You must deal gently with him, Frances," he said to his wife; "his nerves are weak--he cannot bear much at a time." "I promise to be very gentle," she said; and the music of that low, caressing voice thrilled my very heart.

"I think," she continued, "that Mr.Ford looks very tired, Lance, pale and worn.

We must take great care of him." "That we will," was the hearty reply.
Great Heaven! was it a murderess standing there, with that sweet look of compassion on her beautiful face?
Could this woman, who looked pitifully on me, a grown man, drown a little child in the deep sea?
Were those lips, littering kindly words of welcome, the same that had cried in mad despair, "Oh, Heaven! if I dare--if I dare ?" I could have killed myself for the base suspicion.

Yet it was most surely she! I stooped to pick up the white hawthorn she had dropped.

She took it from me with the sweetest smile, and Lance stood by, looking on with an air of proud proprietorship that would have been amusing if it had not been so unutterably pitiful.
While my brain and mind were still chaos--a whirl of thought and emotion--the second dinner-bell rang.