Elsie took Elizabeth up the broad flight of steps which led from the hall, and conducted her to the suite of rooms that had been prepared for her reception. "I had them arranged close to my little nest," she said, "because I knew Grantley would never be content unless I was within call. I hope you will like them, Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth answered that they were beautiful, as indeed they were. But it was a grand, lonely splendor that she looked upon, which almost chilled her. The chamber was large and richly furnished. Every thing was massive and costly. The carpet soft as a flower-bed and as brilliant in tints. Wherever she turned, her eyes fell on exquisite carvings reflected by limpid mirrors; curtains of richly tinted satin shut out a perfect view of the ocean, and Elizabeth could not help remarking that the principal windows faced northward, away from the bloom and glory of the grounds. Even her dressing-room, which was in one of the octagon towers, looked out on the only barren spot in view—a storm-beaten grove of cedars that stood, ragged and bristling with dead limbs, on the beach.

Spite of herself, Elizabeth was chilled. She loved the morning sunshine like a worshiper, and felt as if all the grandeur which surrounded her was shutting it out from her own portion of this new home.

"Did Mr. Mellen arrange these rooms?" she asked in a faltering voice. "Was it his taste?"

"Dear me, not at all," answered Elsie. "He exhausted himself in fitting up my snuggery. The rest was left to me. I had carte blanche, you know, as to money; and it was splendid fun going about and ordering things. Don't you remember how much I used to be away from school?"

Elizabeth smiled, and made an effort to appear thankful and pleased.

"See what close neighbors we are," said Elsie, lifting a curtain that seemed to drape a window, but revealing a door which she pushed open.

Elizabeth stepped forward, and in contrast with the rich gloom of her own chamber, saw a suite of the brightest, sunniest rooms, that ever a capricious beauty inhabited.

The dressing-room which she entered, was hung with bright, cerulean blue, overrun with what seemed to be a delicate pattern of point-lace. The carpet was thick, soft, and almost as white as ermine, with a tangled vine of golden water-lilies and broad, green leaves running over it, as if the water they grew in had been crusted with snow, and the blossoms, soft, fresh, and bright, frozen upon the surface. The couch, easy-chair, and general furniture, were of polished satin-wood, cushioned with delicate azure silk shot and starred with silver. A luxurious number of silken cushions lay upon the couch, chairs, and even on the floor; for two or three were heaped against the pedestal, on which a basket of flowers stood, and upon them lay a guitar, with its broad, pink ribbon hanging loose. Every table was loaded with some exquisitely feminine object of use or beauty, till the very profusion was oppressive, light and graceful as every thing was.

Two of the windows were open, and their lace curtains held back, one by a marble Hebe that mingled her cold stone flowers with the lace; the other by a Bacchante, whose garland of snow-white grapes was seen dimly, through the transparent folds it gathered away from the glass.

Through these open windows came glimpses of the flower-garden, green slopes on the lawn, and farther off the wind swept up perfumes from a distant orchard, and sifted it almost imperceptibly through the delicate network of the curtains. Back of this boudoir was a bed-chamber, and beyond that a dressing-room. Elizabeth could see through the open door a bed with hangings of blue and white, with all the objects of luxury which could please the taste of a pampered and fanciful girl.

"Grantley chose these rooms for me long ago, before he went to Europe," said Elsie, looking around with quiet complacency. "He would not hear of my giving them up; besides, I knew you would like something a little darker and more stately," she said. "Are you pleased with the house, Bessie?"

"Very, very much. I did not expect any thing so magnificent," she answered. "It overpowers me."

"I had not seen it for years," said Elsie, "till I came down with Grant to decide about the new furniture. Now you must be happy here. You ought to be! Just contrast this place with that old barn of a school; it makes one shudder to think of it! You must be happy, Bessie, for I hate discontented people."

"I trust so, dear; I believe so; we shall all be happy."

"Oh, you can't help it," pursued Elsie; "Grant is always a darling! But you must love and pet me, you know, just as he does."

"You exacting little thing!" said Elizabeth, lightly.

"Yes, but you must," she urged; "you never would have had all this but for me."

"No," murmured Elizabeth; "I should never have known Grantley but for you."

"I told him that day, you know, just what I had set my heart on," pursued Elsie, shaking her curls about, and chattering in her careless, graceful way. "I said I loved you like a sister, and I should die if I was separated from you. That settled it."

Elizabeth had seated herself in a low chair, with her back towards the window; she looked up quickly as Elsie paused.

"Settled it?" she repeated.

"Yes, exactly!"

Elsie flung herself on the carpet at her sister's feet, and caught one of her hands, playing with the wedding ring so lately put on that delicate finger, in her caressing fashion.

"How do you mean?" asked Elizabeth, quietly, though there was a sudden change in her face which might have struck Elsie could she have seen it. "Settled it; how do you mean?"

"Why he never had refused me anything in all his life," said Elsie; "it was not likely he would begin so late! Nobody ever does refuse me anything; now, remember that, Bess."

"Yes, dear! So you told Grantley you were very fond of me—"

"And that I wanted him to marry you—of course I did."

It was only Elsie's childish nonsense; Elizabeth felt how foolish it was to heed it, and yet she could not repress a desire to question further.

"That was long after he came home, Elsie?"

"Yes; but I had written him all sorts of things about you; and you remember when he came to the school to visit me, how I made you go down without telling you who was there."

"Yes—I remember."

"He praised you very highly, and I told him what a dear you were; and how sad it was for you to have lost all your fortune and be obliged to teach."

