over into the torrent--all told the
sad tale. It was a wet season, and there had been much snow in the
winter, so that the river was swollen beyond its usual volume, and the
eddies of the stream were packed with ice. All search was made, and
finally the wreck of the carriage and the body of one horse were found
in an eddy of the river. Later on the body of the driver was found on
the sandy, torrent-swept waste near Taesch; but the body of the lady,
like that of the other horse, had quite disappeared, and was--what
was left of it by that time--whirling amongst the eddies of the Rhone
on its way down to the Lake of Geneva.

Wykham Delandre made all the enquiries possible, but could not find
any trace of the missing woman. He found, however, in the books of the
various hotels the name of 'Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Brent'. And he had a
stone erected at Zermatt to his sister's memory, under her married
name, and a tablet put up in the church at Bretten, the parish in
which both Brent's Rock and Dander's Croft were situated.

There was a lapse of nearly a year, after the excitement of the matter
had worn away, and the whole neighbourhood had gone on its accustomed
way. Brent was still absent, and Delandre more drunken, more morose,
and more revengeful than before.

Then there was a new excitement. Brent's Rock was being made ready for
a new mistress. It was officially announced by Geoffrey himself in a
letter to the Vicar, that he had been married some months before to an
Italian lady, and that they were then on their way home. Then a small
army of workmen invaded the house; and hammer and plane sounded, and a
general air of size and paint pervaded the atmosphere. One wing of the
old house, the south, was entirely re-done; and then the great body of
the workmen departed, leaving only materials for the doing of the old
hall when Geoffrey Brent should have returned, for he had directed
that the decoration was only to be done under his own eyes. He had
brought with him accurate drawings of a hall in the house of his
bride's father, for he wished to reproduce for her the place to which
she had been accustomed. As the moulding had all to be re-done, some
scaffolding poles and boards were brought in and laid on one side of
the great hall, and also a great wooden tank or box for mixing the
lime, which was laid in bags beside it.

When the new mistress of Brent's Rock arrived the bells of the church
rang out, and there was a general