"That is why you are so irresistible," Edmonson longed to finish; he even framed his lips for the words, but a glance at Elizabeth checked them. He wondered why, as he felt that a few months ago he would have spoken them unhesitatingly. It could not be because she was possibly Archdale's wife, for to believe her not that would please her better than anything else. Therefore, though he feared it, and had referred to it, he would have been glad to have denied it at the next moment. He would even have been glad to believe that he was restrained wholly by a question of how she would view this speech in the light of the possibility. But he knew it was something more. He had seen the change in Elizabeth, and in smothered wrath had perceived that this growth which made her every day more interesting seemed to be in some way withdrawing her from him. He struggled against allowing this dim feeling to become a perception. For she might be free; then she should become his wife: she might be already bound; in that case,--again the terrible shadow darkened his face for an instant. Then he recollected himself, and his eyes, seeking a visible object, rested on her face a little sad with its dwelling upon her unfinished sentence which would have spoken of her mistakes. A flash of perception revealed the truth to him; he saw the gulf that yawned between his nature and hers, and, almost cursing her for being so above him, there came to him a strange longing to feel some touch upon him which would give his face the calmness that under its pathos he read upon hers. It was no determination to struggle to a higher plane, no desire for it, but only the old cry for some one to be sent to cool the tip of his tongue because the flame tormented him. It was not, however, an appreciable lapse of time before he again felt his feet upon the floor and thrilled under the light touch upon his arm. The insight was over, the whirl was over; he was one of the guests talking to his host's probable daughter-in-law. He went on with his subject. "At least you have not changed your nature," he said with courteous freedom. "You are royal still in defence of your friends. I shall not attack them again." "You would better not," she answered more than half in earnest. "And Katie is--." "Yes, I know," he said. And she felt so keenly that he did know all about it that she readily drew away from him when Archdale came up with some one to speak to her. Stephen saw the movement; Edmonson felt it. "Proud as Lucifer," thought the latter, "will not own where it galls her. She is the kind to hate him if she is bound to him in this way." [Footnote 13: Copyright, 1884, by Frances C. Sparhawk.] * * * * * PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT. NOTES.