XIV.

THE solitary days had passed slowly, but peacefully, for Rachel in the quiet valley, where the glory of the surrounding hills, the deep peace of the chestnut woods, the long level pastures sprinkled with pale purple crocuses, alive with the fairy music of unseen grasshoppers, the river creeping lazily between verdant banks, and reflecting the cloudless blue, the sense of summer in the air, all made for contentment and joy. Rachel was peculiarly sensitive to the influence of natural beauty; and though her mind dwelt much upon the tragedy of Mary Selby's death, she could but feel the Divine gift of life, in a world where there was so much of varied and romantic loveliness. Her reunion with her husband had brought an abiding peace into her life. Sympathy, confidence, the perfect bond between man and wife, had been made good as in the early days of their marriage. She thought of him in his trouble with profound tenderness, and longed for his return, but without anxiety; for post and telegraph had kept them in touch with each other in the few days of their severance; and to-night she was to welcome him back to a place which seemed like home, so deep was the charm of its tranquil beauty, and the sense that she had been happy there.

She had made friends of the children and the

women; and was almost as much in sympathy with them as if they had been her old pensioners of East-End London. She had sat in their little gardens, and heard the story of their simple lives, their hard work, and many deprivations-a life as laborious as the life of the London poor, but with less of struggle and uncertainty. The children admired and adored the beautiful stranger, who talked to them in her slow careful Italian, and who took such pains to understand their patois; they hung about her footsteps as she walked by the river, and brought her flowers, which were really the gifts of love, not the offering of the cadging child greedy for the stranger's pence. Her money gifts were to the house-mothers, or the old women, never to the children, for whom she had cakes and fruit sometimes in the trellised arbour where she spent the hottest hours of the day. She liked to see the bright olive faces, and the dark eyes, peering in at the leafy door, smiling and beaming at her, eager for her notice. She would take the smallest children on her lap, and let them touch her laces, and her hair, with inquisitive little fingers; and as she looked at the dark heads crowding round her chair, she would select the boy whose age came nearest to the years of her son, had he lived. He was never forgotten, never long absent from her mind, and often-very often-present in her dreams. She had dreamt lately that he was given back to her. She had held him in her arms, with a sense of overwhelming joy. The dream haunted her, and was with her in all her solitary hours. Every night on her knees she read the story of the Christ-Child's coming, of the gladness on earth and in heaven; and that Divine Image went with all her thoughts of the

child she had lost, and the child she had seen in her dreams.

The hour of her husband's return was approaching. She had postponed dinner till his arrival, though she did not expect him till nearly ten o'clock. It was past nine, and she was walking in the garden, with her young St. Bernard frolicking round her, in the cool evening air. The clock of the neighbouring church had not long struck the first quarter, when she heard traveller wheels on the road from the frontier, and rejoiced wonderingly at this early arrival. She did not pause to question whether the carriage could be bringing her husband. Impulsive in her glad surprise, she ran to the gate to meet the traveller. She stood beside the drive, a few paces from the open gates, an ethereal figure, in her white gown, with bare head. Her dog growled angrily when the carriage stopped, and a man sprang out and stood in front of her with outstretched hands. It was not her husband.

The moonlight flashed upon a pale, resolute face. "Lord St. Just!" she cried, startled and scared at the unexpected appearance.

The St. Bernard made a whining noise that was almost a howl, and slunk into the shrubbery.

Rachel shrank away from those outstretched hands with a sudden sense of loathing, as if some unclean animal had approached her. And then there flashed upon her all that her husband had said of the change in St. Just's nature, and it seemed, as she looked at him, paralysed by an inexplicable fear, that this was not the man she had known, the friend she had trusted, the saint by whose bed she had knelt in an hour that had

been a sacred memory, even after the peril of death was past; an hour on the threshold of the grave, hallowed by the most solemn rites of the Church she loved.

"You look frightened, Mrs. Arden," he said. "Is it such a very startling thing to see me in Switzerland?"

"I am expecting my husband-I thought he was coming, when I heard your carriage. But he is not really due for another quarter of an hour."

"You are expecting him from England? From Chiavenna?"

"Yes. He was to be at Chiavenna at eight o'clock.” "I travelled by the same train. I am sorry I have some bad news for you," St. Just said slowly, after a few moments' silence.

The measured words and compassionate tone scared her, and instantly suggested calamity.

"There has been an accident. He is hurt--dangerously hurt!" she exclaimed, panic-stricken.

"No, no. Pray be calm. There has been an accident. Not on the railway. He has been hurt, but not dangerously. I have come to take you to him."

"You are very good. I will go this instant. Where is he?"

“At a village a few miles off. He was driving in an open carriage; his horses bolted at the bridge near the frontier, and he was thrown out. He fell against one of those granite posts that guard the road. There are contusions, a broken collar-bone, severe injuries—but nothing dangerous to life. It was a wonderful escape. If he had fallen over the edge of the road, he must have been killed. Will you go to the inn where he is lying?

My carriage will take you. I changed horses at the

frontier."

"Yes; I will go this instant. It was kind of you to come for me. I had better bring my maid, and Walter's servant. They can be useful."

"No, no; time is too precious. He had not recovered consciousness when I left him; and the doctor thought it important that he should see a familiar face when he comes to himself. Your people can follow."

"Yes, they can follow in another carriage. I will give orders. What is the name of the place?"

"It is the village nearest the Custom House.

is only one inn. There can be no mistake." "You say he has a doctor with him?”

There

"Yes, an Italian-an intelligent little man, who seemed quite equal to the occasion."

"And he told you there was no danger?"

"None, that he could foresee, with proper care.”

Rachel ran to the house, and to her room, where she summoned her faithful handmaid, and gave the necessary instructions. Valet and maid were to follow, directly a carriage could be got for them. She put on a hat and cloak, and hurried back to the gate where St. Just was waiting for her. He had not entered the house during her brief absence. The driver was in his seat, ready to

start.

The carriage was a closed landau, from which it was not easy to see the road in the varying lights and shadows. The moon was waning, that moon which had looked upon the murder of Mary Selby. For some way the road was familiar to Rachel. They crossed the bridge over the torrent, passed two or three white houses, where