nstinct to be particularly regardful of
those sorry trifles, her robe, her flowers, her veil, and her gloves.

The irrevocable words were soon spoken--the indelible writing soon
written--and they came out of the vestry. Candles had been necessary
here to enable them to sign their names, and on their return to the
church the light from the candles streamed from the small open door,
and across the chancel to a black chestnut screen on the south side,
dividing it from a small chapel or chantry, erected for the soul's peace
of some Aldclyffe of the past. Through the open-work of this screen
could now be seen illuminated, inside the chantry, the reclining figures
of cross-legged knights, damp and green with age, and above them a
huge classic monument, also inscribed to the Aldclyffe family, heavily
sculptured in cadaverous marble.

Leaning here--almost hanging to the monument--was Edward Springrove, or
his spirit.

The weak daylight would never have revealed him, shaded as he was by the
screen; but the unexpected rays of candle-light in the front showed him
forth in startling relief to any and all of those whose eyes wandered in
that direction. The sight was a sad one--sad beyond all description. His
eyes were wild, their orbits leaden. His face was of a sickly paleness,
his hair dry and disordered, his lips parted as if he could get no
breath. His figure was spectre-thin. His actions seemed beyond his own
control.

Manston did not see him; Cytherea did. The healing effect upon her heart
of a year's silence--a year and a half's separation--was undone in
an instant. One of those strange revivals of passion by mere
sight--commoner in women than in men, and in oppressed women commonest
of all--had taken place in her--so transcendently, that even to herself
it seemed more like a new creation than a revival.

Marrying for a home--what a mockery it was!

It may be said that the means most potent for rekindling old love in a
maiden's heart are, to see her lover in laughter and good spirits in her
despite when the breach has been owing to a slight from herself; when
owing to a slight from him, to see him suffering for his own fault. If
he is happy in a clear conscience, she blames him; if he is miserable
because deeply to blame, she blames herself. The latter was Cytherea's
case now.

First, an agony of face told of the suppressed misery within her, which
presently could be suppressed no longer. When they were coming out of