ick pleased led with him where he which Frederick had been reading to her chose to lead her, drawn into new cir- on the previous night. If anything had cumstances which she did not under- been wanting to confirm her resolution, stand, yet shrank from. To put these this book would have done it. As soon vague sentiments of fright, repulsion, and as they were gone she went to her room alarm into words is to do them wrong, and dressed herself carefully. She took and to give to them a distinctness which care to make no appeal to Alice, who they did not possess; but words are the would have stopped her — she knew, and only medium I have for conveying to the dressed herself without aid, taking out reader any idea of the state of confusion, her best dress, the new mourning which shame, pain, and terror which_vaguely became her pale and dreamy beauty. No filled the mind of Innocent. This ter- one observed her as she went out; and ror of Frederick's love was, perhaps, very swift and straight, looking neither quite undue and unnecessary, since Fred- to the right hand nor the left, she purerick had already realized the necessity sued her way. She had gone with Mrs. for quenching anything like love for In- Eastwood and Nelly more than once to nocent, and thought himself quite strong the house where Sir Alexis Longueville enough to do so. But perhaps it was had so often something to show his some subtle consequence of the mistaken friends - now a new picture, now a rare notion he had so long entertained of her flower, now some costly and elaborate love for him, which produced this mistak- piece of furniture. He was fond of everyen notion on her part of his love for her, thing that was rare and costly, and his and became the motive of the most de- bachelor house was one of the sights cided act of her life. She did not sleep. which connoisseurs delighted to be adThe long long winter night, which felt as mitted to. It was not very far from the if it would never end, spun out its linger- Elms, a detached house surrounded by a ing hours of darkness, while all these garden, which, in its way, was a sight too, things passed darkly through her mind notwithstanding the near neighbourhood but as she waked and dreamed there of London smoke. Sir Alexis lived by suddenly occurred to her a way of escape himself in this dainty dwelling-place. It - a prospect of help. She had made a was like a child to him; he was constantpromise of which no one knew-a prom-ly making alterations, perfecting this and ise which had never before recurred to that, improving upon the unimprovable; her mind from the moment she made it; and the house was a show-house. Nevthis promise suddenly returned to her ertheless, when Innocent, young and memory in her moment of deepest dark- alone, made her way to the door, and ness. She had promised if she needed asked for Sir Alexis, the man who opened help, if she wanted change a thing im- it to her was startled. Sir Alexis had possible at that moment, impossible a not always been the irreproachable midfew hours ago, but now so real and so dle-aged gentleman he was now, and his necessary to seek it from one man; old servant, as well as his old friends, not the friend for whom Mrs. Eastwood recollected passages in his life which sighed, whom Nelly bitterly and against were not such as to make the visit of a her will involved in her thoughts; a sav-young girl alone, a natural occurrence. iour, whose name occurred to poor Innocent now as a sudden and only refuge in her trouble. When she thought of him, and remembered her promise to him, Innocent fell asleep. She had some one in whose hands she could place her difficulty, and at once her mind, unused to any such burdens, was eased.

She said nothing to any one of her purpose. She felt instinctively that had she spoken of it she would have been prevented from carrying out her intention. She did nothing, and said nothing, even to Alice, until next afternoon, when Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly went out on some necessary business. They thought it too cold for Innocent, and placed her in an easy chair by the fire, with the story-book

The servant stared at Innocent, and told her that his master was engaged, and made various excuses. But Innocent was imperious to all such hesitations. She would not tell what her business was, she would not be put off. "Tell him Í want him," she said, walking in, in her simplicity. Such a girl, absolutely preoccupied, unconscious of any evil, pursuing her object without arrière pensée, without fear or thought of harm, is, I believe, safe to go over the world without let or hindrance. She hesitated only when the man asked her her name. "Say it is Innocent," she answered at last, with a look of perfect gravity which checked the smile which began to form about his lips.

"A young lady?" said Sir Alexis.

when the message was delivered to him, I should have done. It was because you said so yourself that I have come

"Alone? it must be some mistake."

"No mistake, Sir Alexis," said the man, suffering the incipient grin to show itself, but, with a cautious watchfulness lest it should be out of place. "When I asked if there was any name, she gave me a queer name. I don't know if she's all right here. She bid me to tell you, Sir Alexis, as how it was Innocent

"Innocent!" said Longueville, starting up. "You idiot, why did you not tell me? Where have you put her?" and with a haste and anxiety which put all thought of a grin out of his attendant's head, Sir Alexis rushed out, thrusting away the man, whose mind changed on the subject in the twinkling of an eye.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

AN APPEAL.

