She turned to go. The elder woman looked after her with yearning, sorrowful eyes.

"If I knew what to do—if I knew what to say," she murmured helplessly. "Edith, I loved him more dearly than any son. I think my heart is breaking. O child, don't judge him—be merciful to him who loves you while he leaves you—be merciful to me whose life has been so full of trouble."

Her voice broke down in a passion of tears. Edith turned from the door, put her arms around her neck and kissed her.

"Dear friend," she said; "dear Lady Helena, I pity you from the bottom of my heart. I wish—I wish I could only comfort you."

"You can," was the eager answer. "Stay with me, Edith; don't leave me alone. Be a daughter to me; take the place of the son I have lost."

But Edith's pale, resolute face did not soften.

"To-morrow we will settle all this," was her reply. "Wait until to-morrow."

Then she was gone—shut up and locked in her own room. She did not descend to either luncheon or dinner—one of the housemaids served her in her dressing-room. And Lady Helena, alone and miserable, wandered uneasily about the lower rooms, and wondered how she spent that long rainy day.

She spent it busily enough. The plain black box she had brought from New York, containing all her earthly belongings, she drew out and packed. It was not hard to do, since nothing went into it but what had belonged to her then. All the dresses, all the jewels, all the costly gifts that had been given her by the man she had married, and his friends, she left as they were. She kept nothing, not even her wedding-ring: she placed it among the rest, in the jewel casket, closed and locked it. Then she wrote a letter to Lady Helena, and placed the key inside. This is what she said:

* * * * *

"DEAR FRIEND: When you open this I shall have left Powyss Place forever. It will be quite useless to follow or endeavor to bring me back. My mind is made up. I recognize no authority—nothing will induce me to revoke my decision. I go out into the world to make my own way. With youth, and health, and ordinary intelligence, it ought not to be impossible. The things belonging to me when I first came here I have packed in the black box; in a week you will have the kindness to forward it to the Euston station. The rest I leave behind—retaining one or two books as souvenirs of you. I take nothing of Sir Victor Catheron's—not even his name. You must see that it is utterly impossible; that I must lose the last shred of pride and self-respect before I could assume his name or take a penny belonging to him. Dear, kind Lady Helena good-by. If we never meet again in the world, remember there is no thought in my heart of you that is not one of affection and gratitude. EDITH."

* * * * *

Her hand never trembled as she wrote this letter. She placed the key in it, folded, sealed, and addressed it. It was dark by this time. As she knelt to cord and lock her trunk, she espied the writing-case within it. She hesitated a moment, then took it out, opened it, and drew forth the packet of Charley Stuart's letters. She took out the photograph and looked at it with a half-tender, half-sad smile.

"I never thought to look at you again," she said softly. "You are all I have left now."

She put the picture in her bosom, replaced the rest, and locked the trunk, and put the key in her purse. She sat down and counted her money. She was the possessor of twelve sovereigns—left over from Mr. Stuart, senior's, bounty. It was her whole stock of wealth with which to face and begin the world. Then she sat down resolutely to think it out. And the question rose grim before her, "What am I to do?"

"Go out into the world and work for your daily bread. Face the poverty you have feared so much, through fear of which, two days ago, you sold yourself. Go to London—it is the centre of the world; lose yourself, hide from all who ever knew you. Go to London. Work of some kind can surely be had by the willing in that mighty city. Go to London."

That was the answer that came clearly. She shrank for a moment—the thought of facing life single-handed, poor and alone in that great, terrible, pitiless city, was overwhelming. But she did not flinch from her resolve; her mind was made up. Come woe, come weal, she would go to London.

An "A. B. C." railway guide lay on the table—she consulted it. A train left Chester for London at eight o'clock, A. M. Neither Lady Helena nor any of her household was stirring at that hour. She could walk to Chesholm in the early morning, get a fly there and drive to the Chester station in time. By four in the afternoon she would be in London.

No thought of returning home ever recurred to her. Home! What home had she? Her step-mother was master and mistress in her father's house, and to return, to go back to Sandypoint, and the life she had left, was as utter an impossibility almost as though she should take a rope and hang herself. She had not the means to go if she had desired, but that made no difference. She could never go back, never see her father, or Charley, or Trixy more. Alone she must live, alone she must die.

The flood-gates were opened; she suffered this last night as women of her strong, self-contained temperament only suffer.

"Save me, O God! for the waters are come into my soul!" That was the wild, wordless prayer of her heart. Her life was wrecked, her heart was desolate; she must go forth a beggar and an outcast, and fight the bitter battle of life alone. And love, and home, and Charley might have been hers. "It might have been!" Is there any anguish in this world of anguish like that we work with our own hands?—any sorrow like that which we bring upon ourselves? In the darkness she sank down upon her knees, her face covered with her hands, tears, that were as dreadful as tears of blood, falling from her eyes. Lost—lost! all that made life worth having. To live and die alone, that was her fate!

So the black, wild night passed, hiding her, as miserable a woman as the wide earth held.

* * * * *

The gray dawn of the dull October morning was creeping over the far-off Welsh hills as Edith in shawl and hat, closely veiled, and carrying a hand-bag, came softly down the stairs, and out of a side door, chiefly used by the servants. She met no one. Noiselessly she drew the bolt, opened the door, and looked out.

It was raw and cold, a dreary wind still blowing, but it had ceased to rain. As she stood there, seven struck from the turret clock. "One long, last, lingering look behind"—one last upward glance at Lady Helena's windows.

"Good-by!" the pale lips whispered; then she passed resolutely out into the melancholy autumn morning and was gone.



PART III



CHAPTER I.

AT MADAME MIREBEAU'S, OXFORD STREET.

Half-past four of a delightful June afternoon, and two young ladies sit at two large, lace-draped windows, overlooking a fashionable Mayfair street, alternately glancing over the books they hold, and listlessly watching the passers-by. The house was one of those big black West-End houses, whose outward darkness and dismalness is in direct ratio to their inward brilliance and splendor. This particular room is lofty and long, luxurious with softest carpet, satin upholstery, pictures, flowers, and lace draperies. The two young ladies are, with the exception of their bonnets, in elegant carriage costume.

Young ladies, I have said; and being unmarried, they are young ladies, of course. One of them, however, is three-and-thirty, counting by actual years—the peerage gives it in cold blood. It is the Lady Gwendoline Drexel. Her companion is the Honorable Mary Howard, just nineteen, and just "out."

Lady Gwendoline yawns drearily over her book—Algernon Swineburne's latest—and pulls out her watch impatiently every few minutes.

"What can keep Portia?" she exclaims, with irritation. "We should have been gone the last half-hour."

The Honorable Mary looks up from her Parisian fashion-book, and glances from the window with a smile.

"Restrain your impatience, Gwendoline," she answers. "Here comes Lady Portia now."

A minute later the door is flung wide by a tall gentleman in plush, and Lady Portia Hampton sweeps in. She is a tall, slender lady, very like her sister: the same dully fair complexion, the same coiffure of copper-gold, the same light, inane blue eyes. The dull complexion wears at this moment an absolute flush; the light, lack-lustre eyes an absolute sparkle. There is something in her look as she sails forward, that makes them both look up expectantly from their books.

"Well?" Lady Gwendoline says.

"Gwen!" her sister exclaims—absolutely exclaims—"whom do you suppose I have met?"

"The Czarina of all the Russias, Pio Nino, Her Majesty back from Osborne, or the Man in the Moon, perhaps," retorts Lady Gwendoline.

"Neither," laughs Lady Portia. "Somebody a great deal more mysterious and interesting than any of them. You never will guess whom."

"Being five o'clock of a sultry summer day, I don't intend to try. Tell us at once, Portia, and let us go."

"Then—prepare to be surprised! Sir Victor Catheron!"

"Portia!"

"Ah! I thought the name would interest you. Sir Victor Catheron, my dear, alive and in the flesh, though, upon my word, at first sight I almost took him to be his own ghost. Look at her, Mary," laughs her sister derisively. "I have managed to interest her after all, have I not?"

For Lady Gwendoline sat erect, her turquoise eyes open to their widest extent, a look akin to excitement in her apathetic face.

"But, Portia—Sir Victor! I thought it was an understood thing he did not come to England?"

"He does, it appears. I certainly had the honor and happiness of shaking hands with him not fifteen minutes ago. I was driving up St. James Street, and caught a glimpse of him on the steps of Fenton's Hotel. At first sight I could not credit my eyes. I had to look again to see whether it were a wraith or a mortal man. Such a pallid shadow of his former self. You used to think him rather handsome, Gwen—you should see him now! He has grown ten years older in as many months—his hair is absolutely streaked with gray, his eyes are sunken, his cheeks are hollow. He looks miserably, wretchedly out of health. If men ever do break their hearts," said Lady Portia, going over to a large mirror and surveying herself, "then that misguided young man broke his on his wedding-day."

"It serves him right," said Lady Gwendoline, her pale eyes kindling. "I am almost glad to hear it."

Her faded face wore a strangely sombre and vindictive look. Lady Portia, with her head on one side, set her bonnet-strings geometrically straight, and smiled maliciously.

"Ah, no doubt—perfectly natural, all things considered. And yet, even you might pity the poor fellow to-day, Gwendoline, if you saw him. Mary, dear, is all this Greek and Hebrew to you? You were in your Parisian pensionnat, I remember, when it all happened. You don't know the romantic and mysterious story of Sir Victor Catheron, Bart."

"I never heard the name before, that I recall," answered Miss Howard.

