him. "Did you come to
look for it?"

"Yes." She holds out her hand to receive it from him, but he shows
some hesitation about giving it.

"Let me advise you to take this out of it," he says, coldly, pointing
to his picture. "Its being here must render the locket valueless. What
induced you to give it such a place?"

"It was one of my many mistakes," returns she, calmly, making a
movement as though to leave him; "and you are right. The locket is, I
think, distasteful to me. I don't want it any more: you can keep it."

"I don't want it, either," returns he, hastily; and then, with a
gesture full of passion, he flings it deliberately into the very heart
of the glowing fire. There it melts, and grows black, and presently
sinks, with a crimson coal, utterly out of sight.

"The best place for it," says he, bitterly. "I wish I could as easily
be obliterated and forgotten."

Is it forgotten? She says nothing, makes no effort to save the fated
case that holds his features, but, with hands tightly clenched,
watches its ruin. Her eyes are full of tears, but she feels benumbed,
spiritless, without power to shed them.

Once more she makes a movement to leave him.

"Stay," he says, gently; "I have a few things to say to you, that may
as well be got over now. Come nearer to the fire: you must be cold."

She comes nearer, and, standing on the hearth-rug, waits for him to
speak. As she does so, a sharp cough, rising to her throat, distresses
her sufficiently to bring some quick color into her white cheeks.
Though in itself of little importance, this cough has now annoyed her
for at least a fortnight, and shakes her slight frame with its
vehemence.

"Your cough is worse to-night," he says, turning to regard her more
closely.

"No, not worse."

"Why do you walk about the house so insufficiently clothed?" asks he,
angrily, glancing at her light dressing-gown with great disfavor.
"One would think you were seeking ill health. Here, put this round
you." He tries to place upon her shoulders the cashmere shawl she had
worn when coming in from the garden in the earlier part of the
evening. But she shrinks from him.

"No, no," she says, petulantly; "I am warm enough; and I do not like
that thing. It is black,--the color of Death!"

Her words smite cold upon his heart. A terrible fear gains mastery
over him. Death! What can it have to do with one so fair, so young,
yet, alas! so frail?

"You will go somewhere for change of ai