be easily filled up,--she was merely one butterfly out of thousands, more daintily coloured perhaps and more restless in flight,--but never judged as more than up to the butterfly standard. I said no one gave her an honest regret, but I was wrong. Mavis Clare was genuinely, almost passionately grieved. She sent no flowers for the coffin, but she came to the funeral by herself, and stood a little apart waiting silently till the grave was covered in,--and then, just as the "fashionable" train of mourners were leaving the churchyard, she advanced and placed a white cross of her own garden-lilies upon the newly-turned brown mould. I noticed her action, and determined that before I left Willowsmere for the East with Lucio (for my journey had only been postponed a week or two on account of Sibyl's death) she should know all. The day came when I carried out this resolve. It was a rainy and chill afternoon, and I found Mavis in her study, sitting beside a bright log fire with her small terrier in her lap and her faithful St Bernard stretched at her feet. She was absorbed in a book,--and over her watched the marble Pallas inflexible and austere. As I entered she rose, and putting down the volume and her pet dog together, she advanced to meet me with an intense sympathy in her clear eyes, and a wordless pity in the tremulous lines of her sweet mouth. It was charming to see how sorry she felt for me,--and it was odd that I could not feel sorry for myself. After a few words of embarrassed greeting I sat down and watched her silently, while she arranged the logs in the fire to make them burn brighter, and for the moment avoided my gaze. "I suppose you know,"--I began with harsh abruptness--"that the sleeping-draught story is a polite fiction? You know that my wife poisoned herself intentionally?" Mavis looked at me with a troubled and compassionate expression. "I feared it was so--" ... she began nervously. "Oh there is nothing either to fear or to hope"--I said with some violence--"_She did it._ And can you guess why she did it? Because she was mad with her own wickedness and sensuality,--because she loved with a guilty love, my friend Lucio Rimânez." Mavis gave a little cry as of pain, and sat down white and trembling. "You can read quickly, I am sure,"--I went on. "Part of the profession of literature is the ability to skim books and manuscripts rapidly, and grasp the whole gist of them in a few minutes;--read _this_--" and I handed her the rolled-up pages of Sibyl's dying declaration--"Let me stay here, while you learn from that what sort of a woman she was, and judge whether, despite her beauty, she is worth a regret!" "Pardon me,--" said Mavis gently--"I would rather not read what was not meant for my eyes."