it was the first beginning of the rift, which afterwards widened into a chasm between us. Her cousin also was too much attached to her to be easily alienated from her, and the two girls met more frequently than either her uncle or I were aware of. There was another girl, too--I forget her name--but she was a sister of Essec Powell's. Agnes and she had been schoolmates and bosom friends, and they were delighted to meet here by accident, and I soon found that my wife continually resorted to Essec Powell's house to pour out her sorrows into the bosom of her friend; but this I could not allow. To visit the house of my bitterest enemy--to make a friend of his sister, was a glaring impropriety in a clergyman's wife, and I cannot even now feel any compunction at having put a stop to their intercourse--if, indeed, I succeeded in doing so. A cold cloud seemed to have fallen between me and your mother; and as for my brother, we scarcely spoke to each other at meals, and avoided each other at all other times. Still Lewis stayed on, with that puzzled look on his face, and still Agnes went through her daily duties with a proud look and a constrained manner. "Poor Betto looked anxiously from one to the other of us, and I kept my still and silent watch. My heart was breaking with distrust of my wife, and hatred of my brother; but I never spoke of my failing trust in them both. I brooded upon it night and day, and my life became a hell upon earth. "One day in the early spring, about a month before you were born, Caradoc, I had been to a funeral at the old church; and hearing of the serious illness of a parishioner who lived on the high road to Abersethin, I followed the path on the left side of the Berwen, and as I neared the bridge which crosses the valley on the top, I suddenly came upon Agnes, who was sitting on a boulder by the side of the brook, and as I approached I saw her dry her eyes hurriedly. She rose from her seat, and her colour came and went as she looked at me. I longed to take her in my arms and press her to my heart, for she looked pale and sorrowful." An exclamation from Cardo interrupted him. "It pains you, Caradoc--it pains me--it pained me then--it will pain me as long as I have any being. I may be forgiven hereafter, but it cannot cease to pain me. "'Agnes,' I said, 'are you not straying very far from home?' "'I came for a walk,' she answered; 'it is a lovely day!' "'I did not know you could walk so far,' I said. 'Last evening when I asked you to come down to the shore with me, you said it was too far!' "'Yesterday, Meurig, I was feeling very ill; to-day I am better.' "Her lip quivered a little, and she looked round uneasily, I thought. "I said, 'I am going to see old Shon Gweydd, or I would walk back with you; but perhaps you don't mind going alone.' "'Oh, no, not at all,' she said, as she began her way back by the Berwen.