broke a path of
diamonds across the rippling waters, lighting them up to wonderful
splendor. The air was balmy and soft as spring, the wind rippled
pleasantly among the trees, but there was no melody in its tones to his
ear; it seemed only a repetition of the mournful warning which had
haunted his thoughts.

He walked on across the lawn, anxious to get beyond the sound of the
music and gayety which followed him from the house, for it jarred upon
his ears with deafening discordance.

He entered a little thicket of bushes and young trees, in the midst of
which rose up a dark, funereal-looking cypress, that always waved its
branches tremulously, however still the air might be, and seemed to be
oppressed with a trouble which it could only utter in faint moaning
whispers.

As he stood there, looking into the gloom, with a sense of relief at
finding some object more in unison with his dark thoughts, he saw a
figure glide away from the foot of the cypress, and disappear in the
shrubbery beyond.

It was a woman wrapped in some dark garment--in movement and form like
his wife--could it be his wife wandering about the grounds at that hour?

"Elizabeth!" he called; but there was no answer.

He hurried forward among the trees, but there was no object visible, no
response to the summons he repeated several times.

It might be some guest who had stolen out there for a few minutes'
quiet; yet that was not probable. Besides, the movements of the slender
form appeared familiar to him. In height and shape Elsie and Elizabeth
resembled each other; it was possibly one of them, but which?

Elsie it could not be, she had a nervous dread of darkness and could not
be persuaded to stir off the piazza after nightfall. It must have been
Elizabeth, then; but what was she doing there!

He started towards the house with some vague thought in his mind, to
which he could have given no expression.

His wife was not in any of the rooms through which he passed, and he
hurried into the ball-room. The music had just struck up anew; he saw
Elsie whirling through a waltz; but Elizabeth was nowhere visible.

He drew near enough to Elsie to whisper--

"Where is Bessie?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I have been dancing all the while, and
have not seen her for some time."

He turned away; but, just then, Mrs. Harrington captured him, and it was
several moments before he could escape from her tiresome loquacity.

The moment he was at libert