"MAY EVERARD."

Aileen Jocyln sunk back in her seat, pale and trembling.

"Dead! O papa! papa!"

"It is very sad, my dear, and very shocking; and terribly unfortunate that it should have occurred just at this time. A postponed wedding is ever ominous of evil."

"Oh! pray, papa, don't think of that. Don't think of me! Poor Lady Thetford! Poor Rupert! You will go over at once, papa, will you not?"

"Certainly, my dear. And I will tell the servants, so that when our guests arrive, you may not be disturbed. Since it was to be," muttered the Indian officer under his mustache, "I would give half my fortune that it had been one day later. A postponed marriage is the most ominous thing under the sun."

He left the room, and Aileen sat with her hands clasped, and an unutterable awe overpowering every other feeling. She forgot her own disappointment in the awful mystery of sudden death. Her share of the trial was light--a year of waiting, more or less; what did it matter, since Rupert loved her unchangeably; but, poor Lady Thetford, called away in one instant from earth, and all she held most dear, on her son's wedding-day. And then Aileen, remembering how much the dead woman had loved her, and how fondly she had welcomed her as a daughter, covered her face with her hands, and wept as she might have wept for her own mother.

"I never knew a mother's love or care," Aileen thought; "and I was doubly happy in knowing I was to have one at last. And now--and now--"

It was a drearily long morning to the poor bride elect, sitting alone in her chamber, or pacing restlessly up and down. She heard the roll of carriages up the drive, the pause that ensued, and then their departure.

She wondered how _he_ bore it; best of all, May had said; but then he was ever still, and strong, and self-restrained. She knew how dear that poor, ailing mother had ever been to him, and she knew how bitterly he would feel her loss.

"They talk of presentiments," mused Miss Jocyln, walking wearily to and fro; "and see how happy and hopeful I was this morning, while she lay dead and he mourned. If I only dared go to him--my own Rupert."

It was late in the afternoon before Col. Jocyln returned. He strode straight to his daughter's presence, wearing a pale, fagged face.

"Well, papa?" she asked, faintly.

"My pale Aileen!" he said, kissing her fondly, "my poor, patient girl. I am sorry you must undergo this trial, and," knitting his brows, "such talk as it will make."

"Don't think of me, papa--my share is surely the lightest. But Rupert,--" wistfully faltering.

"There's something odd about Rupert; he was very fond of his mother, and he takes this a great deal too quietly. He looks like a man slowly turning to stone, with a face white and stern, and inscrutable; and he never asked for you. He sat there with folded arms, and that petrified face, gazing on his dead, until it chilled my blood to look at him.

There's something odd and unnatural in this frozen calm. And, oh!

by-the-by? I forgot to tell you the strangest thing--May Everard it was who told me; that painter fellow--what's his name--"

"Legard, papa?"

"Yes, Legard. He turns out to be the son of Mrs. Weymore--they discovered it last night. He was there in the room with the most dazed and mystified, and altogether bewildered expression of countenance I ever saw a man wear; and May and Mrs. Weymore sat crying incessantly. I couldn't see what occasion there was for the governess and the painter there in that room of death--and I said so to Miss Everard. There's something mysterious in the matter, for her face flushed, and she stammered something about startling family secrets that had come to light, the over-excitement of which had hastened Lady Thetford's end. I don't like the look of things, and I'm altogether in the dark. That painter resembles the Thetfords a great deal too closely for the mere work of chance; and yet, if Mrs. Weymore is his mother, I don't see how there can be anything in _that_. It's odd--confoundedly odd!"

Col. Jocyln rambled on as he walked the floor, his brows knitted into a swarthy frown. His daughter sat and eyed him wistfully.

"Did no one ask for me, papa? Am I not to go over?"

"Sir Rupert didn't ask for you. May Everard did, and I promised to fetch you to-morrow. Aileen, things at Thetford Towers have a suspicious look to-day; I can't see the light yet, but I suspect something wrong. It may be the very best thing that could possibly happen, this postponed marriage. I shall make Sir Rupert clear matters up completely before my daughter becomes his wife."

Col. Jocyln, according to promise, took his daughter to Thetford Towers next morning. With bated breath, and beating heart, and noiseless tread, Aileen Jocyln entered the house of mourning, which yesterday she had thought to enter a bride. Dark and still, and desolate it lay, the brilliant morning light shut out, unbroken silence everywhere.

