to her--and this was the
deserted wife,--who had once loved him. Lady Winsleigh had heard the
news,--she shuddered and turned very pale when her husband gently and
almost pityingly told her of the sudden and unprepared end that had
overtaken her quondam admirer--but she said nothing. She was presiding
at the breakfast-table for the first time in many years--she looked
somewhat sad and listless, yet lovelier so than in all the usual pride
and assertive arrogance of her beauty. Lord Winsleigh read aloud the
brief account of the accident in the paper--she listened dreamily, still
mute. He watched her with yearning eyes.

"An awful death for such a man, Clara!" he said at last in a low tone.

She dared not look up--she was trembling nervously. How dreadful it was,
she thought, to be thankful that a man was dead!--to feel a relief at
his being no longer in this world! Presently her husband spoke again
more reservedly. "No doubt you are greatly shocked and grieved," he
said. "I should not have told you so suddenly--pardon me!"

"I am not grieved," she murmured unsteadily. "It sounds horrible to say
so--but I--I am afraid I am _glad_!"

"Clara!"

She rose and came tremblingly towards him. She knelt at his feet, though
he strove to prevent her,--she raised her large, dark eyes, full of dull
agony, to his.

"I've been a wicked woman, Harry," she said, with a strange, imploring
thrill of passion in her voice, "I am down--down in the dust before you!
Look at me--don't forgive me--I won't ask that--you _can't_ forgive
me,--but _pity_ me!"

He took her hands and laid them round his neck,--he drew her gently,
soothingly,--closer, closer, till he pressed her to his heart.

"Down in the dust are you?" he whispered brokenly. "My poor wife! God
forbid that I should keep you there!"

BOOK III.

THE LAND OF THE LONG SHADOW

CHAPTER XXXI.

"They have the night, who had, like us, the day--
We, whom day binds, shall have the night as they--
We, from the fetters of the light unbound,
Healed of our wound of living, shall sleep sound!"
SWINBURNE.

Night on the Altenfjord,--the long, long, changeless night of winter.
The sharp snow-covered crests of the mountains rose in white appeal
against the darkness of the sky,--the wild north wind tore through the
leafless branches of the pine-forests, bringing with it driving pellets
of stinging h