Tom led his captive into the parlor. Elsie looked about in surprise—there was not a soul visible.

"Are you crazy, Tom Fuller?" cried she; "Bessie is not here."

"She shall be here in a minute," stammered Tom; "just wait, please."

"Indeed I will do no such thing," returned Elsie, sharply, snatching her hand from his arm. "Did she send you for me, Tom Fuller?"

"No," cried Tom, with sudden energy, "I told a lie! I couldn't stand it any longer; I must speak with you; waiting was impossible!"

Elsie turned on him like a little kingbird darting on a hawk.

"What do you mean by this unwarrantable liberty!" she exclaimed. "Have you no idea of the common usages of society? Don't come near me again to-night; don't speak to me."

She was darting away, but Tom caught her hand.

"Oh, wait, Elsie, wait!"

"You ridiculous creature!" said Elsie, beginning to laugh in spite of her vexation. "What on earth do you want?"

"Laugh at me!" groaned Tom; "I deserve it—I expect it—but I can't live this way any longer! You are driving me crazy. I love you, Elsie! Only speak one kind word—just say you don't hate me."

He was holding out his two hands, looking so exceedingly energetic in his wretchedness, that Elsie burst into perfect shrieks of laughter.

"You silly old goose!" she said; "don't you know you mustn't talk in that way to me! You have no right, and it is very impertinent! There, go along—I forgive you."

Tom stared at her with his astonished eyes wide open.

"You can laugh at me!" he exclaimed. "Why, all these weeks you have let me go on loving you, and never hinted that it was so very disagreeable."

"Now, Tom, don't be tiresome!"

Tom groaned aloud.

"Why I never saw such conduct!" cried Elsie, impatiently. "It's too bad of you to behave so—you are spoiling my whole evening! You are just as disagreeable as you can be. Oh, I hate you!"

"Elsie! Elsie!"

"Let go my hand; suppose anybody should come in! Oh, you old goose of a Tom—let me go, I say."

"Just one minute, Elsie—"

"To-morrow—any time! Don't you know civilized beings never behave in this way at a ball."

"I don't know—I can't think! I only feel I love you, Elsie, and must speak out. I will speak out."

A few weeks earlier Elsie would only have been amused at all this from general lack of amusement, but now it vexed and irritated her. Girl-like she had not the slightest pity on his pain. He was keeping her sorely against her wishes.

"I am served right for treating you as a friend," she said; "I looked upon you as a relation, and thought you understood it; now you are trying to make me unhappy. Bessie will be angry, and tell Grant. Oh, you ought to be ashamed."

"I won't make you any trouble," shivered Tom; "I won't distress you! There—I beg your pardon, Elsie, I am sorry! And you don't—you never can, Elsie, Elsie—"

"No, no, you silly old fellow, of course not! Now be good, and I'll forget all about this folly. Let me go, Tom, I can't stay here any longer—let me go."

Tom still held her hand.

"This is earnest!" he said.

"Yes, yes! Tom, if you don't let me go I'll scream! You are absurd—why, you ought to be put in a straight jacket."

Tom dropped her hand, and stood like a man overpowered by some sudden blow.

Elsie saw only the comical side of the matter, and began to laugh again.

"Don't laugh," he said, passionately; "for mercy's sake don't laugh!"

There was a depth of suffering in his tone which forced itself to be realized even by that selfish creature; but it only made her begin to consider herself exceedingly ill-used, and to blame Tom for spoiling her pleasure.

"Now you want to blame me," she said, angrily, "and I haven't done a thing to encourage you."

"No, no; I don't blame you, Elsie," he said; "it's all my own fault—all mine."

"Yes, to be sure," cried Elsie. "Who could think you would be so foolish. There, shake hands, Tom, for I'm in a hurry. You are not angry?"

"Angry—no," said Tom, drearily.

"That's right! Good-by—you'll be wiser to-morrow."

Elsie glided away, and Tom watched her go out of the room, and realized that she was floating out of his life forever, that the dream of the past was at an end, and he was left alone in the darkness.

Poor old Tom! It was very hard, but no one could have resisted a smile at his appearance! When Elsie left him, he dashed out of the room, and hid himself in the most out of the way corner he could find.

As he crossed the hall, he heard Elizabeth call—

"Tom, Tom!"

He stopped, and she came towards him. One look at his face revealed the whole truth. She did not speak, but took his hand in hers, with a mute expression of sympathy which overpowered him.

"Don't! don't!" he said. "Let me go, Bessie! I'm a fool—it's all over now! There, don't mind me—I'll be better soon! I've got a chance to go to Europe for awhile, in fact it's to Calcutta. I shall be all right when I come back."

"Oh, my poor old Tom! Elsie is a wicked girl to have trifled with you so."

