of it,--every throb of her veins was at
once ecstasy and torture.

Paul was here--to be avoided; he must be met--and shunned; his voice
would soothe--and stab; his touch would heal--and burn.

How had she ever borne the blank without him? The dreary vacuum which
nothing could fill? The hopelessness, the emptiness of it all?

He was here, but looking ill--thinner than before--with a drawn, haggard
countenance, and restless eyes. She could not but say to herself that
even a kind heart, suffering for the sufferings of others, hardly
accounted for such manifestations of grief. It was not to be supposed
that General Boldero had during a few weeks' acquaintance so endeared
himself to his future son-in-law that his death, however sudden and
unexpected, was more than a shock. Leonore was tolerably sure that if
her father had not been also Maud's father, he would not even have been
acceptable to Paul as a friend. He could not be; the two were dissimilar
throughout,--even Valentine Purcell, less intelligent than other people,
had discovered as much.

Yet in four days--for it was but four days since the departing traveller
had been gaily ushered forth from the doorstep on which he now stood, he
had changed so visibly that--Where had he been during those four days?
she found herself asking of herself anew.

CHAPTER XV.

"YOU'VE BROKEN MY HEART, I THINK."

The funeral was over, and it was now decent to talk about the marriage.
When and where could the marriage take place?

Boldero Abbey, with all the landed estate, was virtually in other hands
already, and it did not need the opening of the will to announce to the
bereaved family that with the loss of a father there followed that of a
home.

All their lives they had known that this must be so, but the subject was
so grievous that it was hardly ever alluded to, and in a manner was lost
sight of.

For his years General Boldero was a young man; he was hale, hearty, and
selfish. He took good care of his health, and prognosticated for himself
a green old age--anyhow _his_ tenure of the good things of life was
secure; and though unable to alter the law of entail, which permitted no
female heirs in the Boldero line of descent, he foresaw in his mind's
eye all his daughters married and settled, with the exception of Sue,
who had her mother's fortune, and was of course to stick to him to the
last.

Consequently the provision he had made for the rest was slight, and
th