steadily, and bore her straight into Orrinleigh House, and into his dead mother's chamber. He made no sound; but he left her long enough to get restoratives, and then hurried back, and laid her tenderly in the high-canopied bed there, radiant in the moonshine; and, keeping his own heart smothered, so that it could utter no least cry, placed the door ajar, and began to pace, soft as a tiger, to and fro, to and fro, to and fro, outside. When the white of dawn appeared, he crept in and crouched low beside the pillows. She opened her eyes, and, with his haggard cheek close to hers, stammered to him, piteously, as best she could, her knowledge of what had befallen. He did not speak nor move for a long while, partly because he feared so for her jarred mind. But he knew the house would be stirring with the day, and events lay in his hands. It was a strange, inconsistent thing, but entirely in harmony with the Lord Richard's fatalistic character, that neither then, nor ever after, would he proclaim the true fact. To save her from certain slander, to wall her in with reparation on every side, was his one passionate impulse. He knew that having carried her by night to Orrinleigh, he must bear the burden of his own deed. He made his resolve to explain nothing, for her sake, and to act as became the overmastering affection he had for her. He breathed quickly and firmly in her ear: 'Nell!' She smiled faintly at him. 'Nell, darling, this must be our bridal-morn.' A low groan, such as made him shiver like the air around a fire, was her only answer; such a heart-rending groan of pure unreasoning horror as his ears had never heard. But he could not flinch now; the morn was breaking, fresh and undelayed, over his altered world. With the still force which was in him, and which, from his boyhood, could compel every one he knew, the Lord Richard said: 'Yes.' 'Yes!' she echoed, after a while, as if in a weary dream, and fell unconscious again. Then he rose, and called old Stephen Bowles, the servant whom he could best trust, and despatched him, on his own horse, ere the sun was up, for a priest eleven miles away. And there, in his dead mother's chamber, with one only witness, and in such wretchedness, the two were hastily wed, Eleanor lying quietly, since they dared not raise her, and the hope of Orrinleigh kneeling with his curly bronze head buried in her white little hands. When the others had gone, for he had set himself much to do, he sought his father. Sealing his lips thenceforward against the mystery which had hurried his action, he spoke out, and told him he had married Eleanor Thurlocke, and that he hoped he might be forgiven if he had seemed undutiful; and before the old Earl, who was dressing, could show his rage, quietly walked away, and rode over to Frambleworth, and made almost the same speech, in Eleanor's behalf, to the squire. Such wrath, and curiosity, and excitement, and upbraiding were never in this neighborhood before;