"Sir Ronald:—I have deceived you. I have done very wrong. I don't love you—I never can; and I cannot be your wife. I am very sorry; I ask you to forgive me—to be generous, and release me from my promise. I should be miserable as your wife, and I would make you miserable too. Oh! pray forgive me, and release me, for indeed I cannot marry you.

"Kate Danton."

She folded the note rapidly, placed it in an envelope, wrote the address, "Sir Ronald Keith," and sealed it. Still in the same rapid way, as if she were afraid to pause, afraid to trust herself, she arose and rang the bell. Eunice answered the summons, and stared aghast at her mistress' face.

"Do you know if Sir Ronald is in the house?" Miss Danton asked.

"Yes, Miss; he's sitting in the library, reading a paper."

"Is he alone?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Take this letter to him, then; and, Eunice, tell Miss Grace I will not be down to dinner. You can fetch me a cup of tea here. I do not feel very well."

Eunice departed on her errand. Kate drew a long, long breath of relief when she closed the door after her. She drew her favourite chair up before the fire, took a book off the table, and seated herself resolutely to read. She was determined to put off thought—to let events take their course, and cease tormenting herself, for to-night at least.

Eunice brought up the tea and a little trayful of dainties, drew the curtain, and lit the lamp. Kate laid down her book and looked up.

"Did you deliver the note, Eunice?"

"Yes, Miss."

"And my message to Miss Grace?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Very well, then—you may go."

The girl went away, and Kate sat sipping her tea and reading. She sat for upward of half an hour, and then she arose and took the way to the apartments of Mr. Richards. It was after ten before she returned and entered her sitting-room. She found Eunice waiting for her, and she resigned herself into her hands at once.

"I shall go to bed early to-night," she said. "My head aches. I must try and sleep."

Sleep mercifully came to her almost as soon as she laid her head on her pillow. She slept as she had not done for many a night before, and awoke next morning refreshed and strengthened for the new trials of the new day. She dreaded the meeting with her discarded suitor, with a nervous dread quite indescribable; but the meeting must be, and she braced herself for the encounter with a short, fervent prayer, and went down stairs.

There was no one in the dining-room, but the table was laid. She walked to the window, and stood looking out at the black, bare trees, writhing and groaning in the morning wind, and the yellow sunshine glittering on the frozen snow. While she stood, a quick, heavy tread crossed the hall—a tread she knew well. Her heart throbbed; her breath came quick. A moment later, and Sir Ronald entered, the open note she had sent him in his hand.

"What is the meaning of this folly, Kate?" he demanded, angrily, striding towards her. "Here, take it back. You did not mean it."

"I do mean it," Kate said, shrinking. "I have behaved very badly; I am very sorry, but I mean it."

His black brows contracted stormily over his gloomy eyes.

"Do you mean to say you have jilted me? Have you been playing the capricious coquette from first to last?"

"I am very sorry! I am very sorry!" poor Kate faltered. "I have done wrong! Oh, forgive me! And please don't be angry."

He broke into a harsh laugh.

"You are sorry! and you have done wrong! Upon my soul, Miss Danton, you have a mild way of putting it. Here, take back this nonsensical letter. I can't and won't free you from your engagement."

He held the letter out, but she would not take it. The strong and proud spirit was beginning to rise; but the recollection that she had drawn this on herself held her in check.

"I cannot take back one word in that letter. I made a great mistake in thinking I could marry you; I see it now more than ever. I have owned my fault. I have told you I am sorry. I can do no more. As a gentleman you are bound to release me."

"Of course," he said, with a bitter sneer. "As a gentleman, I am bound to let you play fast and loose with me to your heart's content. You have behaved very honourably to me, Miss Danton, and very much like a gentlewoman. Is it because you have been jilted yourself, that you want the pleasure of jilting another? It is hardly the thing to revenge Reginald Stanford's doings on me."

Up leaped the indignant blood to Kate's face; bright flashed the angry fire from her eyes.

"Go!" she cried, in a ringing tone of command. "Leave my father's house, Sir Ronald Keith! I thought I was talking to a gentleman. I have found my mistake. Go! If you were monarch of the world, I would not marry you now."