"Then pine in ignorance no longer. This young hero, Sir Victor Catheron of Catheron Royals, Cheshire, is our next-door neighbor, down at home, and one year ago the handsome, happy, honored representative of one of the oldest families in the county. His income was large, his estates unincumbered, his manners charming, his morals unexceptionable, and half the young ladies in Cheshire"—with another malicious glance at her sister—"at daggers-drawn for him. There was the slight drawback of insanity in the family—his father died insane, and in his infancy his mother was murdered. But these were only trifling spots on the sun, not worth a second thought. Our young sultan had but to throw the handkerchief, and his obedient Circassians would have flown on the wings of love and joy to pick it up. I grow quite eloquent, don't I? In an evil hour, however, poor young Sir Victor—he was but twenty-three—went over to America. There, in New York, he fell in with a family named Stuart, common rich people, of course, as they all are over there. In the Stuart family there was a young person, a sort of cousin, a Miss Edith Darrell, very poor, kept by them out of charity; and, lamentable to relate, with this young person poor Sir Victor fell in love. Fell in love, my dear, in the most approved old-fashioned style—absurdly and insanely in love—brought the whole family over to Cheshire, proposed to little missy, and, as a matter of course, was eagerly accepted. She was an extremely pretty girl, that I will say for her"—with a third sidelong glance of malice at her passee sister—"and her manners, considering her station, or, rather, her entire lack of station, her poverty, and her nationality, were something quite extraordinary. I declare to you, she positively held her own with the best of us—except for a certain brusquerie and outspoken way about her, you might have thought her an English girl of our own class. He would marry her, and the wedding-day was fixed, and Gwendoline named as chief of the bridemaids."

"It is fifteen minutes past five, Portia," the cold voice of Gwendoline broke in. "If we are to drive at all today—"

"Patience, Gwen! patience one moment longer! Mary most hear the whole story now. In the Stuart family, I forgot to mention, there was a young man, a cousin of the bride-elect, with whom—it was patent to the dullest apprehension—this young person was in love. She accepted Sir Victor, you understand, while this Mr. Stuart was her lover; a common case enough, and not worthy of mention except for what came after. His manners were rarely perfect too. He was, I think, without exception, the very handsomest and most fascinating man I ever met. You would never dream—never!—that he was an American. Gwendoline will tell you the same. The sister was thoroughly trans-Atlantic, talked slang, said 'I guess,' spoke with an accent, and looked you through and through with an American girl's broad stare. The father and mother were common, to a degree; but the son—well, Gwen and I both came very near losing our hearts to him—didn't we, dear?"

"Speak for yourself," was Gwen's ungracious answer. "And, oh! for pity's sake, Portia, cut it short!"

"Pray go on, Lady Portia!" said Miss Howard, looking interested.

"I am going on," said Lady Portia. "The nice part is to come. The Stuart family, a month or more before the wedding, left Cheshire and came up to London—why, we can only surmise—to keep the lovers apart. Immediately after their departure, the bride-elect was taken ill, and had to be carried off to Torquay for change of air and all that. The wedding-day was postponed until some time in October; but at last it came. She looked very beautiful, I must say, that morning, and perfectly self-possessed; but poor Sir Victor! He was ghastly. Whether even then he suspected something I do not know; he looked a picture of abject misery at the altar and the breakfast. Something was wrong; we all saw that; but no explanation took place there. The happy pair started on their wedding-journey down into Wales, and that was the last we ever saw of them. What followed, we know; but until to-day I have never set eyes on the bridegroom. The bride, I suppose, none of us will ever set eyes on more."

"Why?" the Honorable Mary asked.

"This, my dear: An hour after their arrival in Carnarvon, Sir Victor deserted his bride forever! What passed between them, what scene ensued, nobody knows, only this—he positively left her forever. That the handsome and fascinating American cousin had something to do with it, there can be no doubt. Sir Victor took the next train from Wales to London; she remained overnight. Next day she had the audacity to return to Powyss Place and present herself to his aunt, Lady Helena Powyss. She remained there one day and two nights. On the first night, muffled and disguised, Sir Victor came down from town, had an interview with his aunt, no doubt told her all, and departed again without seeing the girl he had married. The bride next day had an interview with Lady Helena—her last—and next morning, before any one was stirring, stole out of the house like the guilty creature she was, and never was heard of more. The story, though they tried to hush it up, got in all the papers—'Romance in High Life,' they called it. Everybody talked of it—it was the nine-days' wonder of town and country. The actors in it, one by one, disappeared. Lady Helena shut up Powyss Place and went abroad; Sir Victor vanished from the world's ken; the heroine of the piece no doubt went back to her native land. That, in brief, is the story, my dear, of the interesting spectre I met to-day on the steps of Fenton's. Now, young ladies, put on your bonnets and come. I wish to call at Madame Mirebeau's, Oxford Street, before going to the park, and personally inspect my dress for the duchess' ball to-night."

Ten minutes later and the elegant barouche of Lady Portia Hampton was bowling along to Oxford Street.

"What did you say to Sir Victor, Portia?" her sister deigned to ask. "What did he say to you?"

"He said very little to me—the answers he gave were the most vague. I naturally inquired concerning his health first, he really looked so wretchedly broken down; and he said there was nothing the matter that he had been a little out of sorts lately, that was all. My conviction is," said Lady Portia, who, like the rest of her sex, and the world, put the worst possible construction on everything, "that he has become dissipated. Purple circles and hollow eyes always tell of late hours and hard drinking. I asked him next where he had been all those ages, and he answered briefly and gloomily, in one word, 'Abroad.' I asked him thirdly, where, and how was Lady Helena; he replied that Lady Helena was tolerably well, and at present in London. 'In London!' I exclaimed, in a shocked tone, 'my dear Sir Victor, and I not know it!' He explained that his aunt was living in the closest retirement, at the house of a friend in the neighborhood of St. John's Wood, and went nowhere. Then he lifted his hat, smiled horribly a ghastly smile, turned his back upon me, and walked away. Never asked for you, Gwendoline, or Colonel Hampton, or my health, or anything."

Lady Gwendoline did not reply. They had just entered Oxford Street, and amid the moving throng of well-dressed people on the pavement, her eye had singled out one figure—the figure of a tall, slender, fair-haired man.

"Portia!" she exclaimed, in a suppressed voice, "look there! Is not that Sir Victor Catheron now?"

"Where? Oh, I see. Positively it is, and—yes—he sees us. Tell John to draw up, Gwendoline. Now, Mary, you shall see a live hero of romance for once in your life. He shall take a seat, whether he likes it or not—My dear Sir Victor, what a happy second rencontre, and Gwendoline dying to see you. Pray let us take you up—oh, we will have no refusal. We have an unoccupied seat here, you see, and we all insist upon your occupying it. Miss Howard, let me present our nearest neighbor at home, and particular friend everywhere, Sir Victor Catheron. The Honorable Miss Howard, Sir Victor."

They had drawn up close to the curbstone. The gentleman had doffed his hat, and would have passed on, had he not been taken possession of in this summary manner. Lady Gwendoline's primrose-kidded hand was extended to him, Lady Gwendoline's smiling face beamed upon him from the most exquisite of Parisian bonnets. Miss Howard bowed and scanned him curiously. Lady Portia was not to be refused—he knew that of old. Of two bores, it was the lesser bore to yield than resist. Another instant, and the barouche was rolling away to Madame Mirebeau's, and Sir Victor Catheron was within it. He sat by Lady Gwendoline's side, and under the shadow of her rose-silk and point-lace parasol she could see for herself how shockingly he was changed. Her sister had not exaggerated. He was worn to a shadow; his fair hair was streaked with gray; his lips were set in a tense expression of suffering—either physical or mental—perhaps both. His blue eyes looked sunken and lustreless. It was scarcely to be believed that ten short months could have wrought such wreck. He talked little—his responses to their questions were monosyllabic. His eyes constantly wandered away from their faces to the passers-by. He had the look of a man ever on the alert, ever on the watch—waiting and watching for some one he could not see. Miss Howard had never seen him before, but from the depths of her heart she pitied him. Sorrow, such as rarely falls to the lot of man, had fallen to this man, she knew.

He was discouragingly absent and distrait. It came out by chance that the chief part of the past ten months had been spent by him in America.

In America! The sisters exchanged glances. She was there, no doubt. Had they met? was the thought of both. They reached the fashionable modiste's.

"You will come in with us, Sir Victor," Lady Portia commanded gayly. "We all have business here, but we will only detain you a moment."

He gave her his arm to the shop. It was large and elegant, and three or four deferential shop-women came forward to wait upon them and place seats. The victimized baronet, still listless and bored, sat down to wait and escort them back to the carriage before taking his departure. To be exhibited in the park was the farthest possible from his intention.

Lady Portia's, dress was displayed—a rose velvet, with point-lace trimmings—and found fault with, of course. Lady Gwendoline and the Hon. Mary transacted their affairs at a little distance. For her elder ladyship the train did not suit her, the bodice did not please her; she gave her orders for altering sharply and concisely. The deferential shop-girl listened and wrote the directions down on a card. When her patroness had finished she carried robe and card down the long room and called:

"Miss Stuart!"

A voice answered—only one word, "Yes," softly spoken, but Sir Victor Catheron started as if he had been shot. The long show-room lay in semi-twilight—the gas not yet lit. In this twilight another girl advanced, took the rose-velvet robe and written card. The light flashed upon her figure and hair for one instant—then she disappeared.

And Sir Victor?

He sat like a man suddenly aroused from a deep, long sleep. He had not seen the face; he had caught but a glimpse of the figure and head; he had heard the voice speak but one little word, "Yes;" but—

Was he asleep or awake? Was it only a delusion, as so many other fancied resemblances had been, or was it after all—after all—

He rose to his feet, that dazed look of a sleep-walker, suddenly aroused, on his face.

"Now, then, Sir Victor," the sharp, clear voice of Lady Portia said, at his side, "your martyrdom is ended. We are ready to go."

He led her to the carriage, assisted her and the young ladies in. How he excused himself—what incoherent words he said—he never knew. He was only conscious after a minute that the carriage had rolled away, and that he was still standing, hat in hand, on the sidewalk in front of Madame Mirebeau's; that the passers-by were staring at him, and that he was alone.

"Mad!" Lady Portia said, shrugging her shoulders and touching her forehead. "Mad as a March hare!"

