A NARROW ESCAPE.

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262 [Jmear, isrt] ALL THE TEAB BOUND. [Oondocttdb;
speak, was in her eyes and in every gestore.
Through her light chatter, as we sat at
breakfast, I felt her pre-ooonpation and
watohfulness. To that light chatter she
found me irresponsive; she found me
unsympathetic with her raptures about
the beauty of the moming, fair-shining
after yesterday's rain; found me, indeed,
altogether grim, glum, grave, and unpleasant.
And, by-and-by, suddenly jumping
up from her place, she came to my
side, putting her hands on my shoulders,
she shook me, kissing me at tho same time,
and said—
"Aunt Hammond, do yon and Allan
want to drive me into doing— I don't
know what, but something very desperate ?
I'm not going to put up vrith nothing but
cross words and gloomy looks ; with having
nothing done to amuse me, and no one
taking any notice of me. I warn you
that I don't mean to bear this sort of treatment,
and you may warn my husband I
Why should he have changed so to me ? I
am not changed; I am not different.
What have I done to deserve that he should
treat me so ? "
She spoke tremulously, and her eyes
were stung to tears.
She stepped from the window on to the
lawn, and stood there for five minutes
quite still. The pretty creature! all bloom
and light *nd loveliness. Neither cold nor
heat, frost nor sunshine, ever seemed to
have any power to redden or to roughen
that skin of Elfie's, or in any way to harm
her fatel beauty.
When she came in sbe stood in front of
me and spoke quite solemnly—tor Elfie—
her earnestness dilating and darkening
her riolet eyes till they might have passed
for black.
" I'm nineteen," she began. " I may
live to be ninety. Some people do. I am
sure I shall never wish to die. How can
any one ever wish to die ? It must be
horrid—hateful. I want to be happy up
in the sunshine." She waa garing towards
Braithwait now. " We have been married
eight months^-only eight months. What
will it be when we have been married
eight—eighteen—eight-and-twenty years,
if we go on like this?"
" If you often play the fool, the vricked
little fool, as you did last night, Blfie, long
before your eight-and-twenty, eighteen, or
even eight years are out, the whole thing will
have come to some most miserable end."
" What whole thing will have come to
some most miserable end ? " she asked vrith
a curdling pallor at the very ring of »nr
ominous, uncomfortable-sounding woviU
" Your marriage."
"I know I did not behave well I
night, Annt Hammond. I meant to ha:
asked Allan to forgive me. I meant to
have explained to him some things—some
things about Edgar Bamsay—some thin
you don't know. Aunt Hammond. Tor
indeed," and here she sparkled and flushed
proudly, " I do not mean to h.ave him,
Edgar Bamsay, fancying that he has me
in his power, because of some—some
foolishness, because of a half-promise
because of just two silly little letters. I
meant to have told everything te Alhm."
" Do that, Blfie, and you will do Ihe
vrisest thing it has ever entered into pur
head to contemplate. Do it, Elfie, and you
will save yourself from the possibility of
evils you cannot even imagine."
" Allan gives me no opportenity ot
doing it, Aunt Hammond; I was waiting
and watehing for him last night, and he
did not come near me."
" Can yon wonder he did not come near
yon! Why, Elfie, your whole behavioor
last evening was so studiously insnltmg
that—well, far less provocation than yoa
gave has made murderers of men no
worse than other men—nay, perhaps, in
many things better, with keener sensitiv.
ness of honour and feeling, only wea'-.
in having less self-control."
" What are you telking about ? Wh»t
absurd exaggeration ! I wished to punish
Allan for haring left me to myself the
whole long dismal day. I wished to
please Edgar Bamsay. I wished toamnse
myself. That is all! "
" Are you a baby, Elfie ? Or are yon a
wom»n without a heart ? "
Elfie raised her fairy-pencilled brows,
and looked at me with the " daft" looh
she had sometimes. Whether she assumed
it, or whether at times it settled naturally
down upon her face, I never had been able
to decide.
I wished to try an experiment, one that
I don't think now I was justified in trying.
" Kneel down by me, child," I said.
" so that I may speak softly close into
your ear." She obeyed me, with an air
half of mockery, half of wonder.
" Elfie, have you any thonglit of what
will be the natural consequence of teaching
your husband to believe either that he
has married a pretty doll, without heart
or conscience, or a vain unprincipled girl,
who gives what heart she has elsewhere?