He ground his teeth with a savage oath of fury and rage. The letter she had sent him was still in his hand. He tore it fiercely into fragments, and flung them in a white shower at her feet.

"I will go," he said; "but I shall remember this day, and so shall you. I shall take good care to let the world know how you behave to an honourable man when a dishonourable one deserts you."

With the last unmanly taunt he was gone, banging the house door after him until the old mansion shook. And Kate fled back to her room, and fell down on her knees before her little white bed, and prayed with a passionate outburst of tears for strength to bear her bitter, bitter cross.

Later in the day a man from the village hotel came to Danton Hall for the baronet's luggage. Captain Danton, mystified and bewildered, sought his daughter for an explanation of these strange goings on. Kate related the rather humiliating story, leaving out Sir Ronald's cruel taunts, in dread of a quarrel between him and her father.

"Don't say anything about it, papa," Kate said, imploringly. "I have behaved very badly, and I feel more wretched and sorry for it all than I can tell you. Don't try to see Sir Ronald. He is justly very angry, and might say things in his anger that would provoke a quarrel. I am miserable enough now without that."

Captain Danton promised, and quietly dispatched the Scotchman's belongings. That evening Sir Ronald departed for Quebec, to take passage for Liverpool.



CHAPTER XX.

BEARING THE CROSS.

The dead blank that comes after excitement of any kind is very trying to bear. The dull flow of monotonous life, following the departure of the Scotch baronet, told severely on Kate. The feverish excitement of that brief second engagement had sustained her, and kindled a brighter fire in her blue eyes, and a hot glow on her pale cheeks. But in the stagnant quiet that succeeded, the light grew dim, the roses faded, and the old lassitude and weariness returned. She had not even the absorbing task of playing amateur Sister of Charity, for the fever was almost gone, and there was no more left for her to do.

There was no scandal or eclat this time about the broken-off marriage, for it had been kept very secret—only in the kitchen-cabinet there were endless surmisings and wonderings.

The wedding garments made for the second time for Miss Danton were for the second time put quietly away.

Father Francis, in all his visits to Danton Hall, never made the slightest allusion to the event that had taken place. Only, he laid his hand on Kate's drooping head, with a "Heaven bless you, my child!" so fervently uttered that she felt repaid for all the humiliation she had undergone.

So very quietly at Danton Hall December wore away, and Christmas-eve dawned, Grace Danton's wedding-day. About ten in the morning the large, roomy, old-fashioned family sleigh drove up before the front door, and the bridal party entered, and were whirled to the church. A very select party indeed; the bride and bridegroom, the bride's brother, and the bridegroom's two daughters.

Grace's brown velvet bonnet, brown silk dress, and seal jacket were not exactly the prescribed attire for a bride; but with the hazel hair, smooth and shining, and the hazel eyes full of happy light, Grace looked very sweet and fair.

Eeny, in pale silk and a pretty hat with a long white plume, looked fair as a lily and happy as a queen, and very proud of her post of bride-maid.

And Kate, who was carrying her cross bravely now, very simply attired, sat beside Doctor Frank and tried to listen and be interested in what he was saying, and all the time feeling like one in some unnatural dream. She saw the dull, gray, sunless sky, speaking of coming storm, the desolate snow-covered fields, the quiet village, and the little church, with its tall spire and glittering cross. She saw it all in a vague, lost sort of way, and was in the church and seated in a pew, and listening and looking on, like a person walking in her sleep. Her father going to be married! How strange and unnatural it seemed. She had never grown familiarized with the idea, perhaps because she would never indulge it, and now he was kneeling on the altar steps, with Frank Danton beside him, and Eeny at Grace's left hand, and the Cure and Father Francis were there in stole and surplice, and the ceremony was going on. She saw the ring put on Grace's finger, she heard the Cure's French accented voice, "Henry Danton, wilt thou have Grace Danton to be thy wedded wife?" and that firm, clear "I will," in reply.

Then it was all over; they were married. Her pale face drooped on the front rail of the pew, and wet it with a rain of hot tears.

