t is the grave."

"My beautiful Leone," he cried, "you must not talk about the grave.
There should be no death and no grave for one like you."

"There will be none to my love," she said, but rather to herself than to
him. Then she roused herself and laughed, but the laugh was forced and
bitter. "Why should I speak of my love?" she said. "Mine was a 'Mad
Love.'"

The day drifted on to a golden, sunlight afternoon, and the wind died on
the waters while the lilies slept. And then they went slowly home.

"Has it been a happy day, Leone?" asked Lord Chandos, as they drew near
home.

"It will have no morrow," she answered, sadly. "I shall keep those
water-lilies until every leaf is withered and dead; yet they will never
be so dead as my hopes--as dead as my life, though art fills it and
praises crown it."

"And I," he said, "shall remember this day until I die. I have often
wondered, Leone, if people take memory with them to heaven. If they do,
I shall think of it there."

"And I," she said, "shall know no heaven, if memory goes with me."

They parted without another word, without a touch of the hands, or one
adieu; but there had been no mention of parting, and that was the last
thing thought of.

CHAPTER LI.

THE CONFESSION.

"I do not believe it," said Lady Marion; "it is some absurd mistake. If
Lord Chandos had been out alone, or on a party of pleasure where you
say, he would have told me."

"I assure you, Lady Chandos, that it is true. Captain Blake spoke to him
there, and Lady Evelyn saw him. Madame Vanira was with him."

The speakers were Lady Chandos and Lady Ilfield; the place was the
drawing-room at Stoneland House; the time was half past three in the
afternoon; and Lady Ilfield had called on her friend because the news
which she had heard preyed upon her mind and she felt that she must
reveal it. Like all mischief-makers Lady Ilfield persuaded herself that
she was acting upon conscientious motives; she herself had no
nonsensical ideas about singers and actresses; they were quite out of
her sphere, quite beneath her notice, and no good, she was in the habit
of saying, ever came from associating with them. She had met Madame
Vanira several times at Stoneland House, and had always felt annoyed
over it, but her idea was that a singer, an actress, let her be
beautiful as a goddess and talented above all other women, had no right
to stand on terms of any particular friendship with Lord Chandos. La