of his early married life; and, beyond that, he wished to speak to Ernest and Drury.

Half an hour later, as Nora walked down the long corridor from her own room, softly and slowly, enfolded in her new happiness, Mr. Sutton met her, and drew her towards him at one of the low windows. 'Nora, I have told the boys,' he said, with a great delight in 'You should have heard Ernest's loud "Hurrah!"' And Drury?' she questioned.

his tones.

6

Drury is a quieter lad,' said the Squire, with a perceptible change of tone; he did not so noisily express his delight at the thought of having you here for ever. O my love, what a happy change it will be for us all!'

She was looking from the window near which they stood; but when he ceased speaking, her eyes came slowly back and fixed themselves wistfully upon his face.

'I wonder,' she said, if it will be so-a happy change for us all ?'

'My darling, can you doubt it?'

'I never did until that moment,' she softly answered; but then a sudden fear came over me.'

'And you are trembling still. What brought this wild and unnatural fear, my love?'

Nothing could have brought it, for when it darted into my mind—making things look dark which an instant before had seemed so beautiful to me-you were only speaking of Ernest and Drury.'

CHAPTER II.

ADRIFT.

THREE years have passed since the Squire of High Sutton brought his young bride from Ireland, and these three years have passed in perfect happiness for both. So bent had Nora been upon preparing herself for conscientiously taking upon her her new responsibilities, that to study indefatigably under her father, in the Irish home in which order and method had been ever strangers, she would have delayed her marriage month after month, on the ground of not being sufficiently improved. But her father pleaded with her lover, and won her consent at last, urging his own failing health and great desire to see her in her real home.

Upon this summer evening, when we next see Nora at High Sutton, her father has been dead almost two years, and the little Connaught estate is offered-vainly for sale.

The twins are at home for the long vacation now, tall and stalwart young men, but with still the old contrast both in face and manner-Ernest, frank and active; Drury, silent, watchful, and inert. There has been no change at all in Ernest's manner to

Nora during these three years, but sometimes she fancies Drury is impatient with her, and that he winces at any reminder of their relationship.

'It is natural,' she muses to herself; only I wish he would only laugh at the notion of so young a mother, as Ernest does.'

But Drury has added reasons for his depression which his young stepmother never guesses.

Miss Macnair has settled herself or rather allowed her brotherin-law to settle her-in the Dower House; and though only a ten minutes' walk across the park brings her to High Sutton, she lets many a day pass without crossing it, unless the twins are at home.

But they are at home now, and Miss Macnair is talking of them, as she loiters on the terrace with the Squire and Nora, and with the little one, who has found no favour in her eyes. How he has possibly failed to do this is the one thought puzzling the Squire's mind at this moment, as his little son stands laughing on the wide stone rail —a beautiful boy with grave blue eyes, and a mouth all smiles and dimples, his mother's arm about him, and his mother's eyes brightening as they meet his.

'Now do own, Caroline,' cried Mr. Sutton delightedly, as the child sprang into his outstretched arms, that baby is like our family, because everybody else tells Nora he has her face.'

6

'He is not at all like your sons-I mean your other sons,' observed Miss Macnair icily. They were, fortunately for them, not so much petted, either,' she continued, in the silence which followed her kind remark.

The petting is all we can give this little lad,' said the Squire good-humouredly.

He will have to rough it with the world pre

sently, like the poorest of us.'

'Probably,' observed Miss Macnair, Carleton will soon discover how very much in his light his brother Ernest stands.'

'What are you saying, Caroline ?' inquired Mr. Sutton sternly, as he closed his arms more tightly about his boy. 'Our little lad will never think of Ernest save as his kind big brother, just as Drury always did, only that there would have been some excuse for Drury to resent his juniorship. Where there is only twenty minutes of priority, the chance has been so nearly escaped; where there is twenty years, the case is very different.'

Miss Macnair was gazing curiously into Nora's face, perhaps because it was so beautiful with loving pride and bright content. 'I knew a boy,' she said, as Nora's girlish laugh came brightly from her lips, and he inherited a splendid estate when he came of age, though when I saw him first—just such a child as yours, Nora— five healthy lives stood between him and the property. So there is even a chance in this case.'

'I hope,' said Nora-and they each noticed that her face had

grown very white-that there is no such thing as chance in such a case.'

'We cannot, of course, expect,' resumed Miss Macnair, with motiveless obstinacy, that you do not sometimes wish this home, which is his father's, would some day be your boy's.'

Then Nora laughed as she stooped to kiss the child.

6

Perhaps,'

she said debonairly, no mother thinks it wicked to be avaricious for her son.'

Perhaps so,' replied the elder lady ominously;

though why that species of coveting should be more free from sin than any other, it puzzles me to imagine.'

Nora, my darling,' put in her husband very gently, as he stroked her bright soft hair, when you jest so, Caroline does not understand you; and think what spectacles she would need to find a speck of covetousness in your nature.'

Perhaps Miss Macnair did not like the idea of being jested with at all, and perhaps the sight of the perfect confidence between husband and wife galled her a little, as she recollected the old days when her sister left his heart aching and unsatisfied. In any case, she turned away abruptly, and put on the shawl which Nora had carried out for her.

If you are going for a walk, Caroline,' said her brother-inlaw, the passing cloud gone from his genial handsome face, 'wait for us.'

'I should have liked to come, Miss Macnair,' put in Nora, in her warm bright tones, but I promised Ernest to join him at the river, with baby. If we reach home first, we will walk towards the village to meet you and Wynter. If you are first, will you come towards the boat-house to meet us?'