The wedding quartet were going into the sacristy to register their names. She could linger no longer, although she felt as if she would like to stay there and die, so she arose and went wearily after. Her father looked at her with anxious, imploring eyes; she went up and kissed him, with a smile on her colourless face.

"I hope you will be very happy, papa," she whispered.

And then she turned to Grace, and touched her cold lips to the bride's flushed cheek.

"I wish you very much happiness, Mrs. Danton," she said.

Yes, she could never be mother—she was only Mrs. Danton, her father's wife; but Father Francis gave her a kindly, approving glance, even for this. She turned away from him with a weary sigh. Oh, what trouble and mockery everything was? What a dreary, wretched piece of business life was altogether! The sense of loneliness and desolation weighed on her heart, this dull December morning, like lead.

There was to be a wedding-breakfast, but the Cure, and Father Francis, and Doctor Frank were the only guests.

Kate sat at her father's side—Grace presided now, Grace was mistress of the Hall—and listened in the same dazed and dreary way to the confusion of tongues, the fire of toasts, the clatter of china and silver, and the laughter of the guests. She sat very still, eating and drinking, because she must eat and drink to avoid notice, and never thinking how beautiful she looked in her blue silk dress, her neck and arms gleaming like ivory against azure. What would it ever matter again how she looked?

Captain and Mrs. Danton were going on a brief bridal-tour to Toronto—not to be absent over a fortnight. They were to depart by the two o'clock train; so, breakfast over, Grace hurried away to change her dress. Dr. Frank was going to drive Eeny to the station, in the cutter, to see them off, but Kate declined to accompany them. She shook hands with them at the door; and then turned and went back into the empty, silent house.

A wedding, when the wedded pair, ashamed of themselves, go scampering over the country in search of distraction and amusement, leaves any household almost as forlorn as a funeral. Dead silence succeeds tumult and bustle; those left behind sit down blankly, feeling a gap in their circle, a loss never to be repaired. It was worse than usual at Danton Hall. The wintry weather, precluding all possibility of seeking forgetfulness and recreation out of doors, the absence of visitors—for the Cure, Father Francis, Doctor Danton, and the Reverend Mr. Clare comprised Kate's whole visiting list now—all tended to make dismalness more dismal. She could remember this time last year, when Reginald and Rose, and Sir Ronald, and all were with them—so many then, so few now; only herself and Eeny left.

The memory of the past time came back with a dulled sense of pain and misery. She had suffered so much that the sense of suffering was blunted—there was only a desolate aching of the heart when she thought of it now.

December and the old year died out, in a great winding-sheet of snow. January came, and its first week dragged away, and the master and mistress of the house were daily expected home.

Late in the afternoon of a January day, Kate sat at the drawing-room window, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes fixed on the white darkness. The wind made such a racket and uproar within and without, that she did not hear a modest tap at the door, or the turning of the handle. It was only when a familiar voice sounded close to her elbow that she started from her reverie.

"If you please, Miss Kate."

"Oh, is it you, Ogden? I did not hear you. What is the matter?"

Mr. Ogden drew nearer and lowered his voice.

"Miss Kate, have you been upstairs to-day?"

Kate knew what he meant by this rather guarded question—had she been to see Mr. Richards?

"No," she said in alarm; "is there anything the matter?"

"I am afraid there is, Miss Kate. I am afraid he is not very well."

"Not very well!" repeated Miss Danton. "Do you mean to say he is ill, Ogden?"

"Yes, Miss Kate, I am afraid he is. He wasn't very well last night, and this morning he is worse. He complains dreadful of headache, and he ain't got no appetite whatsomever. He's been lying down pretty much all day."

"Why did you not tell me sooner?" Kate cried, with a pang of remorse at her own neglect. "I will go to him at once."

She hastened upstairs, and into her brother's rooms. The young man was in the bedroom, lying on the bed, dressed, and in a sort of stupor. As Kate bent over him, and spoke, he opened his eyes, dull and heavy.

"Harry, dear," Kate said, kissing him, "what is the matter? Are you ill?"

