subsequent existence been a mere life in death? Had his soul indeed remained always with her? So, Esther thought, it would seem. And had he forgiven the ruin into which he was driven by despair? Had he pardoned the despair itself, the wreck of all his hopes and feelings, the anguish which abided with him to the last? Questions like these passed rapidly through Esther's mind, while she gazed on the fair young face which once had been her own. Very different was her aspect now. The round and glowing cheeks had become hollow and pale. The smooth white forehead was furrowed with the lines of sorrow. Silver threads mingled with the dark tresses. The eyes, in the miniature deep and inscrutable, were now wild and bright. The passions of the girl had been developed in the woman, and had left their trace on every feature. And then Esther turned to self-justification. Had she made no atonement? Had she suffered nothing? Had her heart been unwasted? Resolutely as she had striven to repress all memory of that early dream, had she succeeded in the attempt? Was not the lava still hot beneath the foliage which grew over it? Had not the smouldering fire broken forth anew on the news of Henry's death? And again she thought she had been hardly used by the precipitation with which he abandoned her. It was cruel to afford her no chance of reconciliation. If he might charge her with vanity or wilfulness, surely she might accuse him of rancour and pride. If the happiness of her lover had been shattered by the storm, neither had her own escaped its ravages. She had endeavoured to forget them in the gratification of her love of rule, and her eager pursuit of revenge. The first she enjoyed in the management of her own household, the second in the downfall of Trevethlan. Ambition and appetite grew with what they fed on. "Pendar'l and Trevethlan shall own one name." Not till that prediction had been fulfilled to the letter, and to her own glory, could Esther rest. Her old lover had departed from the scene; she prolonged the contest with his children. They increased her ardour by the mode in which they met her first advances. For a season she seemed to be foiled. But the check gave new vigour to her never-dying wrath. And before long the orphans crossed her path. And soon he, the heir of all his father's pride, encountered her, face to face, as the companion of her child. She had trembled to think of what that meeting might call forth. But then she learned the tale, which would fulfil all her desires to an extent beyond her dreams, and forgot her danger in the exultation of approaching triumph. Triumph came, but only as the precursor of defeat; for her enemy, ruined and dishonoured, had suborned the affection of her daughter, and made her house desolate in the very hour of victory.