CHAPTER XXXII.

"Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows;
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain."
DRAYTON.

NOT until Mrs. Branscombe has dismissed her maid for the night does she discover that the plain gold locket in which she had placed Dorian's picture is missing. She had (why, she hardly cares to explain even to herself) hung it round her neck; and now, where is it?

After carefully searching her memory for a few moments, she remembers that useless visit to the library before dinner, and tells herself she must have dropped it then. She will go and find it. Slipping into a pale-blue dressing-gown, that serves to make softer and more adorable her tender face and golden hair, she thrusts her feet into slippers of the same hue, and runs down-stairs for the third time to-day, to the library.

Opening the door, the brilliant light of many lamps greets her, and, standing by the fire is her husband, pale and hag- | | 270 gard, with the missing locket in his hand. He has opened it, and is gazing at his own face with a strange expression.

"Is this yours?" he asks, as she comes up to him. "Did you come to look for it?"

"Yes." She holds out her hand to receive it from him, but he shows some hesitation about giving it.

"Let me advise you to take this out of it," he says, coldly, pointing to his picture. "Its being here must render the locket valueless. What induced you to give it such a place?"

"It was one of my many mistakes," returns she, calmly, making a movement as though to leave him; "and you are right. The locket is, I think, distasteful to me. I don't want it any more: you can keep it."

"I don't want it, either," returns he, hastily; and then, with a gesture full of passion, he flings it deliberately into the very heart of the glowing fire. There it melts, and grows black, and presently sinks, with a crimson coal, utterly out of sight.

"The best place for it," says he, bitterly. "I wish I could as easily be obliterated and forgotten."

Is it forgotten? She says nothing, makes no effort to save the fated case that holds his features, but, with hands tightly clenched, watches its ruin. Her eyes are full of tears, but she feels benumbed, spiritless, without power to shed them.

Once more she makes a movement to leave him.

"Stay," he says, gently; "I have a few things to say to you, that may as well be got over now. Come nearer to the fire: you must be cold."

She comes nearer, and, standing on the hearth-rug, waits for him to speak. As she does so, a sharp cough, rising to her throat, distresses her sufficiently to bring some quick color into her white cheeks. Though in itself of little importance, this cough has now annoyed her for at least a fortnight, and shakes her slight frame with its vehemence.

"Your cough is worse to-night," he says, turning to regard her more closely.

"No, not worse."

"Why do you walk about the house so insufficiently clothed?" asks he, angrily, glancing at her light dressing- | | 271 gown with great disfavor. "One would think you were seeking ill health. Here, put this round you." He tries to place upon her shoulders the cashmere shawl she had worn when coming in from the garden in the earlier part of the evening. But she shrinks from him.

"No, no," she says, petulantly; "I am warm enough; and I do not like that thing. It is black,--the color of Death!"

Her words smite cold upon his heart. A terrible fear gains mastery over him. Death! What can it have to do with one so fair, so young, yet, alas! so frail?

"You will go somewhere for change of air?" he says, entreatingly, going up to her and laying his hand upon her shoulder. "It is of this, partly, I wish to speak to you. You will find this house lonely and uncomfortable (though doubtless pleasanter) when I am gone. Let me write to my aunt, Lady Monckton. She will be very glad to have you for a time."

"No; I shall stay here. Where are you going?"

"I hardly know ; and I do not care at all."

"How long will you be away?"

"How can I answer that question either? There is nothing to bring me home."

"How soon do you go?" Her voice all through is utterly without expression, or emotion of any kind.

"Immediately," he answers, curtly. "Are you in such a hurry to be rid of me? Be satisfied, then: I start to-morrow." Then, after an unbroken pause, in which even her breathing cannot be heard, he says, in a curious voice, "I suppose there will be no occasion for me to write to you while I am away?"

She does not answer directly. She would have given half her life to be able to say, freely, "Write to me, Dorian, if only a bare line, now and then, to tell me you are alive;" but pride forbids her.

"None, whatever," she says, coldly, after her struggle with her inner self. "I dare say I shall hear all I care to hear from Clarissa or Sir James."

There is a long silence. Georgie's eyes are fixed dreamily upon the sparkling coals. His eyes are fixed on her. What a child she looks in her azure gown, with her yellow hair falling in thick masses over her shoulders. So white, | | 272 so fair, so cruelly cold! Has she no heart, that she can stand in that calm, thoughtful attitude, while his heart is slowly breaking?

She has destroyed all his happy life, this "amber witch," with her loveliness, and her pure girlish face, and her bitter indifference; and yet his love for her at this moment is stronger, perhaps, than it has ever been. He is leaving her. Shall he ever see her again?

Something at this moment overmasters him. Moving a step nearer to her, he suddenly catches her in his arms, and, holding her close to his heart, presses kisses (unforbidden) upon her lips and cheek and brow.

In another instant she has recovered herself, and, placing her hands against his chest, frees herself, by a quick gesture, from his embrace.

"Was that how you used to kiss her?" she says, in a choked voice, her face the color of death. "Let me go: your touch is contamination."

Almost before the last word has passed her lips, he releases her, and, standing back, confronts her with a face as livid as her own.

In the one hurried glance she casts at him, she knows that all is, indeed, over between them now; never again will he sue to her for love or friendship. She would have spoken again,--would, perhaps, have said something to palliate the harshness of her last words,--but by a gesture he forbids her. He points to the door.

"Leave the room," he says, in a stern commanding tone; and, utterly subdued and silenced by his manner, she turns and leaves him.