Mr. Lawrence followed him, the door was closed, and the handsome widow stood alone in the center of the splendid drawing-room. She took one or two turns up and down the room, her black dress trailing its gloomy folds over the rich carpet. "Let him go," she said at last, pausing and clenching her delicate hands together. "Let him go! That marble mask of his beautiful love can but disenchant him. I have already dropped a suspicion of her love into his heart. He does not heed it yet, but no matter, it shall take root, it shall grow, it shall bear fruit an hundredfold! He shall turn to me yet. I love him with a love passing everything, and I will stop at nothing till I call him mine!" She laughed aloud as the thought of her future triumph swept through her heart. It was a strange, eerie laugh--It sounded as if a beautiful fiend had laughed in Hades. * * * * * The elegant carriage, with its high stepping, spirited gray horses, bowled rapidly along the busy streets of New York, and at length paused before the beautiful cemetery in which Mr. Lawrence's vault was situated. The banker then stepped into the sexton's house where he called for the key of the vault. The sexton gave it to him with some surprise at the request, and the gentleman returned to Lancelot Darling who was impatiently pacing a graveled path in the "fair Necropolis of the dead." The banker paused and laid his hand on the young man's arm. "I have the key, Lance," he said, "but even now I wish I could persuade you not to enter the vault; I dread the effect on your already weak nerves. Remember what a difference there must be between the blooming Lily you last looked upon and the poor, faded flower in yon gloomy stone vault." "Mr. Lawrence, you do but torture me," said the young man, with a gesture of wild despair. "However she may be changed let me see her. Yet I cannot believe that that beautiful face can be altered so soon. Cruel death would stay his defacing hand when he looked on such loveliness." With a sigh of regret the elder man turned and walked on down the shady path. Lancelot followed him, taking no note of the beautiful day and the song of the birds and the fragrance of the rare flowers all around him. Over the low mounds everywhere gentle hands of affection had planted lovely flowers and shrubs, trying to make grim death beautiful. But he heeded them not as he stopped in front of the marble vault, guarded by a marble angel, and followed Mr. Lawrence into its dim recesses. They walked down the echoing aisle, between rows of moldy, decaying coffins, and paused with beating hearts and labored breath beside a new casket, loaded with wreaths and crosses of fragrant white hot-house flowers.