"She didn't!" he exclaimed, indignantly. "Don't blame her. I won't have it. There's nobody in fault but me. I deserve it all! I'm a blundering, wrong-headed donkey, and she's lovely as—as—"

Here Tom broke down, and going to a window looked resolutely out.

"But you won't go away, Tom?" said Elizabeth following him.

"Yes, I will. I shan't be gone but a few months. Don't try to keep me. I'll be all right when we meet again."

"Oh, Tom, Tom!" said Elizabeth.

"Now, be still; that's a good girl; I don't want to be pitied. It's of no consequence, not the slightest."

He broke abruptly away, and disappeared, leaving Elizabeth full of sympathy for his distress, and regret at the idea of losing her old playmate—she had depended on him so much during her husband's absence.

There had been a lull in the music, but it struck up again now, and the saloons reverberated with a stirring waltz. Elizabeth stood a moment listening to the crash of sound and the tread of light feet, but her heart was full and her brow anxious. She went to the window and looked out. It was a lovely night, but the eternal roll and sweep of the ocean seemed to depress her with some terrible dread. In all that splendid tumult she was alone. As she stood by the window her husband came down the hall smiling upon the lady who hung upon his arm. He had not missed her, would not miss her. There was no fear of that. She glided away with this dreary thought in her mind. Mellen almost touched her as she turned into a little room opening upon the conservatory, but she went on unnoticed.

Tom Fuller had retreated into the conservatory, and was sitting disconsolately in an iron garden chair, sheltered by a small tree, drooping with yellow fringe-like blossoms, when a lady entered from one of the side doors, and passed out towards the gardens.

Tom started up, and called out, "Bessie! Why, Bessie, is that you? What on earth—"

The lady made no response, but looked over her shoulder, and sprang forward like a deer, causing a tumult among the plants as she rushed through them.

Tom stood motionless, lost in amazement; for over a ball dress which seemed white—he could discover nothing more,—the lady was shrouded head and person, in a blanket shawl, which he knew to be Elizabeth's, from the broad crimson stripes that ran across it.

After his first amazement Tom sat down again, heaving a deep sigh, and retreated further behind the flowering branches, that no one might look upon his unmanly sorrow.

"Poor Bessie, poor thing," he muttered, "I suppose she feels just as I do, like a fish out of water, in all these fine doings. I'd follow her, and we'd take a melancholy walk together in the moonlight, if it was not that Elsie might happen to get tired of dancing with those fellows, and come in here to rest a minute, when I could hide away and look at her through the plants."

Tom had in reality startled the lady shrouded in that great travelling shawl, for once out of doors she stood full half a minute listening with bated breath, and one foot advanced, ready to spring away if any sound reached her. Then she walked on with less desperate haste, bending her course through the shrubberies towards a grove of trees that lay between the open grounds and the shore.

It was a balmy October evening, moonlight, but shadowed by hosts of white scudding clouds. The wind blew up freshly from the water, scattered storms of gorgeous leaves around her as she approached the grove which was still heavy with foliage, perfectly splendid in the sunlight, but now all shadows and blackness. On the edge of the grove, just under a vast old oak, whose great limbs scarcely swayed in the wind, the lady paused and uttered some name in a low, cautious voice.

A spark of fire flashed down to the earth, as if some one had flung away his cigar in haste, and instantly footsteps rustled in the dead leaves. The branches of the oak bent low, and behind it was a thicket of young trees. The lady did not feel safe, even in the darkness, but moved on to meet the person who advanced in the deeper shadows, where even the edges of her white dress, which fell below the shawl, were lost to the eye.

As she stood panting in the shelter, a man's voice addressed her, and his hand was laid upon her shoulder.

"How you tremble!"

The voice sounded, in that balmy October night, sweet and mellow as the dropping of its over-ripe leaves. The female did indeed tremble violently.

"Look, look! I am followed," she whispered.

The man stepped a pace forward, peered through the oak branches, and stole cautiously to her side again.

"It is Mellen!"

She darted away, dragging her shawl from the grasp that man had fastened upon it,—away under the old oak, and along the outskirts of the grove. She paused a moment in breathless terror at the narrowest point of the lawn, then darted across it, huddling the skirt of her ball dress up with one hand, and sweeping the dead leaves in winrows after her with the fringes of her shawl. She avoided the conservatory, for Tom was still visible through its rolling waves of glass—and, turning to the servants' entrance, ran up a flight of dark stairs into the shaded lights of a chamber. She flung the heavy shawl breathlessly on a couch, shook the snowy masses of her dress into decorous folds, and stole to the window on tip-toe, where she stood, white and panting for breath, watching the lawn and grove, with wild, eager eyes, as if she feared her footsteps in the leaves might have been detected even in the darkness.