upon their table. Robert had opened it eagerly. Sophy needed not that he should tell her what were its contents. The sudden start, the deadly pallor, the look of horror that he could not control, told their tale too plainly. Her grandfather was dead; she had killed him.

She did not faint, she did not scream; one faint, low, wailing cry broke from her, and then she stood, rigid and immovable, her eyes open and staring, her lips parted, and every vestige of colour gone from her face. One hand clasped her throat; the other, clenched and rigid, rested on the table.

Robert Gregory forgot his own heavy interest in the news, forgot that a fortune might have been gained or lost by the few words of that telegram. Sophy's face frightened him as he had never been frightened before. He spoke to her, he called her every loving name; but it was of no avail. No movement of the rigid face, no change in the fixed eyes, showed that she had heard him. He dared not touch her; she might break into dreadful shrieks—her reason might be gone. What was he to do? He pealed at the bell, and then went to the door, and told the waiter who answered it to beg the landlady to come up instantly. In another minute the landlady arrived, all of a fluster—as she afterwards expressed it when describing the matter—at this sudden summons, and at the brief account the waiter had given her of the manner of Robert Gregory.

"My wife has had a terrible shock; she has just heard of the sudden death of her father, and I don't know what to do with her. She does not hear me; I am afraid she is going to be ill or something terrible. For God's sake speak to her, or do something or other." Such was the hurried greeting which met her at the door.

The landlady was somewhat accustomed to sudden emergencies, but she saw at a glance that this was beyond her, and she said to the waiter, who had followed her up, to hear, if possible, what was the matter,—

"James, the lady is ill. Send Hannah here with some cold water, and my scent bottle, and run across to Dr. Cope's opposite, and tell him to come over at once. If he is out, run for the nearest doctor."

Then, closing the door, she advanced towards Sophy.

"Don'tye, don'tye, take on so, dear!" she said, in a kind, motherly way, as if she was speaking to a little child; "don't, now, for your husband's sake; try and rouse yourself, dear." But it was no use. There was a slight, a very slight quiver of the eyelids, but no other sign of 

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