me, to the fact that the Bishop is every inch a gentleman, and
that the parish priest who figures in the narrative is one of its most
estimable characters.

However, the pages must speak for themselves. Some few readers, I
trust--to take a serious view--will be reminded by this imperfect story,
in a manner not unprofitable to the growth of the social sympathies, of
the pathos, misery, long-suffering, and divine tenderness which in real
life frequently accompany the passion of such a woman as Viviette for a
lover several years her junior.

The scene of the action was suggested by two real spots in the part of
the country specified, each of which has a column standing upon it.
Certain surrounding peculiarities have been imported into the narrative
from both sites.

T. H.

_July_ 1895.

TWO ON A TOWER.

I

On an early winter afternoon, clear but not cold, when the vegetable
world was a weird multitude of skeletons through whose ribs the sun shone
freely, a gleaming landau came to a pause on the crest of a hill in
Wessex. The spot was where the old Melchester Road, which the carriage
had hitherto followed, was joined by a drive that led round into a park
at no great distance off.

The footman alighted, and went to the occupant of the carriage, a lady
about eight- or nine-and-twenty. She was looking through the opening
afforded by a field-gate at the undulating stretch of country beyond. In
pursuance of some remark from her the servant looked in the same
direction.

The central feature of the middle distance, as they beheld it, was a
circular isolated hill, of no great elevation, which placed itself in
strong chromatic contrast with a wide acreage of surrounding arable by
being covered with fir-trees. The trees were all of one size and age, so
that their tips assumed the precise curve of the hill they grew upon.
This pine-clad protuberance was yet further marked out from the general
landscape by having on its summit a tower in the form of a classical
column, which, though partly immersed in the plantation, rose above the
tree-tops to a considerable height. Upon this object the eyes of lady
and servant were bent.

'Then there is no road leading near it?' she asked.

'Nothing nearer than where we are now, my lady.'

'Then drive home,' she said after a moment. And the carriage rolled on
its way.

A few days later, the same lady, in the same carriage, passed that spot
again. Her eyes, as befo