I suppose the twilight disguised all the vast difference that must exist between an old woman and a young one, and thus showed to advantage the similarity in height and general outline. "Yes, yes," said Gregory, "I always saw it. Barbara was another Susan. This is a terrible business, Redworth, a terrible business. It has half killed my poor Eleanor, and I feel the blow has gone home to me also."

I led the way into the morningroom, where the maid had set out a neglected tea-tray and lighted the lamp. The two men stood on the hearth, Mr. Redworth's soft dark eyes dwelling on Gregory with an affectionate concern which warmed my heart to him. The rays of the hanging lamp fell full upon him, and I could see he was an older man than I had at first imagined. Clear as his skin was in tint and showing colour on the cheek, it was lined with innumerable fine wrinkles round the corners of the eyes and mouth; and there were deep upright furrows between the eyebrows, hinting that the expression of the handsome face was occasionally marred by a frown.

"I must apologise to Miss Varney for my costume," he said, glancing down at it; "but I hurried here at once without waiting to change." Then he turned to Gregory, and was absorbed in his account of our calamity, and of the hitherto unsuccessful search. I will not repeat this, for it embraced only what I have written here. Mr. Redworth put a shrewd question or two, one of which had the effect of opening my mind to a new and unwelcome idea. "You say it was about an hour from the time you sent your daughter on the errand, till she was found to be missing?"

"An hour, as nearly as we can calculate."

"A great deal can happen in an hour, and of course the study is far

Were

away from the occupied rooms. all the other members of the household accounted for during that time? Did the officer hint at suspicion of any one under your roof?"

Gregory spoke of our occupations in the drawing-room; that Janie had been up-stairs and the servants in the kitchen, saying rather indignantly that no suspicion could attach to any of them, as there was complete absence of motive. Mr. Redworth heard him out without rejoinder, but stood thoughtfully stroking his shaven upper lip with his forefinger, an action which seemed habitual. I wonder if he had the power of silently impressing others with his own thought, for it came to me as clearly as outward speech-Janie was absent! Janie had a motive for wishing Barbara out of the way! I was horror-stricken at myself for admitting the voice, and strove to shut the ears of my soul to it; but despite my horror the idea had taken shape.

In the inward agitation of this passage I lost the thread of what they were saying, and looked up to find Mr. Redworth's eyes considering me attentively, just as if he were cognisant of what had passed in my mind. He put his hand on Gregory's shoulder. "Once for all, Alleyne, I don't believe in the expert's theory. in the expert's theory. Barbara could have had no lover unknown to you. The one thing of which I could be certain in this dark perplexity,"—and here his voice broke, with a sudden tremor" is her complete innocence of intention and act. God bless her,the God we both believe in though we worship Him variously-God bless her wherever she is!"

This was spoken with strong feeling, and the father turned away covering his face. If this man had not won my heart before, it would have gone out wholly to him now. Nothing touches us in our times of sorrow like a word of tender appreciation of those we

mourn. The silver-crowned head shone before me in the blur of quickrising tears, as if with the halo of a saint. But I wiped them away in time to see clearly a change of expression, another wordless interlude, in which the idea was once more quick, stirring blindly within me.

The door opened, and Dick Sudeleigh and Janie entered together; I saw Mr. Redworth's brown eyes, which had been the instant before so mournfully tender, flash out now with a sudden gleam of vindictive dislike, though the expression changed instantly, and he greeted them with calm courtesy. It was not only this which struck me, but Janie's face when she saw him. She looked frightened and disturbed, barely touching the hand he offered her, and taking an early opportunity to escape from the room.

He did not stay long after this, remaining only briefly to detail the plan he had formed for searching the woods and park so soon as the snow had cleared away. He seemed friendly with Dick, and Dick with him; if a thought of rivalry had ever existed between them it might well be extinguished now in a common sorrow. was easy of belief that to a man of his power of mind and fertility of resource, the desire for our dear girl's young companionship had been only a passing weakness, dead and vanished as the leaves of that autumn which had seen it arise.

It

I come now to so strange a part of my narrative,—to a circumstance so inexplicable, except by theories and assumptions for which I have entertained a lifelong aversion, that I pause, pen in hand, hesitating to write. it here. But the history of the time would be incomplete without it, and I must be faithful in giving the entire detail to judgment other than my own.

