God only knows.

"Vera, gather me a water-lily! See how lovely they are. I am going back to dance; I want a water-lily."

Vera looked up startled. The sudden change of manner and the familiar mention of her name struck her as strange. Helen was leaning towards her, all flushed and eager, pointing with her glistening, jewelled fingers over the water.

"Don't you see how white they are, and how they gleam in the moonlight like silver? Would not one of them look lovely in my hair?"

"I do not think I can reach them," said Vera, slowly. She was puzzled and half-frightened by the quick, feverish words and manner.

"Yes, yes, your arms are long—much longer than mine; you can reach them very well. See, I will hold the sleeve of your dress like this; it is very strong. I can hold you quite safely. Kneel down and reach out for it, Vera. Do, please, I want it so much. There is one so close there, just beyond your hand. Stoop over a little further; don't be afraid; I have got you tightly."

And Vera knelt and stretched out over the dark face of the waters.

Then, all at once, there was a cry—a wild struggle—a splash of the dark, seething waves—and Helen stood up again in her bright raiment alone on the margin of the pool; whilst ever-widening circles stretched hurriedly away and away, as though terror-stricken, from the baleful spot where Vera Nevill had sunk below the ill-fated waters.

* * * * *

Someone came madly rushing out of the bushes behind her. Helen screamed aloud.

"It was an accident! She slipped forward—her footing gave way!" gasped the unhappy woman in her terror. "Oh, Maurice, for pity's sake, believe me; it was an accident!" She sunk upon her knees, with wildly outstretched arms, and trembling, and uplifted hands.

"Stand aside," he said, hoarsely, pushing her roughly from him, so that she almost fell to the earth, and he plunged deep into the still quivering waters.

It was the water-lilies that brought her to her death. The long clinging stems amongst which she sank held her fair body in their cold, clammy embraces, so that she never rose again. It was long before they found her.

And, oh! who shall ever describe that dreadful scene by the margin of Shadonake Bath, whilst the terrified crowd that had gathered there quickly waited for her whom all knew to be hopelessly gone from them for ever!

The sobbing, frightened women; the white, stricken faces of the men; the agony of those who had loved her; the distress and dismay of those who had only admired her; and there was one trembling, shuddering wretch, in her satin and her jewels, standing white and haggard apart, with knees that shook together, and teeth that clattered, and tearless sobs that shook her from head to foot, staring with a half-maddened stare upon the fatal waters.

Then, when all was at an end and the worst was known, when the poor dripping body had been reverently covered over and borne away by loving arms amid a torrent of sobs and wailing tears towards the house, then some one came near her and spoke to her—some one off whom the water came pouring in streams, and whose face was white and wild as her own.

"Get you away out of my sight," said the man whom she had loved so fruitlessly to her.

"Have pity! have pity!" was the cry of despair that burst from her quivering lips. "Was it not all an accident?"

"Yes, let it be so to the world, because you bear my name, and I will not have it dragged through the mire—to all others it is an accident—but never to me, for I saw you let her go! There is the stain of murder upon your hands. I will never call you wife, nor look upon your face again; get yourself away out of my sight!"

With a low sobbing cry she turned and fled away from him, and away from the place, out among the shadows of the fir-trees. Once again some one stopped her in her terror-stricken flight.

It was Denis Wilde, who came striding towards her under the trees, and caught her roughly by the wrist.

"It is you who have killed her!" he said, savagely.

"What do you mean?" she murmured, faintly.

"I saw it in your face last night when you were wandering about the house during the thunderstorm; you meant her death then. I saw it in your eyes. My God! why did I not watch over her better, and save her from such a devil as you?"

"No, no, it is not true; it was an accident. Oh, spare me, spare me!" with a piteousness of terror, was all she could say.

"Yes; I will spare you, poor wretch, for your husband's sake—because she loved him—and his burden, God help him! is heavy enough as it is. Go!" flinging her arm rudely from him. "Go, whilst you have got time, lest the thirst for your blood be too strong for me."

And this time no one saw her go. Like a hunted animal, she fled away among the trees, her gleaming many-hued dress trailing all wet and drabbled on the sodden earth behind her, and the darkness of the gathering night closed in around her, and covered her in mercy with its pitiful mantle.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

AT PEACE.

Open, dark grave, and take her: Though we have loved her so, Yet we must now forsake her: Love will no more awake her: Oh bitter woe! Open thine arms and take her To rest below!

A. Procter.

So Vera was at peace at last. The troubled life was over; the vexed question of her fate was settled for her. There was to be no more struggling of right against wrong, of expediency against truth, for her for evermore. She had all—nay, more than all she wanted now.

