The wind just stirred the deep purple of the satin curtains around her, and the one straight path of lamplight from the niche was clearing the black shadows of the place in a long track of tremulous gold. Through half-open doors, along the dim length of the gallery, half-obscured visions of the wedding paraphernalia-promises of what the morrow was to bring forth, still confronted her, and on the wide, black, polished window-ledge lay his white camellias withering at her side.

She shut it all from her sight, drawing the purple curtains closer about her. Tomorrow! To-morrow! She would be his then, irretrievably-the successor of the ill-starred Hagar St. Maur. She shuddered. How little she had ever dreamed of such a destiny.

Suddenly, betwixt her and all else rose up the face of John Calvert-that clear-cut powerful face. She shut her eyes-she tried to put it away. In vain! He had wronged her; he had wounded her lovestung her pride into high rebellion-granted! and yet to the very core of that proud resentful heart of hers, Nathalie loved him still.

A hot tear fell down in the darkness on the withering camellias. She sat with her head bowed on her hand a long time, while the wind rustled the purple curtains, and sighed along the gallery. Starting at last from her stupor, chilled and shivering, Nathalie rose up to close the window.

A low faint strain of music echoed along the gallery, a sound like the vibration of some instrument, touched by a dreamy wandering hand. What could it be, at that hour, and in that place? The gallery was deserted, the rooms opening upon it unoccupied, save by Ruby and Mrs. Roberts, and Ruby had gone to bed ill, and Mrs. Roberts was not given to musical performances. Nathalie paused and listened. It was the tinkle of a guitar, coming from that black and gold chamber far down the length of the gallery.

Nathalie's heart gave a great bound, then grew still. Clearer and sweeter the sound rose up it had taken shape, as it were-it was a prelude, a soft, drowsy, tremulous thing, half passion, half repose. Should she wake Mrs. Roberts? Should she call the servants? She fled along the gallery toward Mrs. Roberts's door, only to pause midway thereto, rooted in her tracks, for a

human voice had broken suddenly into the thread of the music, so full of unearthly sweetness, so unlike all other voices she had ever heard, that Nathalie stood frozen in a great unutterable awe. Soft and low as they were, every word of the song was borne to her ear as distinct as dropping water in an October calm. Liquid, meandering" Spanish words they were-words which Nathalie could not understand, and she stood listening, until from out their dreamy labyrinths stole forth at last a plaintive snatch of melody in her own tong⚫e:

"Lord Heron sits in his castle high,

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Fair Rosamond lies on the shore below; He loved to live, and she loved to dieWhich loved the truest, the angels know." A shrill twang, as of a breaking string, succeeded. The music died away in a hollow cry, which rang through the gallery with terrible distinctness. Nathalie could hear the fall of the guitar, and the upsetting of a chair, or some heavier piece of furniture, beyond the door of that dreadful room. Mad with terror, lest its vision should make a descent upon the gallery, she sprang to Mrs. Roberts's door, in time to meet that worthy lady, in nightcap and dressing-gown, just coming forth.

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"But it might be burglars!" cried Roberts; anyway, we ought to see. You needn't come in, my dear. Bless me, what would St. Maur say?"

She unlocked the door, somewhat unsteadily, and shaking and shivering, Nathalie at her shoulder, holding the flaring lamp, looked into the haunted room. Yes, surely there had been a visitor, though it was empty now. A window, opening upon the balcony, stood open wide; the curtain was put back, a chair beside it was overturned, and there lay the guitar with its broken string against the wall, just as it had been dropped a moment before. Mrs. Roberts entered to lower the window and

curtain in nervous haste; then she relocked the door, and taking the lamp from poor trembling Nathalie, returned across the gallery.

"O," she sighed, under her breath, "what evil thing does this forebode for tomorrow?"

"What, indeed ?" murmured Nathalie.

CHAPTER XII.

CLEAR and cloudless, with sweet earthy scents filling the air, and a round red sun burning up the mists of the marshes and the sea, dawned Nathalie Lermond's bridal morn. The ceremony was to take place at twelve, in the gray stone church, which stood half a mile distant, on a bare wind-beaten hill overlooking the sea. There was to be a grand wedding dinner given to a select few, but no further festivities, for both bride and groom seemed anxious to give the affair as little publicity as possible.

"Are you done?" said Nathalie, in a weary voice, as Marie moved away from the mirror.

Mademoiselle forgets her

"Not yet. veil," answered Marie.