Eleanor was well enough by the evening to sit up; and on the Satur

day, though still suffering, she descended at her usual hour to the morning-room, whither any tidings would at once be brought. She felt too restless and wretched, she said, to remain up stairs through the bitter passage of this day which had been so differently anticipated. This was the wedding-day; the day of which our Barbara had said to me, as we stood together in the dressing-closet and she put back the cover over her bridal gown, "You will see me then in all my splendour."

Poor Dick was with us for a while after breakfast; but he could hardly bear to speak to any one, and went off again to join in the search which was still on foot far and wide through the snow-covered country. We others were all together with Eleanor,-Gregory, Janie and I,-and the hour was about noon, when the door burst open and Mary the parlour-maid rushed in, excited beyond all regard for her usually decorous manners. "Oh, sir ma'am," she gasped, "Miss Barbara has come back! She is in the drawing-room, all ready in her weddingdress, and Mr. Sudeleigh away!"

oh,

Gregory was on his feet in an instant, and I was rushing after him when a second thought made me look back for Eleanor. She had attempted to rise with the help of Janie's arm, but sank back again, waving me away. Go," she said, and bring my child to me."

The drawing-room was on the opposite side of the hall and was entered by two doors, having originally been divided. I followed Gregory in at the nearest, and was behind him only by those arrested seconds. What was it that we saw? To all appearance it was Barbara, in her trailing white gown and with the lace veil covering her head, but moving away from us at the lower end of the room without notice, and passing out at the further door. Her father stood arrested.

"Barbara! he cried to her hoarsely, "Barbara!" but the figure did not pause.

As it disappeared through the doorway I darted back into the hall, and there it was already half-way up the stairs, though moving with no appearance of haste. I have been asked since whether it floated or walked; I can only say I saw nothing different from natural movement, except the rapidity with which that space had been traversed while out of view. I would have called to her also, but my voice seemed frozen in my throat. I gained the foot of the stairs in time to see the figure make a slight deliberate pause on the first landing, and then pass into the dressing-closet which opened from it on the left and had no other exit. Gregory was with me by that time, and we both followed close on the disappearance of the last folds of the white train. The door when we came to it was shut, though I remembered after that I had neither heard it close

nor open. We opened it on the instant, and, as will have been foreseen, the room was empty.

It held no furniture which could have served the purpose of concealment had she been hiding from us. The room looked as I had seen it last, with one notable difference; the wedding-dress and veil had been dragged from the bed where it was spread out, and lay dropped in a heap at our feet just within the door.

No words of mine can adequately describe the shock of this strange scene, nor the revulsion of feeling from that moment of joyful certainty. Gregory, the servant, and I were the three who witnessed what I must call the apparition; Janie had stumbled and fallen forward on the floor in a dead faint in attempting to follow us, and was brought round after a long time and with much difficulty. Mary, the maid, was terribly frightened when she heard the sequel; she cried bitterly

and begged to be sent home to her mother; she dared not stay in the house, she said, another hour. Her story was that she had gone into the drawing-room as usual to mend the fires, and noticed nothing till she turned away from the second grate, "When there was Miss Barbara in her wedding-dress, standing looking out of the front window "; she "fairly screeched out" on seeing this, being so astonished, though she did not feel alarm, when the young lady turned and looked at her, making a sort of beckon with her hand at the door," as if signing to her to go and fetch the others. She understood and acted on it at once, "not thinking till afterwards it wasn't natural for a lady to sign in that way with her hand and not to speak." She had seen Barbara's face plainly through the veil, and 'would have known her anywhere"; she looked quite natural, only rather grave and sad.

Neither Gregory nor I had seen the face, except as the figure turned sideways in passing into the dressingcloset, and then the folds of lace hung too closely over it for any real recognition. When he entered the room, -before me, be it remembered the figure was turned away from him just as I saw it, moving slowly in the direction of the further door and taking no notice of his appeal. I was surprised by the impression the appearance made on him; he would not admit that we could have been hallucinated by expectation arising from the girl's outcry. Clergyman though he was, man of sense and education as I had always thought him, to him that vision of ours was Barbara herself; a sign as sure as the writing on the wall that she was no longer to be numbered in this living world. Even in after times he never spoke of it without reverence and awe. That it should fire the young lover's imagination was more natural ; Dick broke down altogether when he