or a long time--while Thelma
went to bed, and lay restless among her pillows, puzzling her brain with
strange forebodings and new and perplexing ideas, till fatigue
overpowered her, and she fell asleep with a few tear-drops wet on her
lashes. And that night Philip wondered why his sweet wife talked so
plaintively in her sleep,--though he smiled as he listened to the drift
of those dove-like murmurings.

"No one knows how my boy loves me," sighed the dreaming voice. "No one
in all the world! How should he tire? Love can never tire!"

Meanwhile, Lady Winsleigh, in the seclusion of her own boudoir, penned a
brief note to Sir Francis Lennox as follows--

"DEAR OLD LENNIE,"

"I saw you in the stalls at the theatre this evening, though you
pretended not to see me. What a fickle creature you are! not that I
mind in the very least. The virtuous Bruce-Errington left his
saintly wife and me to talk little platitudes together, while he,
decorously accompanied by his secretary, went down to pay court to
Violet Vere. How stout she is getting! Why don't you men advise her
to diet herself? I know you also went behind the scenes--of course,
you _are_ an _ami intime_--promising boy you are, to be sure! Come and
lunch with me to-morrow, if you're not too lazy."

"Yours ever, CLARA."

She gave this missive to her maid, Louise Renaud, to post,--that
faithful attendant took it first to her own apartment where she ungummed
the envelope neatly by the aid of hot water, and read every word of it.
This was not an exceptional action of hers,--all the letters received
and sent by her mistress were subjected to the same process,--even those
that were sealed with wax she had a means of opening in such a manner
that it was impossible to detect that they had been tampered with.

She was a very clever French maid was Louise,--one of the cleverest of
her class. Fond of mischief, ever suspicious, always on the alert for
evil, utterly unscrupulous and malicious, she was an altogether
admirable attendant for a lady of rank and fashion, her skill as a
_coiffeur_ and needle-woman always obtaining for her the wages she so
justly deserved. When will wealthy women reared in idleness and luxury
learn the folly of keeping a trained spy attached to their persons?--a
spy whose pretended calling is merely to arrange dresses and fripperies
(half of which she invariably steals), but whose real