Rose Golightly that any bad news from home for Mr. Theobald must be good news to her.

...

He does not reply, does not see, hear her. The thought of Jane, of her love for him, of the first fond days of their marriage . . . all that there is yet of good in the man's nature gains mastery over him, in this moment's sharpest agony, and holds him dumb.

"I am really afraid you have had bad news, Mr. Theobald," cries Lady Rose. And as she speaks she rises, gracefully agitated, and stands beside him.

He puts the telegram, without a word of answer or of comment, into her hand.

Thus sympathises Lady "We must hope, indeed mistake or exaggeration. So

"Most distressing-and so sudden !" Rose, not lifting her eyes from the paper. we must hope, that there may be some often exaggeration in cases of illness! Would it not be well to telegraph for details ?"

But, even as she says this, Theobald, unheeding her, questions the boy about the Portsmouth steamers. Quietly he speaks-death itself could not make Francis Theobald outwardly flurried-but in an odd hoarse voice; Lady Rose can scarcely recognise it as Theobald's; and with no faintest return of colour to his blanched face.

"The steamer, the last steamer to Portsmouth, has not left yet, but the gentleman won't have a moment to lose if he wants to catch it. The boats start sharp in these flood-tides. Trains from Portsmouth? Well, he doesn't know for certain-believes the last steamer from the island runs to catch the mail up."

"Something dreadful is certainly going on," remarks Loo Childers, pausing in her flirtation with Lord Verreker. "Don't you think it might be as human for us to inquire what? Just look at the colour of Mr. Theobald's face."

Lord Verreker, lifting his hand to the foolish lip where one day there may be a moustache, lisps, "Ya-as, to be sure; inquire, shall we?" And the pair rise. But by the time they reach Lady Rose (Loo prepared with charming platitudes, adapted to any shade of condolence), Theobald is in the act of leaving.

No human being, not even the faithful friend, Loo Childers, will ever know what were the last words spoken between Lady Golightly and the man who was her lover once. But one trifling circumstance Miss Childers notes, and remembers-perhaps may too accurately remember when the faithful friendship shall have gone the way of all mortal alliances. Lady Rose's handkerchief, a dainty perfumed morsel of lace-and-cambric, has fallen to the ground-fell there, doubtless, in the moment of her first graceful agitation-and Theobald's heel grinds it into the dust as he leaves her. A trifling circumstance, of which

Theobald, I am quite sure, is unconscious. But poor Lady Rosehas not Lady Rose eyes to see, and a heart to remember, as well as her friend Loo Childers?

She has more colour in her cheek than usual, more animation in her expression. "Quite a sensational dénoûment." Lord Barty and Colonel Desmond have by this time sauntered up, and Lady Rose finds herself in the position of narrator to the whole party. "But so exactly what one might expect! People like Mrs. Theobald cannot even be ill without doing a little theatre. 'Martha Smith to Francis Theobald'.... Oh, thanks," to Lord Verreker, who restores to her the dust-stained lace-and-cambric. "A lady named Jane Theobald,"and so on throughout the telegram.

Silence all round; then a low kind of whistle, accompanied by a singularly ill-pleased expression of face on the part of Lord Barty Beaudesert.

"The question that naturally presents itself to an inquiring mind is-what was Mrs. Theobald doing at Ostend?" Loo Childers volunteers the observation.

"The question that presents itself to my mind is-was she there at all?" remarks Lord Barty Beaudesert.

"And to mine, too," growls Harry Desmond, with a ferocious pull at his thick moustache.

"And-and to mine!" says the little lordling, thinking it savours of worldly wisdom to copy the cynicism of his elders.

"Whether she is, or is not at Ostend, Mr. Theobald has flown to join her," says Lady Rose, carelessly. "Poor man! the breathless haste in which he rushed off to catch the boat was really exemplary." "Most exemplary, I've no doubt," sneers Lord Barty, looking sulkier and sulkier.

"And you and I may as well be turning our thoughts towards Mrs. Dulcimer, Loo? As the evening is tolerably cool, I suppose we may as well go?"

Loo assents, with a little look of command at Lord Verreker, and the two ladies prepare to start.

"I'll just tell you what I think, Rose," says Lord Barty, unable to smother his ill-humour any longer. "Mr. Theobald is an old friend of yours, and I renewed my acquaintance with him to please you, so I don't want to be unnecessarily severe. But when a man wins the pot of money Theobald won last night, and gets a telegram enabling him to bolt with it, all I can say is, it's a- -convenient sort of telegram, and ashuffling dirty trick for a man to play."

Thus Lord Barty Beaudesert-his finest feelings ruffled by even an apparent want of delicacy or honour on the part of an associate.

"Oh come, Barty, it never does to look too closely into other people's domestic concerns," answers Lady Rose, lightly. "I suppose

in all cases of really happy wedlock, husbands and wives understand each other pretty well."

"I should like to know how much of my money the fellow has got in his pocket at this moment," growls Lord Barty.

"I should like," says Loo Childers, "to know what Mrs. Theobald was doing at Ostend!"

"And I," says Lady Rose, with a little well-dissembled yawn, "should like, if possible, to forget the whole subject! We have troubled ourselves about Mr. and Mrs. Theobald's domestic concerns for at least five consecutive minutes.-Come, Loo," putting her hand within her friend's arm, "if we really mean to go to Mrs. Dulcimer's, it is time for us to talk toilettes."

And so the ladies depart. Good-bye, Lady Rose, may you enjoy your ball! May you enjoy the watches of the night-the watches of many another dead unhappy' future night-that shall succeed!

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE CLOSING SCENE.