"Mad?" Miss Howard repeated softly. "No, I don't think so. Not mad, only very—very miserable."

He replaced his hat and walked back to the shop-door. There reason, memory returned. What was he going in for? What should he say? He stood still suddenly, as though gazing at the wax women in elegant ball costume, swinging slowly and smirkingly round and round. He had heard a voice—he had seen a shapely head crowned with dark, silken hair—a tall, slender girl's figure—that was all. He had seen and heard such a hundred times since that fatal wedding evening, and when he had hunted them down, the illusion had vanished, and his lost love was as lost as ever. His lost Edith—his bride, his darling, the wife he had loved and left—for whom all those weary, endless months he had been searching and searching in vain. Was she living or dead? Was she in London—in England—where? He did not know—no one knew. Since that dark, cold autumn morning when she had fled from Powyss Place she had never been seen or heard of. She had kept her word—she had taken nothing that was his—not a farthing. Wherever she was, she might be starving to-day. He clenched his hands and teeth as he thought of it.

"Oh!" his passionate, despairing heart cried, "let me find her—let me save her, and—let me die!"

He had searched for her everywhere, by night and by day. Money flowed like water—all in vain. He went to New York—he found the people there he had once known, but none of them could tell him anything of her or the Stuarts. The Stuarts had failed, were utterly ruined—it was understood that Mr. Stuart was dead—of the others they knew nothing. He went to Sandypoint in search of her father. Mr. Darrell and his family had months ago sold out and gone West. He could find none of them; he gave it up at length and returned to England. Ten months had passed; many resemblances had beguiled him, but to-day Edith was as far off, as lost as ever.

The voice he had heard, the likeness he had seen, would they prove false and empty too, and leave his heart more bitter than ever? What he would do when he found her he did not consider. He only wanted to find her. His whole heart, and life, and soul were bound up in that.

He paced up and down in front of the shop; the day's work would be over presently and the work-women would come forth. Then he would see again this particular work-woman who had set his heart beating with a hope that turned him dizzy and sick. Six o'clock! seven o'clock! Would they never come? Yes; even as he thought it, half mad with impatience, the door opened, and nearly a dozen girls filed forth. He drew his hat over his eyes, he kept a little in the shadow and watched them one by one with wildly eager eyes as they appeared. Four, five, six, seven—she came at last, the eighth. The tall, slender figure, the waving, dark hair, he knew them at once. The gaslight fell full upon her as she drew her veil over her face and walked rapidly away. Not before he had seen it, not before he had recognized it—no shadow, no myth, no illusion this time. His wife—Edith.

He caught the wall for support. For a moment the pavement beneath his feet heaved, the starry sky spun round. Then he started up, steadied himself by a mighty effort, and hurried in pursuit.

She had gained upon him over thirty yards. She was always a rapid walker, and he was ailing and weak. His heart throbbed now, so thick and fast, that every breath was a pain. He did not gain upon her, he only kept her in sight. He would have known that quick, decided walk, the poise of the head and shoulders, anywhere. He followed her as fast as his strength and the throng of passers-by would let him, yet doing no more than keeping her well in sight.

Where Oxford Street nears Tottenham Court Road she suddenly diverged and crossed over, turning into the latter crowded thoroughfare. Still he followed. The throng was even more dense here than in Oxford Street, to keep her in sight more difficult. For nearly ten minutes he did it, then suddenly all strength left him. For a minute or two he felt as though he must fall. There was a spasm of the heart that was like a knife-thrust. He caught at a lamp-post. He beckoned a passing hansom by a sort of expiring effort. The cab whirled up beside him; he got in somehow, and fell back, blinded and dizzy, in the seat.

"Where to, sir?" Cabby called twice before he received an answer; then "Fenton's Hotel" came faintly to him from his ghostly looking fare. The little aperture at the top was slammed down and the hansom rattled off.

"Blessed if I don't think the young swell's drunk, or 'aving a fit," thought the Cad, as he speeded his horse down Tottenham Court Road.

To look for her further in his present state, Sir Victor felt would be useless. He must get to his lodgings, get some brandy, and half-an-hour's time to think what to do next. He had found her; she was alive, she was well, thank Heaven! thank Heaven for that! To-morrow would find her again at Madame Mirebeau's at work with the rest.

At work—her daily toil! He covered his wasted face with his wasted hands, and tears that were like a woman's fell from him. He had been weak and worn out for a long time—he gave way utterly, body and mind, now.

"My darling," he sobbed; "my darling whom I would die to make happy—whose life I have so utterly ruined. To think that while I spend wealth like water, you should toil for a crust of bread—alone, poor, friendless, in this great city. How will I answer to God and man for what I have done?"



CHAPTER II.

EDITH.

The last light of the July day had faded out, and a hot, murky night settled down over London. The air was stifling in the city; out in the suburbs you still caught a breath, fresh and sweet scented, from the fragrant fields.

At Poplar Lodge, St. John's Wood, this murky, summer night all the windows stood wide. In the drawing-room two women sat together. The elder reading aloud, the younger busy over some feminine handicraft. A cluster of waxlights burned above them, shining full on two pale, worn faces—the faces of women to whom suffering and sorrow have long been household words. Both wore deepest mourning—the elder a widow's weeds, the hair of the younger thickly streaked with gray. Now and then both raised their eyes from a book and needlework, and glanced expectantly at the clock on the mantel. Evidently they waited for some one who did not come. They were Lady Helena Powyss and Inez Catheron, of course.

"Eight," the elder woman said, laying down her book with a sigh as the clock struck. "If he were coming to-night he would be here before now."

"I don't give him up even yet," Inez answered cheerfully. "Young men are not to be depended on, and he has often come out much later than this. We are but dull company for him, poor boy—all the world are but dull company for him at present, since she is not of them. Poor boy! poor Victor! it is very hard on him."

"I begin to think Edith will never be found," said Lady Helena with a sigh.

"My dear aunt, I don't. No one is ever lost, utterly, in these days. She will be found, believe me, unless—"

"Well?"

"Unless she is dead."

"She is not dead," affirmed Lady Helena; "of that I am sure. You didn't know her, Inez, or you wouldn't think it; the most superb specimen of youth and strength and handsome health I ever saw in my life. She told me once she never remembered a sick day since she was born—you had but to look into her bright eyes and clear complexion to be sure of it. She is not dead, in the natural course of things, and she isn't one of the kind that ever take their lives in their own hands. She had too much courage and too much common-sense."

"Perhaps so, and yet suffering tells—look at poor Victor."

"Ah, poor Victor indeed! But the case is different—it was only her pride, not her heart, that bled. He loved her—he loves her with a blind, unreasoning passion that it is a misfortune for any human creature to feel for another. And she never cared for him—not as much as you do for the sewing in your hand. That is what breaks my heart—to see him dying before my eyes for love of a girl who has no feeling for him but hatred and contempt."

Inez sighed.

"It is natural," she said. "Think how she was left—in her very bridal hour, without one word of explanation. Who could forgive it?"

"No one, perhaps; it is not for that I feel indignant with her. It is for her ever accepting him at all. She loved her cousin—he would have married her; and for title and wealth she threw him over and accepted Victor. In that way she deserved her fate. She acted heartlessly; and yet, one can't help pitying her too. I believe she would have done her best to make him a good wife, after all. I wish—I wish he could find her."

"She might be found readily enough," Inez answered, "if Victor would but employ the usual means—I allude, of course, to the detective police. But he won't set a detective on her track if she is never found—he persists in looking for her himself. He is wearing his life out in the search. If ever I saw death pictured on any face, I saw it in his when he was here last. If he would but consult that German doctor who is now in London, and who is so skilful in all diseases of the heart—hark!" she broke off suddenly, "here he is at last."

Far off a gate had opened and shut—no one had a key to that ever-locked outer gate but Sir Victor, and the next moment the roll of his night-cab up the drive was heard. The house door opened, his familiar step ascended the stairs, not heavy and dragging as usual, but swift and light, almost as it used to be. Something had happened! They saw it in his face at the first glance. There was but one thing that could happen. Lady Helena dropped her book, Inez started to her feet; neither spoke, both waited breathless.

"Aunt! cousin!" the young man cried, breathless and hoarse, "she is found!"

There was a cry from his aunt. As he spoke he dropped, panting and exhausted with his speed, into a chair and laid his hand upon his breast to still its heavy, suffocating throbs.

"Found!" exclaimed Lady Helena; "where—when—how?"

"Wait, aunt," the voice of Inez said gently; "give him time. Don't you see he can scarcely pant? Not a word yet Victor—let me fetch you a glass of wine."

She brought it and he drank it. His face was quite ghastly, livid, bluish rings encircling his mouth and eyes. He certainly looked desperately ill, and more fitted for a sick-bed than a breathless night ride from St. James Street to St, John's Wood. He lay back in his chair, closed his eyes, struggled with his panting breath. They sat and waited in silence, far more concerned for him than for the news he bore.

He told them at last, slowly, painfully, of his chance meeting with Lady Portia Hampton, of his enforced visit to the Oxford Street dress-maker—of his glimpse of the tall girl with the dark hair—of his waiting, of his seeing, and recognizing Edith, his following her, and of his sudden giddy faintness that obliged him to give up the chase.

"You'll think me an awful muff," he said; "I haven't an idea how I came to be such a mollicoddle, but I give you my word I fainted dead away like a school-girl when I got to my room. I suppose it was partly this confounded palpitation of the heart, and partly the shock of the great surprise and joy. Jamison brought me all right somehow, after awhile, and then I came here. I had to do something, or I believe I should have gone clear out of my senses."

Then there was a pause. The two women looked at each other, then at him, his eager eyes, his excited, wild-looking, haggard face.

"Well," he cried impatiently, "have you nothing to say? Is it nothing to you that after all these months—months—great Heavens! it seems centuries. But I have found her at last—toiling for her living, while we—oh! I can't think of it—I dare not; it drives me mad!"