Ruby fastened it to the beautiful dark head wreathed in orange blossoms-poor little Ruby, looking like a snow-breath, but calmer even than Nathalie herself, in this hour of martyrdom. One tear, and one only, fell upon the spotless flowers.

"God bless you, darling!" she said, in a faint broken voice, passing her arms around the pale bride. "O, I do hope you will be happy with him, Nathalie-so much happier than you think now!"

With that strange apathetic calm that seemed now to have redoubled in her manner, Nathalie put her away, and rose up from the mirror. Was there ever such a white and queenly bride? More beautiful than I can tell, looked she, in those floating bridal garments of satin and lace, but it was a beauty that hushed the admiration on the lips-it was the beauty of a statue, warmed only with the breath of life.

"It is time to go now," said Ruby, "the carriage is waiting."

The bridal party swept down the stairs. The carriages had been standing at the door a half hour; Nathalie took her place mechanically.

Who shall say what thoughts were in her

mind as they rolled along the open highway to the church? Once Ruby saw her start, and look around her wildly. Was she debating the chances of escape at that late hour? O, what mockery of rejoicing was there that day in the singing of the birds among the beech woods, in the flowers budding, in the warm spring sunshine! The eyes of the two girls met-the blue oues full of misty tears-the dark ones growing suddenly calm and cold again. Nathalie sank back passive among her cushions; the last struggle had passed.

The doors of the gray stone church stood wide open. St. Maur was already there, waiting impatiently for the coming of his bride. Some few of the hamlet people were scattered along the side aisles, among whom the face of the old gude-wife McKensie looked forth, with restless gray eyes. The sunshine fell through the stained glass of the windows in warm rich patches; some birds were singing in the low graveyard outside.

As Nathalie passed the inner door, some one who had been standing near it drew suddenly back. She felt the movement rather than saw it, and an indescribable instinct prompted her to lift her eyes. Leaning against the pillar of an arch, with his cloak upon his arm, and his pale set face confronting her like a spectre, stood John Calvert. For a moment his eyes looked straight into her own, not angrily, but with a sad reproach in their depths which cut her to the heart. Of all men, why was he there? Why had he come to witness that ill-starred marriage, the bitter fruit of his own folly and wrong-doing? Ruby started a little as she saw him, and the pale bride swept on to the altar, never faltering, indeed, but with a face whiter now than her bridal dress.

St. Maur came forward and took her hand, flushed and feverish. Never in all her after life did she forget the passionate remorse that darkened his face at that moment-his wild earnest whisper:

"God forgive me! Darling, I will yet make amends for all."

Cold as a frozen thing, her hand lay in his. Like one bound in the spell of some terrible nightmare, she suffered him to lead her to her place. The ceremony began:

"Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband ?" said the voice of the cler

gyman; "to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honor and keep him in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep ye unto him as long as ye both shall live ?"

No response fell from Nathalie's lips; they moved, indeed, but no sound-her voice bad died within her. Like a lightning-stroke, there flashed upon her, at those words, a terrible blinding sense of the falsity of her position-of its unutterable misery. With a start, she half withdrew her hand from St. Maur's.

He caught it again, his face darkening. A dead pause. Every eye was directed upon them-upon the pale girl standing, voiceless and motionless, beside her waiting bridegroom. Slowly the clergyman repeated the question.

The last words had not left his lips when, noiselessly, out from the spectators around the bridal party, two figures, closely veiled, glided up to the altar steps. One paused there, throwing back her veil with a defiant gesture, and showing to all eyes a broad Scotch face, grim now with resolution. It was Alsie McKensie. The other figure mounted the altar steps, and tearing the bonnet from her head, went up to the astonished clergyman, and paused at his side, face to face with the bridal party, and the astonished spectators.

It was a woman, clad in some shining gray stuff, with a shower of magnificent hair falling in wild waves and curls far below her waist. The face was pale and wan, the eyes wild, and large, and lustrous, and fixed now on the livid face of the bridegroom, with a vacant wondering lock. She raised one thin white hand, and laid it upon the open marriage service.

"Hold" said this woman, in a voice that vibrated every corner of the church, like sweetest music.

One terrible oath broke from the lips of St. Maur. He dashed Nathalie's hand aside. "Who?" said the clergyman, looking at the strange fair shape at his side, "who are you who interrupts this ceremony?"

"I?" answered the figure; "I am Пagar St. Maur-wife of this man!"

With the bound of a wild creature leaping upon its prey, St. Maur sprung upon Alsie McKensie.