But Nora's chief reason for refusing to join this walk was not her half promise to Ernest. She understood pretty well now the jealous nature of her husband's sister-in-law; and rightly judging that she would now and then enjoy the Squire's society all to herself, the girl-wife, whose nature was utterly free from jealousy of any kind, would often invent a harmless excuse to leave the two together.

It was the Squire and Miss Macnair who reached home first; but, instead of going at once to meet Nora, they lingered together on the terrace, just where they had chatted before separating, but silent now, waiting and watching for the others.

Presently, quite suddenly, this silence was broken by a cry—a swift shrill cry of horror-which pierced the air and echoed in the massive walls behind them.

'It was a—a laugh, I suppose,' faltered Miss Macnair, her lips stiff and white.

The Squire's head was raised, every nerve strained to listen. 'It was no laugh,' he said. "Caroline, wait here for Nora.'

With a sudden impulse, she closed her hand upon his arm. 'I cannot let you go,' she sobbed. It has frightened me. It seemed like Nora's shriek. Stay, listen! There are footsteps.'

It was Nora's own fleet tread which presently reached their ears; and the Squire, shaking off his sister's detaining hand, clasped his arm about his wife when she came towards them from the park, her step unsteady, and her eyes feverishly bright in their terror.

'My love,' he cried, his tones shaken by a vague alarm, you are safe in your husband's care. Nothing can hurt you here. Feel how strong I am, and how closely I can guard you. My precious one, how white and ill you look! What is it ?-tell me. Where' -in sudden apprehension-' is baby?'

She turned eagerly to point on the way she had come.

There,' she whispered, as if glad to answer to some opportunity given her. There-safe. O my husband, fetch him, and let me go!"

Yet, when his arms were loosed, she only turned and faced him, with a ghastly pallor on her face. To the river,' she whispered, the words faltering through her parted lips. Ernest-the Fall.

O, quick!'

One look her husband gave into her face- -a look of wild incredulous inquiry-and then he turned and ran; and Nora, shrinking from Miss Macnair, crept up to the house with silent heavy steps, and soon was lost to the keen eyes which followed her.

The great dinner-bell had long ceased its unavailing summons, and the dishes were left to grow cold under their covers. There had settled upon the house a hush, which in itself was terrible after those hours of excitement. The physicians had left, and their hopeless verdict of Too late' had passed so constantly from mouth to mouth, that even its keen sting was deadened a little already. Almost the only sound proceeded from Miss Macnair's chamber, where she lay sobbing violently upon her bed. All other rooms in the great house seemed as silent as that one where the heir lay stiff and dead, with the trophies of his boyish tastes around him.

Mr. Sutton, whose face in these three hours had grown aged and lined, softly closed the door of this chamber, which in that gathering of the twilight had changed from the noisiest in the house to the awful centre of its deathly stillness, and, with a new heaviness and weakness in his step, went on to his wife's dressing-room. The candles were lighted, and by their light he saw in a moment that the room was empty. He softly passed into the chamber beyond, and searched it even in the darkness. But Nora was not there.

'My poor darling!' he murmured, as he turned towards the nurseries; 'that angry hysterical rebuff of Caroline's was cruel, when she was trying so bravely to be patient and comforting.'

The door of his little boy's nursery was locked, and the Squire's

heart sank when he saw this, and that the room was still in dark

ness.

'Nora,' he whispered pleadingly, it is only I, my love.'

His voice was shaken and weakened by the awful shock and grief of those past hours; and the low tones startled Nora as her husband's tones had never startled her before.

Yet, without turning the key, she sat with her hands tight upon her temples, listening in the darkness.

'Let me in, my darling wife.'

Her hands fell helpless to her side, and the great pain and love upon her face were pitiful to see; but she still stood with the locked door between her and her husband. No word of blame or even surprise he uttered, while she, who ought to have sought him now to comfort him, hid herself from him, even when he sought her. But he called her lovingly again, in a voice so stirred and broken by the pain he suffered, that, after one moment's clasp of her raised hands and closing of her strained eyes, she turned the key, and even in the gloom eagerly and wistfully met her husband's gaze.

In another moment her face was hidden on his breast, and her whole frame was shaken by passionate suppressed sobs, while the tears fell at last from his eyes too slowly and silently down upon her bent head.

So they stood in this close embrace beside their sleeping child, until Nora's tears were stayed; and, shrinking from her husband's arms, she went to her baby's bed and laid one hand upon his pillow.

I have been dreaming. I must have been dreaming in the darkness. O my husband, tell me what is true ?'

Frightened a little by her manner, he told her as quietly and simply as he could, knowing well that this agony of repetition was unnecessary, because she had looked with him upon his son's dead face, and had repeated, in this same awed tone, the doctor's words, 'Too late.'

I-I cannot understand,' she faltered, her eyes so pitifully wide and eager.

'Yet it was you who knew it first, my darling,' Wynter Sutton whispered, covering his own eyes. Your cry was our only pre

paration for the awful truth.

picture what you saw!'

You saw-0 my love, I dare not

'Yes,' said Nora in a slow distinct tone, her right hand softly lying now upon her baby's hair, I saw the boat glide over the Fall -as smoothly as if it did not mean an instantaneous death. Didno one else see ?'

'No one else. Your cry gave the first alarm, and I think others had gathered at the Fall even before I reached it. Drury was last; he had been wandering alone with his gun all the afternoon, and he thought it was only in fancy that he heard a faint and distant cry.'