good report and evil report. You will love me always, promise me that!"
"What are you saying?" she asked, softly, smiling through her tears.
"Nay, I hardly know. I have caught something of your doubts and forebodings, I think. It is our first parting, Violet, as you say. Perhaps that is the cause. Again, good-bye! Keep your heart up, there's my brave Violet! Love me and trust in me always. Good-bye!"
One last hurried kiss, and he was gone. She heard the noise of the cab bearing him away; she listened until the sound quite died off. Then a sense of loneliness came dreadfully upon her, and the tears streamed down her face. Had Mr. Phillimore seen her then, he would have cried aloud in his admiration at the exquisite semblance of Raffaelle's Mater Dolorosa that she presented.
"I have never doubted him," she said. "Let me not doubt him now. And yet there was something new and strange in his voice as he spoke of that newspaper business. And then this sudden departure. No! no!" and she interrupted herself passionately, "he is my own good true husband! I wrong him by one moment's doubt of him."
And Violet dried her eyes and passed up-stairs, to kneel before the cradle in the front room, to kiss tenderly the rosy little child curled up closely and fast asleep: to weep anew, and pray for her husband and the father of her child.
"If I were never to see her more!" murmured Wilford, as the cab bore him rapidly away. The thought seemed to be to him agony the most acute.
The cab did not go into the city—drew up at no newspaper office. It stopped at the door of an hotel near Covent Garden Market. The night-porter was roused, and the cab dismissed. Wilford was shown into a bedroom. He flung down his carpet-bag.
"At least I have now time to think; I have gained that much," and he drew his hand nervously across his forehead. "Let me read this infernal letter again." And he took it, a crumpled ball of paper, from his pocket, and smoothed it on the dressing-table in the room. As he did this he caught sight of himself in the glass. "Heaven!" he exclaimed, involuntarily, "how white I am!"
He rested his head upon his hands, and remained so for a long time, bent over the letter. It contained but a few short lines, yet he sat brooding over these, reading them again and again, as though he were learning them by heart. At last he seemed to be staring in a dazed, vacant way, as though his eyes really took no cognizance of the writing before him, and his thoughts were miles and miles away. With an effort he brought himself back to consciousness of surrounding circumstances. Once more he read the letter.
"I shall remember the name," he said at last in a hollow voice, "and the address: 'Boisfleury—second floor—67, Stowe Street, Strand,'—I shall not forget that. For this—" He stood for a long time irresolutely, folding it up, winding it round his fingers, twisting it into all sorts of shapes. "Yes, it had better be burnt!"
He lighted it at the candle, thrust the flaming paper into the empty grate, and watched it slowly consume. He waited until the last spark had flown from it. A few flakes of tinder only remained of the letter which had disturbed him so strangely.
"So far so well," he said; "what next?"
And he shuddered.
He looked round nervously at the gaunt-looking bedroom. It could hardly be comfortable; it struck him as so new and unaccustomed, and the heavy furniture of the room quite absorbed and oppressed the light. The place seemed very dim and dreary, and full of dense shadows huddling closely in the corners. He had never felt so sad and desolate before.
Slowly he undressed and went to bed—hardly to sleep, however.
JOHN HORNER, ESQUIRE, ON BRITISH PICTURES AT THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.