Harry Danton made an effort to raise, but fell back on the pillow.

"My head aches as if it would split open, and I feel as if I had a ton-weight bearing down every limb. I think I am going to have the fever."

Kate turned pale.

"Oh, Harry, for Heaven's sake don't think that! The fever has left the village; why should you have it now?"

He did not reply. The heavy stupor that deadened every sense bore him down, and took away the power of speech. His eyes closed, and in another moment he had dropped off into a deep, lethargic sleep.

Kate arose and went out into the corridor, where she found Ogden waiting.

"He has fallen asleep," she said. "I want you to undress him, and get him into bed properly, while I go and prepare a saline draught. I am afraid he is going to be very ill."

She passed on, and ran down stairs to her father's study, where the medicine-chest stood. It took her some time to prepare the saline draught; and when she returned to the bed-chamber, Ogden had finished his task, and the sick man was safely in bed. He still slept—heavily, deep—but his breathing was laboured and his lips parched.

"I will give him this when he awakes," Kate said; "and I will sit up with him all night. You can remain in the next room, Ogden, so as to be within call, if wanted."

Kate remained by her sick brother through the long hours of that wintry night. She sat by the bedside, bathing the hot face and fevered hands, and holding cooling drinks to the dry lips. The shaded lamp lit the room dimly, too dimly to see to read; so she sat patiently, listening to the snow-storm, and watching her sick brother's face. In the next room Mr. Ogden slept the sleep of the just, in an arm-chair, his profound snoring making a sort of accompaniment to the howling of the wind.

The slow, slow hours dragged away, and morning came. It found the patient worse, weak, prostrated, and deadly sick, but not delirious.

"I know I have the fever, Kate," he said, in a weak whisper; "I am glad of it. I only hope it will be merciful, and take me off."

Kate went down to breakfast, which she could not eat, and then returned to the sick-room. Her experience among the sick of the village had made her skilful in the disease; but, despite all she could do, Harry grew weaker and worse. She dared not summon help, she dared not call in the Doctor, until her father's return.

"He ought to be here to-day," she thought. "Heaven grant it! If he does not and Harry keeps growing worse, I will go and speak to Father Francis this evening."

Fortunately this unpleasant duty was not necessary. The late afternoon train brought the newly-wedded pair home. Kate and Eeny met them in the hall, the latter kissing both with effusion, and Kate only shaking hands, with a pale and anxious countenance.

Mrs. Grace went upstairs with Eeny, to change her travelling costume, and Captain Danton was left standing in the hall with his eldest daughter.

"What is it, my dear?" he asked; "what has gone wrong?"

"Something very serious, I am afraid, papa. Harry is ill."

"Ill! How?—when?—what is the matter with him?"

"The fever," Kate said, in a whisper. "No one in the house knows it yet but Ogden. He was taken ill night before last, but I knew nothing of it till yesterday. I sat up with him last night, and did what I could, but I fear he is getting worse. I wanted to call in the Doctor, but I dared not until your return. What shall we do?"

"Send for Doctor Frank immediately," replied her father, promptly; "I have no fear of trusting him. He is the soul of honour, and poor Harry's secret is as safe with him as with ourselves. Grace has heard the story. I told her in Montreal. Of course, I could have no secrets from my wife. I will go to the village myself, and at once; that is, as soon as I have seen the poor boy. Let us go up now, my dear."

Kate followed her father upstairs, and into the sick man's room. With the approach of night he had grown worse, and was slightly delirious. He did not know his father when he bent over and spoke to him. He was tossing restlessly on his pillow, and muttering incoherently as he tossed.

"My poor boy! My poor Harry!" his father said, with tears in his-eyes. "Misfortune seems to have marked him for its own. Remain with him, Kate; I will go at once for Doctor Danton."

Five minutes later the Captain was galloping towards the village hotel, through the gray, gathering dusk. The young Doctor was in, seated in his own room, reading a ponderous-looking volume. He arose to greet his visitor, but stopped short at sight of his grave and anxious face.

"There is nothing wrong, I hope?" he inquired; "nothing has happened at the Hall?"

