uld any one want there at that time of the night? Burglars?
Absurd, they would not openly show themselves while there were lights
about the house, and even then it was not likely that they would cross
the lawn. If not a creation of her brain, it was most probably one of
Sir Murray Gernon's keepers out upon his rounds, and taking a short cut
to some copse or preserve.

But for all that, Ada Lee sat long watching from her window. The
painful beating of her heart was still there, and a cloud of fancies
kept flitting through her brain. Strange, wild fancies they were, such
as she could not have explained; but, in spite of her efforts, troublous
enough to make the tears flow silently from her eyes as she recalled,
she knew not why, the heart-aches of the past, and the battle she had
had with self to hide from every eye the suffering she had endured.

Again and again, as she rose from her seat by the window and paced up
and down the room, she tried to drive away these troubled thoughts, but
they were too strong for her, and at last, raging against her weakness
the while, she burst into a passionate flood of tears--passionate as any
shed by her friend that night, as she threw herself, sobbing, by the
bedside.

"There! now I hope you'll be better!" she exclaimed, apostrophising
herself in a half-sad, half-bantering spirit. "What we poor weak women
would do without a good cry now and then, I'm sure I don't know. Well,
it's better to have it now than to break down to-morrow at the altar.
But a nice body I am to be preaching to poor little Marion about being
weak and childish, for there really is a something at these times that
is too much for our poor little weak spirits. I wonder whether men are
nervous, or whether they feel it at all!"

Ada Lee's words were light, and she knew that she was trying to deceive
herself as she lay down to rest with a smile upon her lip; but when,
towards dawn, sleep did come, it was to oppress her with wild and
confused dreams, from one of which she awoke, trembling as if from some
great horror, but trying vainly to recall the vision. It was of trouble
and danger, but she knew no more; and it was with sleep effectually
banished from her pillow that she lay at last, waiting for the coming of
that eventful day.

Book 1, Chapter IV.

THE HAPPY PAIR.

People came from miles round to see that wedding, for the morning was
bright and genial, and there were to be grand doings up at the castl