the tramp of horses. North
leaped to his feet, and threw up the window. A hearse was moving heavily
down the street, and close behind it rode Grantley Mellen, alone.

Near the Piney Cove mansion was an ancient burying-ground, with the
graves of many generations crowded around a little stone church, which
rose up in solemn stillness among a grove of cypress trees and wild
cedars. In one of the sunniest corners of the ground a grave was dug,
and a pile of blossoming turf was laid ready to cover that hapless woman
in her place of rest. While the men performed their sad work, Mellen
stood by, with his head bared reverentially, and the heart in his bosom
standing still. When he turned away it was with a deep, solemn sigh of
relief. The bitterness and the pain of his first love was buried
forever. Henceforth Elizabeth would have no rival, even in his memory.

Mellen went home a calmer and a better man, after laying his lost one
down in her grave. Hitherto her memory had been an aching bitterness,
but with death came forgiveness, and out of that his spirit arose
chastened, gentle and tending towards a healthy cheerfulness.

Elizabeth was too deeply observant not to remark the softened
seriousness of her husband's manner when he came home that day, but
every look of tenderness that he gave her was a pang, and smote her
worse than reproaches. Could the wife who deceived her husband find joy
in the confidence which was but a mockery of her deceit. Many times
during those few days Elizabeth wished that her husband would be harsh
and cruel again.

CHAPTER XXIX.

TOM FULLER'S LETTER.

As they were sitting at dinner the next day, Mellen inquired about
Fuller.

"I have quite forgotten to ask you about Tom," he said; "he was in
France when you last wrote to me."

"He has not come yet," Elizabeth replied; "the house in which he was
employed, concluded to keep him at Bordeaux for a time; in his last
letter he wrote that he might be gone another year."

"Poor old Tom," Elsie said, laughingly.

Elizabeth's brows contracted a little; she had never been able entirely
to forget the suffering this girl had caused the young man. Whenever she
heard her mention his name in that trifling way, it jarred upon her
feelings and irritated her greatly.

"Bessie doesn't like any one to laugh at Tom," said Mellen, noticing the
expression of her face.

"I confess I do not," she replied; "he is such a noble fellow at the
bottom, wit