"INNOCENT! you here, and alone where are the others?" cried Sir Alexis, taking both her hands.

he

"Yes, I did say so," he murmured in his confusion. He was confused, but she was perfectly calm; her eyes met his with their childish look of appeal; no consciousness, no embarrassment, nothing in them that was not simple as her soul. The man's heart was touched beyond expression. "Yes, my dear," he said, "I did say so and this house is yours, and everything in it. You shall stay if you will you shall do with it as you please. I am grieved-grieved to the heart that you should be unhappy. Have confidence in me I will do everything for you that I could do for my own child." "Thanks," she said, gently, 'you were always kind;" and then seemed to fall into a half-reverie-a dreamy selfabsorbed pause. "I have so much to tell you," she resumed, "I don't know where to begin

"Tell me first why you have left home?" he asked.

A faint colour came upon her cheek

"I have come - because I promised," said Innocent-"no one knows. You" That comes last of all," she said, "and were to help me if I wanted help. I till you hear the first you will not underhave come for that. If I, ever wanted stand. Frederick has come home. He to go awayto have some one to help lives with us again as he used to do; me that was what you said. Surely and last night - we talked- and he said he loved me. you recollect? He must not love me; it "Recollect! —yes, I recollect," is terrible so much as to think of it, after said, in agitation and dismay, and led her what has happened. And how could I to a seat. He looked at her with a won- live there and see him every day when der which words could not express, and that is what he is thinking? So I rememwith a troubled sense of his accounta-bered you, and came to you to help me. bility for having made such a promise, which had never occurred to him at the moment it was made. To have her here in his house, all alone, was an indecorum which struck the old man of the world as it never would have struck Innocent. "My dear child, tell me what it is will walk home with you," he said in his confusion, not knowing what other suggestion to make.

Now, please, I want to go away · to stay there no longer.- Take me, as you said you would — take me away."

"Innocent, do you understand what you are saying?" he asked, once more taking both her hands in his. Her words roused him out of all secondary feelings. There was no passion left in his steady, middle-aged soul for any woman; but this strange creature had charmed him "But I do not want to go home," said by her strangeness, her rarity, the pathos Innocent. "I came to you to help me. I of her beauty. She had refused him as have a great deal to tell you; but if they few men are refused, and now had she see me they will take me back, they will come to offer herself to him? Middlenot understand. Oh, keep me here!-aged as he was he could not refuse to be help me as you said

"Innocent! you bewilder me. What has happened - what can I do? But, whatever I can do, my dear child, it will be better for you to be at home."

“I do not think so," she said; "and I have been thinking a great deal - I have been very unhappy; there is a great deal, a very great deal to tell you. But for thinking of you I do not know what I

moved by a quickening thrill of excitement; nothing could have made him an impassioned lover, but he was glad to have her, and his heart grew fond and tender as he held her hands. "Innocent!" he repeated, “do you mean this? Think! Do not encourage me and then disappoint me. There is but one way that I can take you anywhere. You must marry me first; do you know?”

"Has it something to do with that?” said the new bridegroom, gradually becoming conscious of an elevation of feeling more fitted to the occasion. "Then let us put off talking of it. You have been ill, my poor child: your pretty cheek is pale; you are looking worn and thin. You shall go to Italy, to Pisa, Innocent

She shrank a little, instinctively, look- [ fondness, and an incredulous admiring ing at him all the time with serious eyes, smile. which shrank not, and then said, slowly “Ah, but you do not know,” cried In"Yes I know." nocent; and then her voice fell into a He was so startled by this assent, so low strain of narrative-gentle, yet penetaken by surprise, and, at the same time.trating and clear as a bell. "I was sent so put upon his guard by all the decorums down to the High Lodge. and punctilios of which she knew nothing, that he made no such response as a lover might have made. He uttered some broken exclamations in his bewilderment. The surprise was a joyful one; but yet it was a surprise, and brought as much wonder with it as pleasure. Then Sir Alexis remembered, suddenly, in the midst of his confusion, what was owing to the self-respect of a woman who had thus rashly risked herself and her womanly credit. He kissed the small, slender, girlish hands one after another with reverential fervour. "Thanks, a thousand times, for your generous confidence," he said, "I hope I am worthy of the trust. It is settled between us, then, of your free will, Innocent of your free will? you will be my wife?"

"Yes," she said, once more, grave as if she were uttering the sentence of her own fate. He bent over her, and kissed her forehead; then rising hastily rang the bell.

"Ah!" she said, with a deep sigh, long drawn out, and tremulous; "but first you must hear."

