all probably with the fall of night.

"Which way shall we go?" I asked

"Towards the lake, Marian, if you like," she answered.

"You seem unaccountably fond, Laura, of that dismal lake."

"No, not of the lake but of the scenery about it. The sand and heath
and the fir-trees are the only objects I can discover, in all this
large place, to remind me of Limmeridge. But we will walk in some
other direction if you prefer it."

"I have no favourite walks at Blackwater Park, my love. One is the
same as another to me. Let us go to the lake--we may find it cooler in
the open space than we find it here."

We walked through the shadowy plantation in silence. The heaviness in
the evening air oppressed us both, and when we reached the boat-house
we were glad to sit down and rest inside.

A white fog hung low over the lake. The dense brown line of the trees
on the opposite bank appeared above it, like a dwarf forest floating in
the sky. The sandy ground, shelving downward from where we sat, was
lost mysteriously in the outward layers of the fog. The silence was
horrible. No rustling of the leaves--no bird's note in the wood--no
cry of water-fowl from the pools of the hidden lake. Even the croaking
of the frogs had ceased to-night.

"It is very desolate and gloomy," said Laura. "But we can be more
alone here than anywhere else."

She spoke quietly and looked at the wilderness of sand and mist with
steady, thoughtful eyes. I could see that her mind was too much
occupied to feel the dreary impressions from without which had fastened
themselves already on mine.

"I promised, Marian, to tell you the truth about my married life,
instead of leaving you any longer to guess it for yourself," she began.
"That secret is the first I have ever had from you, love, and I am
determined it shall be the last. I was silent, as you know, for your
sake--and perhaps a little for my own sake as well. It is very hard for
a woman to confess that the man to whom she has given her whole life is
the man of all others who cares least for the gift. If you were
married yourself, Marian--and especially if you were happily
married--you would feel for me as no single woman CAN feel, however
kind and true she may be."

What answer could I make? I could only take her hand and look at her
with my whole heart as well as my eyes would let me.

"How often," she went on, "I have heard you laughing over what you used
to call your 'poverty!' how of