"And this is the end of earth, its glory and its bliss," Aileen thought, as she followed her father slowly up stairs, "the solemn wonder of the winding-sheet and the grave."

There were two watchers in the dark room when they entered, May Everard, pale and quiet, and the young artist, Guy Legard. Even in that moment, Col. Jocyln could not repress a supercilious stare of wonder to behold the housekeeper's son in the death-chamber of Lady Thetford. And yet it seemed strangely his place, for it might have been one of those lusty old Thetfords, framed up stairs, stepped out of the canvas, and dressed in the fashion of the day.

"Very bad taste all the same," the proud old colonel thought, with a frown; "very bad taste on the part of Sir Rupert. I shall speak to him on the subject presently."

He stood in silence beside his daughter, looking down at the marble face. May, shivering drearily in a large shawl, and looking like a wan little spirit, was speaking in whispers to Aileen.

"We persuaded Rupert--Mr. Legard and I--to go and lie down; he has neither eaten nor slept since his mother died. O, Aileen! I am so sorry for you!"

"Hush!" raising one tremulous hand and turning away; "she was as dear to me as my own mother could have been. Don't think of me."

"Shall we not see Sir Rupert?" the colonel asked. "I should like to, particularly."

"I think not--unless you remain for some hours. He is completely worn out, poor fellow."

"How comes that young man here, Miss Everard?" nodding in the direction of Mr. Legard, who had withdrawn to a remote corner. "He may be a very especial friend of Sir Rupert, but don't you think he presumes on that friendship?"

Miss Everard's eyes flashed angrily.

"No, sir! I think nothing of the sort. Mr. Legard has a perfect right to be in this room, or any other room at Thetford Towers. It is by Rupert's particular request he remains."

The colonel frowned again, and turned his back upon the speaker.

"Aileen," he said, haughtily, "as Sir Rupert is not visible, nor likely to be for some time, perhaps you had better not linger. To-morrow, after the funeral, I shall speak to him very seriously."

Miss Jocyln arose. She would rather have lingered, but she saw her father's annoyed face, and obeyed him immediately. She bent and kissed the cold, white face, awful with the dread majesty of death.

"For the last time, my friend, my mother," she murmured, "until we meet in heaven."

She drew her veil over her face to hide her falling tears, and silently followed the stern and displeased Indian officer down stairs, and out of the house. She looked back wistfully once at the gray, old ivy-grown facade; but who was to tell her of the weary, weary months and years that would pass before she crossed that stately threshold again.

It was a very grand and imposing ceremonial that burial of Lady Thetford; and side by side with the heir, clad in deepest mourning, walked the unknown painter, Guy Legard. Colonel Jocyln was not the only friend of the family shocked and scandalized on this occasion. What could Sir Rupert mean? And what did Mr. Legard mean by looking ten times more like the old Thetford race than Sir Noel's own son and heir?

It was a miserable day, this day of the funeral, with a low complaining wind sighing through the yew-trees, and a dark, slanting rain lashing the sodden earth. There was a sky of lead hanging low like a pall; and it was almost dark, in the rainy gloaming, when Colonel Jocyln and Sir Rupert Thetford stood alone before the village church. Lady Thetford slept with the rest of the name in the stony vaults; the fair-haired artist stood in the porch looking at the slanting lines of rain, and Sir Rupert, with a face wan, and stern, in the dying daylight, stood face to face with the colonel.

"A private interview," the colonel was repeating; "most certainly, Sir Rupert. Will you come with me to Jocyln Hall? My daughter will wish to see you."

The young man nodded, went back a moment to speak to Legard, and then followed the colonel into the carriage. The drive was a very silent one--dark gloom lay on the faces of the two men. A vague, chilling presentiment of impending evil on the Indian officer, as he uneasily watched the young man who had so nearly been his son.

Aileen Jocyln, roaming like a restless ghost through the lonely rooms, saw them alight, and came out to the hall to meet her betrothed. She held out both hands shyly and wistfully, looking up, half in fear, in that rigid death-white face of her lover.

"Aileen!"

He took the hands, and held them fast a moment; then dropped them, and turned to the colonel.

"Now, Colonel Jocyln."

The colonel led the way into the library. Sir Rupert paused a moment on the threshold to answer Aileen's pleading glance.

"Only for a few moments, Aileen," he said, his eyes softening with infinite love; "in half an hour my fate shall be decided. Let that fate be what it may, I shall be true to you while life lasts."

With these enigmatical words, he followed the colonel into the library, and the polished oaken door closed between him and Aileen.