been a delightful topic for admiration and conjecture. Everyone found time to row out and inspect her, to return and to criticise her. Not a few were the questions asked as to her destination, a point, nevertheless, upon which everyone seemed unable to satisfy everyone else, for the simple reason that to all questioners Miss Yorke had replied in her sweetest manner :

"Really she had not quite made up her mind where she was going yet. It might be only for a little trip to Italy, or it might be to Algiers, or to Australia even, to see her mother and sister."

But all this is now a thing of the past. The regatta is over and done with, the gay crowd is once more en route for other meeting-places, and in lieu of the hundred and one field-glasses which were wont to be levelled at the Sphinx from the parade and pier, there is but one now-that of Ellinor Yorke, as she stands in the stone balcony of the house Uncle Hugh has hired for a few weeks.

This house is a somewhat pretentious one in appearance. It stands high above the cliffs in its own grounds, and some little distance back from the parade and more public thoroughfares. From its front windows it commands a magnificent view of the Solent as it widens into the open sea. The sun has just set; a golden light lingers yet along the coast-line, and ripples on the waters. Hurst Castle stands out, the black grim pile that it is; a huge cloud overhangs the west, still

Full-fledged with plumes of tawny fire and hoar grey light.

Against this the delicate tracery of the Sphinx, her masts, her rigging, pennon, and sails, stands sharply defined.

"I must have an eye for beauty," Miss Yorke says, laying down her glass and looking towards the window of the room outside which she is standing; "though I look, and look, and look at the Sphinx from morning till night, I never cease admiring her.

There is a something in her voice, in her accent of hidden sarcasm, difficult to define. One could fancy a runaway gunner, caught and condemned to be shot, looking at the muzzles of the rifles directed towards him, and saying in much such a tone, "Come, now, I'm glad you've chosen the latest sweet thing in breechloaders to do your work."

A man's voice within the room answers Ellinor's remark.

way?" it says sharply, peremptorily-it is difficult to recognise the tones of Phil Wickham's baritone in it. "Give me that glass; it's of no possible use to you."

"I'll give it you when I've done with itin about a month's time," is Ellinor's reply. Then once more she lifts her glass and directs it seawards.

Phil steps out into the balcony and lays his hand upon her arm.

"Come in at once," he says, again peremptorily. "Don't you see the sun has set? The dew will soon be falling. You'll get a chill."

"Ah, that might be bad," replies Ellinor precisely in the tone she had used first. Then she lets Phil take her glass away and draw her towards the window.

The window is shadowed by two big pink-flowered oleanders in tubs. Ellinor stops in front of them and begins plucking the leaves.

"One, two, three, four, five, six," she begins counting.

"What are you doing?" asks Phil, a grim suspicion of her meaning flashing into his mind.

Ellinor pauses in her counting a moment.

"By the way," she says, "I had forgotten I had something to tell you. I heard from a friend of yours yesterday— Lucy Selwyn."

"From Lucy Selwyn !"

"Yes; a sweet little note it was. If ever a girl deserves to be canonised as a saint it is she! (Seven, eight, nine, ten.) She prays for me night and day. Fancy that! Has forgiven me a thousand times over; but she adds in a little sort of postscript (and that is by far the most human and natural part of the whole letter) she never wishes in this life to look upon my face again. Not to be wondered at, is it?"

Phil does not answer.

"Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen," she goes on. "I wrote to her in reply this morning-that is to say, I answered her postscript, nothing more. I told her I hoped she would always keep in the same frame of mind, and to help preserve it to her I sent back those two fragments of her dead Rodney's letters (his to me and mine to him, I mean); I told her they would be more suggestive to her than ever they could be to me."

But still Phil remains silent.

Ellinor looks up at him for a reply; getting none, she goes on plucking her leaves and counting them:

"Eighteen, nineteen, twenty." On a sudden, Phil finds his voice. "What are you gathering them for?" he again queries, sharply yet nervously.

"Don't you know what children do when their holidays are getting to an endgather a bundle of leaves and throw away one daily; it makes them appreciate the days more when they see how few remain. Now how many shall I gather?"

"Great Heavens! you'll drive me mad! Am I altogether made of cast iron?" exclaims Phil, struggling hard to keep his composure.

Ellinor goes on with her counting.

"Here are twenty-four, shall I make it twenty-five and throw one away for to-day -or shall we say thirty? Yes, thirty, I think. That will be twenty-nine days from to-day, and will bring us towards the end of September. Cowes will be dreary enough then, only invalids and old people left.'

But Phil has not heard the end of the sentence. He has abruptly turned on his heel and left the room.

Straight down the stairs he goes into Uncle Hugh's "den," where he finds the old gentleman in the midst of bags and boxes.

"I'm off to Ayrshire to-morrow," he says; "I can't stand another ten days here. The senora will look after Nell right enough. She seems a very quiet, capable person, though I had my doubts about her at first."

Phil does not hear him. He goes up to the old gentleman, lays his hand upon his shoulder, and demands vehemently, passionately :

"Why do you allow it—why, why? It is more than flesh and blood can bear to stand by and see it."

