o'clock, and carriages ready to take people to the station at a quarter to four.

"You can't have carriages enough for everybody," said one of the men.

"We sha'n't leave a mortal behind, unless he wants to stop. There'll be room for everyone in our sixty breaks and landaus."

"Sixty! That's a large order."

"Oh, we didn't want to be in the position of the ancient Nabob, who had to order 'more curricles' for his guests. It might not be easy to raise extra conveyances at four o'clock in the morning."

The grounds were spacious, and thickly wooded; and all beyond that brilliant nucleus of coloured light lay in shadow under the sinking moon, a place in which it was easy for those unfamiliar with the scene by daylight to lose themselves. Only here and there a lamp had been hung on the dark trunk of a tree, to mark a footpath, or the parting of the ways; and this glow-worm glimmer served to intensify the darkness, and gave a mystic air as of an enchanted forest. There were not many wanderers; for the attractions of the supper-tent and the ballroom prevailed over the romance of the shadowy grounds, or the footpath on the edge of the river. Dancing was going on furiously in the spacious marquee, for a cotillon was in full swing, led by Sir Frederick and Vanessa, both alike possessed with an untiring ardour, and the waltzing power of phantom dancers in a German legend. Rumour had described the presents as unparalleled even among millionaire hostesses; and the moment when a beribboned cart

drawn by a snow-white donkey brought these treasures into the ballroom was a thrilling episode in this midsummer night's dream.

Lady Mary was not in the cotillon; but this fact was not surprising, as she rarely danced. A waltz once in a way, with a favourite partner, just to show her dearest friends that she waltzed more exquisitely than the best of them, sufficed her. To be eager for dances, to give her hand freely to the first comer, she considered unbefitting the dignity of her five- and - thirty years, the To waltz with Lady Mary

royal repose of her manner. Selby was an honour which golden youth knew how to appreciate.

She had been seen with St. Just in the supper-tent, but only for a few minutes. She would take nothing but a sandwich, and a glass of champagne in a tumbler of seltzer. Her friends watched her, criticised her gown and her rubies, and noted that she was very pale, save for a hectic flush that came and went upon her cheek. They noted also that St. Just never left her; and, in the shorthand vocabulary of our time, told each other that "M. was giving herself away."

The atmosphere of the tent stifled her; the crowd, the odours of hot soups and coffee and chocolate from the buffet, where lamps were burning under copper heaters-all was oppressive. She was glad to escape into the coolness outside.

"Let us go and watch the cotillon," she said. "It is going to be something tremendous-with all sorts of absurdities."

"No, no; you have seen hundreds of cotillons. Let

us watch the dying moon upon the river." He drew her hand through his arm, and led her away from the gaudy light, into an avenue of old trees, tall beeches that were ancient when Horace Walpole was busy with his toy castle in his beloved "County of Twicks;" when Lady Suffolk was building herself a dower house hard by; when Twickenham and Richmond were secluded villages, the favoured homes of the learned and the élite. All was changed since those days; but to-night all seemed unchanged in the glimmer of a sinking moon and the first faint lilac of dawn.

A narrow backwater wound among the trees; it was scarcely more than a ditch, but there was water enough to reflect the fading stars and that faint daffodil glimmer of the coming dawn, through an opening in the leafy roof. It was a place of silence and seclusion, a narrow path following the edge of the water, a low, irregular bank, broken here and there where cattle had trampled the ground, going down to drink. It was a spot for lovers, perhaps, since it was remote and unfrequented, a winding track under leafy shade, where with the first faint promise of dawn there came the low sweet chorus of awakening birds, that sound which of all others suggests the birth of a new day. But it was hardly a spot to charm a solitary straggler; yet here was Mrs. Kelvin, wrapped in a black satin cloak, the hood drawn over her head and covering her face, with just space for gleaming eyes to look out, peering round, piercing the shadows under the trees, glancing this way and that, eager, alert, expectant. So shrouded there was little fear of her being observed by anyone else who might

be sauntering along the narrow track; but she was particularly careful to avoid the possibility. Stealthy of foot, creeping from tree to tree, not upon the path itself, but on the rank dry grass beside it, moving slowly, so as to avoid the rustling of silken skirts or of the long rank grass, she stole through the shadows, following the stream to the river in the ghostly dawn, a phantom, a ghoul, an evil spirit.

Was it a rendezvous or an espial?

The Conflict. II.

12

CHAPTER XII.

WALTER ARDEN was destined to suffer a rude awakening from the halcyon days of tranquillity and content which had followed his reunion with his wife. He had been supremely happy, and had almost forgotten the sufferings of the past. He had knelt in the little Lutheran church with Rachel, and had heard the message of peace, not as the believer hears, but touched by the wisdom of the Divine words, the beauty of the Divine life, sympathising with his wife in her implicit faith, her unquestioning acceptance of the miraculous element in a life which to him had never been more than a tradition and an example.

He was happy, and his mind was at rest; and in his musings on this happy change he recalled one of the strange features of Chaldean magic; the belief that the soul which had been held in bondage by an evil spirit could, after the expulsion of the demon, only be made secure from future harm by becoming the tabernacle of a good spirit. Possession could only be cured by possession. The counter influence was needed for safety.

"Rachel is my good spirit," he thought. "The mind that gentle spirit rules ought to be invincible against demoniac power. To live with her, to live for her, shall be my religion; and who knows, some day I may come