The Captain looked around the little chamber with the same anxious glance.

"We are quite alone?" he said.

"Quite," replied his brother-in-law, very much surprised.

"I have a story to tell you—a secret to confide to you. Your services are required at the Hall; but before I can avail myself of these services, I have a sacred trust to confide to you—a trust I am certain you will never betray."

"I shall never betray any trust you may repose in me, Captain Danton," the young man answered gravely.

Some dim inkling of the truth was in his mind as he spoke. Captain Danton drew his chair closer, and in a low, hurried voice began his story. The story he had once before told Reginald Stanford, the story of his unfortunate son.

Doctor Frank listened with a face of changeless calm. No surprise was expressed in his grave, earnest, listening countenance. When the Captain had finished his narrative, with an account of the fever that rendered his presence at once necessary, a faint flush dyed his forehead.

"I shall be certain now," he thought. "I only saw Agnes Darling's husband once, and then for a moment; but I shall know him again if I ever see him."

"I shall be with you directly," he said, rising; "as soon as they saddle my horse."

He rang the bell and gave the order. By the time his cap and coat were on, and a few other preparations made, the hostler had the horse at the door.

It was quite dark now; but the road was white with snow and the two men rode rapidly to the Hall with the strong January wind blowing in their faces. They went upstairs at once, and Doctor Frank, with an odd sensation, followed the master of Danton Hall across the threshold of that mysterious Mr. Richards' room.

The Captain's son lay in a feverish sleep, tossing wildly and raving incoherently. Kate, sitting by his bedside, he mistook for some one else, calling her "Agnes," and talking in disjointed sentences of days and things long since past.

"He thinks she is his wife," the Captain said, very sadly; "poor boy!"

The Doctor turned up the lamp, and looked long and earnestly into the fever-flushed face. His own seemed to have caught the reflection of that red glow, when at last he looked up.

"It is the fever," he said, "and a very serious case. You sat up last night, your father tells me, Miss Kate?"

"Yes," Kate answered.

She was very white and thoroughly worn out.

"You are not strong enough to do anything of the kind. You look half-dead now. I will remain here all night, and do you at once go and lie down."

"Thank you very much," Kate said, gratefully. "I can sleep when I know you are with him. Do you think there is any danger?"

"I trust not. You and I have seen far more serious cases down there in St. Croix, and we have brought them round. It is a very sad story, his—I am very sorry for your brother." Kate stooped and kissed the hot face, her tears falling on it.

"Poor, poor Harry! The crime of that dreadful murder should not lie at his door, but at that of the base wretch he made his wife!"

"Are you quite sure, Miss Danton," said the young Doctor, seriously, "that there may not have been some terrible mistake? From what your father tells me, your brother had very little proof of his wife's criminality beyond the words of his friend Furniss, who may have been actuated by some base motive of his own."

"He had the proof of his own senses," Kate said, indignantly; "he saw the man Crosby with his wife, and heard his words. The guilt of Harry's rash deed should rest far more on her than on him."

She turned from the room, leaving her father and the young Doctor to watch by the sick man all night. The Captain sought his wife, and explained the cause of her brother's sudden summons; and Kate, in her own room, quite worn out, lay down dressed as she was, and fell into a profound, refreshing sleep, from which she did not wake until late next morning.

When she returned to her brother's chamber, she found the Doctor and the Captain gone, and Grace keeping watch. Mrs. Danton explained that Frank had been summoned away about an hour previously to attend a patient in the village; and the Captain, at her entreaty, had gone to take some rest. The patient was much the same, and was now asleep.

"But you should not have come here, Mrs. Danton," Kate expostulated. "You know this fever is infectious."

Mrs. Danton smiled.

"My life is of no more value than yours or my husband's. I am not afraid—I should be very unhappy if I were not permitted to do what little good I can."

For the second time there flashed into Kate's mind the thought that she had never done this woman justice. Here she was, generous and self-sacrificing, risking her own safety by the sick-bed of her husband's own son. Could it be that after all she had married her father because she loved him, and not because he was Captain Danton of Danton Hall?