IN the room of a foreign hotel my story opened: in the room of a foreign lodging-house it comes to an end. A cleanly-furnished little bedroom, with nasturtiums twining round the window-sill; an engraving or two from Rubens's pictures on the walls; a narrow bedwith a girl's face resting, awfully white and still and shrunken, upon the pillow.

The window is open, and from her bed Jane can see a square of blue sky, framed round by the glowing orange petals and emerald leaves of nasturtium. The angelus is sounding from some neighbouring church or convent. A bunch of flowers upon the mantelshelf fill all the sick-room with their faint sweet autumn odour.

Jane lies white, still, shrunken, but painless-no longer racked by fierce tortures in limbs or chest, no longer pursued by delirious horrors of the brain. What has been her disease? What, in three cruel weeks, has brought all that brilliant health and youth and bloom of hers to this? The little Flemish doctor, here in Ostend, calls it by one long Latin name; the grand English physician, summoned to consultation from Brussels, by another. It must have originated in great mental excitement; it must have originated in exposure to wet and cold. For, having facts laid before them, 'tis surprising how your really clever doctors will find theories to account for them. The truth would seem to be that Jane Theobald has had nearly twenty years of life, and is to have no more! And, when it comes to this, any technical difference in Latin names really matters slightly to the person most concerned.

Nearly twenty years of life. . . . She lies alone-Theobald, to humour her, having gone or promised to go into the fresh air-and, looking up at the sky and listening to the angelus, thinks for awhile over those bygone twenty years. Then, with the prescience that comes to us with exceeding bodily weakness, comes to us oftenest when prescience is no longer of much practical use, she looks onward to the future.

Distinctly she can see it: Theobald given back to his own class in life; Blossy brought up "as a lady," herself forgotten. No, a thousand times, no! Never that. Herself remembered by Theobald as one who loved much, sinned much, died-well, we may say opportunely-and whom he forgave, tended, cherished, with tenderness all beyond her deserts, to the last. But upon this her hands go to her face, the hot tears start, and, with a pang of bitterness unutterable, Jane realises how dear life is, how closely, eagerly she clings to the hope of life yet!

Blossy is well, in London, with Uncle Dick-" perfectly happy and at home," Min's last letter said, "and learning already to play the trombone." It is not because of the child that she yearns for life; she yearns for it-passionately, despite this deathly weakness

that assails her-because of Theobald. The child can have no second mother; but Theobald . . . the tears course each other down her cheeks, her wasted frame quivers! Even death itself the jealousy of this poor ignorant soul can transcend.

A hushed step sounds outside; the door opens, shuts, and Theobald comes up to her bed: Theobald, pale, haggard, unshorn, with eyes hollow from much watching; all his dandyism, all his Dundrearyism, gone.

"What, Jenny-tears?" In an instant his arms are round her; with such small strength as she possesses she has lifted herself to his embrace. "So this is the use you make of your liberty, the first time you have been left alone!"

"I know, Theobald, I'm a fool. The bells set me thinking. I was just-just wondering how Blossy is getting on."

"By Min's account Bloss was never happier in her life; but if you would like to have her here ?"

"Oh, no; we are better as we are, alone. I'm glad,"-after a little tired pause this; Jane speaks but few words at a time, and those few faintly-"I'm glad you sent the child to Uncle Dick, poor old fellow !"

"I thought it was what you would have wished, Jenny. Charlotte was very good." Theobald's glass goes to his eye, instinctively, at the mention of his sister Charlotte. "When they first heard of your illness, Charlotte telegraphed to propose that she should come and nurse you" (Jane gives a little shudder), "and that the child should

go to Anne. But I settled it differently. Indeed, I had already written to Uncle Dick to take her."

"Is all that long ago, my dear? Have I been long here?" "You have been here three weeks, Jane; but we needn't talk about anything that is past now. The past is done with."

'Very nearly, isn't it? The past ended for me, I think, when I saw the lights fade away in Dover Harbour. They took me to the cabin, I remember, and I got faint, and Mrs. Smith held my hand; and then everything's blank, till I woke up here with you. How good it was of you to come over to me so quick, Theobald !"

"Oh, Jane, child, don't let us speak about my goodness!" is Theobald's answer.

And then there is silence.

Since she rallied-since the fever left her, rather, there has been no rallying of strength-Jane will often lie for an hour together supported by Theobald's arms, neither of them speaking. But tonight she seems more restless. Her cheeks during the last minute have got the colour in them again that Theobald dreads. A sort of excitement is in her eyes.

"Raise me a little," she says to him, after a time-" Raise me and hold me up, sitting. I want to see how I look in that glass opposite."

He obeys her with difficulty; how firmly, tenderly, to raise a thing so wasted is not an easy task; and she looks at her own image long and wistfully.

Shrunken though she be from all her fine proportions, her hair cut short to her head, the carnations of her skin turned to waxen paleness; a stranger, seeing Jane for the first time at this moment, would say. there was a pretty woman, or the wreck of one. Something sweet, and original, and picturesque, makes her Jane Theobald still, in spite of all that she has lost.

She looks at herself, then round into Theobald's face, and laughs. A poor litte ghost of a laugh, yet it does him good to hear it-once more to hear a laugh of any kind from Jane's lips.

"What a hideous scarecrow! Theobald, I am not human."

He answers, as he answers nine out of ten of her remarks, by a kiss.

"You wouldn't find it easy to pin roses among my beauteous locks now. I should have to take, like Mrs. Coventry Brown, to tintacks or glue."

"Should have!" Oh, the agony of hearing that conditional tense from lips we love! Theobald's heart sinks down again to zero.

"You don't pay me any compliments. You are not like my poor little good Samaritan, Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith did her best to cheer me this morning. I had a cousin, Mim,'"-though she were dying,