A chilly evening. The hot days of August have passed away; this is October, and the night is turning out raw and misty. But in Mrs. Chester\'s house warmth and light reign, at least in the inhabited rooms of it.

In one of them, a moderate-sized, comfortable apartment, whose windows opened to the ground, the large fire had burned down to a red glow, after rendering the atmosphere unpleasantly warm; and a lady, seated in a lounging chair, had pushed it quite back, so that she was in the shade both from the light and the fire. A look of perplexity, of care, sat on her face, young and lovely though it was; even in her hands, as they lay listless on her lap, there was an air of abandonment. But that the room was growing dusk and dim in the autumn twilight, that sadness might not have been suffered to show itself, although she was alone.

It was Clara Lake. Her thoughts were buried in a painful retrospect--the retrospect of only the two past months. They had brought grief to her: as the summer did to the unhappy girl, told of in that beautiful ballad Anna Chester sometimes sung, "The Banks of Allan Water."

Had any one warned Clara Lake the previous August, when she came to Mrs. Chester\'s for a two days\' visit, that the sojourn would not be one of days but months, she had simply disbelieved it. Even when the term was extended to a proposed fortnight--a fortnight in all--she would have laughed at the idea of staying longer. But she had stayed. She was here still. Nevertheless, things had so turned out; all easily and naturally, as it seemed, to look back upon. As it seemed to her now, sitting in her chair, and tracing the course of past events.

The alteration in their house at Katterley, as proposed by Mr. Lake, and which was to be completed in ten days or a fortnight, was begun in due course--the throwing out of the dining-room by means of a bay window. He and his wife went over one day to see the progress of the work. It was then suggested--whether by the builder, by her husband, by herself, or by all three jointly, Clara could not to this hour recollect--that, to make a complete job of it, the window in the chamber above should also be thrown out. The additional expense would be comparatively little, the improvement great; and it was agreed to on the spot. Orders were also given for the drawing-room and their own chamber to be painted, repapered, and decorated.

"Won\'t it take a long time?" Clara suddenly asked.

"About a month, if they work well; certainly not more," replied Mr. Lake.

He must have known little of workmen, to speak so confidently. Builders, carpenters, painters, decorators, are not famous for working themselves thin through over-hurry. The popular saying, "If once you get them into your house, you never get them out," seemed to be exemplified in this one instance. Here was October come in, and Katterley Lodge was as far off being ready for reception as ever.

It would have been a slight grievance, the detention, to Mr. and Mrs. Lake--not any, in fact, to him--for Mrs. Chester\'s house was an agreeable one, and they had no home ties; but Lady Ellis was making the stay insupportable to Mr. Lake\'s wife.

Tolerably young, showy, very handsome according to the taste of many, exacting attention, living but in admiration, and not scrupulous how she obtained it provided she got it, Lady Ellis had begun to cast her charming toils on the careless and attractive Robert Lake in the very first hour of their meeting. Not to eat him up; not intending certainly to be eaten herself; only to be her temporary slave, pour faire passer le temps. In that dull country house, where there was no noise or excitement but what arose from its children, Lady Ellis wanted something to make the time pass.

Mr. Lake was perfectly ready to meet her halfway. One of those men who, wife or no wife, consider a flirtation with a pretty woman--and with one not pretty, for the matter of that--a legitimate occupation in their idle life, he responded to her advances gallantly. Neither of them had any idea of plunging into shoals and quicksands; let us so far give both their due. A rather impressive clasp of the hand; a prolonged walk in the glowing beauty of the summer\'s day; an interchange of confidential talk, meaning nothing--that was the worst, thought of by either. But then, you see, the mischief is, that when once these things are fairly embarked in, the course entered upon and its midway post reached, down you glide, swimmingly, unwittingly; and it is an exceedingly difficult matter to turn back. Good chance (to call it so here), generally sends the opportunity, but it is not always seized upon.

The flirtation began. There were walks in the morning sun, shady garden chairs for rest at noontide, lingerings in the open air by twilight, that grateful hour after a sultry day. There were meetings indoors, meetings out; singing, talking, netting, idling. Mr. Lake went fishing, his favourite pastime just now, and my Lady Ellis would carry his luncheon to him; or stroll down later, wait until the day\'s sport was at an end, and stroll home with him. One or other of the children was often with her, serving to satisfy the requisites of propriety, had friends been difficult.

