rs of leisure, her hours for walking out with her pupils. There was
just time, if she could find a vehicle at once, for Magdalen to drive
to the house of Norah's employer, with the chance of getting there a few
minutes before the hour when her sister would be going out. "One look at
her will tell me more than a hundred letters!" With that thought in her
heart, with the one object of following Norah on her daily walk, under
protection of the disguise, Magdalen hastened over the bridge, and made
for the northern bank of the river.

So, at the turning-point of her life--so, in the interval before she
took the irrevocable step, and passed the threshold of Noel Vanstone's
door--the forces of Good triumphing in the strife for her over the
forces of Evil, turned her back on the scene of her meditated deception,
and hurried her mercifully further and further away from the fatal
house.

She stopped the first empty cab that passed her; told the driver to go
to New Street, Spring Gardens; and promised to double his fare if he
reached his destination by a given time. The man earned the money--more
than earned it, as the event proved. Magdalen had not taken ten steps
in advance along New Street, walking toward St. James's Park, before
the door of a house beyond her opened, and a lady in mourning came out,
accompanied by two little girls. The lady also took the direction of
the Park, without turning her head toward Magdalen as she descended
the house step. It mattered little; Magdalen's heart looked through her
eyes, and told her that she saw Norah.

She followed them into St. James's Park, and thence (along the Mall)
into the Green Park, venturing closer and closer as they reached the
grass and ascended the rising ground in the direction of Hyde Park
Corner. Her eager eyes devoured every detail in Norah's dress, and
detected the slightest change that had taken place in her figure and
her bearing. She had become thinner since the autumn--her head drooped
a little; she walked wearily. Her mourning dress, worn with the modest
grace and neatness which no misfortune could take from her, was suited
to her altered station; her black gown was made of stuff; her black
shawl and bonnet were of the plainest and cheapest kind. The two little
girls, walking on either side of her, were dressed in silk. Magdalen
instinctively hated them.

She made a wide circuit on the grass, so as to turn gradually and meet
her sister without exciting suspi