"Accursed fool!" he hissed, through his set teeth."You have betrayed me!"

A hand, stronger than Alsie's, cast him back.

"You mistake," said John Calvert, calmly; "I am your accuser!"

"And of what am I accused ?" demanded the bridegroom, clenching his hands at his side.

John Calvert's face grew hard.

"The charges are three," he answered. "I accuse you of the attempted murder of this unhappy woman, Hagar St. Maur, eleven years ago, on your marriage night. I accuse you of casting the deed upon your brother, Robert Hendee, and of hunting him willfully to his doom. I accuse you of withholding all knowledge of this woman's existence from the world since that time, and of entering unlawfully into a second marriage."

A faint cry from the little group before the altar, and Ruby Hendee had fallen like a dead thing in their midst.

"I will answer none of these charges here," said St. Maur, sullenly.

"Then," answered Calvert, "this ceremony cannot go on. Those assembled here had best disperse, and you will do well to follow me."

They looked at each other defiantlythose two men. The bridal party were in wild commotion; the clergyman quietly closed the marriage service, and the pale fair shape that had stood before him the white, glided back to Alsie through the wondering spectators. Alsie stroked her long golden hair, as she might have done some petted child's.

"Puir leddy"" she said, groaning; "she has been mad these mony years!" St. Maur turned on his heel.

"As you will!" he answered Calvert, with an air of desperate resolve. "I will return with you to the Hall-further than that I will not go. Come, Nathalie, our blithe wedding is over for this day. You shall hear the last of this accursed story, if you will."

He strode out of the house, first of all, and entered the carriage. The others followed him.

"What you have to do, do quickly!" he said to Calvert; "had you given me but a day longer, I would have foiled you-I would have been beyond your reach."

They went back to the Hall, a far different company, indeed, from the one which had left it but an hour before. John Calvert rode in advance, his horse's flanks white with foam. He entered with the others, and stood with his hat in his hand, and his pale face turned steadily away from the still paler one of Nathalie. Alsie and her beautiful charge had followed. Grim and uncompromising, the Scotch woman took her station directly facing St. Maur, the maniac clinging to her, and looking from face to face with her large wild Syrian eyes. Nathalie, gazing at her wonderful face, and the frail exquisite outline of the figure, marvelled no more that it had so often been mistaken for a visitant from the other land. Alsie McKensie was the first to break the silence-caressing Hagar's golden hair the while, and looking straight at St. Maur.

"I maun speak the truth," she said; "and mickle glad am I to do it, for it has been a sair weight on my mind, and I wouldna fash mysel about it sae again for a' the siller o' this mon. It's eleven years agane, sin the night of the braw weddin', and Sandy, that's dead and gone now, lay sair sick at the auld mither's cot, and I asked my leddy-this puir mad thing-that was to be a bride that e'en, wi' satin goun, and red gowld in her hair, to e'en let me gae and watch wi' Sandy, while the dancing, and the feasting, and the music was going an, for the auld mither was sair worn. It was a clear starl t night, and I took the beach way, and down on the sands I saw Master Robert, who hadna been at the Hall that night, ranting up and down, as if he were clean daft, wi' spurs on his heels, and his face half buried up in his great cloak. I wondered then how cam he there, when a' the ither folk had hied them to the weddin', and I wondered while I sat in the cot wi' Sandy. Aweel, it was nigh onto midnight before he would ha' me gae, and I ha' but just risen to wake the auld mither, when who should throw open the door and rush in, as if the deil himsel was after him, but St. Maur, wi' his face as pale as a kelpie, and his white ruffles, and his white hands, wi' the gowld ring on them, a' stained wi' red blood."

St. Maur interrupted the speaker, turning upon her with a fierce gesture; but meeting Nathalie Lermond's eyes, dark,

dilated, and filled now with an unutterable horror and loathing-he sank back against the wall. Alsie paused.

"Go on!" he commanded, contemptuously.

"Aweel," said Alsie, "he drew me out o' the cot, and his grip on my arm left its mark there for mony days after; and he told me, would I serve him that night, and swear to keep what I should see a secret, he would gi' me gowld and siller enough to make a great leddy o' me till my dying day. I was a silly lassie then, and a young one, and, moreover, I was like to die wi' fright to see him looking so, an' I promised. I went back to tell the auld mither and Sandy, and to carry them the red gowld pieces St. Maur put in my hand, and then, he brought this puir leddy into the cot, and laid her on the auld mither's bed, and her satin goun was all torn and covered wi' blood, and so was her gowlden hair, and she had a great gash in her side, and the blood soaked through the bed; but no one dared to ask him who had done the deed. We bound up the wounds-the auld mither and I-and she moaned, so that we knew she lived; and when Master Gilbert had sworn us to all secrecy, wi' a dreadful oath, he told me I maun take the puir dying lassie, and gae away.

