till my own hair and face and breast were scorched and burning in the same flames, and tried by the very closeness of the embrace to overcome the dread power which held her. I struggled with it as with a beast of prey. I drew her nearer and nearer to a door from which hung a woollen curtain, which I would have folded round her, but, after the first moment of passive endurance, she struggled so violently that it was almost impossible to hold her, and my own senses were failing me from the smoke, the flame, and that loud deafening voice of the fire. The last thing I remember was some heavy cloak being thrown (by some person who perilled life in entering the blazing ring of fire which encircled us) round us, or rather over us, for I had at last tottered and fallen, still clutching Marian, but with a horrible sense that what I held, or dress or flesh, was pulverizing in my grasp. I remember nothing more!

It must have been four or five days afterwards when I regained clear consciousness. I was in a burning fever, and this gave me a sudden and delirious and fictitious strength. I was in bed. It must have been late at night, or rather early in the morning, for there was that indescribable chill in the air which is the harbinger of dawn, and which penetrates with a mysterious and piercing power even in a closed room.

I saw that there was a mattress in the furthest part of the room on the floor, and that my servant was asleep on it.

I tried to raise my hands, but they were stiff from pain, and swathed in some soft wool which made them powerless.

I did not at once remember where I was. I fancied it was the continuation of my long illness after my return from the Continent years ago. I expected to see my mother enter. I thought of the Grange, of the Warburtons.

The door opened and a man entered. He did not come up to the bed, and I could not see his face. He roused the servant, and they talked together.

I waited.

Then I heard from below the tramp of horses, as of carriages being drawn before the house very slowly. "For fear of disturbing me," I thought, and closed my eyes. When I opened them Maynard stood beside the bed.

There was a night-light near the bed, and I saw he was dressed as for a journey. He looked very pale.

"You are better, Spencer," he said, for he saw there was recognition in my eyes. I remembered now.

"Better, yes. Where is Marian ?" His voice was very low and sad as he answered.

"You did all that you could-she did not suffer after It was a frightful accidentmany have been sadly hurt-no one can account for it, except that in lighting up the room some spark must have fallen on the artificial wood-work which supported the musicians' gallery. It must have been going on for hours before it was discovered, and then it had spread far and wide, the difficulty of obtaining water, the panic, the draughts produced by the sudden rush outwards and opening of every door and window, by which escape could be sought, increased the danger.

"And Marian ? "

"No one can explain it clearly; but it seems she had only that minute left the dancing. A servant, so says Lascelles, had given her a note, and she crossed over from the dancers and took it to read and to answer, under the musicians' gallery where the greatest light was; some portion of the crumbling drapery must have fallen on her dress, for she was in flames in a moment;

too frightened to move at first, and then too far from the door to reach it. She never spoke again, but was insensible to the last. The physicians say the fright must have produced a congestion of the brain; she did not suffer; had it not been for this congestion you would have saved her."

How kindly Maynard tried to convey comfort.

"It was a dreadful fatality her receiving that note," he continued.

I groaned.

"I arrived in the very midst of the confusion. I have done all that I thought you would wish. I am going now." "Going!"

"To Speynings. Nora will do her best for you, though her hands are quite full. Poor Fanny injured herself very much in trying to save you both. It was too late for Marian, but I think but for her you must have perished, too."

I turned away my head; I could not control the poor womanish tears; from what untold depths of bitterness did they not flow!

Maynard left the room, and he beckoned to the servant to follow him to receive some more orders.

I waited. I felt that the fever was mounting to my brain, but I was cunning and guarded as madness always is.

I rose, upheld by a strange strength, and got out of bed, and supporting myself as best I might, tottered to the window. I opened the curtains-the shutters were closed but not fastened-with great difficulty, owing to my bandaged hands, I opened them and looked out. Had I not been in this strange, half-somnambulic state I could not have done it.

I looked out, it was not quite dark; the early dawn of a winter morning was gray in the sky. As far as could be seen one carpet of spotless white covered the earth, but beside the house some dark vehicles were drawn, and there the pawing and stamping of the horses had blackened and broken up the snow. There were torches flaring about, held by men in funereal garments.

I was so stupified that I did not immediately understand what it was; when suddenly, as the ghastly procession ranged itself in order, I saw that it was a funeral. There was the hearse, and then, as if rung on my brain with agonizing distinctness, I heard the bells of the neighboring church toll-toll slowly, and then the whole array defiled before the house, and it took the direction, not of the church but of the neighboring station.

It then all flashed upon me: Maynard was going to Speynings; that hearse which I saw was bound there, too; that bell which was clanging in my brain with such fearful and tragic pathos told me with its iron tongue what it was I looked upon. This was the last that I should ever see-the last I should ever hear of-Marian. I felt as if that sound had cloven me to the earth.

CHAPTER XII.

