consent, he could then take her on a wedding-tour, and that tour he could easily extend from place to place, putting off the evil time until, strong in health and conjugal affection, she might be able to endure the terrible, the inevitable blow.  The very next morning he wrote her an eloquent letter; he told her that Henry had gone suddenly off to Australia to sell his patents; that almost his last word had been, “My mother!  I leave her to you.”  This, said the doctor, is a sacred commission; and how can I execute it?  I cannot invite you to Hillsborough, for the air is fatal to you.  Think of your half-promise, and my many years of devotion, and give me the right to carry out your son’s wishes to the full.

Mrs. Little replied to this letter, and the result of the correspondence was this:  she said she would marry him if she could recover her health, but that she feared she never should until she was reconciled to her brother.

Meantime Grace Carden fell into a strange state:  fits of feverish energy; fits of death-like stupor.  She could do nothing, yet it maddened her to be idle.  With Bolt’s permission, she set workmen to remove all the remains of the chimney that could be got at—­the water was high just then:  she had a barge and workmen, and often watched them, and urged them by her presence.  Not that she ever spoke; but she hovered about with her marble face and staring eyes, and the sight of her touched their hearts and spurred them to exertion.

Sometimes she used to stand on a heap of bricks hard by, and peer, with dilated eyes into the dark stream, and watch each bucket, or basket, as it came up with bricks, and rubbish, and mud, from the bottom.

At other times she would stand on the bridge and lean over the battlements so far as if she would fly down and search for her dead lover.

One day as she hung thus, glaring into the water, she heard a deep sigh.  She looked up, and there was a face almost as pale as her own, and even more haggard, looking at her with a strange mixture of pain and pity.  This ghastly spectator of her agony was himself a miserable man, it was Frederick Coventry.  His crime had brought him no happiness, no hope of happiness.

At sight of him Grace Carden groaned, and covered her face with her hands.

Coventry drew back dismayed.  His guilty conscience misinterpreted this.

“You can forgive us now,” said Grace, with a deep sob:  then turned away with sullen listlessness, and continued her sad scrutiny.

Coventry loved her, after his fashion, and her mute but eloquent misery moved him.

He drew nearer to her, and said softly, “Do not look so; I can’t bear it.  He is not there.”

“Ah!  How do you know?”

Coventry was silent for a moment, and seemed uneasy; but at last he replied thus:  “There were two explosions.  The chimney fell into the river a moment before the explosion that blew up the works.  So how can he be buried under the ruins of the chimney?  I know this from a workman who was standing on the bridge when the explosions took place.”