herself stand as it were on either edge of a black gulf, hourly widening, yet neither having strength to plunge it to the other's side.

Here she sat, upright and still, body and soul wrapped in a leaden, shroud-like darkness, until gradually a stupor possessed her brain.

"I am so tired," she murmured, "I must go to sleep. He will not leave till to-morrow. But it does not signify. Nothing signifies. I must go to sleep."

She unlocked the door and drew in the candle, flaring in its socket. She had to press her fingers on her eyeballs before they could bear the light, all was so very dark. She knotted her hair up anyhow, took off her clothes, and crept to bed, almost as if she were creeping to her tomb. The fragment of candle went out, sinking instantaneously, like a soul quenched out of existence, and all was total darkness. In that darkness a heavy

hand seemed to lay itself on Agatha's brain, and press down her eyelids. Scarcely two minutes after, she was asleep.

Hour after hour of the night went by, and there not a sound, not a breath in the room. The late moon rose, and gave a little glimmer of light through the curtains. Now and then there was a faint noise of some one moving in the house, but Agatha never stirred. She slept heavily, as some people invariably sleep under the pressure of great pain.

Towards morning, when moonlight and dawn were melted together, and the room was growing light enough to discern faces, there was a step at the door, and a ray flashing through the opening, for Agatha had left it ajar.

Nathanael set down the candle without, and came in softly. He was dressed for a journey-evidently just ready to start. He looked very ill, sleepless, and worn.

Standing a minute at the door, he listened

to his wife's breathing, low and regular as that of a child. Nature and repose had soothed her; she slept now as quietly and healthfully as if she had never known trouble. Her husband crept across the room very carefully, and remained watching her. Oh! the contrast between the one who watched and the one who slept!

At first he stood perfectly upright, rigid, and motionless. Then his hands twisted themselves together, and his eyes grew hot, bursting. His lips moved as in speaking, though with never a sound. It was the dumbness-the choking dumbness of that emotion which made it so terrible. Such silence could not last-he seemed to feel it could not-and so moved backward out of hearing. There he stood for a little while, leaning against the wall, his hand bound tightly over his forehead, and sighing, so awfully sighing!-that gasp which bursts from men who have no tears.