tood staring downward at the thing itself;
but the coursing of her blood was stilled, the gallop of her pulses, and
that wild hysteric leaping of her heart into her throat, choking her and
forcing her to gasp and pant in that way which in women must ever end in
shrieks and cries and sobbing beatings of the air. But for the feminine
softness to which her nature had given way for the first time, since the
power of love had mastered her, there was no thing of earth could have
happened to her which would have brought this rolling ball to her throat,
this tremor to her body--since the hour of her birth she had never been
attacked by such a female folly, as she would indeed have regarded it
once; but now 'twas different--for a while she had been a woman--a woman
who had flung herself upon the bosom of him who was her soul's lord, and
resting there, her old rigid strength had been relaxed.

But 'twas not this woman who had known tender yielding who returned to
take her place in the Panelled Parlour, knowing of the companion who
waited near her unseen--for it was as her companion she thought of him,
as she had thought of him when he followed her in the Mall, forced
himself into her box at the play, or stood by her shoulder at assemblies;
he had placed himself by her side again, and would stay there until she
could rid herself of him.

"After to-night he will be gone, if I act well my part," she said, "and
then may I live a freed woman."

'Twas always upon the divan she took her place when she received her
visitors, who were accustomed to finding her enthroned there. This
afternoon when she came into the room she paused for a space, and stood
beside it, the parlour being yet empty. She felt her face grow a little
cold, as if it paled, and her under-lip drew itself tight across her
teeth.

"In a graveyard," she said, "I have sat upon the stone ledge of a tomb,
and beneath there was--worse than this, could I but have seen it. This
is no more."

When the Sir Humphreys and Lord Charleses, Lady Bettys and Mistress
Lovelys were announced in flocks, fluttering and chattering, she rose
from her old place to meet them, and was brilliant graciousness itself.
She hearkened to their gossipings, and though 'twas not her way to join
in them, she was this day witty in such way as robbed them of the dulness
in which sometimes gossip ends. It was a varied company which gathered
about her; but to each she gave his or her moment, and in