She removed her hands and looked fearfully round. Edith stood pale and trembling at the door.

"Wilt thou not go?" exclaimed the lady, "wilt thou remain, thou spirit? I slew thee not-thou didst not say to me thou had'st no shelter-thou said'st not thou wert homeless, thou false one, and who could tell me if thou did'st not? I tell thee, Edith-Edith, thou Puritan-thou pale-face-thou false Dacre, I tell thee, thou bearest witness to a lie, for I did not slay thee !"

There was a pause-the sick woman fell back exhausted upon her bed, keeping her large, dilated, unnaturally bright eyes fixed upon Edith.

"Where is her child?" she murmured. "Where has she left her child? she had it in her arms yonder, when she stood by the door, and they say the mark of her footsteps hath been ever there, since then-but where is her child? has she killed her child?"

There were footsteps ascending the stairs. Edith turned in some fear to see who was approaching.

"Ha!" cried the wild, shrill voice." She trembles before me--she fears mine eye. Thou coward, thou art lesser than I in thy very heaven. False heart! Craven! I laugh thee to scorn-thou canst not stand before me."

The step drew near. Edith looked anxiously from the door; she scarcely heard the loud incoherent ravings of the sick woman's voice. Through the open door of the ante-chamber she saw a man approaching-it was Sir Philip Dacre.

"Mistress Edith," he exclaimed, hurriedly, "is my mother stricken? Ah, I trembled for this--and thou hast

come to her in pity. God reward thee for thou art like the angels of His own dwelling place."

He hurried-forward to the bedside.

“Art thou here, Philip?" said the raving Lady Dacre; "and did'st thou meet yonder coward flying from before me? She came to exult over me; she came to see me suffer; she, thou knowest, Edith, whom men say I helped to slay; but she feared mine eye, Philip; she remembered, the craven, how she was wont to quail before me, and she has fled!"

The lady raised herself and looked round once more. "She is not gone? Edith-Edith-Philip, thou hast wept for her; she will go if thou dost bid her go."

"Mother," said Philip Dacre, earnestly, "mother, think of thyself now; there is none here but a mortal maiden of thine own kindred, who comes to help thee in mercy. Mother, let us tend you. When were you stricken? Oh!

God, is there no hope?"

"See you," said his mother, in a whisper. "See you how she steals yonder? There is no footfall-thinkest thou, thou could'st hear the footfall of a spirit? and lo! you, Philip, she looketh gentle, an angel in heaven. Where is her child? Send her away," she cried, suddenly starting in wild passion, "send her away. Think ye I will die in her presence? Nay, nay, nay, send her hence, she will go if you command her."

Edith hurriedly left the room; she heard, as she lingered in the ante-chamber for a moment, the wild voice sink in its raving, and then she left the house to seek a

nurse.

Along the silent, echoing streets, with fear and wonder

rising in her mind tumultuously, Edith hastened to seek help. What this mysterious connection was, she had never ascertained; but the melancholy light which enshrined the memory of her young mother, threw its pale radiance strangely over this death-bed; but Edith's marveling shaped itself into no definite question. She was too eager in her errand; her hasty search for help to the Lady Dacre.

Dorothy Turner was engaged with her patient, the despairing woman whose violent flight into the Hampsteadfields had saved her life; and Edith sought Dame Saffron, who had also taken up, in extremity, the desperate trade of plague-nurse. The laundry-woman was fortunately disengaged, and with many inquiries after Edith's own health, and much talk of the calamities which had come under her own notice, which Edith, in her haste and anxiety, scarcely heard, accompanied her to Westminster.

Sir Philip received them at the door. He was very grave and sad.

"I have brought Dame Saffron to tend the lady," said Edith, "but perchance it were better that I entered not."

"Both for thine own sake and hers, gentle cousin," said the young man. "Start not, for we are truly kindred; but remember her in pity and in tenderness, Edith, for she líes on a terrible death-bed, pricked to the heart-have pity on her-have pity on her, gentle Edith."

CHAPTER IX.

แ "Speak not of grief till thou hast seen

The tears of armed men."

MRS. HEMANS.

UPON the evening of that day, Caleb Field and his daughter sat in Dame Rogers's better room alone. The minister had newly returned from the strenuous labors of his vocation, and Edith had just finished telling him of the strange meeting of the morning.

The simple evening meal stood untasted upon the table. The strong winds of deep emotion were sweeping over his face. The bitterest time of all his stout, laborious life was standing forth before him in its deadly coloring of cruel wrong and terrible bereavement. Not now the sanctity of tenderness wherewith her gentle memory made all things holy round it; but the bitter, blind agony of yonder dark hour of her death, was swelling in the heart of Edith Dacre's forlorn and faithful husband.

The look of her wan face as she tottered up the bare paths of yonder hills, seeking a place to die in; the last faint whisper of her voice that forgave her hard and haughty kinswoman, and bade God bless him and the child; vivid, in bitter pain and anguish, they came into his heart, as he laid his face down into his clasped hands and

wept those few terrible tears of stern manhood which express to us the uttermost agony of grief.

After a time he grew calmer, though Edith started to see the pale face, still moved with its extremity of emotion, which her father raised to her before he spoke.

"Edith," he said, hoarsely, "I have never dared to tell you never dared for terror of myself; yet I say the Lord forgive her the Lord pardon the proud woman, as she did who is in His heaven long years ago. My Edith! my blessed one!"

"Father," said Edith, "tell me not if it moves you thus: indeed I did not know any thing; but, father, spare yourself."

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Edith," said Master Field, proceeding with fixed composure, like one reading words which he had conned so often that he knew them at last by heart," "they were near kinswomen, daughters of two brethren: yonder haughty lady was the heir; Edith had naught but the riches of her own noble heart. The proud cousin ruled with the strong hand of a tyrant; the gentle one was an orphan, alone in this chill earth: and in the house of her fathers Edith Dacre was a slave!

"Ah! Edith, thou knowest grief-thou knowest not the hard sorrows of thy sweet mother's youth!

"And so she gave her gentle hand to me, and we were at peace and joyous for one blessed while. Thou wert born then, in our glad poverty, Edith: I dare not look back upon its wondrous sunshine-I dare not!

"But it was an evil time! Yonder hapless king and the archbishop were failing in their unrighteous power; and suddenly, when we thought no evil, we were driven,