AT SWORDS' POINTS.

"Constance, come down a little while, I want you so much."

Constance started back, dropped her feet from the fender, and looked around, like one aroused from a dream. Church was standing before her. He had come up the stairs so softly that she did not know of his presence until he spoke.

"Who is below?" she questioned with a sort of dreary listlessness.

"Crist, no one else."

Constance turned to the fire again, and planting her feet on the fender, drooped forward, resting both elbows on her knees.

"I do not care about going down—"

"What is the reason, Constance, are you ill?"

"Would it be news, if I told you so?" answered the woman, breaking into a hard cough.

Church came close to the chair in which Constance sat, and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Look up," he said harshly. "I want to see your eyes. Ever since we came from New York, you have been hacking and lowering over the fire, like a consumptive. I don't believe in it; you assume illness in order to avoid me."

A hot scarlet flashed over the haughty face which Constance turned fully upon the man who called himself her husband.

"I need answer nothing," she said. "There can be no doubt that I wish to avoid you."

Church turned white with rage.

"Then if you are not pretending, what is it makes you crouch here from morning till night? The knowledge that the young hound of an artist is alive? By Heavens, if I were sure of it."

"What would you do?" questioned the woman, with terror in her eyes.

"Do? Why, take a journey out West," said Church with a bitter laugh. "After that, you will have no more cause for pining over the thought that he has turned up alive."

"That is, you would kill him."

"Kill him, no; that would be murder. But the man would surely disappear."

"And this thought is in your heart?"

"It will not leave my heart, girl, until you are your old sweet self again. I give you another week to think of it. In that time, if you come out of this room bright and cheerful, ready for the society which is pining for you, well and good. I ask no questions about what passed between you and the old man. If not—but I seldom threaten. Your father knows me; perhaps you will in time."

"But I am ill—do not threaten me—I am very ill," pleaded the poor woman, shivering in her chair, as he rested his hand on her shoulder. "I am cold."

"Cold as ice, I know that; but it is only when I am near. Come, come, darling, I do not mean to be harsh with you, but this eternal moping is beyond all endurance; come down, I have just ordered a delicious little supper for you."

"I have no appetite," answered the woman, sinking to her old position, and dropping her head between her hands.

"No appetite, no strength—my wife, and pine like this over a man that ought to have been dead, if he is not. When is this to end?"

"End! oh very soon, have a little patience. One does not get over a cough like mine in a minute."

"Then you will not come down?"

"Not to-night; another time, but just now I haven't strength enough."

"Well, to-night have your own way, I do not wish to be hard with you. But after this we must have no more nonsense. I have not forgotten yet that you threatened to leave me—leave me!"

"Oh, one says so many rash things," answered Constance faintly, "do not remind me of them to-night, I am so weary."

"There, there," said Church, softening toward her a little. "Rest now. To-morrow we will have some friends to dinner, and you must come among them beautiful as ever—promise me."

"I will promise anything; only let me rest now."

Church stooped down, and lifting that pale face between his hands, kissed it with passionate violence, and left the room.

When the door closed, Constance arose from her seat with a look of hot loathing on her face that burnt up all its pallor. She passed one hand across her mouth as if she would smite away his kisses with blows, but feeling them there still, she snatched a flask of cologne from a little sofa table, and dashed its contents over her handkerchief, rubbed her lips with it till they glowed out red as coral.

"The infamous wretch! how dared he! how dared he!"

The woman was so full of passionate wrath that she shook from head to foot, as these words rang out from her lips, like the hoarse cry of a bird.

"I will not bear this! I cannot bear it! I will send for my father; he baffles me, defies me, and I am so ill!"

The noise of a footstep, moving cautiously, hushed this transport of passion, and the woman held her breath. She listened to hear the outer door open, but the footsteps sounding clearer on the marble of the hall, evidently went another way.

"There, there! I have heard that every night. They are going into the basement, after that entrance is locked, too, and he does not come up to his room for hours. There is something in this. It only happens when Crist is here. I will know what secret there is down yonder."

Constance opened the door of her room softly, and listened; the footsteps could still be heard, but they grew fainter, and she detected also, a faint murmur of voices. The carpet on both rooms and stair-case, in that house, were soft as wood-moss, and the slippers of quilted satin that Constance wore, sunk into them with the noiseless fall of snow, as she glided down the stairs to the basement. Below that was the cellar, where she had never been in her life; a current of air and the suppressed murmur of voices, led her to the door, and she went downward over another flight of stairs, into the darkness of a wine cellar. This cellar was lighted at one end by a lamp which Church held upward, while his companion was busy removing a rack, on which a few bottles lay, with their sealed corks visible.

Constance stood in the dark, and watched these proceedings with breathless interest. She saw the rack lifted aside from a strong wooden door sunk deep into the wall, which Crist opened with a key, and both men went through.

Constance followed noiselessly, keeping in the dark.

The house which Church occupied had grounds and shrubbery around it, stretching over half a block. Directly opposite the back entrance, on the farther side of the block, stood his stables—imposing buildings of brown stone—finished almost with the cost of a mansion.

Toward these stables ran the subterraneous passage which these two men traversed with their lamp, and along its whole length Constance followed them.

At last they disappeared through a door, and she was left in total darkness. But the passage was narrow and she kept along the wall, feeling with her hands for the entrance door.

At last both her outstretched palms struck upon woodwork, and through it came a strange noise which she could not make out, but it emboldened her to search for some fastenings, and open the door far enough to look through.