He sprang up and began pacing to and fro, looking quite as much like a madman as a sane one.

"Be quiet, Victor," his aunt said. "It is madness indeed for you to excite yourself in this way. Of course we rejoice in all that makes you happy. She is found—Heaven be praised for it!—she is alive and well—thank Heaven also for that. And now—what next?"

"What next?" He paused and looked at her in astonishment "You ask what next? What next can there be, except to go the first thing to-morrow morning and take her away."

"Take her away!" Lady Helena repeated, setting her lips; "take her where, Victor? To you?"

His ghastly face turned a shade ghastlier. He caught his breath and grasped the back of the chair as though a spasm of unendurable agony had pierced his heart. In an instant his aunt's arms were about him, tears streaming down her cheeks, her imploring eyes lifted to his:

"Forgive me, Victor, forgive me! I ought not to have asked you that. But I did not mean—I know that can never be, my poor boy. I will do whatever you say. I will go to her, of course—I will fetch her here if she will come."

"If she will come!" he repeated hoarsely, disengaging himself from her; "what do you mean by if? There can be no 'if' in the matter. She is my wife—she is Lady Catheron—do you think she is to be left penniless and alone drudging for the bread she eats? I tell you, you must bring her; she must come!"

His passionate, suppressed excitement terrified her. In pain and fear and helplessness she looked at her niece. Inez, with that steady self-possession that is born of long and great endurance, came to the rescue at once.

"Sit down, Victor!" her full, firm tones said, "and don't work yourself up to this pitch of nervous excitement. It's folly—useless folly, and its end will be prostration and a sick-bed. About your wife, Aunt Helena will do what she can, but—what can she do? You have no authority over her now; in leaving her you resigned it. It is unutterably painful to speak of this, but under the circumstances we must. She refused with scorn everything you offered her before; unless these ten past months have greatly altered her, she will refuse again. She seems to have been a very proud, high-spirited girl, but her hard struggle with the world may have beaten down that—and—"

"Don't!" he cried passionately; "I can't bear it. O my God! to think what I have done—what I have been forced to do! what I have made her suffer—what she must think of me—and that I live to bear it! To think I have endured it all, when a pistol-ball would have ended my torments any day!"

"When you talk such wicked folly as that," said Inez Catheron, her strong, steady eyes fixed upon his face, "I have no more to say. You did your duty once: you acted like a hero, like a martyr—it seems a pity to spoil it all by such cowardly rant as this."

"My duty!" he exclaimed, huskily "Was it my duty? Sometimes I doubt it; sometimes I think if I had never left her, all might have been well. Was it my duty to make my life a hell on earth, to tear my heart from my bosom, as I did in the hour I left her, to spoil her life for her, to bring shame, reproach, and poverty upon her? If I had not left her, could the worst that might have happened been any worse than that?"

"Much, worse—infinitely worse. You are the sufferer, believe me, not she. What is all she has undergone in comparison with what you have endured? And one day she will know all, and love and honor you as you deserve."

He hid his face in his hands, and turned away from the light.

"One day," they heard him murmur; "one day—the day of my death. Pray Heaven it may be soon."

"I think," Inez said after a pause, "you had better let me go and speak instead of Aunt Helena. She has undergone so much—she isn't able, believe me, Victor, to undergo more. Let me go to your wife; all Aunt Helena can say, all she can urge, I will. If it be in human power to bring her back, I will bring her. All I dare tell her, I will tell. But, after all, it is so little, and she is so proud. Don't hope too much."

"It is so little," he murmured again, his face still hidden; "so little, and there is so much to tell. Oh!" he broke forth, with a passionate cry, "I can't bear this much longer. If she will come for nothing else, she will come for the truth, and the truth shall be told. What are a thousand promises to the living or the dead to the knowledge that she hates and scorns me!"

They said nothing to him—they knew it was useless—they knew his paroxysm would pass, as so many others had passed, and that by to-morrow he would be the last to wish to tell.

"You will surely not think of returning to St. James Street to-night?" said Inez by way of diversion. "You will remain here, and at the earliest possible hour to-morrow you will drive me to Oxford Street. I will do all I can—you believe that, my cousin, I know. And if—if I am successful, will"—she paused and looked at him—"will you meet her, Victor?"

"I don't know yet; my head is in a whirl. To-night I feel as though I could do anything, brave anything—to-morrow I suppose I will feel differently. Don't ask me what I will do to-morrow until to-morrow comes. I will remain all night, and I will go to my room at once; I feel dazed and half sick. Good-night."

He left them abruptly. They heard him toil wearily up to his room and lock the door. Long after, the two women sat together talking with pale, apprehensive faces.

"She won't come—I am as sure of it as that I sit here," were Lady Helena's parting words as they separated for the night. "I know her better than he does, and I am not carried away by his wild hopes. She will not come."

Sir Victor descended to breakfast, looking unutterably pallid and haggard in the morning light. Well he might; he had not slept for one moment.

But he was more composed, calm, and quiet, and there was almost as little hope in his heart as in Lady Helena's. Immediately after breakfast, Miss Catheron, closely veiled, entered the cab with him, and was driven to Oxford Street. It was a very silent drive; she was glad when it was over, and he set her down near the shop of Madame Mirebeau.

"I will wait here," he said. "If she will come with you, you will take a cab and drive back to Poplar Lodge. If she does not—" he had to pause a moment—"then return to me, and I will take you home."

She bent her head in assent, and entered the shop. Her own heart was beating at the thought of the coming interview and its probable ending. She advanced to the counter, and, without raising her veil, inquired if Miss Stuart were come.

The girl looked inquisitively at the hidden face, and answered:

"Yes, Miss Stuart had come."

"I wish to see her particularly, and in private, for a few moments. Can you manage it for me?"

She slipped a sovereign into the shopwoman's hand. There was a second curious look at the tall, veiled lady, but the sovereign was accepted. A side door opened, and she was shown into an empty room.

"You can wait here, ma'am," the girl said. "I'll send her to you."

Miss Catheron walked over to the window; that nervous heart beat quicker than ever. When had she been nervous before? The window overlooked busy, bright Oxford Street, and in the distance she saw the waiting cab and her cousin's solitary figure. The sight gave her courage. For his sake, poor fellow, she would do all human power could do.

"You wish to see me, madame?"

A clear, soft voice spoke. The door had quietly opened and a young girl entered.

Inez Catheron turned round, and for the second time in her life looked in the face of her cousin's wife.

Yes, it was his wife. The face she had seen under the trees of Powyss Place she saw again to-day in the London milliner's parlor. The same darkly handsome, quietly resolute young face, the same gravely beautiful eyes, the same slender, graceful figure, the same silky waves of blackish-brown hair. To her eyes there was no change; she had grown neither thinner nor paler; she had lost none of the beauty and grace that had won away Sir Victor Catheron's heart. She was very plainly dressed in dark gray of some cheap material, but fitting perfectly; linen bands at neck and throat, and a knot of cherry ribbon. And the slim finger wore no wedding-ring. She took it all in, in three seconds; then she advanced.

"I wished to see you. We are not likely to be disturbed?"

"We are likely to be disturbed at any moment. It is the room where Madame Mirebeau tries on the dresses of her customers; and my time is very limited."

The dark, grave eyes were fixed upon the close veil expectantly. Inez Catheron threw it back.

"Edith!" she said—and at the sound of her name the girl recoiled—"you don't know me, but I think you will know my name. I am Inez Catheron."

She recoiled a step farther, her dark face paling and growing set—her large eyes seeming to darken and dilate—her lips setting themselves in a tense line. "Well?" was all she said.

Inez stretched out her hands with an imploring gesture, drawing near as the other retreated.

"Oh, Edith, you know why I have come! you know who has sent me. You know what I have come for."

The dark, deep eyes met hers, full, cold, hard, and bright as diamonds.

"I don't in the least know what you have come for. I haven't an idea who can have sent you. I know who you are. You are Sir Victor Catheron's cousin."

Without falter or flinch she spoke his name—with a face of stone she waited for the answer. If any hope had lingered in the breast of Inez it died out as she looked at her now.

"Yes," she said sadly; "I am Victor Catheron's cousin, and there could be but one to send me here—Victor Catheron himself."

"And why has Sir Victor Catheron given you that trouble?"

"Oh, Edith!" again that imploring gesture, "let me call you so—need you ask? All these months he has been searching for you, losing health and rest in the fruitless quest—wearing himself to a very shadow looking for you. He has been to New York, he has hunted London—it has brought him almost to the verge of death, this long, vain, miserable search."

Her perfect lips curled scornfully, her eyes shot forth gleams of contempt, but her voice was very quiet.

"And again I ask why—why has Sir Victor Catheron given himself all this unnecessary trouble?"

"Unnecessary! You call it that! A husband's search for a lost wife."

"Stop, Miss Catheron!" she lifted her hand, and her eyes flashed. "You make a mistake. Sir Victor Catheron's wife I am not—never will be. The ceremony we went through, ten months ago, down in Cheshire, means nothing, since a bridegroom who deserts his bride on her wedding-day, resigns all right to the name and authority of husband. Mind, I don't regret it now; I would not have it otherwise if I could. And this is not bravado, Miss Catheron; I mean it. In the hour I married your cousin he was no more to me than one of his own footmen—I say it to my own shame and lasting dishonor; and I thank Heaven most sincerely now, that whether he were mad or sane, that he deserted me as he did. At last I am free—not bound for life to a man that by this time I might have grown to loathe. For I think my indifference then would have grown to hate. Now I simply scorn him in a degree less than I scorn myself. I never wish to hear his name—but I also would not go an inch out of my way to avoid him. He is simply nothing to me—nothing. If I were dead and in my grave, I could not be one whit more lost to him than I am. Why he has presumed to search for me is beyond my comprehension. How he has had the audacity to hunt me down, and send you here, surpasses belief. I wonder you came, Miss Catheron! As you have come, let me give you this word of advice: make your first visit your last. Don't come again to see me—don't let Sir Victor Catheron dog my steps or in any way interfere with me. I never was a very good or patient sort of person—I have not become more so of late. I am only a girl, alone and poor, but," her eyes flashed fire—literally fire—and her hands clenched, "I warn him—it will not be safe!"