"It was what she desired herself," said the vicar, brokenly, as he knelt by the side of her who had been so dear and precious to him. "Only a Sunday or two ago she said to me 'If I could die, I should be at peace.'"

And Maurice, with hidden face at the foot of the bed, could not answer him for tears.

It was there, by that white still presence, that lay so calm and so lovely amongst the showers of heavy-scented waxen flowers, wherewith loving hands had decked her for her last long sleep; it was there that Eustace learnt at last the secret of her life, and the fatal love that had so wrecked her happiness. It was all clear to him now. Her struggles, her temptations, her pitiful moments of weakness and misery, her courageous strife against the hopelessness of her fate—all was made plain now: he understood her at last.

In Maurice Kynaston's passion of despairing grief he read the story of her sad life's trouble.

Truly, Maurice had enough to bear; for he alone, and one other, who spoke no word of it to him, knew the terrible secret of her death; to all else it was "an accident;" to him and to Denis Wilde alone it was "murder." To him, too, the motive of the foul, cowardly deed had been revealed; for, tightly clasped in that poor dead hand, true to the last to the trust that had been given her, was the fatal packet of letters that had been the cause of her death. They were all blotted and blurred, and sodden with the water, but there were whole sentences in the inner folds that were sufficient for him to recognize his wife's handwriting, and to see what was the drift and the meaning of them.

Whom they were written to, when they had been penned, he neither knew nor cared to discover; it was enough for him that they had been written by her, and that they were altogether shameful and sinful. With a deep and sickened disgust, he set fire to the whole packet, and scattered the blackened and smouldering ashes into the empty grate. They had cost a human life, those reckless, sinful letters; but for them, Vera would not have died.

The terrible tragedy came to an end at last. They buried her beneath the coloured mosaic floor of the new chancel, which Sir John had built at her desire; and Marion smothered herself and her children in crape, and people shook their heads and sighed when they spoke of her; and Shadonake was shut up, and the Millers all went to London; and then the world went its way, and after a time it forgot her; and Vera Nevill's place knew her no more.

* * * * *

After Christmas there was a wedding in Eaton Square; a wedding small and not at all gay. Indeed, Geraldine Miller considered her sister next door to a lunatic, and she told herself it would be hardly worth while to be married at all if there was to be no more fuss made over her marriage than over Beatrice's. For there were no bridesmaids and no wedding guests, only all the Millers, from the eldest down to the youngest, uncle Tom, and an ancient Miss Esterworth, unearthed from the other end of England for the occasion; and there were also a Mr. and Mrs. Pryme, a grave and aged couple—uncle and aunt to the bridegroom.

There was, however, one remarkable feature at this particular wedding: when the family party came down into the dining-room to take their places for the conventional breakfast upon the plate of the bride's father were to be seen some very curious things.

These were a faded white lace parasol with pink bows; a pair of soiled grey peau de suede gloves, and a little black wisp of a spotted net veil.

"Bless my soul!" said the member for Meadowshire, putting up his eye-glasses; "what on earth is all this?"

"I think you have seen them before, papa," says the bride, demurely, whilst uncle Tom bursts into a loud and hearty guffaw of laughter.

"Good gracious me!" says Mr. Miller, turning rather red, and looking bewilderedly from his daughter to his wife: "I don't really understand. Caroline, my dear, do you know the meaning of these—these—most extraordinary objects?"

Mrs. Miller draws near and examines the little heap of faded finery critically. "Why, Beatrice!" she exclaims, in astonishment, "it is your last summer's sunshade, and a pair of your old gloves: how on earth did they come here on your papa's plate?"

"I put them there; I thought papa would like to see them again," cries Beatrice, laughing; "he met them in Herbert's rooms in the Temple one day last summer."

"Beatrice!" falters her father, staring in amazement at her.

"Yes, papa, dear, don't be too dreadfully shocked at me; it was I, your very naughty daughter, who had gone on the sly to see Herbert in the Temple, and I ran into the next room to hide myself when I heard you come in, and left those stupid tell-tale things on the table! I don't think, now I am Herbert's wife, that it matters very much how much I confess of my improprieties, does it?"

"Good gracious me!" says Mr. Miller, solemnly, and then turns round and shakes hands with his son-in-law. "And I might have retained you for that libel case after all, instead of getting in a young fool who lost it for me!" was all he said. And then the sunshade and the gloves were swept away, and they all sat down and ate a very good breakfast, and drank to the bride and bridegroom's health none the less heartily for that curious little explanatory scene at the beginning of the feast.

* * * * *

Maurice Kynaston has joined his brother in Australia, where, report says, they are doing very well, and rapidly making a large fortune; although no one thinks that either brother will ever leave the country of his adoption and return to England.

Old Lady Kynaston lives on alone at Walpole Lodge; she is getting very aged, and is a dull, solitary old woman now, with an ever-present sadness at her heart.