None were so. For a whole month this agreeable life went on, and nobody gave it a care or a thought. Certainly Clara did not. She was accustomed to see her husband\'s light admiration given to others; never yet had a suspicion crossed her mind that he had more than admiration to give. That his love was exclusively hers, to be hers for ever, she believed in as fully as she believed in heaven.

Well, the month passed, August; and September was entered upon. The flirtation (to call it so for want of a better word), had grown pretty deep. The morning walks were frequent; the noontide restings were confidential, the twilight lingerings were prolonged to starlight. The songs became duets, the conversation whispers; the netting was as often in his hands as hers, and the silk purse did not progress. Mr. Lake drove Lady Ellis out in the stylish little open carriage, conveniently made for two persons and no more, that he was fond of hiring at Guild. One day Fanny Chester went with them; my lady\'s dress got crushed, and of course the inconvenience could not be allowed to occur again. Twice a week she rode with him, requiring very much of his care in the open country, for she said she was a timid horsewoman. In short, they had plunged into a whirligig round of days that was highly agreeable to the two concerned.

Sharp-eyed Mrs. Chester--nearly as sharp as Lady Ellis herself, but more honest--saw quite well what was going on. "Don\'t you go and make a fool of yourself with that woman, Robert!" she said to him one day, which sent Mr. Lake into a fit of laughter. He thought himself just the last man to do it. And on went the time again.

Imperceptibly--she could not remember how or when it first arose--a shade of annoyance, of vexation, stole upon Mrs. Lake. Her husband was always with Lady Ellis; except at meals and at night, he was never with her; and she began to think it was not quite right that it should be so. Crafty Mrs. Chester--honest enough in the main, but treacherous in this one matter--was on thorns lest Clara should take alarm and cause an outbreak; which would not have done at all. She did what she could to keep alarm off, and would have to reconcile it to her conscience in later days. Mr. and Mrs. Lake paid her well, and that was also a consideration.

"Clara, dear, it is so good of your husband to help me," she would say, or words similar. "He has never been a true brother to me until now. Were it not for him I am sure Lady Ellis would die of ennui in this place. He keeps her amused for me, doing what he can to make her days pass pleasantly. I shall be ever thankful to him."

Once, and once only, Clara went to the fishing stream after them. It was a mile and a half away, the one they had gone fishing in that day. They! Lady Ellis had a costly little rod now, bought for her by Mr. Lake, and went with him. Clara, having nothing better to do in the afternoon, uneasily conscious of the advent of incipient jealousy arising in her heart, thought she would join the party. Her husband had never asked her to do so at any time; upon her hinting that she should like to fish too, he had stopped the idea at once: "No, she would be too fatigued." Mrs. Lake, it was true, was not strong; heat and fatigue knocked her up. Mrs. Chester had been crafty from the first. One day in the early stage of the affair, seeing her husband and Lady Ellis sitting together in the shade at noontide, Clara was innocently stepping out at the window to sit too, when Mrs. Chester interposed to prevent it. "Good gracious, Clara! don\'t go stealing out like that. They may think you want to hear what they are saying--out of jealousy." And the word "jealousy" only caused an amusing laugh to Clara Lake then; but she remained indoors. Well, on this afternoon, she started for the stream, taking Master James Chester in her hand Master James abandoned her en route, going off on his own devices, and she was alone when she reached them. A deliciously shady place she found it; the chance passers-by beyond the trees at the back few and far between. Both were sitting on the bank, attending to their lines, which were deep in the water. They looked round with surprise, and Lady Ellis was the first to speak.

"Have you come to look after us, Mrs. Lake?"

Innocent words, sufficiently courteous in themselves, but not in the tone with which they were spoken. There was a mocking undercurrent in it, implying much; at least, Clara fancied so, and it brought the red flush of shame to her cheeks. Open, candid, ultra-refined herself, to spy upon others would have been against her very nature. It seemed to her that in that light she was looked upon, as a spy, and inwardly resolved not to intrude again.

James Chester made his appearance in the course of time, and Clara set off home with him. They asked her to stay until the sport was at an end; her husband pressed it; but she could not get over that tone, and said she would walk very quietly on, that they might overtake her. Master James went off as before, and Clara thought of the interview. "There was no harm; there can be none; they were only fishing," she murmured to herself. "What a stupid thing I was!"