Inez drew back. What she had expected she hardly knew—certainly not this.

"As I said before," Edith went on, "my time is limited. Madame does not allow her working-girls to receive visitors in working hours. Miss Catheron, I have the honor to wish you good-morning."

"Stay!" Inez cried, "for the love of Heaven. Oh, what shall I say, how shall I soften her? Edith, you don't understand. I wish—I wish I dared tell you the secret that took Victor from your side that day! He loves you—no, that is too poor a word to express what he feels; his life is paying the penalty of his loss. He is dying, Edith, dying of heart disease, brought on by what he has suffered in losing you. In his dying hour he will tell you all; and his one prayer is for death, that he may tell you, that you may cease to wrong and hate him as you do. O Edith, listen to me—pity me—pity him who is dying for you! Don't be so hard. See, I kneel to you!—as you hope for mercy in your own dying hour, Edith Catheron, have mercy on him!"

She flung herself on her knees, tears pouring over her face, and held up her clasped hands.

"For pity's sake, Edith—for your own sake. Don't harden your heart; try and believe, though you may not understand. I tell you he loves you—that he is a dying man. We are all sinners; as you hope for pity and mercy, have pity and mercy on him now." With her hand on the door, with Inez Catheron clinging to her dress, she paused, moved, distressed, softened in spite of herself.

"Get up, Miss Catheron," she said, "you must not kneel to me. What is it you want? what is it you ask me to do?"

"I ask you to give up this life of toil—to come home with me. Lady Helena awaits you. Make your home with her and with me—take the name and wealth that are yours, and wait—try to wait patiently to the end. For Victor—poor, heart-broken boy!—you will not have long to wait."

Her voice broke—her sobs filled the room. The distressed look was still on Edith's face, but it was as resolute as ever.

"What you ask is impossible," she said; "utterly and absolutely impossible. What you say about your cousin may be true. I don't understand—I never could read riddles—but it does not alter my determination in the least. What! live on the bounty of a man who deserts me on my wedding-day—who makes me an outcast—an object of scorn and disgrace! I would die first! I would face starvation and death in this great city. I know what I am saying. I would sweep a crossing like that beggar in rags yonder; I would lie down and die in a ditch sooner. Let me go, Miss Catheron, I beg of you; you only distress me unnecessarily. If you pleaded forever it could not avail. Give my love to Lady Helena; but I will never go back—I will never accept a farthing from Sir Victor Catheron. Don't come here more—don't let him come." Again her eyes gleamed. "There is neither sorrow nor pity for him in my heart. It is like a stone where he is concerned, and always will be—always, though he lay dying before me. Now, farewell."

Then the door opened and closed, and she was gone.



CHAPTER III.

HOW THEY MET.

Miss Stuart went back to the workroom, and to the dozen or more young women there assembled. If she was a shade paler than her wont they were not likely to notice it—if she was more silent even than usual, why silence was always Miss Stuart's forte. Only the young person to whom Miss Catheron had given the sovereign looked at her curiously, and said point blank:

"I say, Miss Stuart, who was that? what did she want?" And the dark, haughty eyes of Miss Stuart had lifted from the peach satin on which she worked, and fixed themselves icily upon her interrogator:

"It was a lady I never saw before," she answered frigidly. "What she wanted is certainly no business of yours, Miss Hatton."

Miss Hatton flounced off with a muttered reply; but there was that about Edith that saved her from open insult—a dignity and distance they none of them could overreach. Besides, she was a favorite with madame and the forewoman. So silently industrious, so tastefully neat, so perfectly trustworthy in her work. Her companions disliked and distrusted her; she held herself aloof from them all; she had something on her mind—there was an air of mystery about her; they doubted her being an English girl at all. She would have none of their companionship; if she had a secret she kept it well; in their noisy, busy midst she was as much alone as though she were on Robinson Crusoe's desert island. Outwardly those ten months had changed her little—her brilliant, dusk beauty was scarcely dimmed—inwardly it had changed her greatly, and hardly for the better.

There had been a long and bitter struggle before she found herself in this safe haven. For months she had drifted about without rudder, or compass, or pilot, on the dark, turbid sea of London. She had come to the great city friendless and alone, with very little money, and very little knowledge of city life. She had found lodgings easily enough, cheap and clean, and had at once set about searching for work. On the way up she had decided what she must do—she would become a nursery governess or companion to some elderly lady, or she would teach music. But it was one thing to resolve, another to do. There were dozens of nursery governesses and companions to old ladies wanting in the columns of the Times, but they were not for her. "Where are your references?" was the terrible question that met her at every turn. She had no references, and the doors of the genteel second and third-rate houses shut quietly in her face.

Young and pretty, without references, money or friends, how was she ever to succeed? If she had been thirty and pock-marked she might have triumphed even over the reference business: as it was, her case seemed hopeless. It was long, however, before her indomitable spirit would yield. Her money ran low, she pawned several articles of jewelry and dress to pay for food and lodging. She grew wan and hollow-eyed in this terrible time—all her life long she could never recall it without a shudder.

Five months passed; despair, black and awful, filled her soul at last. The choice seemed to lie between going out as an ordinary servant and starving. Even as a housemaid she would want this not-to-be-got-over reference. In this darkest-hour before the dawn she saw Madame Mirebeau's advertisement for sewing girls, and in sheer despair applied. Tall, handsome girls of good address, were just what madame required, and somehow—it was the mercy of the good God no doubt—she was taken. For weeks after she was kept under close surveillance, she was so very unlike the young women who filled such situations—then the conviction became certainty that Miss Stuart had no sinister designs on the ruby velvets, the snowy satins, and priceless laces of her aristocratic customers—that she really wanted work and was thoroughly capable of doing it. Nature had made Edith an artist in dressmaking; her taste was excellent; madame became convinced she had found a treasure. Only one thing Miss Stuart steadfastly refused to do—that was to wait in the shop. "I have reasons of my own for keeping perfectly quiet," she said, looking madame unflinchingly in the eyes. "If I stay in the shop I may—though it is not likely—be recognized; and then I should be under the necessity of leaving you immediately."

Madame had no wish to lose her very best seamstress, so Miss Stuart had her way. The sentimental Frenchwoman's own idea was that Miss Stuart was a young person of rank and position, who owing to some ill-starred love affair had been obliged to run away and hide herself from her friends. However as her hopeless passion in no way interfered with her dressmaking ability, madame kept her suspicions to herself and retained her in the workroom.

And so after weary months of pain, and shame, and despair, Edith had come safely to land at last. For the past five months her life had flowed along smoothly, dully, uneventfully—going to her work in the morning, returning to her lodgings at night—sometimes indulging in a short walk in the summer twilight after her tea; at other times too wearied out in body and mind to do other than lie down on the little hard bed, and sleep the spent sleep of exhaustion. That was her outer life; of her inner life what shall I say? She could hardly have told in the after-days herself. Somehow strength is given us to bear all things and live on. Of the man she had married she could not, dare not think—her heart and soul filled with such dark and deadly hatred. She abhorred him,—it is not too much to say that. The packet of treasured letters written in New York so long—oh, so long ago! it seemed—became the one spot of sunshine in her sunless life. She read them until the words lost all meaning—until she knew every one by heart. She looked at the picture until the half-smiling eyes and lips seemed to mock her as she gazed. The little turquoise broach with the likeness, she wore in her bosom night and day—the first thing to be kissed in the morning, the last at night. Wrong, wrong, wrong, you say; but the girl was desperate and reckless—she did not care. Right and wrong were all confounded in her warped mind; only this was clear—she loved Charley as she had never loved him before she became Sir Victor Catheron's bride. He scorned and despised her; she would never look upon his face again—it did not matter; she would go to her grave loving him, his pictured face over her heart, his name the last upon her lips.

Sometimes, sitting alone in the dingy London twilight, there rose before her a vision of what might have been: Charley, poor as he was now, and she Charley's wife, he working for her, somewhere and somehow, as she knew he gladly would, she keeping their two or three tiny rooms in order, and waiting, with her best dress on, as evening came, to hear his step at the door. She would think until thought became torture, until thought became actual physical pain. His words, spoken to her that last night she had ever spent at Sandypoint, came back to her full of bitter meaning now: "Whatever the future brings, don't blame me." The future had brought loneliness, and poverty, and despair—all her own fault—her own fault. That was the bitterest sting of all—it was her own work from first to last. She had dreaded poverty, she had bartered her heart, her life, and him in her dread of it, and lo! such poverty as she had never dreamed of had come upon her. If she had only been true to herself and her own heart, what a happy creature she might have been to-day.

But these times of torture were mercifully rare. Her heart seemed numb—she worked too hard to think much—at night she was too dead tired to spend the hours in fruitless anguish and tears. Her life went on in a sort of treadmill existence; and until the coming of Inez Catheron nothing had occurred to disturb it.

Her heart was full of bitter tumult and revolt as she went back to her work. The dastard! how dared he! He was dying, Inez Catheron had said, and for love of her. Bah! she could have laughed in her bitter scorn,—what a mockery it was! If it were true, why let him die! The sooner the better—then indeed she would be free. Perhaps Edith had lost something—heart, conscience—in the pain and shame of the past. All that was soft and forgiving in her nature seemed wholly to have died out. He had wronged her beyond all reparation—the only reparation he could make was to die and leave her free.

