Silcote's friends crowded round him congratulating ; but he scarcely spoke a word to any of them. He left Exeter that day, with his wife, and was unheard of in the world for four years.

His sister had some very queer people around her, and so it was quite impossible to say who set afloat the story, which she persistently contradicted, but which every one believed, and which was never varied in the telling. The story was simply this, that Silcote had found out something very wrong about his wife and her former suitor, Sir Godfrey Mallory, and that he had bullied her to death in consequence. That was the story among the many, by which they accounted for his sudden retirement from the world, and her death, which followed, in Italy, close upon it. This was the story which had currency in the county among those who cared for Silcote and his affairs, until they got tired of them, and cared for them no longer.

But there was a still darker part of the story, only mentioned among a very few, and always discredited with scorn by any one who had ever known the unfortunate deceased Mrs. Silcote,-a story so dark and

so terrible, that it seemed to account in a credible manner for Henry Silcote's extraordinary conduct. The story was this: He had sulked so persistently and so inexorably with her, that she had lost her reason and attempted his life. It was only whispered among very few, and soon died out and was forgotten. It was monstrous, horrible, incredible; too much so to make a pleasant subject of gossip among those who had known her. It was soon dropped, even by the very few.

Old Mr. Silcote, meanwhile, shared the retirement of his son soon after the Exeter esclandre. There was something extremely wrong, and the hospitable, genial old man seemed to believe it. He lived for four years; at the end of which time his son Henry inherited Silcotes, and came back to live there, with another wife and son.

CHAPTER VI.

ABOUT THE PRINCESS.

HE had married again! When, where, and to whom, nobody knew. It must have been unreasonably soon after his unhappy wife's death. Old Silcote, not long before her death, told Lady Ascot that there was a new mistress of Silcote and a new heir, and that the new bride was a lady of faultless character. That was all that was known. Consequently, when Silcote returned and took possession, she, the kindest and gentlest of women, at once called on the new Mrs. Silcote. Her visit was not returned, but her card was, without one word of explanation. The dark time at Silcotes had begun.

Dark in more ways than one, for there is no record of it at all save what may be gained from the testi

mony of discharged servants, always untrustworthy. It seems, however, to go rather in favour of Silcote, for they agreed that he was habitually kind to his new wife, although she was never allowed to go beyond the grounds; and, moreover, that she was a very foolish and good-natured woman, deeply attached to him, and fully persuaded that she had gained one of the great prizes in life. She had three children—Thomas, born in Italy; Evelyn and Arthur, born at Silcotes; after which she quietly departed this life, leaving no trace behind her save her children. "She was a person," said Miss Raylock, the novelist, "whom it is very hard to remember. She died under the full impression that in marrying Henry Silcote, and getting locked up at Silcotes, she had accomplished the aim and object of her existence. Perhaps she had."

This Miss Raylock, now very old, remembers Henry Silcote's elder sister when a girl. "The poor Princess," she says, 66 was at the same time the most beautiful and the most silly person I have ever seen. I think, also, that at the same time she was the kindest. Her taste in dress was very good, and showed itself even in the ridiculous dresses which we used to wear in those

times. She had a greed for jewellery which I have never seen equalled, and would have put a ring in her nose had such a thing been allowable. She was also very fond of reproducing her father's politics. I remember nothing more about her in the old times."

From other sources we know that she was a very beautiful, amiable, and silly girl, utterly spoilt by old Silcote, and held in affectionate contempt by her caustic brother Henry. Her father sent her into Austria and Italy for her education, and she got it there. Henry Silcote spoke to his father about this arrangement. "Mary is fool enough already," he said, "without learning the folly of Vienna and Florence. She will make a mess of it, I know she will."

She did. She got herself talked about in various ways before she was five-and-twenty, though a perfectly innocent woman. She was grossly indiscreet. When Henry Silcote came to fetch his wife home from Italy, he found her living in the midst of his sister's set,-enough to make any man suspicious. He shall himself tell this part of the story hereafter. We have but little to do with it at present.

At her father's death she found herself most hand