Year: 1874

She was taken with


A MORTAL DREAD.


Her body shook, and her gloved
right hand that had held the letter
trembled, lying on her lovers arm.
She clasped the other hand on it to
help herself to stand, so faint did
the shock make her feel. She look
ed up in his face for comfort.


"What is it, Eugenia?" he asked


She could not answer for time.


"Arthur," she said presently, edo
you quite believe in me?"


He looked round to see that no
one was near.


"Quite," he said, smiling, as he
laid his hand on her clasped ones.


''Do you remember what / once
told you about -?''


"About Stephen Goodlake?"


. am glad 1 told you that"


''He is here now"


"Where?''


"Within few yards of us at this
moment-perhaps watching u.s." she
said, in a low voice, and she held
herself closer to him.


Lord Vereker looked grave.


"What does he want?'


'TO see me-"


With fingers that would scarcely
obey her, she opened out the letter,
which she had crumpled in her hand
she fiattened it out on his wrist.


''Read it" she said, looking with
anxious eyes into his face.


''No," he said, placing his own
hand to cover the letter, 81 do not
wish to-"


A curious feeling came to her.
Lord Vereker was everything in
the world to her. Size would die
gladly rather than to lose the least
particle of the great love she knew
he had for her; and yet in this ex-
tremity of hers she could not refrain
from comparing the Stephen Good
lake of the past, the man who had
once sworn he loved her better than
any woman in the world, and to
whOm-long as his image had faded
from her thoughts-she believed she
had for short moment given some
little share of her girlish heart; she
compared him with Lord Yereker,
and, looking at him, she wished he
had been a man that she could bet
ter have confded in. She knew that
Stephen Goodlake was treating her
badly; she knew that his letter was
a threatening letter; she knew that
he trusted to the strength and vehe-
mence of his character to force her
in some way to his will. There was
something that was terrible to her
in his mere size and physical strength,
and she wished she could look to
Lord Vereker as to one in whose pro-
lection she could feel quite secure,
and whose superior moral strength
would encompass and support and
make amends for her own feebleness,
to whom she could have intrusted
her fears, and freely admitted her
past weakness, and her present
strength in her love and in her truth
to him. She would have liked to
say to her lover, ''This man has been
too much for me-little enough in
comparison to what you are-but
still something-this is what he now
says, this is what fear he will try
to force me to do; but now that l
am yours, do not let him hurt me
stand between him and me-save
me from him." and this it was that
she felt she could not say to Lord
Vereker.


She had often desired to tell him


THE WHOLE STORY,


with every particular and circum-
stance, of Stephen Goodlake, and
she had told him something, but not
all that she had wished him to know.
She was certain he had never rightly
understood how this mans vehe-
mence had hurried her, little more
than a child at the time, into fancy.
ing that she cared for one whose
character she afterward had reason
to despise, and whose memory she
now loathed. She felt that she her
self would be weak in the presence
of this man, but at least she was a
woman, and therein perhaps safer
than any man who should stand be-
fore Stephen Goodlake in one of his
angry, savage moods-of any man,
that is, who was physically his infe-
rior; and there was, though she
hardly defined the feeling, some bit
terness in this reflection that Lord
Vereker, much as she loved him,
was neither in bodily nor even in
moral strength, the equal of Stephen
'Goodlake


"What will you do?" said Lord
Vereker.


81 must speak to him-alone."


els this your real wish?" said her
lover.


81 must do it," she said, disengag-
ing her arm.


She went onward few steps and
she turned to look back at her lover
She could not understand him quite.
He made no objection to her going
to meet man who he knew had
loved her, and perhaps would tell
her he still loved her. Would she
be like that if the cases were reyers-
ed? Gould he care for her as she dld
for him? In truth she was right III
thinking that she did not quite un-
derstand Lord Vereker. Even she
had not got to know the full loyalty
of his love for her, nor the large
trust he had in the woman whom he
had enshrined in his heart as the
truest and noblest in the world.


"Arthur," she said, returning the
few steps she had gone, and touch
ing his arm, "tell me l go with your
leave"


$50, my darling" he said, and he
pressed her hand, 81 shall not be out
of hearing. If you need me, call.


So encouraged she went forward
into the darknest of the wood; reach
ing more and more into its stiffness;
urged to compliance with the vague
I 1. II. Il. l.