nt his head, unable to speak. The task he had imposed on
himself had become terribly painful.

Olympia was not particularly pleased with this high praise of another,
though all her ambitious hopes lay in the success of the person on whom
these encomiums were lavished. She began to shake up the sparkles in her
wine by swaying the glass to and fro with her hand, and a sullen frown
crept over her face.

"She is obstinate as a mule," she muttered; "tall and proud as
Lucifer--not at all like me. But they will rave about her beauty, just
as if she were more likely to live than to die."

"What did you say?" cried Lord Hilton, sharply; "die! die! Is there any
danger? Is she so ill?"

Olympia lifted her sleepy eyelids and flashed a suspicious glance at
him.

"Ah!" she exclaimed; "are you there! I thought so."

"You are not answering me," was the cold reply.

"You asked if there existed any danger, and I answer, yes. Did you think
we were practicing stage effects in the journals? My poor Caroline is
ill--very ill."

"And what made her ill?"

"What made her break down, after such glorious promise? Why, after she
sang before my friends here, as fresh as a lark, and drove them all so
wild that I, Olympia, was almost overlooked? There never were such
expectations; but see how it ended--a total failure, and brain fever."

"Did you say brain fever?"

The young man scarcely spoke above a breath.

"Yes, it is on the brain, or the nerves, I am not quite sure which; but
the doctors look terribly grave when I ask them about her, and speak as
if she would die."

"Would to God she might die!" exclaimed the young man, trembling from
head to foot with a burst of agitation that would not be suppressed
longer.

"What--What?" exclaimed Olympia, starting back in affright. The glass
fell from her hold, and a rivulet of amber-hued wine flashed along the
snow of the table-cloth while she sat gazing upon the young lord.

"Excuse me; I was thinking of something else," he said, with a strong
effort of self-control. "May I presume on your favor, and steal away,
now? The rest will not miss me, I think."

Olympia nodded her head hastily. The spilled wine was dripping on her
dress, so she started up, and Lord Hilton withdrew while she was shaking
the drops from its silken folds, and creating general confusion by her
laughing outcries.

Lord Hilton looked back as he crossed the passage, and shuddered at the
picture of riotous luxury tha