CHAPTER VIII.

"All day within the dreamy house
The doors upon their hinges creaked,
The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.

Old faces glimmer'd through the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said 'My life is dreary;
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead." "

TENNYSON.

AT the end of about three weeks, Gertrude's father returned. She could not see him again without emotion; not, alas! that she felt the least affection for him, but that she connected his arrival with so much that was important to her, that the first sight of his face was a kind of signal to her of the consequences that were to follow, and

her heart beat when she went to meet him on the stairs. He received her as graciously as he ever did, and that is not saying much. There was neither pleasure nor displeasure in his face. "How do you do, Gertrude; is your mother pretty well to-day?" was his salutation. And when they met at dinner, the conversation between them was as civil and as proper as possible. He looked at her once or twice more attentively than usual. It did not seem to escape him that she was more beautiful than ever; that since she had been at Audley Park, she dressed more becomingly than she used to do, and that her manner, while it was as graceful as usual, had more aplomb.

A day or two after his arrival, he made her for the first time a present. It was a diamond necklace in a case, on which the arms of the family were engraved. She thanked him, but neither did his manner of giving it, or the nature of the gift afford her any particular pleasure. Her mother was so feeble now that she did not

venture to speak to her often of the subject nearest to her heart, for she perceived that it always called up a flush in her cheek, and a look of too much excitement in her eyes. Mrs. Lifford was agitated by the doubt whether she would be furthering or hindering the object of her most intense wishes by mentioning it to her husband. Her natural timidity inclined her to silence; but her anxiety about Gertrude made the suspense painfully trying. The time of Adrien's return was approaching. Twice she had forced herself to speak of his visits to Lifford Grange, and to say that she had seen him. The first time she did so her husband made no comment on the subject; but on the next occasion, he observed in a sneering tone, "I thought you were never well enough to receive strangers. I am glad you are so much stronger; or, perhaps your curiosity to see this French author was irresistible!"

"He is a man of very good family," the poor woman murmured faintly, with her fearfully bright

eyes fixed on his countenance, or rather face; for countenance he had none, except when unusually excited.

"Indeed!" he ejaculated, lifting up his eyebrows, in a manner that implied neither assent nor dissent.

"Yes," she persisted, "your uncle says the d'Arbergs were a very old German family. His father was naturalised in France."

He got up and walked to the window. She felt that the opportunity of speaking was lost, and yet how difficult again to recur to the subject. Then, she also feared that if he were averse to Adrien's proposals he would refuse to see him when he came, and she could not believe that even Mr. Lifford could be wholly insensible to the influence of his manner, and of his words. Once she said something vague about Gertrude's future destiny. He briefly answered, "When the time comes for a decision, I shall inform you of my views upon that point." Gertrude, meanwhile,

passed the days by her mother's bed, for she seldom left it now; and during those silent hours of watching, one only thought incessantly occupied her. She looked alternately from that dying form to the Duke of Gandia's picture. It was so strikingly like Adrien, that she forgot it was not really his portrait. Those two images filled her mind; they were connected together in her heart; fear and hope, the past and the future, were blended in those long meditations. Day followed day, Mrs. Lifford spoke less, but looked with more intense affection at her child. Six weeks had elapsed, and there was in her face each time that Gertrude entered her room a mute inquiry, to which no answer was returned but a forced and painful smile, and nothing changed around them.

It was getting late in November; no one had been at Lifford Grange,―not a single letter had been received by Gertrude or her mother, except one or two from Father Lifford and from Edgar. They were still detained in Spain by protracted