Have pity, Reader,\'twas the fire
Of human passion in her brain,—
First, youth\'s impulsive, mad desire,
Then love, and love\'s devouring pain.

Some two years previous to the incidents of our opening chapter, in a quiet house situated on G—St., in the vicinity of Belmont Square, an aged couple sat quietly talking, while the shadows fell longer and darker about the room, and the increased tread of passing feet spoke plainly of the end of another day of that weary labor that fell to the lot of the large number of tradespeople who lived in this row of modest houses.

The aged couple mentioned were occupying the two narrow windows that faced the crowded thoroughfare, and the two faces were pressed anxiously against the glass, while the old eyes[Pg 13] peered eagerly up and down, over and across in a careful search for the one of whom they had been quietly speaking.

There was silence for a little while and then the old man leaned back in his chair and, while wiping the moisture from his glasses with a generous square of cambric, said querulously:

"It is mighty strange, Marthy, where Lizzie is. She ought to be home before this."

"I know it, father," responded his wife meekly. "She\'s been acting very strange of late, staying away from home and coming in at all hours as dragged out as if she had been walking the streets for miles."

"Maybe that\'s what she does," snapped the old man, and then, as if ashamed of his hasty words, he added in a softer tone: "Though why she should do that I can\'t see. She\'s got a good home here with us and has had ever since our poor Mary died and left us our grandchild in the place of our child to care for and protect."

"And we\'ve done both, father," said the old lady, gently. "Lizzie has no need to seek pleasure outside her own home, what, with the rooms to[Pg 14] look after, her books, her piano and her needle work, she ought to be pretty well contented."

"That\'s so, Marthy, but she evidently is not. Now ever since that young man rented our two back rooms and began to spend his evenings here—"

"You don\'t think she is in love with him, do you father?" interrupted his wife quickly.

"Can\'t say, Marthy, you women can judge better of that. I only know she acts uncommonly unhappy lately. Let\'s see, the young fellow has been gone a week now, hasn\'t he?"

"Yes, that is so, and Lizzie has seemed all broke down ever since. I was asking her yesterday to see Mr. Jeller, but she turned as white as anything.

"\'No, no, Grandma,\' she said, \'I\'ll not see any doctors. There\'s nothing the matter with me, nothing!\'

"But there was a hard look came into her eyes, and the idea went through my mind that perhaps that gentlemanly looking fellow was just playing with her after all, and she had only found it out after her heart was gone from her."
 

Here the old lady stopped to wipe the tears from her faded eyes, while the blood of his youth flushed her husband\'s face and, with cane uplifted, he muttered fiercely:

"If I thought that, I\'d cane him, old as I am! Lizzie\'s a good girl and has been as well raised and as well educated as the best of them, and if her father and grandfather before him were tradespeople, they were honest and respectable, and I don\'t know what better dowry a woman can need than her own virtues and accomplishments and a record behind her of generations of honorable people."

Here the old man again sank back in his chair, overcome by the violence of his emotions, while his wife, re-adjusting her glasses, moved aside the curtain and again peered out into the fast darkening street.

There was silence for a few moments and then her husband resumed his position at the other window, while the ticking of the clock echoed, painfully distinct, through the silent room, and the sound of passing feet grew fainter and fainter, and darkness, mingling with the impenetrable vapors[Pg 16] of a London fog, settled heavily down upon the earth.

Certainly no girl could have a more happy home or two more tender, loving companions than had Elizabeth Merril.

But discontent is bred in the bone and needs no outward influence or surroundings to foster its soul destroying germs.

Elizabeth had grown into womanhood, beautiful in form and feature, loyal in heart and spotless in her maidenly purity, but the seeds of discontent, inherited or otherwise, sprang up in her heart and took from every pleasure that fullness of joy which is so necessary to perfect happiness.

It was her suggestion to rent the superfluous rooms thereby adding to the family exchequer and at the same time increasing her household duties.

The logic was excellent, but the impulse of a dissatisfied mind prompted the suggestion and evil impulses, however logical, are rarely productive of good results.

This particular instance was a most conclusive proof of the veracity of such reasoning.
 
For a few brief weeks Elizabeth\'s heart was filled with content and peace. With her additional labor came renewed ambition and the results seemed highly satisfactory to all concerned.

Then, as time passed on and the young man who occupied the rooms found many and varied excuses for seeking her presence, the roses on Elizabeth\'s cheeks deepened into carnation, her eyes flashed with a new born glory, and from morn till night the tender song of the nightingale burst joyously from her lips.

The young man had occupied the rooms for nearly a year and his devotion to their grandchild had been constantly growing more marked.

But for the past few months the song had ceased on Elizabeth\'s lips and the rosy cheeks were growing steadily paler.

In vain the aged couple watched and questioned, but Elizabeth\'s feminine tact and spirit outwitted them.

She fulfilled her duties patiently, as of yore, but would seize upon every possible pretext for remaining away from home, and now, during the week that her lover failed to appear at his cosy[Pg 18] apartments, they had hardly seen her for more than a few moments each day.

Thus it was no wonder that to-night they watched and waited at their narrow windows while the hours stole by and still the wandering girl returned not to her pleasant home.

Back and forth over the great London Bridge she was walking; her head bent low; her blue eyes fixed and glaring; her pale lips compressed in bitter agony, while over and over again she paused and looked eagerly down into the sluggish water.

The bridge was jammed as usual with hurrying pedestrians and jostling carts, and few turned to look at the solitary figure.

Now and then a watchful "Bobby" stopped and stared into her face and more than one of these experienced officers read the signs of coming trouble in her pallid features.

But it was not their duty to ask her business or order her away. She was doing no harm and surely it would be but a meddlesome act on their part to try and avert the danger which they so plainly foresaw.
 
Still she walked on and on until the crowd was lessened and fewer officers remained on duty.

Just as the fog, rising from the river below and the smoke falling from the chimneys above, met and mingled in a pall of gloom and obscurity, she turned again, paused, looked once more into the darkness below, then vaulting suddenly to the massive rail, sprang lightly forward through the mists and down into the awful waters.