"Where\'s Jemmy?" asked Mrs. Chester, coming forth to meet her.

"I\'m sure I can\'t tell. He ran away from me both in going and returning. It was not my fault. He does not mind anybody a bit, you know."

"Why did you not wait to come home with Robert and Lady Ellis?"

"I don\'t know. I wanted to get back, for one thing; I was tired. And I don\'t much think Lady Ellis liked my going."

"My dear Clara, you must not take up vague fancies," spoke Mrs. Chester, after a pause. "One would think you were growing jealous, as the boys and girls do. Nothing can be in worse taste for a lady, even when there may be apparent grounds for it. In this case the very thought would be absurd; Lady Ellis is ten years older than your husband."

And so, what with one thing and another, Clara was subdued to passive quietness, and Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis had it all their own way. But her suspicions that they were growing rather too fond of each other\'s company had been aroused, and she naturally, perhaps unconsciously, watched, not in the unfounded fancy of an angry woman, a jealous wife, but in the sick fear of a loving one. She saw the flirtation (again I must apologize for the name) grow into sentiment, if not to passion; she saw it lapse into concealment--which is a very bad sign. And now that October had come in and was passing, Clara Lake\'s whole inward life was one scene of pain, of conflict, of wild jealousy preying upon her very heartstrings. She had loved her husband with all the fervour of a deeply imaginative nature; had believed in him with the perfect trustingness of an innocent-hearted, honest English girl.

She sat in her chair there in the drawing-room, drawn away from the fire\'s heat, her eyes fixed on vacancy, her pretty hands lying weary. What was that heat compared to the heat that raged within, the mind\'s fever?

"If it could but end!" she murmured to herself; "if we could but go back to our home at Katterley!"

Strange to say--and yet perhaps not strange, for the natural working out of a course of events is often hidden to the chief actor in it--the dream and its superstitious dread had faded away from Clara\'s memory. Of course she had not forgotten the fact; whenever she thought of it, as she did at odd times, its features presented themselves to her as vividly as ever. But the dread of it was gone. When day succeeded day, week succeeded week, bringing no appearance of any tragic end for her, accident or else, that could put her into a hearse, the foreboding fear quite subsided. Besides, Clara Lake looked upon the accident to the railway-train that Sunday night as the one that would have killed her had she only been in it. So the dream and its superstition had become as a thing of the past.

Lonely, dispirited, unusually low, felt she this afternoon. Mr. Lake had gone over in the morning to Katterley to see how their house was progressing, and she began to wonder that he was not back. They had taken dinner early that day, and Lady Ellis had disappeared after it. When Mr. Lake was away she would invariably go up to her room after dinner, saying she had letters to write. Shrewd Fanny Chester, taking after her quick mother, said my lady went up to get a nap, not to write. Mrs. Chester was in the nursery, where she had a dressmaker at work, making clothes for her children; Anna was helping; and Clara was alone.

It may as well be mentioned that the mystery attaching to the cause of the railway accident had not been solved yet. The coroner and jury had met regularly once a fortnight since, and as regularly adjourned the inquest. In the teeth of Colonel West\'s most positive testimony, it was impossible to bring in a verdict against Cooper, the driver; in the teeth of Oliver Jupp\'s, it was equally impossible to exonerate him. No other witnesses, save the parties interested, appeared to have seen the lights that night. The public were fairly nonplussed, the coroner and jury sick to death of the affair. The young person now working for Mrs. Chester was Cooper\'s sister.

The red embers were fading down nearly to blackness, when Fanny Chester came bursting into the room to Clara in her rather boisterous manner. Clara aroused herself, glad perhaps of the interruption to her thoughts.

"Is it you, Fanny? Where are they all, dear?"

"Mamma\'s at work in the nursery. She\'s running the seams, and showing Miss Cooper how she wants the bodies cut. Anna\'s there too. Have you seen Uncle Robert?"

"Uncle Robert is not back yet, Fanny."

"Yes, he is," replied the young lady, who at all times was fond of her own opinion.

"You are mistaken," said Clara. "He would have come in to me the first thing."

"But I saw him. I saw him in the garden ever so long ago. Lady Ellis was with him. They were at the back there, walking towards the shrubbery."