"Father Francis ought to know," she mused; "and Father Francis sings her praises on every occasion. I know Eeny loves her dearly, and the servants like and respect her in a manner I never saw surpassed. Can it be that I have been blind, and unjust, and prejudiced from first to last, and that my father's wife is a thousand times better than I am?"

The two women sat together in the sick-room all the forenoon. Kate talked to her step-mother far more socially and kindly than she had ever talked to her before, and was surprised to find Grace had a ready knowledge of every subject she started. She smiled at herself by and by in a little pause in the conversation.

"She is really very pleasant," she thought. "I shall begin to like her presently, I am afraid."

Early in the afternoon, Doctor Frank returned. There was little change in his patient, and no occasion for his remaining. He stayed half an hour, and then took his hat to leave. He had more pressing cases in the village to attend, and departed promising to call again before nightfall.

The news of Mr. Richards' illness had spread by this time through the house. The young Doctor knew this, and wondered if Agnes Darling had heard it, and why she did not try to see him. He was thinking about it as he walked briskly down the avenue, and resolving he must try and see her that evening, when a little black figure stepped out from the shadow of the trees and confronted him.

"'Angels and ministers of grace defend us,'" ejaculated the Doctor; "I thought it was a ghost, and I find it is only Agnes Darling. You look about as pale as a ghost, though. What is the matter with you?"

She clasped her hands and looked at him piteously.

"He is sick. You have seen him? Oh, Doctor Danton! is it Harry?"

"My dear Mrs. Danton, I am happy to tell you it is. Don't faint now, or I shall tell you nothing more."

She leaned against a tree, white and trembling; her hands clasped over her beating heart.

"And he is ill, and I may not see him. Oh, tell me what is the matter."

"Fever. Don't alarm yourself unnecessarily. I do not think his life is in any danger."

"Thank God! Oh, thank God for that!"

She covered her face with her slender hands, and he could see the fast-falling tears.

"My dear Agnes," he said, kindly. "I don't like to see you distress yourself in this manner. Besides, there is no occasion. I think your darkest days are over. I don't see why you may not go and nurse your husband."

Her hands dropped from before her face, her great dark eyes fixed themselves on his face, dilated and wildly.

"You would like it, wouldn't you? Well, I really don't think there is anything to hinder. He is calling for you perpetually, if it will make you happy to know it. Tell Miss Danton your story at once; tell her who you are, and if she doubts your veracity, refer her to me. I have a letter from Mr. Crosby, testifying in the most solemn manner your innocence. I wrote to him, Agnes, as I could not find time to visit him. Tell Miss Kate to-day, if you choose, and you may watch by your husband's bedside to night. Good afternoon. Old Renaud is shouting out with rheumatism; I must go and see after him."

He strode away, leaving Agnes clinging to the tree, trembling and white. The time had come, then. Her husband lived, and might be returned to her yet. At the thought she fell down on her knees on the snowy ground, with the most fervent prayer of thanksgiving in her heart she had ever uttered.

Some two hours later, and just as the dusk of the short winter day was falling, Kate came out of her brother's sick-room. She looked jaded and worn, as she lingered for a moment at the hall-window to watch the grayish-yellow light fade out of the sky. She had spent the best part of the day in the close chamber, and the bright outer air seemed unspeakably refreshing. She went to her room, threw a large cloth mantle round her shoulders, drew the fur-trimmed hood over her head, and went out.

The frozen fish-pond glittered like a sheet of ivory in the fading light; and walking slowly around it, she saw a little familiar figure, robed like a nun, in black. She had hardly seen the pale seamstress for weeks, she had been too much absorbed in other things; but now, glad of companionship, she crossed over to the fish-pond and joined her. As she drew closer, and could see the girl's face in the cold, pale twilight, she was struck with its pallor and indescribably mournful expression.

"You poor, pale child!" Miss Danton said; "you look like some stray spirit wandering ghostily around this place. What is the matter now, that you look so wretchedly forlorn?"

Agnes looked up in the beautiful, pitying face, with her heart in her eyes.

"Nothing," she said, tremulously, "but the old trouble, that never leaves me. I think sometimes I am the most unhappy creature in the whole wide world."

