Both drew a long breath of relief, but as yet neither uttered a sound.

"She is gone-we are safe!" whispered the little culprit at last; but so low that Wat had to bend his head closer to hear.

He could just see her eyes, in the darkness, looking up into his; could feel her soft breath on his cheek: some of her loose hair blew lightly against his shoulder and touched his face. Hardly knowing what he is doing or saying, he catches her other hand also, drawing her yet nearer to him.

"Promise me you will never do anything so foolish as this again?-promise me, won't you?" he whispered caressingly, lovingly; low as were her own words.

"I won't that means, I do promise."

He could hardly hear that faintest of whispers, though they are so near: so his face bent still a little lower.

"That is right; dear little Mabel!" His moustache brushes her cheek; his lips touch hers. For one long moment both know not

VOL. J.

N

where they are-they do not feel that they themselves are! Their whole being and individuality seemed merged in each other; -lost to reality, for that second they had ceased living on earth!

Then, as if by mutual consent, both moved apart; and silent, dared hardly look at each other.

Mabel was trembling once more; now like an aspen leaf. The next moment, with a quivering gasp, she would have made one frightened spring away, but that Walter, who had partly recovered himself, seized her hand again with a firm, warm grasp; trying to speak in his usual kindly tone as he said, "Good night."

Then she darted from him through the shadowy doorway, and, hardly knowing how, gained her shelter. He, however, turned away, after one long glance at a wellremembered window, with the happiest smile on his face he had ever had, and the most feverish tide of joy through his whole

being, that he had ever known in all the years he had lived. But Mabel pressed a burning face into the pillow, feeling one moment deliriously happy, and the next bitterly shamed at such wicked happiness: appalled at her own mad freak and its terrible consequences, and for hours weeping, wakeful, miserable, yet glad with some new strange, bitter sweetness; and she knew not why.

180

CHAPTER X.

“Nous qui détestons les gens

Tantôt rouges, tantôt blancs,

Parlons bas,

Parlons bas;

Ici près j'ai vu Judas,

J'ai vu Judas, j'ai vu Judas."

BERANGER.

EXT morning our little heroine had to

NEXT

face her step-mother alone, with all the sense of her guilt upon her; for her old father had had a bad attack towards morning. This illness, though Madame apparently made light of it, had given her cause for anxious thought, and planning, since dawn; and had greatly influenced the course she meant to take with regard to some suspicions of Mabel's late actions.

She had, when first she came as governess, been obliged to toil with weary craft to gain her pupil's regard; then-when this scheming had been so unexpectedly crowned with success in making her mistress of Cherrybank, her subsequent small and very refined little cruelties, had been, in her mind, only a natural indemnification for the constraint she had been obliged to put upon her nature. And though she could never like Mabel, yet the latter's hothearted rebellion had no doubt prolonged and embittered the retribution.

But now! Should her old husband die suddenly, and leave this hateful girl his heiress, she herself-heavens !-would be almost a pauper! Such another attack might end all-and never yet had she succeeded in having a will made in her own favour; despite hints, despite worrying, or even those coaxing, maddeningly slow conversations alone. All was now difficult-so difficult! She must again abase herself to this saucy