A LONG period ensued of darkness and delirium. I remember by snatches certain changes, but the mass of days which passed were lost to me. I have only one distinct recollection of that time. Over and over THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. 864

again that spectral-looking funeral procession over the sullied snow, the flare of the torches, and the tolling of the bell were repeated, till I wonder life did not perish in the suffering. I witnessed it as one might witness a scene in a play, but I could not escape from it. As soon as the end came it was repeated all over again, till I became insensible; but with the miserable return of consciousness returned this nightmare of pain and horror with more and more verisimilitude, and it was rendered yet more vivid by the utter oblivion in which I remained of everything else.

I had a faint notion that I had been moved, that I had been borne through the air: but it was at intervals only, and this notion was unconnected with any feeling of leaving one place or arriving at another, and was only bewildering and unintelligible.

At last, after a longer period of utter darkness than any that had preceded it, I clearly felt that life, sentient life, was no longer swaying backwards and forwards on a trembling balance, but was settling and righting itself. I was utterly powerless to move hand and foot, but I opened my eyes, and by the uncertain light of a flickering fire I could distinguish that I was in the small room next to the library at Speynings. For the first time for months no phantoms clouded my vision, and my hearing, which seemed endowed with double its usual acuteness, was no longer oppressed with any unreal sound.

I heard the irregular drop of the coalashes from the fire, and the crackling of the wood, and the faint breathing of some onea woman-seated beside the curtain at the foot of the bed. There was another person also in the room seated on some low seat before the fire, for I could see the shadow of her figure on the ground as the light from the fire rose and fell.

The silence was unbroken. I could make no sign or sound, and the two persons who watched might have been statues from their motionlessness. The room was quite dark, but whether it was morning or evening I knew not. At last I heard the door open, and a footstep, so gentle that no ear save one so preternaturally acute as mine could have detected it, slowly and cautiously advanced into the room.

The lady approached the person in the

deity manifests itself. Where, amid those ruins and that waste, can a fitting temple be erected.

I turned into the avenue and paced it up and down.

At last Fanny came out, and I met her at

If the voice of love calls to us-though we are buried in sin and misery, sepulchred in corruption, with the defeature of death on our brows and the grave-clothes on our limbs -we must come forth and obey it.

One evening, about eighteen months after Fanny's return to the Maynard's, I called at a lodge in which lived that old servant of my mother's who had nursed me in my last severe illness. She was a widow now and had removed here near her old home. She was dying, poor woman, of consumption. When I entered the parlor the little servant who waited on her told me Miss Fanny was with her, and asked me to wait. I consented. The parlor opened out of the bed-room, and I could hear Fanny's gentle voice reading to her. I heard the words distinctly, and they lost none of their soothing and healing power on me when uttered by that voice. When Fanny had finished she asked the poor creature if she could do anything for her, or bring anything the next day.

"No, ma'am. I have everything I can want, the squire lets me want for nothing. He is very good-his mother's own son, after all."

I did not hear Fanny's reply.

"I do wish he looked happier like." "He has suffered a good deal." "Yes, ma'am; but there's no reason he shouldn't get over it. He did his duty to her, if any man did."

Fanny was again inaudible.

"But you would make him happier, Miss. Please, don't be angry with me-it's flying in the face of Providence not to see it; and how glad Madam Spencer would have been!"

"Hush!" I heard Fanny say; "you must not speak so, Susan. It would vex me, but that I'm going away.”

"Lor, Miss, don't you say so. When ? " "Not yet, Susan; but you know I go always at this time for my six months' visit to Scotland."

I would not overhear more, but gently slipped out and resolved to return the next day.

rectory.

"Poor Susan is sinking fast," she said to

me.

"Yes, it must soon be over. She is a faithful good creature."

"Yes, she is such a link with the past that to me it will be really a great loss. There is so little left now of the old times at Speynings—”

These words seemed to drop from her unconsciously.

"Worse than nothing," I replied, "for that which is left there is so unworthy of that time—"

She interrupted me quickly.

"Do not speak so. I was foolish."
“Just. Only just.”

"No, not just. You have done all you could. If the dead could speak with my lips, they would say you had done well, Hubert." And for the first time, in her emotion, for long years, she called me by that name.

66

Fanny," I said, "have you forgiven me, then, have you felt that if repentance, devotion, reverence, could merit forgiveness, I was not unworthy

"I have nothing to forgive; no one has been more sorry for you in your grief; no one has so truly wished to see you happy once more."

66

Happiness is a word that has no meaning in it for me; for years I sought it regardless of everything but my own selfish interpretation of it, and it has left a bitter and deadly taste in me. I need pardon, compassion, love;-will you forgive, will you pity, will you love?"

She started, and turned pale.

"Speak, Fanny; I can bear rejection; I have nerved myself to do so, for I know my unworthiness; but I wish you to know, come what may, that my whole heart is yours. Will you accept it ? "

Her hand fell in mine as she murmured"Yes."

"Will you take my life to unite to yours -yours so good, pure, true; mine so full of soils and stains ?"

"Yes."

"Let me kneel to thank God-to thank