Uncle Hugh catches at his meaning, and grows suddenly serious.

"My dear young friend, will you tell me how I am to help it?" he asks.

"Help it! I would help it in your place," Phil exclaims excitedly. "Send "Send away the yacht; do not allow such an arrangement to go on! Send it away at once-to-night in the darkness."

"What! Send away the only chance there is of prolonging her life! You don't know what you are saying."

Then there falls a silence between the two men.

Uncle Hugh is the first to break it. "Listen to me, Wickham," he says, "just this once, and then we'll talk no more on this-this sad subject. When Ellinor first spoke to me seriously about her health, I was shocked as much as you are, but I think I did my best for heryes, my best, I think. I consulted some three or four of the first doctors in London, stated the case, and asked what they advised. One and all said a long seavoyage, and suggested a sailing yacht if it were practicable. Very well, a sailing yacht happens to be Ellinor's whim at the moment, and as it falls in with the advice given, why shouldn't it be followed out? Come, cheer up-who knows what it may do for her? She may yet come sailing back with a new lease of life-who can say? Let's take the best view of things possible; it's the only way to get our fair dues in life. Have a cigar? Do you know this brand-fine flavour!-had them straight from Havana."

Phil, with something of a groan, shakes his head, and goes out into the failing light, strolls for half an hour or so up and down the Parade, and then goes back to his hotel, and plays billiards half through the night.

How dare the modern preachers of Christianity taunt us with living "too much upon the surface!" Paradoxical as it may seem, life except upon the surface would be an impossibility to those who own to strong, deep feelings, sympathies, imaginations. A column of the Times, the epitome of news in a daily paper, is enough to break a man's heart if he reads between the lines, and "lets himself go over it.

If the ice is thin, and the flood below deep and dangerous, walk lightly over the surface. Not a doubt, there is no other way of getting over the ground in safety.

Phil, at any rate, found it was the only way of getting over his ground. Uncle Hugh, also, guided less by his impulses possibly than by the dictates of an experienced egoism, came to a similar conclusion.

Ellinor's moods, however, were not always so calm and self-contained as on this particular evening that she stood surveying the Sphinx from her balcony.

There could be no doubt about it, the stately serenity which had been at one time a habit with her-nay, had seemed to be part of the woman herself-was nothing more than a mood now, that in its turn would give place to other moods, daring

or timid, cloudy or clear, as the case might be. Edie's soul imprisoned in Ellinor's body could not more lightly have run the gamut from cold, stony-hearted despair to a wild, tempestuous grief. Of the two Phil preferred the wild, tempestuous moods to the cold, stony ones. For one thing they were shorter in duration; for another it was possible to "make believe" under them, possible to persuade himself that the cheery words of hope which he whispered in her ear, when her head, weary with its passion of weeping, rested on his shoulder, were honest, true words, and had some sort of foundation in fact.

Yes, that was better than those long silent hours they passed together, Ellinor with the field-glass to her eyes, and lips that would open, then shut, and never a word escape them. Phil could see the words die on them, so closely did he watch her in those days, and in his heart knew well enough what they were.

When Phil was not with her the long, silent hours had been unbroken. Uncle Hugh, intent on his own pursuits, and bent on keeping up the delusion that the yachting trip would "bring her round all right," had passed but little of his time in her society, the senora had "known her place, and kept it," and one by one Ellinor's gay friends had flitted away from Cowes, leaving a small packet of representative pasteboard on the hall-table.

Gretchen's solemn Teutonic ears must have grown weary of the question addressed to her night and morning by her mistress with clock-work regularity: "Gretchen, how do I look to-day? Am I getting thinner, do you think?" sometimes varied by the order, "Gretchen, give me my hand-glass." And then for an hour or more at a time Ellinor would sit staring into it, as though in its placid glassy surface she could read prophetic tales of the future, or a whole history of days gone by.

On the evening that she had gathered the oleander-leaves she sat thus with her mirror in her hand, silent, dreamy, abstracted.

Gretchen dared not disturb her; yet there was that in her mistress's look and manner that night which startled her into something akin to surprise and apprehen

sion.

"Shall I bring the candles nearer, madame?" she ventured to ask at length, after she had stood in silent attendance some three-quarters of an hour.

"Yes, quite close," was Ellinor's reply in a strangely vibrating voice.

Gretchen brought two candles, and placed them on a table at Ellinor's right hand, so that their light fell soft and clear athwart the mirror, lifting the shadows from the beautiful face that looked up out of it. A face that might have been moonwashed for its whiteness, with a tremulous mouth, two large, dark-fringed, desolate eyes, a low, smooth brow, above which rested a veritable weight of russet-gold hair.

It might have been the face of a Mater Dolorosa, painted by Carlo Dolce himself, for the mingled anguish and beauty that lay written upon it.

And as Ellinor sat there gazing down into her own reflection a sudden wave of passion swept over her.

She pressed her lips vehemently to the cold glass.

