together into the dining-room, her companion proposing a glass of wine and bustling to the sideboard to pour it out. This took but a moment, and when my informant turned round our poor friend had not had time to seat herself. Suddenly, with a little moan that was barely audible, she dropped upon the sofa. She was dead. What unknown “little rub” had dealt her the blow? What shock, in the name of wonder, _had_ she had in town? I mentioned immediately the only one I could imagine--her having failed to meet at my house, to which by invitation for the purpose she had come at five o’clock, the gentleman I was to be married to, who had been accidentally kept away and with whom she had no acquaintance whatever. This obviously counted for little; but something else might easily have occurred; nothing in the London streets was more possible than an accident, especially an accident in those desperate cabs. What had she done, where had she gone on leaving my house? I had taken for granted she had gone straight home. We both presently remembered that in her excursions to town she sometimes, for convenience, for refreshment, spent an hour or two at the “Gentlewomen,” the quiet little ladies’ club, and I promised that it should be my first care to make at that establishment thorough inquiry. Then we entered the dim and dreadful chamber where she lay locked up in death and where, asking after a little to be left alone with her, I remained for half an hour. Death had made her, had kept her beautiful; but I felt above all, as I kneeled at her bed, that it had made her, had kept her silent. It had turned the key on something I was concerned to know. On my return from Richmond and after another duty had been performed I drove to his chambers. It was the first time, but I had often wanted to see them. On the staircase, which, as the house contained twenty sets of rooms, was unrestrictedly public, I met his servant, who went back with me and ushered me in. At the sound of my entrance he appeared in the doorway of a further room, and the instant we were alone I produced my news: “She’s dead!” “Dead?” He was tremendously struck, and I observed that he had no need to ask whom, in this abruptness, I meant. “She died last evening--just after leaving me.” He stared with the strangest expression, his eyes searching mine as if they were looking for a trap. “Last evening--after leaving you?” He repeated my words in stupefaction. Then he brought out so that it was in stupefaction I heard: “Impossible! I saw her.” “You ‘saw’ her?” “On that spot--where you stand.” This brought back to me after an instant, as if to help me to take it in, the memory of the strange warning of his youth. “In the hour of death--I understand: as you so beautifully saw your mother.”