"Not first, my darling—after, when we have spoken of things more important. We will go to Longueville first, and then to Italy. You shall take me to your old home, and we will find your old Niccolo

"Ah!" she said again, this time with a slight nervous shiver; "but you must hear-first you must hear. When I tell you perhaps it will change everything. I was sent to the High Lodge; but it is not about that Frederick saw me in "Go to my sister," he said, giving his the church, and took me to see his wife." orders at the door of the room, orders "Is it about Frederick and his wife? I which Innocent neither heard nor com-am tired of Frederick. You are tremprehended; "and ask her to come to me bling, Innocent. Leave this story for at once. She will do me a great service another time. It cannot make any difif she will be here in half an hour." Then ference to me." he came back and sat down by his future bride.

"Innocent, my darling, now that this is settled between us you can speak to me with confidence. What is it? Frederick would not, could not, have been rude to you? He is a gentleman at least. It is well for me, however, that this happened; but tell me, dear, what it was?" he said, drawing her close to him. It seemed incredible to see her there in his house, bestowing herself upon him, she who only the other day had been so startled by his advances. He was flattered, touched, startled, full of wonder, not knowing what to do, or to say.

Yes," said Innocent, with a sigh, "but there is a great deal to tell you first. Perhaps when I have told you you will cease to care, you will be angry, you will not want me. You say No; but you don't know what I have to say."

"Nothing you can say will affect me, my dear," he said, with almost fatherly

"To see his wife," said Innocent, going on in a low, steady tone, as if once started she had no power to stop. "She was ill. She used to have fits of being angry. She would raise her voice and scold every one, it did not matter whom, even Frederick. He was very kind to me he always was very kind."

Enough about Frederick," said Sir Alexis, with some impatience. "Innocent, you cannot think that your cousin is particularly interesting to me."

"Do not be angry," she said with an appealing look. "He took me to his wife. I stayed with her a long time. She made me read to her; sometimes she was angry, sometimes she was kind. I read and read; and then I fell asleep

"Selfish cur!" cried Sir Alexis, "to put the nursing of that terrible wife of his upon you."

"I woke up to hear her scolding. Oh, how red she was! how her eyes Blazed! She shook me and called to me, and

"Good God! Innocent!"

I

"I was afraid — I was afraid! knew you would be angry," she cried. Sir Alexis withdrew the arm he had put round her. He was speechless with wonder and horror. "Good God!" he repeated when he had found his voice; "What did you do?"

"And you never told them? you did not say what you had done?"

"Do not be angry!" said poor Innocent, bursting into sobs that were piteous to hear.

"I had to drop the drops," said In- He took her into his arms, and did nocent, sinking her voice lower, "I had what he could to comfort her. Poor never done it before. My hand shook, child! poor man, who had bound himself and she scolded, and I could not. At unawares to her foolish fate! He never last-oh do not be angry · - she seized doubted her story for a moment, nor supit out of my hand, and drank it. Listen! posed that she had told him anything less she drank it-and then she died. Do or more than the simple facts; and while you know what that means? I killed he soothed her, and tried to subdue her Frederick's wife!" sobs, his mind set to work seriously, thinking how a way was to be made for her out of this coil which she had woven about her own feet. He was not less sorry for her than the others had been, but his mind was cooler and more ready to act in the emergency. To suppose that she had killed Frederick's wife, as she thought, was absolute folly, of course, he said to himself; but her flight, her silence as to what she had done, her hurried return home, howsoever effected, would be terribly against her. He set his whole faculties to work to find a way out of it. "I am not angry," he said to her, "my poor child! how could I be angry? Innocent, Innocent, you must compose yourself. You must stop crying and let me think what it is best to do.'

"What did I do?" she asked, vaguely, looking at him with wonder and incomprehension.

"Yes; you alarmed the people of course? You told them what had happened?—you had everything done that could be done? How strange that I should have heard nothing of all this!" he said, rising to his feet.

Innocent's heart sank within her. She looked up at him with anxious eyes, into which the tears were coming. No one had been angry before. They had all wept over her, comforted her. But now, at last, he was angry in whom she had placed her last hope. Sobs began to rise in her throat; she deserved that he should be angry, she knew-yet she looked up at him with a pitiful appeal against his wrath. She was guilty of killing Frederick's wife; but of all this that came after this, which she ought to have done, and did not — no one had ever | told her. She made him no reply save by her look, by the big tears that rose into her eyes.

He had risen from her side rather in excitement and dismay than with any intention of deserting the poor child who had thus thrown herself upon him. When his eyes returned to her and he met her piteous look, his heart melted. He came back and sat down by her again. "Poor Innocent," he said, poor little bewildered child. What did you do?"

66

"I came home," she said, shivering. "When they told me she was dead, could not stay any longer. It was dark night very late. I never was out so I came home

late before.