Before he left England Maurice told her the story of his love for Vera, and the whole truth about her death. The old lady knows that Vera and her fatal beauty has wrecked the lives of both her sons. There will be no tender filial hands to close her dying eyes, no troops of merry grandchildren to cheer and brighten her closing years. They will live away from her, and she will die alone. She knows it—and she is very, very sad.

In South Kensington there lives a gay, world-loving woman who keeps open house, and entertains perpetually. She has horses and carriages, and a box at the opera, and is always to be seen faultlessly dressed and the gayest of the gay at every race meeting, and at every scene of pleasure.

People admire her and flatter her, and speak lightly of her too, sometimes, for it is generally known that Mrs. Kynaston is "separated" from her husband; and though a separation is a perfectly respectable thing, and has no possible connection with a divorce, yet there are ugly whispers in this case as to what is the cause of the dissension between the husband in Australia and the wife in London; whispers that often do not fall very far short of the truth. And, gay as she is, and light-hearted as she seems to be, there are times when pretty Mrs. Kynaston is more to be pitied than any wretched beggar who toils along the streets, for always there is the terror of detection at her heart, and the fear that her dreadful secret, known as it is to at least two persons on earth, may ooze out—be guessed by others.

There are things Mrs. Kynaston can never do: to read of some dreadful murder such as occasionally fills all the papers for days with its sickening details makes her shut herself in her own room till the horrible tragedy is over and forgotten; to hear of such things spoken of in society causes her to faint away with terror. To walk by a pond, or even to speak of being rowed upon a lake or river, fills her with such horror of soul that none of her friends ever care to suggest a water-party of any kind to her.

"She saw that poor Miss Nevill drowned," say her compassionate acquaintances; "it has upset her nerves, poor dear; she cannot bear the sight of water." And there are a few who think, and who are not ashamed to whisper their thoughts with bated breath, that she saw Miss Nevill's sad death too near and too well to be utterly spotless in the matter.

That she allowed her to perish without attempting to save her, because she was jealous of her, is the generally received impression; but there is no one who has quite realized that she was actually guilty of her death.

Did they think so, they could not eat her dinners with decency. And they do eat her dinners, which are uncommonly good ones; and they flock to her house, and they sit in her carriage and her opera-box, and they take all they can get from her, although at their hearts they do not care to be intimate with her. But then money covers a multitude of sins. And a great many crimes may be glossed over if we are only rich enough and popular enough, and sufficiently the fashion.

As to Denis Wilde, he was young, and in time he got over it and married an amiable young lady who bore him three children and loved him devotedly, so that after a while he forgot his first love.

Shadonake Bath has been drained. Mr. Miller has at last been allowed to have his own way about it. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and there could be found no voice to plead for its preservation after that terrible tragedy of which it was the scene.

So the old steps have all been cleared away, and brick walls line the straight deep sides, whereon grow the finest peaches and nectarines in the county, whilst a parterre of British Queens and Hautboys cover the spot where Vera died with their rich red fruit and their luxuriant foliage.

And at Sutton things go on much the same as of old. Old Mrs. Daintree is dead, and no one sorrowed much for her loss, whilst the domestic harmony is decidedly enhanced by her absence. Tommy and Minnie are growing big and lanky, and the subject of schools and education is beginning to occupy the minds of Marion and her husband.

But the vicar has grown grey and old; his back is more bent and his face more careworn than it used to be. He has never been quite the same since Vera's death.

There is a white marble monument in the middle of the chancel, raised by the loving hands of two brothers far away in Australia. It is by the best sculptor of the day, and on it lies a pale white figure, with a pure delicate profile, and hands always meekly crossed upon the bosom.

Every Sunday, as Eustace Daintree passes from his place at the reading-desk up to the altar to read the Communion Service, there falls upon it a streak of sunshine from the painted window above, which he himself and his wife had put up to her memory, lighting up the pale marble image with a chequered glory of gold and crimson. And the vicar's eye as he passes alights for a moment with a never-dying sadness upon the simple words carved at the foot of her tomb—

Vera Nevill, aged 23.

AT PEACE.

* * * * *

MRS. CAMERON'S NOVELS.

Jack's Secret.

A Sister's Sin.

A Lost Wife.

The Cost of a Lie.

This Wicked World.

A Devout Lover.

A Life's Mistake.

Worth Winning.

Vera Neville.

Pure Gold.

In a Grass Country.

"Mrs. Cameron's numerous efforts in the line of fiction have won for her a wide circle of admirers. Her experience in novel writing, as well as her skill in inventing and delineating characters, enables her to put before the reading public stories that are full of interest and pure in tone."—Harrisburg Telegraph.

THE END