e's,
had been taken suddenly ill about an hour or two before; the house had
been disturbed, the countess herself aroused, and Mr. Morgan summoned
as the family medical practitioner. From him she had learned that Nora
Avenel had returned to her father's house late on the previous evening,
had been seized with brain fever, and died in a few hours.

Audley listened, and turned to the door, still in silence. Lady Lansmere
caught him by the arm. "Where are you going? Ah, can I now ask you
to save my son from the awful news, you yourself the sufferer? And
yet--yet--you know his haste, his vehemence, if he learned that you were
his rival, her husband; you whom he so trusted! What, what would be the
result?--I tremble!"

"Tremble not,--I do not tremble! Let me go! I will be back soon, and
then,"--(his lips writhed)--"then we will talk of Harley."

Egerton went forth, stunned and dizzy. Mechanically he took his way
across the park to John Avenel's house. He had been forced to enter that
house, formally, a day or two before, in the course of his canvass; and
his worldly pride had received a shock when the home, the birth, and the
manners of his bride's parents had been brought before him. He had even
said to himself, "And is it the child of these persons that I, Audley
Egerton, must announce to the world as wife?" Now, if she had been the
child of a beggar-nay, of a felon--now if he could but recall her to
life, how small and mean would all that dreaded world appear to him!
Too late, too late! The dews were glistening in the sun, the birds were
singing overhead, life wakening all around him--and his own heart felt
like a charnel-house. Nothing but death and the dead there,--nothing! He
arrived at the door: it was open: he called; no one answered: he walked
up the narrow stairs, undisturbed, unseen; he came into the chamber of
death. At the opposite side of the bed was seated John Avenel; but he
seemed in a heavy sleep. In fact, paralysis had smitten him; but he knew
it not; neither did any one. Who could heed the strong hearty man in
such a moment? Not even the poor anxious wife! He had been left there
to guard the house, and watch the dead,--an unconscious man; numbed,
himself, by the invisible icy hand! Audley stole to the bedside; he
lifted the coverlid thrown over the pale still face. What passed within
him during the minute he stayed there who shall say? But when he left
the room, and slowly descended the stairs, he left b