The sound of horses’ hoofs rang out on the still air, but she did not heed it. Nearer and nearer it came, over the lawn, up the graveled walk, through the yard, and Nellie’s face blanched to an unnatural whiteness as she thought who that midnight-rider was. Arrived in Frankfort only an hour before, he had hastened forward, impelled by a something he could not resist. From afar he had caught the glimmering light, and he felt he was not too late. He knew how to enter the house, and on through the wide hall and up the broad staircase he came, until he stood in the chamber, where before him another guest had entered, whose name was Death! Face to face he stood with Nellie Douglass, and between them lay _his_ wife—_her_ rival—the white hands folded meekly upon her bosom, and the pale lips just as they had breathed a prayer for him. “Mabel! She is dead!” was all he uttered, and falling upon his knees, he buried his face in the pillow, while half scornfully, half pityingly, Nellie gazed upon him. There was much of bitterness in her heart toward him, not for the wrong he had done her, but for the sake of the young girl, now passed forever away. ’Lena felt differently. His silent grief conquered all resentment, and going to his side, she told him how peacefully Mabel had died—how to the last she had loved and remembered him, praying that he might be happy when she was gone, “Poor little Meb, she deserved a better fate,” was all he said, as he continued his kneeling posture, until the family and servants, whom Nellie had summoned, came crowding round, the cries of the latter grating on the ear, and seeming sadly out of place for her whose short life had been so dreary, and who had welcomed death as a release from all her pain. It was Mrs. Livingstone’s wish that Mabel should be arrayed in her bridal robes, but with a shudder at the idle mockery, John Jr. answered, “No,” and in a plain white muslin, her shining hair arrayed as she was wont to wear it, they placed her in her coffin, and on a sunny slope where the golden sunlight and the pale moonbeams latest fell, and where in spring the bright green grass and the sweet wild flowers are earliest seen, laid her down to sleep. That night, when all around was still, John Jr. lay musing sadly of the past. His affection for Mabel had been slight and variable, but now that she was gone, he missed her. The large easy-chair, with its cushions and pillows, was empty, and as he thought of the pale, dark face and aching head he had so often seen reclining there, and which he would never see again, he groaned in bitterness of spirit, for well he knew that he had helped to break the heart now lying cold and still beneath the coffin-lid. There was no shadow on the wall, for the lamp had gone out with the young life for whom it had been kept burning, but many a shadow lay dark and heavy across his heart.