ome of
her? Elizabeth, Elizabeth!"

She shrieked frightfully in her anguish--cried out in such terrible
anxiety, that the sound reached the chamber where Grantley Mellen sat.

He went out into the hall and approached the door of the dressing-room.
Elsie heard him--her first impulse was to flee but her limbs refused to
move.

She heard him try the door--heard him call:

"Elsie! Elsie!"

She must meet him--there was no escape.

Again the summons was repeated, more imperatively now.

"Elsie, open the door--quick, I say!"

She got to the door, she turned the key; her brother entered quickly,
and stood in Elizabeth's desolate room.

"Where is Elizabeth?" she cried. "I can't find her--I want Elizabeth."

Mellen felt a shiver of dread pass through his frame. He pushed the
chamber-door open and looked in, pale with anxiety. She was not
there--the bed was untouched, and gleamed upon him through the crimson
light that filled the room, like a crusted snowbank. There was none of
that luxurious confusion which usually marks the apartment of a sleeping
lady. The rich toilet service was in complete order. There was no
jewelry flung down with half sleepy indifference, no garments laying
ready for use on the chairs, or across the sofa. The silken window
curtains were drawn close. The carpet looked like moss in the deep
shadows of an autumnal forest.

"Gone, gone! Oh, my God, what has become of her?" he exclaimed.

"Where--what has happened? Is she dead? Oh, I shall go mad--I shall go
mad now," cried Elsie.

She fell into spasms, but still preserved her senses sufficiently not to
speak again--she dared not utter a word more, lest she should betray her
knowledge of Elizabeth's sorrow.

Mellen carried her to the sofa and laid her down upon it, wrapped shawls
and eider down quilts over her, holding her hands, which trembled like
frightened birds, striving in every way to soothe her, as Elizabeth had
so often done in the time gone by for ever.

Elsie lay back at length, quiet but utterly exhausted.

"Where is Elizabeth?" she moaned. "What has happened?"

"Never take that name on your lips again," he said; "let even her memory
be dead between us. That woman is no longer my wife--you will never see
her. She shall not suffer; I will deal gently with her; but to you, my
dearest sister, she is dead, forever and ever."

"You have killed her!" shrieked Elsie. "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!"

"She leaves this house of her free will,