The evening passed drearily enough to Grantley Mellen. He was in no spirits for society and the gay bustle; the lights, the music, the constraint he was forced to put upon himself, and the cheerfulness he was obliged to assume, only wearied him.

A strange and unaccountable dread of his approaching journey possessed him. It had grown stronger as the days passed on, and that night was more powerful than ever.

Sometimes he was almost ready to think it a presentiment; perhaps he was never to return from that voyage; some unseen danger awaited him in that distant land, and he should die there, far from the sound of every voice, the touch of every hand that was dear to him.

He was vexed with himself for indulging in this superstitious weakness; but, in spite of all his efforts, the thought would recur again and again, oppressing him with a dreary sense of desolation that made the brilliant scene around absolutely repulsive.

He left the lighted rooms at last, and passed through the hall on to the piazza which overlooked the sea.

It was a beautiful evening; the moonlight, escaping from under a bank of clouds, lay silvery and broad upon the lawn, and broke a path of diamonds across the rippling waters, lighting them up to wonderful splendor. The air was balmy and soft as spring, the wind rippled pleasantly among the trees, but there was no melody in its tones to his ear; it seemed only a repetition of the mournful warning which had haunted his thoughts.

He walked on across the lawn, anxious to get beyond the sound of the music and gayety which followed him from the house, for it jarred upon his ears with deafening discordance.

He entered a little thicket of bushes and young trees, in the midst of which rose up a dark, funereal-looking cypress, that always waved its branches tremulously, however still the air might be, and seemed to be oppressed with a trouble which it could only utter in faint moaning whispers.

As he stood there, looking into the gloom, with a sense of relief at finding some object more in unison with his dark thoughts, he saw a figure glide away from the foot of the cypress, and disappear in the shrubbery beyond.

It was a woman wrapped in some dark garment—in movement and form like his wife—could it be his wife wandering about the grounds at that hour?

"Elizabeth!" he called; but there was no answer.

He hurried forward among the trees, but there was no object visible, no response to the summons he repeated several times.

It might be some guest who had stolen out there for a few minutes' quiet; yet that was not probable. Besides, the movements of the slender form appeared familiar to him. In height and shape Elsie and Elizabeth resembled each other; it was possibly one of them, but which?

Elsie it could not be, she had a nervous dread of darkness and could not be persuaded to stir off the piazza after nightfall. It must have been Elizabeth, then; but what was she doing there!

He started towards the house with some vague thought in his mind, to which he could have given no expression.

His wife was not in any of the rooms through which he passed, and he hurried into the ball-room. The music had just struck up anew; he saw Elsie whirling through a waltz; but Elizabeth was nowhere visible.

He drew near enough to Elsie to whisper—

"Where is Bessie?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I have been dancing all the while, and have not seen her for some time."

He turned away; but, just then, Mrs. Harrington captured him, and it was several moments before he could escape from her tiresome loquacity.

The moment he was at liberty Mellen hurried through the parlors and up the stairs, opened the door of Elizabeth's dressing-room, and entered. There she was, standing at the window, looking out. She turned quickly, and in some confusion at his sudden entrance.

"Is it you?" she asked.

"Yes; I have been looking for you everywhere!"

"I came up here for a moment's quiet," she answered. "I am very, very tired; I wish it was all over, Grantley."

"Have you been out?" he asked.

It seemed to him that she hesitated a little, as she answered—

"Out? No; where—what do you mean?"

"I thought I saw you in the grounds a little while ago."

"I should not be likely to go out in this dress," she replied, glancing down at the point lace flounces that floated over the snowy satin of her train. "Come, we must go down stairs; our guests will think us careless hosts."

Mellen felt and looked dissatisfied, but could not well press the matter farther.

"Are you coming down?" she asked.

"Yes; of course," he replied, coldly. "Don't wait for me."

She walked away without another word.

"She avoids me," he thought. "I see it more and more."

The ball was over at last. Even Elsie was completely tired out, and glad to nestle away under the azure curtains of her bed when the guests had departed.

With the next morning began preparations for Mellen's departure; and during the bustle of the following week, no one found much time for thought or reflection.

Tom Fuller came down suddenly, and opened his heart to Elizabeth. He was going to Europe; he did not ask to see Elsie; lacking the courage to meet her again for the present—once more, perhaps, before he went away; but not yet.

Elizabeth did not reproach the girl for her share in the honest fellow's unhappiness. She merely said—

"Tom is going to Europe on business; he sails next week."

"Oh, the foolish old fellow," replied Elsie; "and he never could learn to speak a French word correctly—what fun it would be to be with him in France."

"You will miss him," Mellen said, quietly.

"Oh," replied his wife, with a forced smile, "I must make up my mind to be lonely. I shall live through the coming dreary months as I best can."

"It's horrid of you to go, Grant!" cried Elsie.

"I know it, dear; but there is no use in fighting the unavoidable."

"Mind you write to me as often as you do to Bessie," she said. "If she gets one letter the most, I never will forgive either of you."

As she said this, the girl ran up to her brother, and stood leaning against his shoulder, with a playful caress, while he looked down at her with such entire love and trust in his face, that Elizabeth crept quietly away, and left them together.

The few days left to Mellen passed in a tumult of preparation. Sad doubts were at his heart, vague and so formless that he could not have expressed them in words, but painful as proven realities.

Elizabeth was greatly disturbed also; her fine color had almost entirely disappeared. She trembled at the slightest shock, and her very lips would turn white when she spoke of her husband's departure. She seemed stricken with a mortal terror of his going, yet made no effort to detain him. She, too, had presentiments of evil that shocked her whole system, and made her brightest smile something mournful to look upon.

But the husband and wife had little opportunity to observe or understand the feelings that tortured them both. Elsie's cries, and tears, and hysterical spasms, kept the whole household in commotion. She should never see her brother again—never, never. Elizabeth might not be good to her. Sisters-in-law and school-friends were different creatures; she had found that out already. If she could only have died with her mother!

These cries broke out vehemently on the night before Mellen's departure. The spoiled child would not allow her brother to spend one moment from her side. So all that night Elizabeth, pale, still, and bowed down by a terrible heart-ache, watched with her husband by the azure couch which Elsie preferred to her bed. It was a sad, mournful night to them both.

At daylight, Elsie's egotism was exhausted, and she fell asleep. The first sunshine came stealing up from its silvery play on the water, and shimmering through the lace curtains, fell on the young girl as she slept. There was trouble on that sweet face—genuine trouble; for Elsie loved her brother dearly, and his departure agitated her more deeply than he had ever known her moved before.

How lovely she looked with the drops trembling on those long, golden lashes, and staining the warm flush of her cheeks! One arm, from which the muslin sleeve had fallen back, lay under her head, half-buried in a tangle of curls; sobs broke at intervals through her parted lips, ending in long, troubled sighs.

Mellen was deeply touched. Elizabeth bent her head against the end of the couch, and wept unheeded drops of anguish. The heart ached in her bosom.