Once more the scene changes to Dallory.

Seated on a lawn-bench at Dallory Hall in the sweet spring sunshine--for the time has again gone on--was Ellen Adair. Sir William Adair and Arthur Bohun were pacing amidst the flower-beds that used to be Mr. North\'s. Arthur stooped and plucked a magnificent pink hyacinth.

"It is not treason, sir?" he asked, smiling.

"What is not treason?" returned the elder man.

"To pick this."

"Pick as many as you like," said Sir William.

"Mr. North never liked us to pluck his flowers. Now and then madam would make a ruthless swoop upon them for her entertainments. It grieved his heart."

"No wonder," said Sir William.

The restoration to the old happiness, the disappearance of the dreadful cloud that had told so fatally upon her, seemed to infuse new vigour into Ellen\'s shortening span of life. With the exception of her father, every one thought she was recovering: the doctors admitted, rather dubiously, that it "might be so." She passed wonderfully well through the winter, went out and about almost as of old; and when more genial weather set in, it was suggested by friends that she should be taken to a warmer climate. Ellen opposed it; she knew it would not avail, perhaps only hasten the end; and after a private interview Sir William had with the doctors, even he did not second it. Her great wish was to go back to Dallory: and arrangements for their removal were made.

Dallory Hall was empty, and Sir William found that he could occupy it for the present if he pleased. Mr. North had removed to the house that had been Mrs. Cumberland\'s, leaving his own furniture: in point of fact it was Richard\'s: at the Hall, hoping the next tenant, whoever that might prove to be, would take to it. Miss Dallory seemed undecided what to do with the Hall, whether to let it for a term again, or not, But she was quite willing that Sir William Adair should have it for a month or two.

And so he came down with Ellen, bringing his own servants with him. This was only the third day after their arrival, and Arthur Bohun had arrived. Sir William had told him he might come when he would.

The change seemed to have improved Ellen, and she had received a few visitors. Mrs. Gass had been there; Mr. North had come down; and Richard ran in for a few minutes every day. Sir William welcomed them all; Mrs. Gass warmly; for she was sister-in-law to Mrs. Cumberland, and Ellen had told him of Mrs. Gass\'s goodness of heart. She had unfastened her bonnet, and stayed luncheon with them.

Mr. North was alone in his new home, and was likely to be so; for his wife had relieved him of her society. Violently indignant at the prospect of removal from such a habitation as the Hall to that small home of the late Mrs. Cumberland\'s, madam went off to London with Matilda, and took Sir Nash Bohun\'s house by storm. Not an hour, however, had she been in it, when madam found all her golden dreams must be scattered to the winds. Never again would Sir Nash receive her as a guest or tolerate her presence. The long hidden truth, as connected with his unfortunate brother\'s death, had been made clear to him: first of all by General Strachan, next by Sir William Adair, with whom he became intimate.

Of what use to tell of the interview between Arthur and his mother? It was of a painful character. There was no outspoken reproach, no voice was raised. In a subdued manner, striving for calmness, Arthur told her she had wilfully destroyed both himself and Ellen Adair; her life, for she was dying; his happiness for ever. He recapitulated all that had been disclosed to him relating to his father\'s death; and madam, brought to bay, never attempted to deny its accuracy.

"But that I dare not fly in the face of one of Heaven\'s Commandments, I would now cast you off for ever," he concluded in his bitter pain. "Look upon you again as my mother, I cannot. I will help you when you need help; so far will I act the part of a son towards you; but all respect for you has been forced out of me; and I would prefer that we should not meet very often."

Madam departed the same day for Germany, Matilda and the maid Parrit in her wake. Letters came from her to say she should never return to Dallory; never; probably never set her foot again on British soil; and therefore she desired that a suitable income might be secured to her abroad.

And so Mr. North had his new residence all to himself--saving Richard. Jelly had taken up her post as his housekeeper, with a boy and a maid under her; and there was one outdoor gardener. She domineered over all to her heart\'s content. Jelly was regaining some of her lost flesh, and more than her lost spirits. Set at rest in a confidential interview with Mr. Richard, as to the very tangible nature of the apparition she had seen, Jelly was herself again. Mr. North thought his garden lovely, more compact than the extensive one at the Hall; he was out in it all day long, and felt at peace. Mrs. Gass came to see him often; Mary Dallory almost daily: he had his good son Richard to bear him company of an evening. Altogether Mr. North was in much comfort. Dr. Rane\'s house remained empty: old Phillis, to whom the truth had also been disclosed, taking care of it. The doctor\'s personal effects had been sent to him by Richard.

"Ellen looks much better, sir," remarked Arthur Bohun, as he twirled the pink hyacinth he had plucked.

"A little fresher, perhaps, from the country air," answered Sir William.

"I have not lost hope: she may yet be mine," he murmured.

Sir William did not answer. He would give her to Arthur now with his whole heart, had her health permitted it. Arthur himself looked ill; in the last few months he seemed to have aged years. A terrible remorse was ever upon him; his life, in its unavailing regret, seemed as one long agony.

They turned to where she was sitting. "Would you not like to walk a little, Ellen?" asked her father.

She rose at once. Arthur held out his arm, and she took it. Sir William was quite content that it should be so: Arthur, and not himself. The three paced the lawn. Ellen wore a lilac silk gown and warm white cloak. An elegant girl yet, though worn almost to a shadow, with the same sweet face as of yore.

But she was soon tired, and sat down again, Arthur by her side. One of the gardeners came up for some orders, and Sir William went away with him.

"I have not been so happy for many a day, Ellen, as I am now," began Captain Bohun. "You are looking quite yourself again. I think--in a little time--that you may be mine."

A blush, beautiful as the rose-flush of old, sat for a moment on her cheeks. She knew how fallacious was the hope.

"I am nearly sure that Sir William thinks so, and will soon give you to me," he added.

"Arthur," she said, putting her wan and wasted hand on his, "don\'t take the hope to heart. The--disappointment, when it came, would be all the harder to bear."

"But, my darling, you are surely better!"

"Yes, I seem so, just for a little time. But I fear that I shall never be well enough to be your wife."

"It was so very near once, you know," was all he whispered.

There was no one within view, and they sat, her hand clasped in his. The old expressive silence that used to lie between them of old, ensued now. They could not tell to each other more than they had told already. In the unexpected reconciliation that had come, in the bliss it brought, all had been disclosed. Arthur had heard all about her self-humiliation and anguish; he knew of the treasured violets, and their supposed treachery: she had listened to his recital of the weeks of despair; she had seen the l............