There was a dinner engagement the next day. When Elizabeth came down to the library in full dress, her husband sat moodily over the fire. He looked up as she entered, and gazed upon her with mournful admiration, for her beauty that day was something wonderful; unabated excitement had fired her eyes with a strange lustre, and lent a rich scarlet to cheeks, from which protracted suspense had of late drained all the color. Her dress, of rose colored silk, was misty with delicate lace that shaded her neck and arms like gossamer on white lilies. Star-like jewels flashed in the rich blackness of her hair and shone through the soft lace. The calm loveliness of former days was nothing to the splendor of her beauty now a feverish restlessness was upon her,—a glow of pain conquered by courage.

Mellen arose from his seat as his wife came in with the graceful rush of a cloud across the sky. He watched her approach gloomily. It seemed to him that her first impulse was to flee when she saw him sitting there, but if so the desire was quickly controlled, and she came up to the hearth, standing so near him that the folds of her dress brushed his arm.

"You are ready too," she said. "But it is impossible to say how long we shall have to wait for Elsie and Mrs. Harrington!"

He made no answer; she began clasping and unclasping her bracelets, but was watching him all the while from under her downcast lashes.

"Are you ill, Grantley?" she asked at length.

"Oh! no; quite well."

"You are so silent, and you sat there in such a dreary way, I feared something was the matter."

He made an effort to rouse himself and shake off the oppression—the heavy, heavy weight which had lain on his soul all day.

"I am only stupid," he replied, with an attempt at playfulness. "I have been forced to talk so incessantly to those people, that I have no ideas left."

"I am sure conversation with people in general doesn't consume one's ideas," she said, with a lightness which appeared forced like his own.

"How long does Mrs. Harrington stay?" he asked.

"Only till to-morrow. You don't like her, I fancy?"

"There is too much of her in every way," he said, peevishly; "she dresses too much, talks too much—she tires one."

"That is very cruel and ungrateful; the lady confided to me only a little while ago that she had a profound admiration for you, and was dying to get up a flirtation, if I did not mind."

"Don't repeat such nonsense," he said, almost rudely, "you know how I hate it. I think either the married man or woman who flirts, deserves to be as severely punished as if he or she had committed an actual crime."

"I am afraid you would condemn the greater part of our acquaintance," she said. "After all, with most women it arises only from thoughtlessness."

"Thoughtlessness!" he repeated satirically. "I can only say that the woman who endangers her husband's peace from want of thought, is more culpable than a person who does wrong knowingly, urged on by recklessness or passion."

"I have never thought about it," said Elizabeth vaguely; "it may be so."

She was playing with her bracelets again; the action reminded him of the lost trinket. He did not speak, but a restrained burst of passion broke over his face, which might have changed a plan she was revolving in her mind, had she seen or understood it.

It was too late!

That moment Elsie came dancing into the room, her thin evening dress floating around her like a summer cloud, her fair hair wreathed with flowers, and everything about her so pure and ethereal, that it seemed almost as if she must breathe some more joyous air than the pain-freighted atmosphere which weighed so heavily on others. She was holding her hands behind her, and ran towards them in her childish way, exclaiming:

"I have found something! Who'll give a reward? Won't you both be glad—guess what it is!"

Mellen's face had brightened a little at her entrance, but as she spoke a sudden thought shook his soul like a tempest.

"What is it?" Elizabeth asked.

"Oh, guess, guess!"

"But I never can guess," she replied, seeming to enter into the spirit of the thing.

"You try, Grant. Come, do credit to your Yankee descent!"

He rose suddenly and stood looking full in his wife's face, fixing her glance with a quick thrill of terror, which the least thing unusual in his manner caused her now.

Elsie began to dance up and down before the hearth, exclaiming:

"Oh! you provoking things—you stupid owls! Now do guess—oh! Grant, just try. Tell me what I have found."

Mellen's eyes had not moved from his wife's face.

"Have you found Elizabeth's bracelet?" he asked in a tone which made the unhappy woman shiver from head to foot, and startled Elsie out of her playfulness.

"Why, how did you think of that?" demanded Elsie; "did she tell you? Have you——"

She stopped short, the words frozen on her lips by the look which Grantley Mellen still fixed upon his wife. Without changing that steady gaze, he extended his hand towards Elsie.

