mates, making Mrs. Harrington's house her headquarters. This was
all the announcement of her movements that she chose to make to the
woman who had been left her guardian.

How this fair, thoughtless girl lost all respect for her brother's wife
so completely that she refused to remain accountable to her for
anything, no one could tell, for she never mentioned the affair of that
night to her nearest friend. It evidently worked in her heart, but never
found utterance.

So the winter wore away drearily enough at Piney Cove; for with all her
waywardness, Elsie had been like a sunbeam in the house; and Elizabeth
pined in her absence till the dark circles widened under her eyes, and
her voice always had a sound of pain in it. But with the most sorrowful,
time moves on, and even grief cannot retain one phase of mournfulness
for ever.

The second spring began to scatter a little brightness about the old
house, and in this fresh outbloom of nature Elizabeth found some sources
of enjoyment. Since her virtual separation from Elsie she had received
no company, but lived in utter seclusion. Letters from her husband came
regularly, but her replies were studied, and written with restraint. She
never folded one of these missives without tears in her eyes, and when
his letters spoke of coming home, she would ponder over the writing with
a look of strange dread in her face.

One lovely spring morning Elizabeth Mellen was alone in that quiet old
mansion. Elsie had not been home for months, and only brief notes
announcing some change of place, or anticipated movements, had warned
Elizabeth of her mode of existence. These notes were cold as ice, and
the young wife always shivered with dread when she opened them.

It might have been a package of these letters that she had been
reviewing. She was alone in the library; quite alone, of course, but the
repose and silence about her brought no rest to her soul. Her whole
appearance was in strange contrast to the quiet of the scene; her face
so changed by the thoughts which kept her company, and forced themselves
upon her solitude, that it hardly seemed the same.

She walked up and down the room in nervous haste, her head bent, her
eyes looking straight before her, full of wild bewilderment which
follows an effort at reflection when the mind is in a fever of unrest.
Sometimes she stopped before the table, on which lay a package of open
letters; she would glance at them with a shudder of horror