Just then the door opened hastily, and Mrs. Barclay bustled in smiling, and rustling, and gay, with her ample silken skirts and cheerful countenance.

"What is all this, Alexis?" she said; "what do you want me for in such a hurry? What do you mean by having young ladies here? Ah, Innocent, my sweet! I had it borne in upon me that it must be you."

Sir Alexis stumbled up to his feet, and Innocent checked her sobs as by magic, and turned wondering to the new comer. My dear sister, you have judged rightly, " he said. "Innocent has come to me about a difficulty she is in. I will go now to your aunt and see about it, my darling, and my sister will take care of you. Lucilla, this is Lady Longueville that is to be. You are the first to know it; you will take care of my poor little darling? She is ill and nervous; give her some wine, or tea, or something, and make her lie down and rest." "That I will," said kind Mrs. Barclay, "I'll take care of her the little puss! I knew this was coming. I said it all along from the very first day you saw her, Alexis; and I hope she'll be a sweet lit

tle wife to you, as good as she's pretty. I could not say more than that. My dear brother, how I wish you joy!"

And she kissed him heartily, and kissed Innocent, and laughed and cried in honest pleasure, the strangest contrast to the grave emotion, the piteous selfabandonment upon which she came like the very angel of commonplace life, good-humour and kindly feeling. She went with her brother to the door, shaking hands with him in her satisfaction. "Do you mean to say there has been some quarrel with the Eastwoods?" she

asked in an undertone.

"No quarrel; but something, I don't quite know what. Make her rest, Lucilla, and don't allow her to talk. Let me find her well when I return for then we must decide what to do."

life and death? He took a different view of the matter from that which had occurred to the Eastwoods. He never doubted that things were as she had said, and that Amanda's death had really been caused by the excessive opiate. Such things had happened ere now, a painful and haunting recollection, no doubt, to those unhappily involved in them, but not coming within any possible range of crime, or calling for the penalties of justice. To any creature in her senses the situation, though most painful, would have been simple enough. Had Innocent alarmed the house at once, had she called for instant help, and informed the attendants what had happened, she might indeed have regretted and grieved all her life, but she would have been delivered from all blame. But - God help "Trust me, I'll take care of her," said the poor child!—she had done everythe cheerful woman, and in another mo- thing on the contrary to draw suspicion ment Innocent found herself all alone upon her, to give an air of real guilt to with this stranger, in a new world, de- her wild proceedings. Sir Alexis could serted by everybody, everything strange not even make out how it was that up to around her, except the kind words which this time no notice had been taken of she was used to hear, though not from such an extraordinary incident. Had this voice. Her head swam, and there the family concluded to hush it up? had was a ringing as of bells in her ears. they managed to bribe or intimidate the But amid the desolation and pain she felt, there was also a sense of calm pervading her whole soul. This time she had put off the burden bodily, and some one else had taken it up. She had a trust in Sir Alexis, which was produced perhaps by the different way in which he had treated her confession. He had gone away to do something, to deliver her somehow. To bring back Amanda to life, perhaps, and make the dream come to an end; the dream of death, or the dream of life, it did not seem to matter much to Innocent, which was brought to an end. For what was she herself from her first chapter till now but a dream— a very dream?

Sir Alexis, too, felt very much like a man in a dream as he took his hat and buttoned his coat with habitual composure, though his whole being was shaken by the extraordinary position in which he found himself, and the extraordinary revelation just made to him. He walked along the suburban road towards the Elms with his mind full of strange and painful deliberations. His pretty Innocent, the rare and strange creature whom he had coveted as the very crown and flower of all his rarities and costly possessions, was it possible that the first sign of his acquisition of her was this plunge into terrible realities affecting

doctor, to quench all reports? That seemed almost incredible, too. As he went quickly along he planned out and resolved upon a totally different style of proceeding. To have the matter investigated at once, and have Innocent's real share in it fully ascertained, seemed the only expedient possible. Without that what horrors might hang over her; what accusations ready to be brought up in after days if she made any enemies, or if he made any enemies, which was more likely! Thus he went on with a very anxious face to the Elms, where Innocent's absence had just been discovered with consternation. Nelly had been searching for her through the garden, and came in breathless through the conservatory, as Sir Alexis entered by the drawing-room door.

"She is not in the garden," he heard Nelly say, in a tone of fright and anxiety, The ladies were both pale, and looked at each other with miserable embarrassment when he came in. Here was one of those domestic agonies which women have to suffer so often a terrible emergency demanding all their thoughts, and an indifferent visitor suddenly thrust into it, to whom they must say nothing, betray nothing. Sir Alexis relieved them however at once of their pain.