"Give me the bracelet!" he said, in the cold, hard tone which, with him, was the sure forerunner of a tempest of passion.

Elsie hesitated; she had grown nearly as pale as Elizabeth herself, but she looked like a frightened child. Elizabeth did not speak or move, but though her face was absolutely death-like, her eyes met her husband's with unflinching firmness.

"Give me the bracelet!" repeated Mellen.

"Here it is!" exclaimed Elsie, nervously, putting the bracelet in his hand. "What is the matter with you, Grant? I am sure there is nothing to make a fuss about. I found the bracelet among a lot of rubbish in one of Bessie's drawers—I suppose she forgot it was there."

Grantley Mellen turned furiously towards her.

"Are you learning to cheat and lie also?" he said.

Elsie burst into a passionate flood of tears.

"You are just as cruel and bad as you can be!" she moaned. "You ought to be ashamed to talk so to me! I haven't done anything; I thought you would be so pleased at my having found the bracelet, and here you behave in this way. You needn't blame me, Grant—I don't know what it all means! I am sure your dear mamma never thought you would speak to me like that! I wish I was dead and buried by her—then you'd be sorry——"

"I am not angry with you, child," interrupted Mellen, softened at once by this childish appeal. "Go away and find Mrs. Harrington, Elsie. The falsehood and the treachery are not yours—thank God! at least my own blood has not turned traitor to me!"

Elizabeth sank slowly in a chair; Elsie stole one frightened look towards her, then the woman in her confusion and dizziness saw her float out of the room, and she was alone with her husband. He held the bracelet up before her eyes, his hand shaking so that the jewels flashed balefully in the light.

"Your plan was carried out too late; you should have had it found before!" he said, and his last effort at self-control was swept away.

She must speak—must try to stem the tide, and keep back a little longer the exposure and ruin which for days back some mysterious warning had told her was surely approaching.

"I don't know what you mean," she faltered.

"I mean that the bracelet was found where you put it!" interrupted Mellen.

"Why should I have hidden it? What reason—"

"Stop!" he broke in. "Not another word—not a single falsehood more! You brought this bracelet back with you from the city—don't speak—I went to the pawnbroker's—it had just been taken away."

In the whirl of that unhappy woman's senses the words seemed to come from afar off; the lights were dancing before her eyes; the flashing gems blinded her with their rays, but she still controlled herself. She must make one last effort—she must discover how much of the truth he knew—there might be some loophole for escape—some effort by which she could avert a little longer the coming earthquake.

"Why don't you speak?" he cried. "Say anything—another lie if you will—anything rather than this black truth! That man; you know him! Speak, I say!"

"What man?" she faltered.

"That traitor—that wretch! He had the bracelet; he got it from you! Explain, I say—woman, I will have an explanation."

"I never gave the bracelet away," she said, desperately. "I have no explanation to make. I will not open my lips while you stand over me in that threatening way."

"Will you defy me to the last?" he exclaimed.

"You can only kill me," she moaned; "do it and let me have peace!"

He flung the bracelet down upon the table.

"I have loved you, and I know that you are false!"

"What do you suspect?" she demanded. "What do you know?"

The momentary weakness of passion passed; the husband stood up again cold and stern.

"I know," he said, "that this bracelet was in the hands of a bad, wicked man; only yesterday he took it from the pawnbroker's, and now I find it in your possession."

There was a hope; only in another deception; but she must save herself; while there was a thread to grasp at, she could not allow herself to be swept down the gathering storm.

"And is there no possibility that I may be innocent in all this?" she exclaimed. "If I receive an anonymous letter, telling me I can find my bracelet by paying a certain reward, is it not natural that I should go? Knowing your strange disposition, is it not equally natural that I should keep the whole thing a secret, and strive to make every one believe that the bracelet had been mislaid."

"Is this true?" he cried. "Can you prove to me that you speak the truth?"

She was not looking at him; the apathy of despair which came over her seemed like sullen obstinacy.

"I can prove nothing," she said; "if it were possible I would not make the effort. Do what you like; believe what you please; I will defend myself no more."