ciety both as Lord
Riversdale's daughter and as the author of many popular books, than the
current of fashion set towards her. She was still a remarkably lovely
woman, possessing irresistible attractions in her refined face and soft
yet distant manners, as of one walking in a trance, and seeing and
hearing things invisible and inaudible to less favored mortals. Quite
unconsciously to herself she became the lion of the season, when the
next season opened. She had been so difficult to know, that as soon as
she was willing to be known invitations poured in upon her, and her
house was invaded by a throng of visitors, many of them more or less
distantly related to her.

To Hilda this new life was one of unexpected and exquisite delight.
Phebe, also, with her genuine interest in her fellow-creatures, and her
warm sympathy in all human joys and sorrows, enjoyed the change, though
it perplexed her, and caused her to watch Felicita with anxiety. Felix
saw less of it than any one, for he was down in Essex, leading the
tranquil and not very laborious life of a country curate, chafing a
little now and then at his inactivity, yet blissful beyond words in the
close daily intercourse with Alice. There was no talk of their marriage,
but they were young and together. Their happiness was untroubled.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE VOICE OF THE DEAD.

In his lonely garret in the East End, Jean Merle was living in an
isolation more complete even than that of Engelberg. There he had known
at least the names of those about him, and their faces had grown
familiar to him. More than once he had been asked to help when help was
sorely needed, and he had felt, though not quite consciously, that there
was still a link or two binding him to his fellow-men. But here, an unit
among millions, who hustled him at every step, breathed the same air,
and shared the common light with him, he was utterly alone. "Isolation
is the sum total of wretchedness to man," and no man could be more
completely isolated than he.

Strangely enough, his Swiss proclivities seemed to have fallen from him
like a worn-out garment. The narrow, humble existence of his peasant
forefathers, to which he had so readily adapted himself, was no longer
tolerable in his eyes. He felt all the force and energy of the life of
the great city which surrounded him. His birthright as an Englishman
presented itself to his imagination with a splendor and importance that
it had never possessed b