“Yes,” answered Bessie, smiling; “I think all the birds have come back, save one, the dearest of them all, who fled away in the night-time.  Her nest is empty still.  Oh, Zelle, do you remember our pleasant little chamber in the turret?  I could not stay there when you were gone.  It is the stillest, loneliest place in all the house now.  Even your pet hound refuses to enter it.”

“Now, my Cousin, you are really cruel,” said Zelma, the tears at last forcing their way through her reluctant eyelids.  “When I left Burleigh Grange, I went like Eve from Paradise,—­forever.”

“Ah, but Cousin dear, there is no terrible angel with a flaming sword guarding the gates of the Grange against you.”

“Yes, the angel of its peace and ancient honor,” said the actress; then added, pleasantly, “and he is backed by a mighty ogre, Respectability.  No, no, Bessie, I can never go back to my old home, or my old self; it is quite impossible.  But you and my uncle are very good to ask me.  Heaven bless you for that!  And, dear, when you are Lady Willerton, a proud wife, and, if God please, a happy mother, put me away from your thoughts, if I trouble you.  Rest in the safe haven of home, anchored in content, and do not vex yourself about the poor waif afloat on wild, unknown seas.  It is not worth while.”

So Bessie Burleigh was obliged to abandon her dear, impracticable plan; and the cousins parted forever, though neither thought or meant it then.  Bessie returned to Arden, married the master of Willerton Hall, and slid into the easy grooves of a happy, luxurious country-life; while Zelma rode for a few proud years on the topmost swell of popular favor,—­then suddenly passed away beyond the horizon of London life, and so, as it were, out of the world.

One dreary November night, after having revealed new powers and won new honors by her first personation of Belvedera, Zelma went home to find on her table a brief, business-like letter from the manager of a theatre at Walton, a town in the North, stating that Mr. Lawrence Bury had died suddenly at that place of a violent, inflammatory disease, brought on, it was to be feared, by some excesses to which he had been addicted.  The theatrical wardrobe of the deceased (of small value) had been retained in payment for expenses of illness and burial; his private papers were at the disposal of the widow.  Deceased had been buried in the parish church-yard of Walton.  This was all.

Zelma had abruptly dismissed her maid, that she might read quite unobserved a letter which she suspected brought news from her husband; so she was quite alone throughout that fearful night.  What fierce, face-to-face wrestlings with grief and remorse were hers!  What sweet, torturing memories of love, of estrangement, of loss!  What visions of him, torn with the agonies, wild with the terrors of death, calling her name in vain imploring or with angry imprecations!—­of him, so young, so sinful, dragged struggling toward the abyss of mystery and night, wrenched, as it were, out of life, with all its passions hot at his heart!