"Oh, you beautiful-beautiful face!" she cried with a wailing, bitter cry. "You are mine! I love you-I glory in you— but where will you be hidden away this time next year?"

one interferes to prevent her, no one asks her why she does it. Uncle Hugh is still away at a pleasant house in Ayrshire, and writes home hopeful, cheery letters of the health and strength Ellinor will bring back from her sea trip; the senora has not yet ceased to "know her place, and keep it," and Phil Wickham stands mutely by with folded hands and aching heart.

Sometimes he will break out passionately into a bitter cry, "Oh, my love, my love, I cannot bear it!" And she will look up at him with eyes that seem to say, "I can bear it-why not you?" Sometimes he will bend over her as she kneels, and kiss the folds of her dark, bright hair, and the hot tears will run down his cheek as he does so. Then, if she turn, she will fall to weeping also, for of late her eyes have "caught the infection of it."

He is so bending over her now, as she kneels, and one hot tear falls on the nape of her white, slender neck. She starts and turns. Then they clasp hands, and there is silent weeping between them once

Supposing you will not let me go, what then?" she asks with never the ghost of a smile flitting across her pale face. "What then!" repeats Phil in a halfdazed tone.

"Aye, what then? Think for how long you would be able to say 'I swear before Heaven I will not let you go!""

Phil's words come in a torrent.

"I do not believe it-I will not believe it; it is lies-all lies-what those doctors said. You are killing yourself by inches with thinking over it," he cries hoarsely. A peculiar expression passes over Ellinor's face.

"Two days ago," she says quietly, "I saw Gretchen putting aside a letter to be sent to Uncle Hugh with some others. It had a broad black border, and was addressed to me in my mother's writing."

Phil stares at her dumbly.

"And this morning," she goes on, "when I awoke I felt my handkerchief was wet, and I thought for the moment it must be with the tears I had shed in my sleep. When I looked, it was wet with blood. Juliet's illness began in this way."

Phil groans and hides his face in her dress.

She caresses his light curly head as it lies on her lap.

"Poor Phil-poor Phil!" she says softly. And then there falls another silence between them.

it.

Once more Ellinor is the first to break She draws from the bosom of her dress a small packet. "See," she says. "Look up." And Phil, looking up, sees five dead, blackened leaves of an oleander-tree.

"Only five are left," she says, "and I'm going to throw those five away. Open the window, please.'

But Phil lays his hand upon her arm, and will not let her rise from her chair.

"You shall not do it!" he cries impetuously; "or if you do, it shall make no difference. You shall not leave me, or I will not leave you. It shall be which you please. Be reasonable."

Ellinor interrupts him. "It is what I ask of you to be reasonable. Let us talk the matter out once and for ever. What do you want to wait on here for? To see my sufferings begin? To watch me day by day getting weaker, not able to leave my room one day, the next unable to leave my bed? Is that what you'd wait on to see? What sort of a parting should we have

"One, two, three, four, five," she counts them again. "There is something else I have had to say to you for many a day past, and I have put it off-put it off."

She speaks slowly, dreamily, as though the shadows from another world were already beginning to unfold her.

Then she rises from her chair, goes to the window, and unlatches it. A cold rush of sea-breeze fills the room. One, two, three, four dead leaves flutter from her hand, and drift away on the wind.

Phil puts his arm round her waist, and clasps his fingers tightly over the remaining leaf.

"Give me one more day-for Heaven's sake, give me one more day, if no more!" he implores.

She shakes her head.

"The senora and Gretchen are already on board," she answers quietly. "I have ordered a boat to be ready for me in half an hour's time. You shall row me downthat is, if you will, after I have said what I have to say."

Phil stares at her vacantly.

"What can you have to say thatthat will make any difference now?" he begins, stumbling and halting over his words.

Ellinor goes on, not waiting for his reply:

"Very well, I tell you such was not the case. She gave you up wholly and solely because Lucy Selwyn wrote to her, telling her you loved me, and your happiness depended on winning me. There, you know now. I have known this for many a day past. Lucy could keep nothing from. me I chose to find out."

Phil feels choking, he staggers to the window to get the sea-breeze in his face. His heart seems cleft in two. Great Heavens! what a revelation to make—and at what a time!

Ellinor follows him.

"You will ask me why I tell you this? I don't know-I can't say; just a whim— nothing more. Something to think about when I get on board my yacht. I shall picture you and Edie kissing and making it up when I--"

"Stop!" cries Phil, laying his hand on her mouth. "What are you trying to do? You break my heart. Do you wish to break my brains also, and make a lunatic of me right out?"

In good truth, more than half a lunatic he looks already. Another five minutes of such talk may send him the rest of the way.

Another rush of salt breeze comes in at the open window. Ellinor, as she talked, had laid her final leaf on the ledge. The wind catches it now, and with a whirl sweeps it away and out of sight-the dead, useless thing that it is.

Ellinor grows a shade paler. "Ah, Fate decides for us, do you see?" she says faintly. "Well, don't forget I have told you that Edie loved you when she gave you up-loved you always, loves you now!"

She breaks off a moment; then she throws herself, passionately weeping, on his breast.

"Oh, my love-my love!" she cries heart-brokenly, "false as I have been to all the rest of the world, to you, at least, I have always been true!"

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