"Have you a headache, Frank?" "No. Yes. Just a little." Edina said nothing to the contradictory answer. Something unusual and unpleasant had decidedly occurred to him. "How did you bruise your shoulder?" she presently asked. "Oh--gave it a knock," he said, after the slightest possible pause. "My shoulder's all right, Edina: don't talk about it. Much better than that confounded Molly Janes's bruises are." And with the sharp words, sounding so strangely from Frank's good-natured lips, Edina gathered the notion that the grievance was in some way connected with Molly Janes; perhaps the damaged shoulder also. Possibly she had turned obstreperous under the young doctor's hands and had shown fight to him as well as to her husband. The Mount burst upon them in a blaze of light. Plants, festoons, music, brilliancy! As they were entering the chief reception-room, out-door wrappings removed, Edina missed the beautiful white flower: Frank's coat was unadorned. "Frank! what have you done with your flower?" His eyes wandered to the flowers decorating the rooms, and then to his button-hole, all in an absent sort of way that surprised Miss Raynor. "I fear I must have forgotten it, Edina. I wish you had worn it yourself: it would have been more appropriate. How well it would have looked in your hair!" "Fancy me with flowers in my hair!" laughed Edina. "But, Frank, I think Molly Janes must have scared some of your wits away." Their greeting to Mrs. St. Clare over, Frank found a seat for Edina, and stood back himself in a corner, behind a remote door. How terribly this scene of worldly excitement contrasted with the one enacted so short a time ago! He was living it, perforce, over again; going through its short-lived action, that had all been over in one or two fatal moments: this, before him, seemed as a dream. The gaily-robed women sweeping past him with light laughter; the gleam of jewels; the pomp and pageantry: all seemed but the shifting scenes of a panorama. Frank could have groaned aloud at the bitter mockery: here life, gay, heedless, joyous: there DEATH; death violent and sudden. Never before, throughout his days, had the solemn responsibilities of this world and of the next so painfully pressed themselves upon him in all their dread reality. "Oh, Mr. Raynor! I thought you were not coming! Have you been here long?" The emotional words came from a fair girl in a cloud of white--Daisy St. Clare. Frank's hand went forward to meet the one held out to him: but never a smile crossed his face. "How long have you been here, Mr. Raynor?" "How long? I am not sure. Half-an-hour, I think." "Have you been dancing?" "Oh no. I have been standing here." "To hide yourself? I really should not have seen you but that I am looking everywhere for Lydia's card, which she has lost." He did not answer: his head was throbbing, his heart beating. Daisy thought him very silent.