pleasing ones; they only served to make her sadness deeper.

Presently the door opened, and Nora came in with the lamp. Glancing
at her mistress, who did not move, the woman then went out and
brought a small tea-service on a tray.

"Don't light the kettle yet, Nora," said a low voice from the depths
of the chair. The speaker did not move; her manner was that of a
person who deprecated the least noise or intrusion, and Nora took
the hint and silently put down the tray. Then, in the same dull tone,
her mistress said:

"I know you want to go to church. Go. I can make tea for myself when
I want it."

Nora, in comprehending silence, left the room.

Still the relaxed figure in the chair moved not. The fire whiffed and
crackled now and then, but beyond this there was no sound. The
lamplight showed more plainly the fair youth and loveliness of that
black-clad form, which never, in its most brilliant days, had looked
so exquisite as now, when there was none to gaze upon its beauty or
to share its solitude. The hands were ringless, for Bettina had taken
off her wedding-ring after the reading of the letter which the lawyer
had brought her, and with it she had renounced the last vestige of
allegiance to her late husband's memory. There was no bitterness in
her heart toward him. Simply he existed not, as though he had never
been.

Vaguely she heard the sound of Nora's departure, as the door was
closed behind her, and still she sat there wordless, motionless,
almost breathless as it appeared, for her bosom scarcely seemed to
move.

Presently there came two tears from under the closed lids; then
quickly others followed them. The sense that she was freed even from
the danger of Nora's observation weakened her more and more. Then
with the helpless, whispering tones of an unhappy child, she said:

"My God, how desolate I am! How can I bear it? How long must it
endure?"

Still she did not move except to raise her lids and cast upward her
tear-drenched eyes, while she caught her lower lip between her teeth.

Suddenly there was a step upon the piazza--a man's step, as if in
haste. She started and sat upright. Who could it be? No man except
the rector ever visited her, and this was not the rector's step. She
hastily brushed away the traces of her tears and sat listening.

Then came a tap at the door--not loud, but firm, distinct, decided.
It sounded strange to her, unlike the tap of any messenger or servant
who had ever come t