of a walk in the fresh air.

"I have been accustomed to more exercise, ma'am, than I take here," she
said. "Might I go into the garden, and try what the air will do for me?"

"Certainly. Can you walk by yourself, or shall I send some one with
you?"

"I will go by myself, if you please, ma'am."

"Very well. Put on your bonnet and shawl, and, when you get out, keep in
the east garden. The admiral sometimes walks in the north garden, and he
might feel surprised at seeing you there. Come to my room, when you have
had air and exercise enough, and let me see how you are."

In a few minutes more Magdalen was out in the east garden. The sky was
clear and sunny; but the cold shadow of the house rested on the garden
walk and chilled the midday air. She walked toward the ruins of the
old monastery, situated on the south side of the more modern range of
buildings. Here there were lonely open spaces to breathe in freely; here
the pale March sunshine stole through the gaps of desolation and decay,
and met her invitingly with the genial promise of spring.

She ascended three or four riven stone steps, and seated herself on some
ruined fragments beyond them, full in the sunshine. The place she had
chosen had once been the entrance to the church. In centuries long gone
by, the stream of human sin and human suffering had flowed, day after
day, to the confessional, over the place where she now sat. Of all the
miserable women who had trodden those old stones in the bygone time,
no more miserable creature had touched them than the woman whose feet
rested on them now.

Her hands trembled as she placed them on either side of her, to support
herself on the stone seat. She laid them on her lap; they trembled
there. She held them out, and looked at them wonderingly; they trembled
as she looked. "Like an old woman!" she said, faintly, and let them drop
again at her side.

For the first time, that morning, the cruel discovery had forced itself
on her mind--the discovery that her strength was failing her, at the
time when she had most confidently trusted to it, at the time when she
wanted it most. She had felt the surprise of Mr. Bartram's unexpected
departure, as if it had been the shock of the severest calamity that
could have befallen her. That one check to her hopes--a check which at
other times would only have roused the resisting power in her to new
efforts--had struck her with as suffocating a terror, had prostrated her
with as all-