"I rode a' the long night, wi' her head on my knee, and no one wi' me but the mon that drove the horses, and whither, 1 didna ken nor care. At the gray dawn we stopped at a lone house in the woods, and the mon said I was to git down there wi' the leddy, and bide there until St. Maur cam. We had taken off her satins and her jewels at the cot, and the folks asked me no questions. St. Maur came the next morn, and gae me siller, and told me I must take care o' her until she died. I knew then that it was he who had done the deed.

"But she did na die. Inursed her long, and she came to hersel, and knew me, and one day, when she was sitting up for the first time, she asked me where we were, and where was Robert Hendee? And St. Maur cam in upon us, and there was a dreadful scene betwixt him and my leddy. and she said how he had tried to murder her, and how he forced her wrongly to marry him, and cried out and wailed for Robert; and after St. Maur went away, swearing and cursing, she just lay down burning

hot wi' fever, and from that day to this she has been mad.

"After a weary while, when I begged to see the auld mither and Sandy, St. Maur gie me the house at Coltonsleigh. I ha' kept my leddy there, and tended her, and kept his secret, too, though she would ha' her times o' stealing away, when I did na see, and o' coming back here nights, to scare honest people; and although I would na have told the story had not Mr. Calvert come to Coltonsleigh, and charged me wi' the keeping o' my leddy, and told me o' this second marriage, and threatened me wi' the law, if I did na gi' her up, I am mickle glad it is told, and that na mair o' St. Maur's siller will ever touch my hand agen."

Alsie drew a long deep breath as she ended. Hagar was watching her intently with those wild dark eyes of hers, and with faint flushes of light flitting now and then over the pale spiritual face. The darkened soul was groping vainly after Alsie's voice. She raised one hand, at last, in a sort of vague despair, and gently stroked the Scotchwoman's cheek.

"Alsie!" murmured the marvellous voice, in a sad appeal; "Alsie!"

A tear fell down on the wild golden hair. "She kens no one but me," said Alsie, brokenly. "I canna be parted from her. Ye may do as ye will wi' me, if ye leave us togither."

Mrs. Roberts came trembling and tearful, and knelt down at Hagar's side. "O my lady!" she said; my beautiful lady! Do you not know me?"

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garments, who fell back, shuddering, as he approached.

"Farewell!" he said, 66 men have staked the world for love before, and-lost! Farewell, Nathalie! Whatever deeds I may have done that men might blush for, however dark my life may have been, I swear my love for you might have redeemed them all! If I raised my hand against this mad creature's life, it was in a moment of anger and revenge. She was flying to my brother-she was disgracing my good name. Farewell, Nathalie, think kindly of St. Maur!"'

He caught her hand and lifted it to his lips. One kiss, that burned upon it long after, and then Mrs. Roberts had flung herself before him in the doorway.

"O Master Gilbert, where are you going?" she cried.

He put her away.

"Bid Ruby good-by for me," he said, with dark remorse; "poor little Ruby!" Calvert went out with him. St. Maur beckoned for him to mount, and they rode out together on the open highway.

"Calvert," he said, leaning darkly towards him from the saddle, "you have been my arch-enemy! You have robbed me of the only woman I ever loved. If Nathalie Lermond can never be mine, neither shall she ever be yours! Let us settle this matter as becomes men."

John Calvert's face looked as if carved in stone.

"I" he said; "1 measure swords or shots with you-the assassin of a woman!" St. Maur ground his teeth.

"Have I then forfeited all the rights of a gentleman ?"

"In my sight-yes!"

He struck his spurs into his horse's flanks.

"Well, be it so! but if you think to escape me thus, John Calvert, you have reckoned without your host. Keep this as a token!"

A buff gauntlet, still warm from his fiery hand, struck Calvert's saddle-bow, and clung there for a moment. He thrust it contemptuously away. The next instant it lay in the gray dust of the road, ground down by the iron-shod hoofs, and he had turned him about leisurely, and was riding off toward the low hamlet on the shore.

St. Maur gazed at the gauntlet, then at the retreating rider, and a low laugh, un