to rouse her in any way.

"Forgive me, Cecil," she cried; "you _do_ care for poor Bertie, I see."

She looked up with a vague, uncomprehending glance.

"Who was so brilliant--who so brave--with that sympathetic voice, and
warm, endearing manner? He was wicked, I dare say!--he was not cold
enough for a saint."

Mrs. Rolleston listened painfully.

"How every one adored him!" pursued Cecil. "I don't mean women--of course
_they_ did: but all his friends would have done anything for him. I have
seen his letters; and who could touch him in countenance, manner, grace?
And such a poetic, original mind! But he cared for me _most_,--he must,
don't you think?" (looking up with dry, tearless eyes), "or he would not
have come to me to-night."

"Then _why_, oh, why, Cecil, did you give him up?"

Her brow contracted for an instant. "I could not bear my sun to shine on
any one else," she cried, passionately "I grudged every glance of his
eye, every tone of his voice given to another."

"Then, Bluebell _was_ the cause--" began Mrs. Rolleston.

"'My eyes were blinded;' he cared no more for her than the rest. Had I
believed him, we might have been happy five months, for we should have
married the day I came of age."

"It will happen yet!" cried Mrs. Rolleston. "Shake off this fearful
dream, my dearest child. I know that Bertie cares only for you."

"We have met to-night, we never shall again."

"She will have a brain-fever," thought Mrs. Rolleston, distractedly, "if
tears do not come to her relief." They did eventually, convulsively and
exhaustingly, till she dropped into a death-like sleep far into the next
morning.

The sun had been shining for hours. Mrs. Rolleston did not disturb her,
but the superstitious terror she had battled against the night before
returned daring that long day, in an agony of impatience for news.

But no submarine telegraph then existing, nothing was heard for a time.
Mrs. Rolleston might have shaken off the gruesome impression, but for the
immovable conviction of Bertie's death that actuated Cecil. She assumed
the deepest mourning, and passed whole hours alone with her grief,
perfectly indifferent to the opinion of any one. Indeed, since his
spiritual presence had, as she believed, appeared to her, he seemed
nearer than before, when they were parted and unreconciled.

One day, late in the afternoon, Mrs. Rolleston was agitated by that weird
sound to anxious ears, the shouting voices of men and