ever suspected the real reason, Miss Susan felt that she must die. Her character, her position in the family, the place she held in the world, would be gone. Had things been as they were when she had gone upon her mission to the Austins at Bruges, I have no doubt the real necessities of the case, and the important issues depending upon the step she had taken, would have supported Miss Susan in the hard part she had now to play; but to continue to have this part to play after the necessity was over, and when it was no longer, to all appearance, of any immediate importance at all who Herbert’s heir should be, gave a bitterness to this unhappy rôle which it is impossible to describe. The strange woman who had taken possession of the house without any real claim to its shelter, had it in her power to ruin and destroy Miss Susan, though nothing she could do could now affect Whiteladies; and for this poor personal reason Miss Susan felt, with a pang, she must bear all Giovanna’s impertinences, and the trouble of her presence, and all the remarks upon her--her manners, her appearance, her want of breeding, and her behavior in the house, which no doubt everybody would notice. Everard, should he appear, would be infinitely annoyed to find such an inmate in the house. Herbert, should he come home, would with equal certainty wish to get rid of so singular a visitor. Miss Susan saw a hundred difficulties and complications in her way. She hoped a little from the intervention of Monsieur Guillaume Austin, to whom she had written, after sending off her telegram, in full detail, begging him to come to Whiteladies, to recover his grandchild, if that was possible; but Giovanna’s looks were not very favorable to this hope. Thus the punishment of her sin, for which she had felt so little remorse when she did it, found her out at last. I wonder if successful sin ever does fill the sinner with remorse, or whether human nature, always so ready in self-defence, does not set to work, in every case, to invent reasons which seem to justify, or almost more than justify, the wickedness which serves its purpose? This is too profound an inquiry for these pages; but certainly Miss Susan, for one, felt the biting of remorse in her heart when sin proved useless, and when it became nothing but a menace and a terror to her, as she had never felt it before. Oh, how could she have charged her conscience and sullied her life (she said to herself) for a thing so useless, so foolish, so little likely to benefit any one? Why had she done it? To disappoint Farrel-Austin! that had been her miserable motive--nothing more; and this was how it had all ended. Had she left the action of Providence alone, and refrained from interfering, Farrel-Austin would have been discomfited all the same, but her conscience would have been clear. I do not think that Miss Susan had as yet any feeling in her mind that the discomfiture of Farrel-Austin