Indisputable testimony; and Clara Lake could have bitten her tongue for saying "He would have come to me the first thing," although her audience consisted only of a child. Mr. Lake was to have brought her some book from home that he had forgotten the previous time; she was ardently longing for it, and thought he would at least have come straight to her and delivered it.

"Will you please reach me one of those old newspapers up there," proceeded Fanny. "Mamma sent me for it. She wants to cut a pattern."

Giving the child the newspaper she asked for, Mrs. Lake shut the door after her and drew to the window, her heart beating rebelliously. "So he was back ever so long ago, and solacing himself with the sweet companionship of Lady Ellis." As she stood there, looking out on the darkening gloom--fit type of the gloom within--Clara asked herself the serious question, Was this constant seeking of each other\'s society but the result of accident; of a nonsensical liking which meant really nothing, and would pass away; or was it that they were really in love with each other, and she losing her place in her husband\'s heart?

An impulse--a wild impulse--which she could not restrain, and perhaps did not try to, led her to open the glass doors and step out: some vague feeling in her unhappy mind, making itself heard amidst the inward tumult of wishing to see with her own eyes whether the child\'s information was true. It might not have been her husband; it might have been the curate, or Oliver Jupp, or that big Mr. Winterton, all of whom were fond of coming and of walking with Lady Ellis when they got the chance; and she would go and see. Pretty sophist! Poor Clara knew in her inmost heart that it was Robert Lake, and no other: instinct told her so. Had she given herself a moment\'s time for reflection, she would probably not have gone. To an honourable nature--and Clara Lake\'s was essentially such--the very idea of looking after even a recreant husband is abhorrent. But jealousy is the strongest passion that can assail the human heart, whether of man or woman. Under its influence we do not stop to raise questions of expediency.

The raw fog pervading the air struck upon her with a chill as she came out of the heated room. She had nothing on but a thin muslin body, and shivered quite unconsciously. What cared she for the cold or the heat? Had she been plunged into a bath of ice she would not have felt it then. On she went, sweeping round the lawn in the dusky twilight; for it was not dark yet--keeping close to the trees, that their friendly shade might shelter her from chance eyes. Fanny Chester\'s words, "Going towards the shrubbery," serving for her guide unconsciously, she made for the same place.

Well, what did she find or see? Nothing very dreadful, taking it in the abstract; but quite enough to fan the jealous indignation of a wife, especially of one who loves her husband.

The shrubbery appeared to be empty; and Clara had, gone half way down it, past one of its cross openings, when, from that very opening, sounds of voices and footsteps advancing struck upon her ear. Retreat was not expedient: they might see her pass; and she darted into a deep alcove the shrubs had been trained to make, before which ran a bench. Cowering almost into the very laurels, she stood there in sick fear. Never had she intended to get so near, and almost wished for the earth to open and bury her alive rather than she should be seen. Her heart beating with a wild shame, as if she had been caught in some great crime, there she had to stay.

On they came in their supreme unconsciousness, turning into the shrubbery, and alas! towards the verdant alcove. Clara\'s eyes were strained to look, and her poor breath came in gasps.

They were arm-in-arm; and Mr. Lake held one of my lady\'s hands, lightly toying with its fingers. He was speaking in low, tender tones--the same tones which had been given to her before their marriage, and had won her heart for ever. What he was saying she could not in her agitation tell, but as they were passing her, going from the house, you understand, not to it, Lady Ellis spoke.

"Robert, it is getting dark and cold."

Robert! Had she known his wife was listening! It might have made no difference.

"The dark will not hurt you," he said, louder. "You are with me."

"But it is damp also. Indeed, since I returned from India, I feel both the damp and cold very much."

She spoke in a timid, gentle tone: as different from her natural tones, as different from those she used to any but him, as can well be imagined. That she had set herself out to gain his love seemed a sure fact. How far Lady Ellis contemplated going, or Mr. Lake either, and what they may have anticipated would be the final upshot, how or where it was to end, was best known to themselves. Let it lie with them.

"There\'s a shawl of yours, I think, Angeline, in the summer-house. Sit you there while I get it."

He left her on the bench, behind which his wife was standing: they touched each other within an inch or two. Clara drew in her breath, and wished the earth would open. Lady Ellis began a scrap of a song, as if she did not like being alone in the darkness. Her voice, whether in singing or speaking, was loud and shrill, though she modified it for Mr. Lake. An antediluvian sort of song: goodness knows where she could have picked it up. Perhaps the stars, beginning to twinkle above, suggested its recollection to her.

