"As you please. I will leave it for the present."

With this curt concession Mellen walked away, and Elizabeth went back
into the house. She paused to rest a few moments in the library; her
limbs were shaking so violently that they refused to support her. She
was roused by the sound of her husband's voice in conversation with old
Benson--he might come in and find her there.

She started up like a wounded animal that concentrates its dying
strength in one wild effort for escape--hurried from the room and up the
stairs into her own chamber.

Elsie was still lying on the sofa; she sprang up as Elizabeth entered.

"Will he leave it?" she cried. "Will he leave it?"

"Yes, he has promised."

Elizabeth sank in a chair, so broken down by agony that it might have
softened the heart of her deadliest enemy could he have seen her then.

"Saved again!" cried Elsie. "Don't despair, Bessie--it will all end
right."

"Saved!" repeated Elizabeth. "Have you thought what must be done before
I can breathe again?"

Elsie gave a cry and hid her face.

"Be still!" said Elizabeth. "I will do it--be still!"

"Don't let me know--don't tell me--I should die of fright!"

"Think of me, then," she returned. "In the night--alone with
that----what can I do?"

Elsie interrupted her with another cry and her old appealing wail.

"You are killing me! You are killing me!"

"Be still," repeated Elizabeth, in the same awful voice. "Be still!"

CHAPTER LIII.

CLORINDA'S GHOST STORY.

Mellen set old Benson about some other duties and went into the library.
While he stood at one of the windows, looking gloomily out on the autumn
landscape, he heard the voices of 'Dolf and his spinster inamorata in
the area below.

"What's marster gwine to have done to de tree?" Clo asked.

"He's afeared it's deceasin'," replied Dolf, pompously, "and he wishes
to perwent."

"Don't come none o' yer furrin lingo over me," said Clorinda, angrily.
"Can't yer say what he's gwine to do, widout any of dem dern outlandish
Spanish 'spressions."

"'Twarn't Spanish, lubly one," said 'Dolf, greatly delighted at the
effect his grandiloquent language had produced. "Sometimes I do 'dulge
in far away tongues jist from habit; its' trabeling so much, you know."

"Don't know nothin' about it, and don't want to," interrupted Clorinda.
"Ef yer can't answer a civil question as it outer be, yer needn't stay
round dis part of de house."

"Don't be ravagerous," re