Madame's young women were detained half an hour later than usual that evening. A great Belgravian ball came off next night, and there was a glut of work. They got away at last, half fagged to death, only to find a dull drizzling rain falling, and the murky darkness of early night settling down over the gas-lit highways of London. Miss Stuart bade her companions a brief good-night, raised her umbrella, and hurried on her way. She did not observe the waiting figure, muffled from the rain and hidden by an umbrella, that had been watching for her, and who instantly followed her steps. She hurried on rapidly and came at last to a part of the street where it was necessary she should cross. She paused an instant on the curbstone irresolute. Cabs, omnibuses and hansoms were tearing by in numbers innumerable. It was a perilous passage. She waited two or three minutes, but there was no lull in the rush. Then growing quite desperate in her impatience she started to cross. The crossing was slippery and wet.

"I say! look out there, will you!" half a dozen shrill cabbies called, before and behind.

She grew bewildered—her presence of mind deserted her—she dropped her umbrella and held up her hands instinctively to keep them off. As she did so, two arms grasped her, she felt herself absolutely lifted off her feet, and carried over. But just as the curbstone was reached, something—a carriage pole it appeared—struck her rescuer on the head, and felled him to the ground. As he fell, Edith sprang lightly out of his arms, and stood on the pavement, unhurt.

The man had fallen. It was all the driver of the hansom could do to keep his horse from going over him. There was shouting and yelling and an uproar directly. A crowd surrounded the prostrate man. X 2001 came up with his baton and authority. For Edith, she stood stunned and bewildered still. She saw the man lifted and carried into a chemist's near by. Instinctively she followed—it was in saving her he had come to grief. She saw him placed in a chair, the mire and blood washed off his face, and then—was she stunned and stupefied still—or was it, was it the face of Sir Victor Catheron?

It was—awfully bloodless, awfully corpse-like, awfully like the face of a dead man; but the face of the man whose bride she had been ten months ago—the face of Sir Victor Catheron.

She leaned heavily against the counter, feeling giddy and sick—the place swimming around her. Was he dead? Had he met his death trying to save her? "Blessed if I don't think he's dead and done for," said the chemist. "It ain't such a bad cut neither. I say! does anybody know who he is?"

Nobody knew. Then the keen eyes of X 2001 fell upon Edith, pale and wild-looking, with evident terror and recognition in her face.

"I say, miss, you know, don't you?" Bobby suggested politely. "It was reskying you he got it, you know. You know this 'ere gent, don't you, miss! Who is he?"

"He is Sir Victor Catheron."

"Oh," said Bobby. "Sir Victor Catheron, is he? I thought he was a heavy swell." And then his eyes took in Edith's very handsome face, and very plain dress, and evident station, and he formed his own surmise. "Perhaps now, miss, you knows too, where he ought to be took?"

"No," she answered mechanically; "I don't know. If you search his pockets, you will most likely find his address. You—you, don't really think he is dead?"

She came a step nearer as she asked the question—her very lips colorless. An hour ago it seemed to her she had almost wished for his death—now it seemed too horrible. And to meet it saving her too,—after all her thoughts of him. She felt as though she could never bear that.

"Well, no, miss, I don't think he is dead," the chemist answered, "though I must say he looks uncommon like it. There's something more the matter with him than this rap on the 'ead. Here's his card-case—now let's see: 'Sir Victor Catheron, Bart. Fenton's 'Otel.' Fenton's 'Otel. Bobby, I say, let's horder a cab and 'ave him driven there."

"Somebody ought to go with him," said X 2001. "I can't go—you can't go. I don't suppose now, miss," looking very doubtfully at Edith, "you could go nuther?"

"Is it necessary?" Edith asked, with very visible reluctance.

"Well, you see, miss, he looks uncommonly like a stiff 'un this minute, and if he was to die by the way or hanythink, and him halone—"

"I will go," interposed Edith, turning away with a sick shudder. "Call the cab at once."

A four-wheeler was summoned—the insensible young baronet was carried out and laid, as comfortably as might be, on the back seat. Edith followed, unutterably against her will, but how was she to help it? He was her worst enemy, but even to one's worst enemy common humanity at times must be shown. It would be brutal to let him go alone.

"Don't you be afraid, miss," the chemist said cheerfully; "he ain't dead yet. He's only stunned like, and will come round all right directly."

"Fenton's, Bill," and the cab rattled off.



CHAPTER IV.

HOW THEY PARTED

That ride—all her life it came back to her like a bad nightmare. She kept her eyes turned away as much as she could from that rigid form and ghastly face opposite, but in spite of herself they would wander back. What Miss Catheron had said was true then—he was dying—death was pictured in his face. What if, after all, there was some secret strong enough to make his conduct in leaving her right? She had thought it over and wondered and wondered, until her brain was dazed, but could never hit on any solution. She could not now—it was not right. Whatever the secret was, he had known it before he married her—why had he not left her then—why in leaving her after had he not explained? There was no excuse for him, none, and in spite of the white, worn face that pleaded for him, her heart hardened once more—hardened until she felt neither pity nor pain.

They reached the hotel. Jamison, the valet, came down, and recoiled at sight of his master's long lost wife.

"My lady!" he faltered, staring as though he had seen a ghost.

"Your master has met with an accident, Jamison," Edith said calmly, ignoring the title. How oddly it sounded to her. "You had better have him conveyed to his room and send for a surgeon. And, if Lady Helena is in town—"

"Lady Helena is in town, my lady. Will—" Jamison hesitated, "will you not come in, my lady, and wait until her ladyship comes?"

Again for a moment Edith hesitated and thought. It would be necessary for some one to explain—she could not go away either without knowing whether the injury he had received were fatal or not, since that injury was received in her service. She set her lips and alighted.

"I will remain until Lady Helena arrives. Pray lose no time in sending for her."

"I will send immediately, my lady," answered Jamison respectfully. "Thompson," to a waiter, "show this lady to a parlor at once."

And then Edith found herself following a gentlemanly sort of man in black, down a long hall, up a great staircase, along a carpeted corridor, and into an elegant private parlor. The man lit the gas and went, and then she was alone.

She sat down to think. What a strange adventure it had been. She had wished for her freedom—it seemed as though it were near at hand. She shuddered and shrank from herself.

"What a wretch I am," she thought; "what a vile creature I must be. If he dies, I shall feel as though I murdered him."

How long the hours and half hours, told off on the clock, seemed—eight, nine, ten,—would Lady Helena never come? It was a long way to St. John's Wood, but she might surely be here by this time. It was half past ten, and tired out thinking, tired out with her day's work, she had fallen into a sort of uneasy sleep and fitful dream in her chair when she suddenly became half conscious of some one near her. She had been dreaming of Sandypoint, of quarrelling with her cousin. "Don't Charley!" she said petulantly, aloud, and the sound of her own voice awoke her fully. She started up, bewildered for a second, and found herself face to face with Lady Helena. With Lady Helena, looking very pale and sorrowful, with tear-wet eyes and cheeks.

She had been watching Edith for the past five minutes silently and sadly. The girl's dream was pleasant, a half smile parted her lips. Then she had moved restlessly. "Don't Charley?" she said distinctly and awoke.

It was of him then she was dreaming—thoughts of him had brought to her lips that happy smile. The heart of the elder woman contracted with a sharp sense of pain.

"Lady Helena!"

"Edith!"

She took the girl's hand in both her own and looked kindly at her. She had liked her very much in the days gone by, though she had never wished her nephew to marry her. And she could hardly blame her very greatly under the circumstances, if her dreams were of the man she loved, not of the bridegroom who had left her.

"I—I think I fell asleep," Edith said confusedly; "I was very tired, and it all seemed so quiet and tedious here. How is he?"

"Better and asleep—they gave him an opiate. He knows nothing of your being here. It was very good of you to come, my child."

"It was nothing more than a duty of common humanity. It was impossible to avoid coming," Edith answered, and then briefly and rather coldly she narrated how the accident had taken place.

"My poor boy!" was all Lady Helena said, but there was a heart sob in every word; "he would die gladly to save you a moment's pain, and yet it has been his bitter lot to inflict the worst pain of your life. My poor child, you can't understand, and we can't explain—it must seem very hard and incomprehensible to you, but one day you will know all, and you will do him justice at last. Ah, Edith! if you had not refused Inez—if only you were not so proud, if you would take what is your right and your due, he might bear this separation until Heaven's good time. As it is, it is killing him."

"He looks very ill," Edith said; "what is the matter with him?"

"Heart disease—brought on by mental suffering. No words can tell what he has undergone since his most miserable wedding-day. It is known only to Heaven and himself but it has taken his life. As surely as ever human heart broke, his broke on the day he left you. And you, my poor child—you have suffered too."

"Of that we will not speak," the girl answered proudly; "what is done, is done. For me, I hope the worst is over—I am safe and well, and in good health as you see. I am glad Sir Victor Catheron has not met his death in my service. I have only one wish regarding him, and that is that he will keep away from me. And now, Lady Helena, before it grows any later, I will go home."

"Go home! At this hour? Most certainly you will not. You will remain here all night. Oh, Edith, you must indeed. A room has been prepared for you, adjoining mine. Inez and Jamison will remain with Victor until morning, and—you ought to see him before you go."

She shrank in a sort of horror.

"No, no, no! that I cannot! As it is so late I will remain, but see him—no, no! Not even for your sake, Lady Helena, can I do that."

"We will wait until to-morrow comes," was Lady Helena's response; "now you shall go to your room at once."

She rang the bell, a chambermaid came. Lady Helena kissed the girl's pale cheek affectionately, and Edith was led away to the room she was to occupy for that night.

It was certainly a contrast in its size and luxurious appointments to that she had used for the last ten months. She smiled a little as she glanced around. And she was to spend the night under the same roof with Sir Victor Catheron. If anyone had predicted it this morning, how scornfully she would have refused to believe.

"Who can tell what a day may bring forth!" was Edith's last thought as she laid her head on her pillow. "I am glad—very glad, that the accident will not prove fatal. I don't want him or anyone else to come to his death through me."

She slept well and soundly, and awoke late. She sprang out of bed almost instantly and dressed. She could but ill afford to lose a day. Before her toilet was quite completed there was a tap at the door. She opened it and saw Miss Catheron.

