"She--she begs that she may not be disturbed until to-morrow," said Betty with a scared look behind her. "She's ill. The fact is, she's clean worn out with trouble." "I can readily conceive that," said Mr. Lampret. But Van Ness said nothing: he only glanced toward the still figure which lay upon the sofa covered with a white sheet, and turned away with a gloom and alarm on his benignant face quite new to it. A couple of hours afterward, being alone, he met Betty coming out of Jane's apartment, and stopped her sternly: "Mrs. Nichols, I must see my wife. If she is ill, my place is beside her." For her answer Betty, with a gasp, threw open the door. The room was vacant. "Where is she?" "As God sees me, I don't know. She bade me say this to you--That she had paid you the debt, and had gone where you would never find her." Van Ness's smooth countenance scarcely evinced surprise. He went into the room and walked about it, and as he touched little articles of dress and the toilette which she had left scattered here and there, which were yet warm from her presence, the stout, bulky man could scarcely draw his breath. He stopped in front of the white pillow with the impress of her head on it, took up the velvet band which had fastened her hair, the knot half untied. So nearly within his hold--to escape! "What is the money to me?" he muttered. "It is Jane that I want--_Jane_." Betty was standing at the door when he went out. She cowered back when she saw the sultry fire in his eyes. "I don't know where she went. She only said as you would never find her, sir." "I will find her," said Van Ness quietly. REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. [TO BE CONTINUED.] THE CHURCH OF ST. SOPHIA.