A.H.  JAPP, LL.D.

THE SILENT CHIMES.

SILENT FOR EVER.

Breakfast was on the table in Mr. Hamlyn’s house in Bryanstone Square, and Mrs. Hamlyn waited, all impatience, for her lord and master.  Not in any particular impatience for the meal itself, but that she might “have it out with him”—­the phrase was hers, not mine, as you will see presently—­in regard to the perplexity existing in her mind connected with the strange appearance of the damsel watching the house, in her beauty and her pale golden hair.

Why had Philip Hamlyn turned sick and faint—­to judge by his changing countenance—­when she had charged him at dinner, the previous evening, with knowing something of this mysterious woman?  Mysterious in her actions, at all events; probably in herself.  Mrs. Hamlyn wanted to know that.  No further opportunity had then been given for pursuing the subject.  Japhet had returned to the room, and before the dinner was at an end, some acquaintance of Mr. Hamlyn had fetched him out for the evening.  And he came home with so fearful a headache that he had lain groaning and turning all through the night.  Mrs. Hamlyn was not a model of patience, but in all her life she had never felt so impatient as now.

He came into the room looking pale and shivery; a sure sign that he was suffering; that it was not an invented excuse.  Yes, the pain was better, he said, in answer to his wife’s question; and might be much better after a strong cup of tea; he could not imagine what had brought it on. She could have told him though, had she been gifted with the magical power of reading minds, and have seen the nervous apprehension that was making havoc with his.

Mrs. Hamlyn gave him his tea in silence, and buttered a dainty bit of toast to tempt him to eat.  But he shook his head.

“I cannot, Eliza.  Nothing but tea this morning.”

“I am sorry you are ill,” she said, by-and-by.  “I fear it hurts you to talk; but I want to have it out with you.”

“Have it out with me!” cried he, in real or feigned surprise.  “Have what out with me?”

“Oh, you know, Philip.  About that woman who has been watching the house these two days; evidently watching for you.”

“But I told you I knew nothing about her:  who she is, or what she is, or what she wants.  I really do not know.”

Well, so far that was true.  But all the while a sick fear lay on his heart that he did know; or, rather, that he was destined to know very shortly.

“When I told you her hair was like threads of fine, pale gold, you seemed to start, Philip, as if you knew some girl or woman with such hair, or had known her.”

“I daresay I have known a score of women with such hair.  My dear little sister who died, for instance.”

“Do not attempt to evade the subject,” was the haughty reprimand.  “If—­”