Year: 1874

MIN Tor moment. his beard now
hid much of his face, but his eyes
she knew him by almost immediate
ly-the great, intense, dark eyes
which she had once liked to look in
to.


There was not the angry, menac-
ing expression in them which she
had expected they would wear at
sight of her, which she had seen
once or twice before, and which was.
what chiefly she remembered Ste
phen GoOdlake by, and what. in
truth, had got to clothe him in her
memory with vague terror. Not.
indeed, that the girl was physically a
coward; she could raise her ewes
boldly enough to the level of anv
mere bodily peril, but she dreaded,
as women will always dread, the un-
known. She had formed some quite
ignorant supposition of the extent of
the evil that the man who stood be-
fore her could work her if he should
choose; in plain truth, she feared
that he could cross the great love be-
tween Lord Vereker and herself.


This episode in


HER PAST LIFE,


of Stephen Goodlake and his love
for her, had at one time gone nearly
out of her memory. 1t was more
than four years ago that he had
come to Beechwood, the college
friend and companion of her brother.
She, half child and half woman, had
been for an instant captlvated by
his handsome face, and believed in
and half responded to the love he
had told her of with such strong
semblance of passion. Then he had
gone. Then there had come to
Beechwood stories of his misconduct;
of some great disgrace he had incur
red, some stain on his honor that no
time would remove; so deep a stain
that even her brother, his own fa-
miliar friend, had spoken of him with
contempt. Then it was known that
he had been compelled to leave En-
gland, and after that his name had
never been heard at Beechwood; and
neither then, nor at any time, had it
been suspected that between Stephen
Goodlake and Eugenia Sandon any
thing had passed.


After this had come for her the
passing into the new busy life of So
ciety, which our English girls enter
at step from out of the narrow
round of their childish existence.
Then had grown up the love be-
tween her and Lord Vereker, and
that love had quite filed her life;
then her only brothers death; and
now year or more had passed, and
the time of her marriage was draw
ing near.


1t had been lately and for the first
time that the old memory of Stephen
Goodlake had overtaken her. At
moments when the vision before her
seemed at its most golden, when her
enjoyment of her youth and her
great love made existence a bright,
delightful dream for her, when her
life-pulses were beating their fullest
and quickest, then suddenly a vague
dread would seize and benumb her
senses; for some instinct told her to
surmise that the mans nature that
had made him false to others would
make him


PLAY FALSE WITH HER, TOO.
Needy and unseIupulous as he was,
he might, it one day occurred to her,
see his advantage in tOrturing into a
promise on her part that which had
passed between them, and the re-
demptiOn of any such promise, now
that she was a great heiress, might
be worth such mans while to hesi-
tate at nothing to bring about.


She had told Lord Vereker every
thing he would listen to about this
event in her life; it was indeed but
half confession, for he would hear
of no full details; and what if now
this man, driven to desperation,
should either in revenge or to gain
his ends, partly reveal, and partly
exaggerate, and partly invent some
such story as should be slur upon
her that even her lover could not
overlook.


"Eugenia," said Stephen Good
lake. She looked full at him, and
he could not see in her face how full
of terror was her heart. 81 am come
here at no little danger to myself, to
see you once more"


1t was the old voice which she re-
membered so we'll, and which once
she thought so eloquent, but now
there was a ring in it which grated
unpleasantly on her ear, an unreal
kind of over-emphasis, such as actors
in the theatres employ. 1t seemed
to herself odd that she should notice
this now for the first time.


She made him no answer.


81 was compelled to write to you
as l did" he said, ''that l might be
snre Won would come. Eugenia, tell
me YOU have sometimes let my i'm
aoe cross your memory"


She drew back, for he had stepped
forward from the tree against which
he had been leaning, and would have
taken her hand.


"Mr. Goodlake, have you any,
thing to say to me?" She spoke in a
voice that was hardly more than a
whisper.


eyes," he said, in earnest tones,
that seemed to tremble, or that he
made to seem to tremble. eyes, |
have this to tell you, that never once
in the four long years that have
passed since we parted at this tree,
never once since the day you swore
to me you would be mine"


Eugenia shuddered.


"Never, for a day." he went on,
'never for an hour have l ceased to
think of, to hope for you, to wish for
you, to long for the time to come,
as it has now come, when the clou9
that has hung over my name shouiu
be removed, when | could come 10
you, Eugenia, aud remind you OF the
promise you gave me.
The false note in the mans voice
struck her more and more as he went