while those who dwell at a distance are still in the act of
assembling. Every few min