r, hear the sound of the hammer on the lid of a coffin in a house
of woe,--when the undertaker's decorous hireling fears that the living
may hear how he parts them from the dead? Such seemed the sound to
Audley. The dream vanished abruptly.

He woke, and again heard the knock; it was at his door. He sat up
wistfully; the moon was gone, it was morning. "Who is there?" he cried
peevishly.

A low voice from without answered, "Hush, it is I; dress quick; let me
see you."

Egerton recognized Lady Lansmere's voice. Alarmed and surprised, he
rose, dressed in haste, and went to the door. Lady Lansmere was standing
without, extremely pale. She put her finger to her lip, and beckoned him
to follow her. He obeyed mechanically. They entered her dressing-room, a
few doors from his own chamber, and the countess closed the door.

Then laying her slight firm hand on his shoulder, she said, in
suppressed and passionate excitement,

"Oh, Mr. Egerton, you must serve me, and at once. Harley! Harley! save
my Harley! Go to him, prevent his coming back here, stay with him; give
up the election,--it is but a year or two lost in your life, you will
have other opportunities; make that sacrifice to your friend."

"Speak--what is the matter? I can make no sacrifice too great for
Harley!"

"Thanks, I was sure of it. Go then, I say, at once to Harley; keep him
away from Lansmere on any excuse you can invent, until you can break the
sad news to him,--gently, gently. Oh, how will he bear it; how recover
the shock? My boy, my boy!"

"Calm yourself! Explain! Break what news; recover what shock?"

"True; you do not know, you have not heard. Nora Avenel lies yonder, in
her father's house,--dead, dead!"

Audley staggered back, clapping his hand to his heart, and then dropping
on his knee as if bowed down by the stroke of heaven.

"My bride, my wife!" he muttered. "Dead--it cannot be!"

Lady Lansmere was so startled at this exclamation, so stunned by a
confession wholly unexpected, that she remained unable to soothe, to
explain, and utterly unprepared for the fierce agony that burst from the
man she had ever seen so dignified and cold, when he sprang to his feet,
and all the sense of his eternal loss rushed upon his heart.

At length he crushed back his emotions, and listened in apparent
calm, and in a silence broken but by quick gasps for breath, to Lady
Lansmere's account.

One of the guests in the house, a female relation of Lady Lansmer