"I fancied you would be up early, and ordered breakfast accordingly. Aunt Helena awaits you down stairs. How did you sleep?"

"Very well. And you—you were up all night I suppose?"

"Yes. I don't mind it at all, though—I am quite used to night watching. And I have the reward of knowing Victor is much better—entirely out of danger indeed. Edith," she laid her hands on the girl's shoulders and looked down into her eyes, "he knows you are here. Will you be merciful to a dying man and see him?"

She changed color and shrank a little, but she answered proudly and coldly:

"No good can come of it. It will be much better not, but for my own part I care little. If he wishes to urge what you came to urge, I warn you, I will not listen to a word; I will leave at once."

"He will not urge it. He knows how obdurate you are, how fruitless it would be. Ah, Edith! you are a terribly haughty, self-willed girl. He will not detain you a moment—he wishes to make but one parting request."

"I can grant nothing—nothing," Edith said with agitation.

"You will grant this, I think," the other answered sadly. "Come, dear child, let us go down; Lady Helena waits."

They descended to breakfast; Edith ate little. In spite of herself, in spite of her pride and self command, it shook her a little—the thought of speaking to him.

But how was she to refuse? She rose at last, very pale, very stern and resolute looking—the sooner it was over and she was gone, the better.

"Now," she said, "if you insist—"

"I do insist," answered Inez steadily. "Come."

She led her to a door down the corridor and rapped. How horribly thick and fast Edith's heart beat; she hated herself for it. The door opened, and the grave, professional face of Mr. Jamison looked out.

"Tell Sir Victor, Lady Catheron is here, and will see him."

The man bowed and departed. Another instant and he was again before them:

"Sir Victor begs my lady to enter at once."

Then Inez Catheron took her in her arms and kissed her. It was her farewell. She pointed forward and hurried away.

Edith went on. A door and curtain separated her from the inner room. She opened one, lifted the other, and husband and wife were face to face.

He lay upon a low sofa—the room was partially darkened, but even in that semi-darkness she could see that he looked quite as ghastly and bloodless this morning as he had last night.

She paused about half way down the room and spoke: "You wished to see me, Sir Victor Catheron?"

Cold and calm the formal words fell.

"Edith!"

His answer was a cry—a cry wrung from a soul full of love and anguish untold. It struck home, even to her heart, steeled against him and all feeling of pity.

"I am sorry to see you so ill. I am glad your accident is no worse." Again she spoke, stiff, formal, commonplace words, that sounded horribly out of place, even to herself.

"Edith," he repeated, and again no words can tell the pathos, the despair of that cry, "forgive me—have pity on me. You hate me, and I deserve your hate, but oh! if you knew, even you would have mercy and relent!"

He touched her in spite of herself. Even a heart of stone might have softened at the sound of that despairing, heart-wrung voice—at sight of that death-like, tortured face. And Edith's, whatever she might say or think, was not a heart of stone.

"I do pity you," she said very gently; "I never thought to—but from my soul I do. But, forgive you! No, Sir Victor Catheron; I am only mortal. I have been wronged and humiliated as no girl was ever wronged and humiliated before. I can't do that."

He covered his face with his hands—she could hear the dry sobbing sound of his wordless misery.

"It would have been better if I had not come here," she said still gently. "You are ill, and this excitement will make you worse. But they insisted upon it—they said you had a request to make. I think you had better not make it—I can grant nothing—nothing."

"You will grant this," he answered, lifting his face and using the words Inez had used; "it is only that when I am dying, and send for you on my death-bed, you will come to me. Before I die I must tell you all—the terrible secret; I dare not tell you in life; and then, oh surely, surely you will pity and forgive! Edith, my love, my darling, leave me this one hope, give me this one promise before you go?"

"I promise to come," was her answer; "I promise to listen—I can promise no more. A week ago I thought I would have died sooner than pledge myself to that much—sooner than look in your face, or speak to you one word. And now, Sir Victor Catheron, farewell."

She turned to go without waiting for his reply. As she opened the door, she heard a wailing cry that struck chill with pity and terror to her inmost heart.

"Oh, my love! my bride! my wife!"—then the door closed behind her—she heard and saw no more.

So they had met and parted, and only death could bring them together again.

She passed out into the sunshine and splendor of the summer morning, dazed and cold, her whole soul full of untold compassion for the man she had left.



CHAPTER V.

THE TELLING OF THE SECRET.

Edith went back to the work-room in Oxford Street, to the old treadmill life of ceaseless sewing, and once more a lull came into her disturbed existence—the lull preceding the last ending of this strange mystery that had wrecked two lives. It seemed to her as she sat down among madame's troop of noisy, chattering girls, as though last night and its events were a long way off and a figment of some strange dream. That she had stood face to face with Sir Victor Catheron, spent a night under the same roof, actually spoken to him, actually felt sorry for him, was too unreal to be true. They had said rightly when they told her death was pictured on his face. Whatever this secret of his might be, it was a secret that had cost him his life. A hundred times a day that pallid, tortured face, rose before her, that last agonized cry of a strong heart in strong agony rang in her ears. All her hatred, all her revengeful thoughts of him were gone—she understood no better than before, but she pitied him from the depths of her heart.

They disturbed her no more, neither by letters nor visits. Only as the weeks went by she noticed this—that as surely as evening came, a shadowy figure hovering aloof, followed her home. She knew who it was—at first she felt inclined to resent it, but as he never came near, never spoke, only followed her from that safe distance, she grew reconciled and accustomed to it at last. She understood his motive—to shield her—to protect her from danger and insult, thinking himself unobserved.

Once or twice she caught a fleeting glimpse of his face on these occasions.

What a corpse-like face it was—how utterly weak and worn-out he seemed—more fitted for a sick-bed than the role of protector. "Poor fellow," Edith thought often, her heart growing very gentle with pity and wonder, "how he loves me, how faithful he is after all. Oh, I wonder—I wonder, what this secret is that took him from me a year ago. Will his mountain turn into a mole-hill when I hear it, if I ever do, or will it justify him? Is he sane or mad? And yet Lady Helena, who is in her right mind, surely, holds him justified in what he has done."

July—August passed—the middle of September came. All this time, whatever the weather, she never once missed her "shadow" from his post. As we grow accustomed to all things, she grew accustomed to this watchful care, grew to look for him when the day's work was done. But in the middle of September she missed him. Evening after evening came, and she returned home unfollowed and alone. Something had happened.

Yes, something had happened. He had never really held up his head after that second parting with Edith. For days he had lain prostrate, so near to death that they thought death surely must come. But by the end of a week he was better—as much better at least as he ever would be in this world.

"Victor," his aunt would cry out, "I wish—I wish you would consult a physician about this affection of the heart. I am frightened for you—it is not like anything else. There is this famous German—do go to see him to please me."

"To please you, my dear aunt—my good, patient nurse—I would do much," her nephew was wont to answer with a smile. "Believe me your fears are groundless, however. Death takes the hopeful and happy, and passes by such wretches as I am. It all comes of weakness of body and depression of mind; there's nothing serious the matter. If I get worse, you may depend upon it, I'll go and consult Herr Von Werter."

Then it was that he began his nightly duty—the one joy left in his joyless life. Lady Helena and Inez returned to St. John's Wood. And Sir Victor, from his lodgings in Fenton's Hotel, followed his wife home every evening. It was his first thought when he arose in the morning, the one hope that upheld him all the long, weary, aimless day—the one wild delight that was like a spasm, half pain, half joy—when the dusk fell to see her slender figure come forth, to follow his darling, himself unseen, as he fancied, to her humble home. To watch near it, to look up at her lighted windows with eyes full of such love and longing as no words can ever picture, and then, shivering in the rising night wind, to hail a hansom and go home—to live only in the thought of another meeting on the morrow.

Whatever the weather, it has been said, he went. On many occasions he returned drenched through, with chattering teeth and livid lips. Then would follow long, fever-tossed, sleepless nights, and a morning of utter prostration, mental and physical.

But come what might, while he was able to stand, he must return to his post—to his wife.

But Nature, defied long, claimed her penalty at last. There came a day when Sir Victor could rise from his bed no more, when the heart spasms, in their anguish, grew even more than his resolute will could bear. A day when in dire alarm Lady Helena and Inez were once more summoned by faithful Jamison, and when at last—at last the infallible German doctor was sent for.

The interview between physician and patient was long and strictly private. When Herr Von Werter went away at last his phlegmatic Teuton face was set with an unwonted expression of pity and pain. After an interval of almost unendurable suspense, Lady Helena was sent for by her nephew, to be told the result. He lay upon a low sofa, wheeled near the window. The last light of the September day streamed in and fell full upon his face—perhaps that was what glorified it and gave it such a radiant look. A faint smile lingered on his lips, his eyes had a far-off, dreamy look, and were fixed on the rosy evening sky. A strange, unearthly, exalted look altogether, that made his aunt's heart sink like stone.

"Well?" She said it in a tense sort of whisper, longing for, yet dreading, the reply. He turned to her, that smile still on his lips, still in his eyes. He had not looked so well for months. He took her hand.

"Aunt," he said, "you have heard of doomed men sentenced to death receiving their reprieve at the last hour? I think I know to-day how those men must feel. My reprieve has come."

"Victor!" It was a gasp. "Dr. Von Werter says you will recover!"

His eyes turned from her to that radiant brightness in the September sky.

"It is aneurism of the heart. Dr. Von Werter says I won't live three weeks."

* * * * *

They were down in Cheshire. They had taken him home while there was yet time, by slow and easy stages. They took him to Catheron Royals—it was his wish, and they lived but to gratify his wishes now.

The grand old house was as it had been left a year ago—fitted up resplendently for a bride—a bride who had never come. There was one particular room to which he desired to be taken, a spacious and sumptuous chamber, all purple and gilding, and there they laid him upon the bed, from which he would never rise.

