The Daily Phoenix

DISCONTINUITY
EVELINE'S VISITANT.
Continued.

I was much disturbed by the idea of this stranger's intrusion on my wife's solitude; and I went straight to the village to inquire if any stranger had been seen there. I could hear of no one. I questioned the servant closely, but without result. Then I determined to accompany my wife in her walk, and to judge for myself of the rank of the stranger.

For a week, I devoted my evenings to rustic rambles with Eveline in the park and the woods: and in all that week we saw no one but an occasional peasant in sabots, or one of our own household returning from a neighboring farm.

I was a man of studious habits, and those rambles disturbed the even current of my life. My wife perceived this, and entreated me to trouble myself no further.

"I will spend my mornings in the pleasaunce, Hector," she said; "the stranger cannot intrude upon me there."

"I begin to think the stranger is only a phantasm of your own romantic brain," I replied, smiling at the earnest face lifted to mine. "A chatelaine who is always reading romances may well meet handsome cavaliers in the woodlands. I dare say I have Mlle. Scudery to thank for this noble stranger, and that he is only the Cyrus in modern costume."

"Ah! that is the point which mystifies me, Hector," she said; "the stranger's costume is not modern. He looks as an old picture might look if it could descend from its frame."

Her words pained me, for they reminded me of that hidden picture in the library and the quaint hunting costume of orange and purple which Andre de Brissac wore at the Regent's ball.

After this, my wife confined her walks to the pleasaunce; and for many weeks I heard no more of the nameless stranger. I dismissed all further thought of him from my mind, for a graver, and heavier care came upon me. My wife's health began to droop. The change in her was so gradual as to be almost imperceptible to those who watched her from day to day. It was only when she put on a rich gala dress which she had not worn for many years, that I saw how wasted the form must be on which the embroidered bodice hung so loosely and how wan and dim were the eyes which had once been brilliant as the jewels she wore in her hair.

I sent a messenger to Paris to summon one of the court physicians; but I knew that many days must elapse before he could arrive at Puy Verdun.

In the interval I watched my wife with unutterable fear.

It was not her health only that had declined. The change was more painful than any physical alteration. The bright and sunny spirit had vanished, and in the place of my joyous young bride, I beheld a woman weighed down by a deeply rooted melancholy. In vain, I sought to fathom the cause of my darling's sadness. She assured me that there was no reason for sorrow or discontent, and that if she seemed sad, without a motive, I must forgive her sadness, and must consider it as a misfortune rather than as a fault.

I told her the court physician would speedily find some cure for her despondency, which must needs arise from physical causes, since she had no real ground for sorrow. But although she said nothing, I could see she had no hope or belief in the healing powers of medicine.

[CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT.]