each other every day; till at last they hardly
ever spoke, except when the old lord was by. The foreign musician came
again the next summer, but it was for the last time; for they led him
such a life with their jealousy and their passions, that he grew weary,
and went away, and never was heard of again. And Miss Maude, who had
always meant to have her marriage acknowledged when her father should
be dead, was left now a deserted wife, whom nobody knew to have been
married, with a child that she dared not own, although she loved it to
distraction; living with a father whom she feared, and a sister whom
she hated. When the next summer passed over, and the dark foreigner
never came, both Miss Maude and Miss Grace grew gloomy and sad; they
had a haggard look about them, though they looked handsome as ever.
But, by-and-by, Maude brightened; for her father grew more and more
infirm, and more than ever carried away by his music; and she and Miss
Grace lived almost entirely apart, having separate rooms, the one on
the west side, Miss Maude on the east--those very rooms which were now
shut up. So she thought she might have her little girl with her, and no
one need ever know except those who dared not speak about it, and were
bound to believe that it was, as she said, a cottager's child she had
taken a fancy to. All this, Dorothy said, was pretty well known; but
what came afterwards no one knew, except Miss Grace and Mrs. Stark, who
was even then her maid, and much more of a friend to her than ever her
sister had been. But the servants supposed, from words that were
dropped, that Miss Maude had triumphed over Miss Grace, and told her
that all the time the dark foreigner had been mocking her with
pretended love--he was her own husband. The colour left Miss Grace's
cheek and lips that very day for ever, and she was heard to say many a
time that sooner or later she would have her revenge; and Mrs. Stark
was for ever spying about the east rooms.

One fearful night, just after the New Year had come in, when the snow
was lying thick and deep; and the flakes were still falling--fast
enough to blind any one who might be out and abroad--there was a great
and violent noise heard, and the old lord's voice above all, cursing
and swearing awfully, and the cries of a little child, and the proud
defiance of a fierce woman, and the sound of a blow, and a dead
stillness, and moans and wailings dying away on the hill-side! Then the
old lord summon