It was the close of September now, the days golden and mellow, beautiful with the rich beauty of early autumn, before decay has come. He had grown rapidly worse since that memorable interview with the German doctor, and paralysis, that "death in life" was preceding the fatal footsteps of aneurism of the heart. His lower limbs were paralyzed. The end was very near now. On the last day of September Herr Von Werter paid his last visit.

"It's of no use, madame," he said to Lady Helena; "I can do nothing—nothing whatever. He won't last the week out."

The young baronet turned his serene eyes, serene at last with the awful serenity that precedes the end. He had heard the fiat not intended for his ears.

"You are sure of this, doctor? Sure, mind! I won't last the week out?"

"It is impossible, Sir Victor. I always tell my patients the truth. Your disease is beyond the reach of all earthly skill. The end may come at any moment—in no case can you survive the week."

His serene face did not change. He turned to his aunt with a smile that was often on his lips now:

"At last," he said softly; "at last my darling may come to me—at last I may tell her all. Thank God for this hour of release. Aunt Helena, send for Edith at once."

By the night train, a few hours later, Inez Catheron went up to London. As Madame Mirebeau's young women assembled next morning, she was there before them, waiting to see Miss Stuart.

Edith came—a foreknowledge of the truth in her mind. The interview was brief. She left at once in company with Miss Catheron, and Madame Mirebeau's establishment was to know her no more.

As the short, autumnal day closed in, they were in Cheshire.

It was the evening of the second of October—the anniversary of the bridal eve. And thus at last the bride was coming home. She looked out with eyes that saw nothing of the familiar landscape as it flitted by—the places she had never thought to see more. She was going to Catheron Royals, to the man she had married a year ago. A year ago! what a strange, terrible year it had been—like a bad dream. She shuddered as she recalled it. All was to be told at last, and death was to set all things even. The bride was returning to the bridegroom like this.

All the way from the station to the great house she never spoke a word. Her heart beat with a dull, heavy pain—pity for him—dread of what she was to hear. It was quite dark when they rolled through the lofty gates, up the broad, tree-shaded drive, to the grand portico entrance of the house.

"He is very low this evening, miss," Jamison whispered as he admitted them; "feverish and longing for her ladyship's coming. He begs that as soon as my lady is rested and has had some refreshment she will come to him at once."

Lady Helena met them at the head of the stairs, and took the pale, tired girl in her arms for a moment. Then Edith was in a firelit, waxlit room, lying back for a minute's rest in the downy depths of a great chair. Then coffee and a dainty repast was brought her. She bathed her face and hands, and tried to eat and drink. But the food seemed to choke her. She drank the strong, black coffee eagerly, and was ready to go.

Lady Helena led her to the room where he lay—that purple and gold chamber, with all its dainty and luxurious appointments. She shrank a little as she entered—she remembered it was to have been their room when they returned from their bridal tour. Lady Helena just opened the door to admit her, closed it again, and was gone.

She was alone with the dying man. By the dim light of two wax tapers she beheld him propped up with pillows, his white, eager face turned toward her, the love, that not death itself could for a moment vanquish, shining upon her from his eyes. She was over kneeling by the bedside, holding his hands in hers—how, she could never have told.

"I am sorry—I am sorry!" It was all she could say. In that hour, in the presence of death, she forgot everything, her wrongs, her humiliation. She only knew that he was dying, and that he loved her as she would never be loved again in this world.

"It is better as it is," she heard him saying, when she could hear at all, for the dull, rushing sound in her ears; "far better—far better. My life was torture—could never have been anything else, though I lived fifty years. I was so young—life looked so long, that there were times, yes, Edith, times when for hours I sat debating within myself a suicide's cowardly end. But Heaven has saved me from that. Death has mercifully come of itself to set all things straight, and oh, my darling! to bring you."

She laid her face upon his wasted hand, nearer loving him in his death than she had ever been in his life.

"You have suffered," he said tenderly, looking at her. "I thought to shield you from every care, to make your life one long dream of pleasure and happiness, and see how I have done it! You have hated me—scorned me, and with justice; how could it be otherwise? Even when you hear all, you may not be able to forgive me, and yet, Heaven knows, I did it all for the best. If it were all to come over again, I could not act otherwise than as I have acted. But, my darling, it was very hard on you."

In death as in life his thoughts were not of himself and his own sufferings, but of her. As she looked at him, as she recalled what he had been only a year ago, in the flush and vigor and prime of manhood—it seemed almost too much to bear.

"Oh, Victor! hush," she cried, hiding her face again, "you break my heart!"

His feeble fingers closed over hers with all their dying strength—that faint, happy smile came over his lips. "I don't want to distress you," he said very gently; "you have suffered enough without that. Edith, I feel wonderfully happy to-night—it seems to me I have no wish left—as though I were sure of your forgiveness beforehand. It is joy enough to see you here—to feel your hand in mine once more, to know I am at liberty to tell you the truth at last. I have longed for this hour with a longing I can never describe. Only to be forgiven and die—I wanted no more. For what would life have been without you? My dearest, I wonder if in the dark days that are gone, whatever you may have doubted, my honor, my sanity, if you ever doubted my love for you?"

"I don't know," she answered, in a stifled voice. "My thoughts have been very dark—very desperate. There were times when there seemed no light on earth, no hope in Heaven. I dare not tell you—I dare not think—how wicked and reckless my heart has been."

"Poor child!" he said, with a touch of infinite compassion. "You were so young—it was all so sudden, so terrible, so incomprehensible. Draw up that hassock, Edith, and sit here by my side, and listen. No, you must let go my hand. How can I tell whether you will not shrink from it and me with horror when you know all."

Without a word, she drew the low seat close to the bed, and shading her face with her hand, listened, motionless as a statue, to the brief story of the secret that had held them apart so long.

"It all begins," Sir Victor's faint, low voice said, "with the night of my father's death, three weeks before our wedding-day. That night I learned the secret of my mother's murder, and learned to pity my unhappy father as I had never pitied him before. Do you remember, Edith, the words you spoke to Lady Helena the day before you ran away from Powyss Place? You said Inez Catheron was not the murderer, though she had been accused of it, nor Juan Catheron, though he had been suspected of it—that you believed Sir Victor Catheron had killed his own wife. Edith, you were right. Sir Victor Catheron murdered his own wife!

"I learned it that fatal night. Lady Helena and Inez had known it all along. Juan Catheron more than suspected it. Bad as he was, he kept that secret. My mother was stabbed by my father's hand.

"Why did he do it? you ask. I answer, because he was mad—mad for weeks before. And he knew it, though no one else did. With the cunning of insanity he kept his secret, not even his wife suspected that his reason was unsound. He was a monomaniac. Insanity, as you have heard, is hereditary in our family, in different phases; the phase it took with him was homicidal mania. On all other points he was sane—on this, almost from the first, he had been insane—the desire to take his wife's life.

"It is horrible, is it not—almost incredibly horrible? It is true, nevertheless. Before the honeymoon was ended, his homicidal mania developed itself—an almost insurmountable desire, whenever he was alone in her presence, to take her life. Out of the very depth and intensity of his passion for her his madness arose. He loved her with the whole strength of his heart and being, and—the mad longing was with him always, to end her life while she was all his own—in short, to kill her.

"He could not help it; he knew his madness—he shrank in horror from it—he battled with it—he prayed for help—and for over a year he controlled himself. But it was always there—always. How long it might have lain dormant—how long he would have been able to withstand his mad desire, no one can tell. But Juan Catheron came and claimed her as his wife, and jealousy finished what a dreadful hereditary insanity had begun.

"On that fatal evening he had seen them together somewhere in the grounds, and though he hid what he felt, the sight had goaded him almost to frenzy. Then came the summons from Lady Helena to go to Powyss Place. He set out, but before he had gone half-way, the demon of jealously whispered in his ear, 'Your wife is with Juan Catheron now—go back and surprise them.' He turned and went back—a madman—the last glimpse of reason and self-control gone. He saw his wife, not with Juan Catheron, but peacefully and innocently asleep by the open window of the room where he had left her. The dagger, used as a paper knife, lay on the table near. I say he was utterly mad for the time. In a moment the knife was up to the hilt in her heart, dealing death with that one strong blow! He drew it out and—she lay dead before him.

"Then a great, an awful horror, fell upon him. Not of the consequence of his crime; only of that which lay so still and white before him. He turned like the madman he was and fled. By some strange chance he met no one. In passing through the gates he flung the dagger among the fern, leaped on his horse, and was gone.

"He rode straight to Powyss Place. Before he reached it some of insanity's cunning returned to him. He must not let people know he had done it; they would find out he was mad; they would shut him up in a madhouse; they would shrink from him in loathing and horror. How he managed it, he told me with his dying breath, he never knew—he did somehow. No one suspected him, only Inez Catheron, returning to the nursery, had seen all—had seen the deadly blow struck, had seen his instant flight, and stood spell-bound, speechless and motionless as a stone. He remembered no more—the dark night of oblivion and total insanity closed about him only to open at briefest intervals from that to the hour of his death.

"That, Edith, was the awful story I was told that night—the story that has ruined and wrecked my whole life and yours. I listened to it all as you sit and listen now, still as a stone, frozen with a horror too intense for words. I can recall as clearly now as the moment I heard them the last words he ever spoke to me:

"'I tell you this partly because I am dying, and I think you ought to know, partly because I want to warn you. They tell me you are about to be married. Victor, beware what you do. The dreadful taint is in your blood as it was in mine—you love her as I loved the wife I murdered. Again I say take care—take care! Be warned by me; my fate may be yours, your mother's fate hers. It is my wish, I would say command, if I dared, that you never marry; that you let the name and the curse die out; that no more sons may be born to hear the ghastly story I have told you.'

"I could listen to no more, I rushed from the room, from the house, out into the darkness and the rain, as if the curse he spoke of had already come upon me—as though I were already going mad. How long I remained, what I did, I don't know. Soul and body seemed in a whirl. The next thing I knew was my aunt summoning me into the house. My most miserable father was dead.