AT LAGLES GORGL.

“Then he only thinks as vou commuand ~—you have made him beheve me beautiful U7 cried the girl.

“l sce vou already forgive me.” saud Volmer, quietly. “l cannot!” she exclumed. Ah!

Take him away azain,

Volmer, let him go, \ s Dife must not

Take him back to Pans. be ruined 17

“Wild horses would not drag him away from you, said Volmer, sardonically. And yvou do not consider me at all. Unless vou mury this man, Nasha, T am lost! him, and [ promise to turn over a new leal”

“Is this the truth?” asked the g, regarding him fixedly. He gaze with an carnest look of his strange, mscrutable eves, which scemed to her to dilate, and 1n some horrible manner o lay hold upon her.

“Yes,” said Volmer, and the monosvllable dropped into her consciousness like a plum- met breaking through weak, intervening barriers, and seemed to lie, a dead weight, in the bottom of her mind. Her heart was assailed by a great temptation, and she could not, try as she would, rally the forces of her mtellect and her scruples against it In her brother’s eves, which did not leave her faee, she scemed to read all the marvellous trans- formation that might come over her existence. [vo made, by some strange power, to sce her as she longed to be, loving her as she vearned to be loved, and taking cagerly all the wealth of love which she had to give him !

she, the sad, loncly, hungry woman to whom Nature had been so cruel, could he his honoured, cherished wife, the mother of his

children, the companion ol his bright and of

his cloudy days. She could have the right, as she knew she had within her the power, to entrance, to soothe, to sustain him @ to live for him as he would live for her, his twin soul, his needed half) and together they would grow into a perfect being, Nasha was a mystic: her heart’'s cravings had twught her some truths which are only re- vealed by the two great teachers, Pain and Joy. Pain had hitherto schooled her: but now, i this supreme moment of temptation, she felt the presence of neither pain nor joy she was only conscious of a mighty power within her, responding to a mighty power outside of her, of an impetuous rush of her will to a decision, and she accepted the life which ate, through her brother, profferced.

She drew a long, quivering breath after those moments of tension, during which her heart had scarcely scemed to beat.

Marry

returned her

’;-

I he ever learns the vuth he will kill vou,” she sard quietly, as she turned away.

“No.o laughed Volmer, “he will kil VOuL Her courage did not il There were

moments, out of Ivo's presence, when con- scicnee stirred within her. There were moments when, after the passionate delight m eazing at his beloved face with all the wild but scerct worship of a soul ardent for scll-sacrifice, a terrible fear dominated her, and - conscience stabbed her cruclly, At such times she would fling herselt on her knees before the altar in the littde chapel, and he o mute supplication, or she would walk hall-way down the mountain to confess to the old curé in the village ; but she always turned back before she reached him. She could not bring herscll to speak of the love that filled her. Not to a creature apart from Ivo could she utter a word of the sacred marvel) the sceret and the crown

of hfc which she and he had discovered together. So she allowed the moments of

torment to pass 1 osilence, and her heart grew stronger till she almost forgot that Ivo was deceived. After all, was that a fraud which revealed her true self to him ?

For some sinister purpose of his own Volmer hurried on the marriage, which was solemnized m the ugly little chapel, the bride wearing the peasant’s dress in which her lover had first seen her, and which had charmed his artist cyes. Volmer and Getha were the only witnesses ol the ceremony, and after 1t was over the former left the wedded pair to their honevmoon : but he returned, like a bird of iH-omen, after a bried three weeks” absence.

“1 could almost believe T had hypnotisced myscll.” he told Nasha an hour after his arrival, as he watched her supervise the preparations for his supper : * vou have come wonderfully near to being beautiful

Ivo’s wife made a movement of impaticnee, and did not immediately respond ;- then, in a low voice, and with downcast answered him with o question -

“How long 1s this to last 27

SWhat? o Are you tiring of your idyll alrcady? Towill Tast. 3 vou must know. just so long as T hive”

“Then—should you die

“Your drecam will be over. Make the most ol 1t Not that T intend to die vet. hut one never knows.”

"It was not for my sake at all that vou worked this spell 27 said Nasha.

“Noo Tt was partly to test my powers,

cves, she