"As many bright stars as appeared in the sky,
As many young lovers were caught by my eye;
And I was a beauty then, oh then,
And I was a beauty then.

"But now that I\'m married, good what, good what! I\'m tied to a proud and fantastical fop,
Who follows another and cares for me not.

"But when I\'m a widow I\'ll live at my ease, I\'ll go all about, and I\'ll do as I please,
And take care how I marry again, again;
And take care how I marry again."

She had time to sing the three stanzas through, repeating the last line of the first and third verses as a refrain.

Mr. Lake came back swinging the shawl on his arm--a warm grey woollen one. "All right at last, Angeline. I could not find it, and had to strike a fusee for a light. It had slipped behind the seat. I began to think you must have carried it away today."

"I did not know it was there," she answered.

"Don\'t you remember throwing it off last evening when we were sitting there, saying you felt hot? Now be quiet: I\'ll wrap you up myself. Have you any pins?"

She had risen, and he put the shawl on her head and shoulders; then turned her round and pinned it under her chin, so that only her face was visible. With such care!--oh, with such care!

"You are taking as much trouble as though I were going to stay out for an hour!"

"I wish we were."

"Do you? What would your wife say?"

"Nothing. And if she did--what then? There, you can\'t feel the cold now."

"No; I don\'t think I can."

"But what am I to have for my pains?"

She made no answer. In truth, he did not wait for it. Bending his own face on the one he held up, he left a kiss and a loving word upon it: "My dearest!" A long and passionate kiss, as it sounded in his wife\'s ear.

Lady Ellis, perhaps not prepared for so demonstrative a proceeding, spoke a rebuke. He only laughed. They moved away; he retaining his arm around her for a lingering moment, as though to keep the shawl in its place; and their voices were dropped again to a soft sweet whisper, that scarcely disturbed the stillness of the murky autumn night.

Very different from the tone of that wail--had any been near to note it--when Clara Lake left her hiding-place; a low wail, as of a breaking heart, that came forth and mingled with the inclement evening air.

Some writer has remarked--and I believe it was Bulwer Lytton, in his "Student"--that to the vulgar there is but one infidelity in love. It is perfectly true; but I think the word "vulgar" is there misplaced, unless we may apply it to all, whether inmates of the palace or the cottage, whose temperament is not of the ultra-refined. Ultra-refined, mind! they of the sensitive, proud, impassioned nature, whose inward life, its thoughts, its workings, can never be betrayed to the world, any more than they themselves can be understood by it. Alas for them! They are hardly fit to dwell on this earth, to do battle with its sins and its cares; for their spirit is more exalted than is well: it may be said, more etherealized. The gold too highly refined, remember, is not adapted for general use. That the broad, vulgar idea conveyed by the word infidelity, is not their infidelity, is very certain. It is the unfaithfulness of the spirit, the wandering of the heart\'s truth to another, that constitutes infidelity for them; and where such comes, it shatters the heart\'s life as effectually as a blast of lightning shatters the tree it falls on. This was the infidelity that wrought the misery of Clara Lake: that other infidelity, whether it was or was not to have place in the future, she barely glanced at. Her husband\'s love had left her: it was given to another; and what mattered aught else? The world had close to her; never again could she have, as it seemed, any place in it. Henceforth life would be a mockery.

She returned shivering to the house--not apparently with the cold from without, but from the chill within--entering by the glass doors. The fire was nearly out; it wanted stirring and replenishing. She never saw it, never noticed it; but crept upstairs to her own room to hide herself. We cannot follow her; for you may not doubt that the quarter of an hour she stopped in it she had need to be alone, away from the wondering eyes of men.

Only a quarter of an hour. Clara Lake was not one of your loud women, who like their wrongs to be proclaimed to the world, and punished accordingly. In her sensitive reticence, she dreaded their betrayal more than any earthly thing. So she rose from her knees, and lifted her head from the chair, where it had lain in utter abandonment of spirit, and smoothed her hair, and went out of her room again to disarm suspicion, and was her calm self once more. At that same moment, though she knew it not, Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis were slowly strolling across the grass to enter by the same glass doors, their promenade, which they had been taking up and down the broad walk since quitting the shrubbery, having come to a decorous end.