arted, and Nora knew that she had made a friend for life.

[Illustration: Nora's veil.]

When she first took her place in the house at Twickenham as a
resident, Trevelyan did not take much notice of her;--but, after
awhile, he would say a few words to her, especially when it might
chance that she was with him in her sister's absence. He would speak
of dear Emily, and poor Emily, and shake his head slowly, and talk of
the pity of it. "The pity of it, Iago; oh, the pity of it," he said
once. The allusion to her was so terrible that she almost burst out
in anger, as she would have done formerly. She almost told him that
he had been as wrong throughout as was the jealous husband in the
play whose words he quoted, and that his jealousy, if continued, was
likely to be as tragical. But she restrained herself, and kept close
to her needle,--making, let us hope, an auspicious garment for Hugh
Stanbury. "She has seen it now," he continued; "she has seen it now."
Still she went on with her hemming in silence. It certainly could not
be her duty to upset at a word all that her sister had achieved. "You
know that she has confessed?" he asked.

"Pray, pray do not talk about it, Louis."

"I think you ought to know," he said. Then she rose from her seat and
left the room. She could not stand it, even though he were mad,--even
though he were dying!

She went to her sister and repeated what had been said. "You had
better not notice it," said Emily. "It is only a proof of what I told
you. There are times in which his mind is as active as ever it was,
but it is active in so terrible a direction!"

"I cannot sit and hear it. And what am I to say when he asks me a
question as he did just now? He said that you had confessed."

"So I have. Do none confess but the guilty? What is all that we have
read about the Inquisition and the old tortures? I have had to learn
that torturing has not gone out of the world;--that is all."

"I must go away if he says the same thing to me so again."

"That is nonsense, Nora. If I can bear it, cannot you? Would you have
me drive him into violence again by disputing with him upon such a
subject?"

"But he may recover;--and then he will remember what you have said."

"If he recovers altogether he will suspect nothing. I must take my
chance of that. You cannot suppose that I have not thought about it.
I have often sworn to myself that though the world should fall around
me, nothing should make me