ke. The veiled woman with her cried out faintly. I stopped. The
springs of my life fell low, and the shuddering of an unutterable dread
crept over me from head to foot.

The woman with the veiled face moved away from her companion, and came
towards me slowly. Left by herself, standing by herself, Marian
Halcombe spoke. It was the voice that I remembered--the voice not
changed, like the frightened eyes and the wasted face.

"My dream! my dream!" I heard her say those words softly in the awful
silence. She sank on her knees, and raised her clasped hands to
heaven. "Father! strengthen him. Father! help him in his hour of
need."

The woman came on, slowly and silently came on. I looked at her--at
her, and at none other, from that moment.

The voice that was praying for me faltered and sank low--then rose on a
sudden, and called affrightedly, called despairingly to me to come away.

But the veiled woman had possession of me, body and soul. She stopped
on one side of the grave. We stood face to face with the tombstone
between us. She was close to the inscription on the side of the
pedestal. Her gown touched the black letters.

The voice came nearer, and rose and rose more passionately still. "Hide
your face! don't look at her! Oh, for God's sake, spare him----"

The woman lifted her veil.

"Sacred to the Memory of Laura, Lady Glyde----"

Laura, Lady Glyde, was standing by the inscription, and was looking at
me over the grave.

[The Second Epoch of the Story closes here.]

THE THIRD EPOCH

THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT.

I

I open a new page. I advance my narrative by one week.

The history of the interval which I thus pass over must remain
unrecorded. My heart turns faint, my mind sinks in darkness and
confusion when I think of it. This must not be, if I who write am to
guide, as I ought, you who read. This must not be, if the clue that
leads through the windings of the story is to remain from end to end
untangled in my hands.

A life suddenly changed--its whole purpose created afresh, its hopes
and fears, its struggles, its interests, and its sacrifices all turned
at once and for ever into a new direction--this is the prospect which
now opens before me, like the burst of view from a mountain's top. I
left my narrative in the quiet shadow of Limmeridge church--I resume
it, one week later, in the stir and turmoil of a London street.

The street is in a popul