The color slightly deepened on Elizabeth's cheek; was it possible that in the beginning Grantley Mellen had been interested in her from a feeling of pity and commiseration?

Her engagement had been a brief one; during it, the days had passed in a constant whirl of excitement and happiness, and she had found little time to question or reflect: up to the last hour there had been no shadow on her enjoyment—she had resolutely swept aside everything but her deep happiness.

But it was strange that in the very first flush of her married life this conversation with Elsie should come up. She knew it was only the girl's heedlessness and pretty egotism that made her talk in this really cruel fashion, she was sure of that; still her nature was too proud and self-reliant, for the idea that Mellen had been first attracted towards her from sympathy at her lonely condition, to be at all pleasant.

But Elsie was going on with her careless revelations, playing with the rings which Mellen had put one after another on those delicate fingers during their engagement, making each one precious with kisses and loving words.

"So, when I saw how sorry he was for you, I knew that I should have my own way. I longed to see this dear old house open once more; it had been given up to the servants ever since he hurried off to Europe; and I wanted you for my companion always, you darling."

"It was fortunate for your wishes that Grantley's heart inclined in the direction you had marked out," said Elizabeth.

"Oh," exclaimed Elsie with hasty recklessness, and her usual want of thought, "Grant had no heart to give anybody; all his love was centred on me; after the experience he had years ago, I don't suppose he could ever love any woman again—he is just that odd sort of character."

Elizabeth gave no sign of the blow which struck her this time cruelly on the heart; she drew her hand away from Elsie, lest its sudden coldness should rouse some suspicion of the truth in the girl's mind, and asked in a singularly quiet voice—

"What experience, Elsie?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to say that," she replied; "I am always letting things out by mistake; Grant would be really angry with me; don't ever mention it to him."

"I will not; but what experience has he had that can prevent a husband's giving his heart even to his own wife?"

"Dear me, I oughtn't to tell you; but you'd surely find it out sometime; only promise me not to open your lips."

"I promise," replied Elizabeth, a cold, gray shadow settling over her face, out of which all the bloom had faded.

"He had a friend, a cousin you know, that our rich old uncle had partly adopted, whom he was very, very fond of," pursued Elsie, "and he was engaged to be married into the bargain. This man treated him dreadfully—ran off with the girl Grant loved, and cheated him out of a great deal of money—money that he could not afford to lose, for he was not rich then. Grant was nearly mad. I was a little thing, but I remember it perfectly. When his uncle died he sent me to school, and started to Europe; he has been there all these four long years; but his cousin was punished; his uncle gave everything to Grant."

And of all this grief, this disappointment, he had never told her one word. Elsie spoke the truth—he had married her that his sister might have a companion, and his house a mistress.

A prouder woman than Elizabeth Mellen never existed; but she sat motionless and gave no sign, while her brief dream of happiness fell crushed and broken at her feet under this revelation.

"There," cried Elsie, "that's all, so don't ever think about the thing again. What a fortunate creature you are! how happy we shall be, shan't we, dear?"

She attempted to throw her arms about Elizabeth in her demonstrative way, but the woman rose quickly, and avoided the caresses which would have stifled her.

"It is time to dress," she said; "I am going to my room."

She passed into her chamber with that dreary chill at heart, which, it seemed to her, would never leave it again! How could she endure that fearful pang of humiliation and self-abasement that wrung her soul, and would grow stronger with every proof of kindness that her husband could give?

No love—no heart to give her under all his goodness and attention. She kept repeating such words to herself—they would never cease to ring in her ears—there could be no pleasure so entrancing that they would not mar it by their whispers—no grief so deep that they would not torture her with the recollection that she was powerless to comfort or aid the man who had made her his wife.

But she must bear it all in silence; hers was one of those deep, reticent natures which could resolve on a painful thing and carry out her determination to the very end. She would weary him with no sign of affection.

The playful exactions of a young wife, which are so pleasant to a loving husband, must be carefully avoided. He must be allowed to endure her without revolt—not finding her much in his way.

That was the first thought upon which she settled, even while this earliest whirl of pain and tremble made her head dizzy and her heart sick.

She heard Elsie's voice ringing out in a gay song: she went mechanically on with her dressing, listening to that merry song in the midst of her bewildering thoughts with a dreary feeling of desolation.

If she could have sat down in the midst of her new life, and died without further trouble or pain—that became her one thought! If that man who was her husband, and his sister could enter the room and find her dead, they might feel regret for a time, but very soon even her memory would pass away from that old house, and out of their hearts, where she had so shallow a resting-place, and in the grave she might find quiet.

Elsie came dancing in, and exclaimed—

"Oh, you are dressed! I hear Grant on the stairs. May I open the door?"

Elizabeth was seemingly quiet, but the change in her manner would have been apparent to any one less self-engrossed than Elsie.

"Open it," she answered; "I am ready."

Grantley Mellen entered the room, and led them both away down stairs; but he felt the sudden tremor in his young wife's hand, the sort of shrinking from his side, and his suspicious mind caught fire instantly. He noted every change in her face, every sad inflexion in her voice, and at once there came back to him the conversation he had held with Mrs. Harrington.

Could Elizabeth have known this man? Was there a secret in her past of which he was ignorant? The bare idea made his head reel; though he might banish it from his mind for a season, the slightest recurrence would bring it back to torture him with inexplicable fear and dread.

So their new life began with this shadow upon it—a shadow imperceptible to all lookers on, but lying cold and dim on their hearts nevertheless, slowly to gather substance day by day till it should become a chill, heavy mist, through which their two souls could not distinguish each other.