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traditional horror of a scene, and she was thoroughly subdued. After he was gone, she busied herself with her preparations, collecting a few treasures, her own special property. She tried to feel some gladness, some foretaste of a possible future awaiting her, but her heart sank, aspiration seemed dead. Her thoughts turned persistently to the past and to the present; the future was an utter blank.

Was Tom really as indifferent as he seemed? What would he feel when he next came home—after she was gone? He had always seemed glad to come home, even last night before———

Going through the house was a fresh trial. She was a careful housewife in spite of loftier aims; now, everything would be left to the servants, there would be terrible waste and disorder. Even this accentuated the sense of general disturbance and undoing.

"She came upon a packet of old letters."

In opening a box to look for some trinkets she came upon a packet of old letters. She knew them well enough—Tom's letters before they were married; and tied up with them a little bunch of dried lavender. She had not looked at the letters for a year, nor smelt the lavender. She sat down now on the floor in the midst of the disorder she had created, with the packet in her lap. She would read them to herself, she called it taking a last look into an open grave, which was rather a strong expression; afterwards she would—burn them. She began to read, with the lavender in her hand, and the tender, living words of a great love spoke to her anew, moving her nobler nature as they had moved it in the the old days, and the dried sticks in her hand bloomed again, and she was back in the old garden where the lavender bushes grew, and the sun was shining, and Tom was there—and———

The poor girl flung herself sobbing upon the couch; oh! what had she done—had he really changed so, and forgotten everything in this short while, or was it all through the fault of her own unrestful heart? With the quick rebound into extremes that belonged to her nature she suddenly saw herself utterly in the wrong, false to her wifely duty, and the sacredness of her love. To be the wife of Tom Vane again seemed the highest of all aspirations. The days and hours in which he had left her were forgotten. She looked at her watch; she was longing now to throw herself into her husband's arms and sob out all her folly and her repentance. But it was already too late in the afternoon to find him at his office if she went to town; but for her wickedness he would soon have been coming home. She would write; he would receive the letter the first thing in the morning, if not that night. There would be time for him to reply before starting North—perhaps even to come. She wrote as sweet and penitent a letter as woman could write; her tears, the realities of the step which had been so fatally near, and the recurrence of the old strain of half-forgotten happiness, had deepened her nature. She humbled herself utterly, only asking him to remember her youth and impetuosity, promising that if he would bear with her she would strive to be to him the help and companion that he needed. She laid bare the doubts and distrust of the past months, and the revival