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CHAPTER X.

'But alas! to make me

The fixed figure for the Time of Scorn
To point his slow, unmoving finger at.'

SHAKESPEARE.

WHEN the sisters met on the following morning, it was easy for Alice to see on Lady Thornleigh's care-worn face traces of the sleepless night that she had passed. The evening-light had been favourable to the concealment of her altered countenance; but in broad day, and with the morning-sun shining on and revealing its secrets, that countenance told a tale which Alice shrank from reading. Her eyes were turned often and anxiously towards the door, and once she asked her sister if she had seen Philip, or knew in what direction he had turned his steps for his customary early walk.

The words were hardly uttered, when her husband hastily entered. He walked straight up to the speaker, and then, stopping short, looked steadily into her eyes. There was mischief and menace in his fixed gaze, and Lady Thornleigh turned pale beneath it.

"You informed me that you walked to the South Lodge last night,' he said; and his tone was not more reassuring than his manner.

'I did,' she answered; but the words were barely audible, and he turned from her in disgust.

'I was a fool,' he said, 'to look for truth; but by I loathe a lie like h―!'

'Oh, Philip, interposed Alice, 'what shocking words!'

'Applied to a shocking thing; but I beg your pardon for using them, and shall endeavour to choose my expletives from a young lady's vocabulary. To begin then, was it nice of your sister to make use of that delicate little artifice last night? and was it

dear of her to receive pretty little notes, and to read them by the river side? And by Heaven,' he continued, gradually lashing him. self into fury; it was an accursed thing to meet a man there at night, and make '—but Alice's hand was on his lips, and her ears were not sullied by the coarse words so nearly spoken.

The action seemed to sober him; for he added more calmly, 'Leave us, Alice, this is no scene for you to witness. Nay,' he continued, seeing that she hesitated to obey him; 'your curiosity will soon be gratified, for your sister's shame must become a public scandal, now.'

Lady Thornleigh almost shrieked : "Cruel! most cruel,' she cried; but do not leave me, Alice, I implore; I entreat of you to remain.' And she clung convulsively to her sister's dress; so urgent was her appeal, and so manifest was her terror, that Philip could almost have pitied her, despite the bitter contempt that was apparent both in his voice

and countenance when he again addressed her.

'Wretched, degraded woman,' he said; 'you have mistaken your vocation strangely, for you have not the courage to stand forth and face the consequences of your vice. But you have nothing to fear from me,' he continued, looking down upon her writhing form. 'You do not imagine, I suppose, that I have lost my senses, and would lift my hand against a woman. Go, Alice'—and this time she, fearing any longer to disobey him, crept from the room, and the trembling wife was left alone with her accuser.

He drew a piece of paper from his breastpocket, and held it open before her.

'Do you recognize the writing?' he asked. Silence ! but a silence that was more eloquent than words was her only answer.

There were but a few lines traced on that condemning page; but to Thornleigh's mind they had seemed conclusive. They were

these:

Meet me at the usual hour and at the usual place. If I do not find you under the lime trees by the river side at nine, I will wait for half-an-hour, and then conclude from your absence that the difficulties have been for the moment insuperable.'

There was no signature affixed, and the half-sheet of paper on which the words were written, was evidently the concluding portion of a letter, the remainder of which was probably still within the envelope.

This most terrible evidence had been found by Philip as he walked along the river side. The paper was wet with dew, and had been read by him with feelings that are more easily imagined than described. A few questions asked of, and answered by the grandmother of the sick child, convinced him that the story of the visit to the Lodge was a fabrication; and furnished with these damning proofs (as he considered them) of his wife's guilt, he returned to the house, fraught with the direst projects of vengeance.