"Every heart knoweth its own bitterness," Miss Danton said, steadily. "Trouble seems to be the lot of all. But yours—you have never told me what it is, and I think I would like to know."

They were walking together round the frozen pond, and the face of the seamstress was turned away from the dying light. Kate could not see it, but she could hear the agitation in her voice when she spoke.

"I am almost afraid to tell you. I am afraid, for oh, Miss Danton! I have deceived you."

"Deceived me, Agnes?"

"Yes; I came here in a false character. Oh, don't be angry, please; but I am not Miss Darling—I am a married woman."

"Married! You?"

She looked down in speechless astonishment at the tiny figure and childlike face of the little creature beside her.

"You married!" she repeated. "You small, childish-looking thing! And where in the wide world is your husband?"

Agnes Darling covered her face with her hands, and broke out into a hysterical passion of tears.

"Don't cry, you poor little unfortunate. Tell me if this faithless husband is the friend I once heard you say you were in search of?"

"Yes, yes," Agnes answered, through her sobs. "Oh, Miss Danton! Please, please, don't be angry with me, for, indeed, I am very miserable."

"Angry with you, my poor child," Kate said, tenderly; "no, indeed! But tell me all about it. How did this cruel husband come to desert you? Did he not love you?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes."

"And you—did you love him?"

"With my whole heart."

The memory of her own dead love stung Kate to the very soul.

"Oh!" she said, bitterly, "it is only a very old story, after all. We are all alike; we give up our whole heart for a man's smile, and, verily, we get our reward. This husband of yours took a fancy, I suppose, to some new and fresher face, and threw you over for her sake?"

Agnes Darling looked up with wide black eyes.

"Oh, no, no! He loved me faithfully. He never was false, as you think. It was not that; he thought I was false, and base, and wicked. Oh!" she cried, covering her lace with her hands again; "I can't tell you how base he thought me."

"I think I understand," Kate said, slowly. "But how was it? It was not true, of course."

Agnes lifted her face, raised her solemn, dark eyes mournfully to the gaze of the earnest blue ones.

"It was not true," she replied simply; "I loved him with all my heart, and him only. He was all the world to me, for I was alone, an orphan, sisterless and brotherless. I had only one relative in the wide world—a distant cousin, a young man, who boarded in the same house with me. I was only a poor working-girl of New York, and my husband was far above me—I thought so then, know it since. I knew very little of him. He boarded in the same house, and I only saw him at the table. How he ever came to love me—a little pale, quiet thing like me—I don't know; but he did love me—he did—it is very sweet to remember that now. He loved me, and he married me, but under an assumed name, under the name of Darling, which I know now was not his real one."

She paused a little, and Kate looked at her with sudden breathless interest. How like this story was to another, terribly familiar.

"We were married," Agnes went on, softly and sadly, "and I was happy. Oh, Miss Danton, I can never tell you how unspeakably happy I was for a time. But it was not for long. Troubles began to gather thick and fast before many months. My husband was a gambler"—she paused a second or two at Miss Danton's violent start—"and got into his old habits of staying out very late at night, and often, when he had lost money, coming home moody and miserable. I had no influence over him to stop him. He had a friend, another gambler, and a very bad man, who drew him on. It was very dreary sitting alone night after night until twelve or one o'clock, and my only visitor was my cousin, the young man I told you of. He was in love, and clandestinely engaged to a young lady, whose family were wealthy and would not for a moment hear of the match. I was his only confidante, and he liked to come in evenings and talk to me of Helen. Sometimes, seeing me so lonely and low-spirited, he would stay with me within half an hour of Harry's return; but Heaven knows neither he nor I ever dreamed it could be wrong. No harm might ever have come of it, for my husband knew and liked him, but for that gambling companion, whose name was Furniss."

She paused again, trembling and agitated, for Miss Danton had uttered a sharp, involuntary exclamation.

"Go on! Go on!" she said breathlessly.

"This Furniss hated my cousin, for he was his successful rival with Helen Hamilton, and took his revenge in the cruelest and basest manner. He discovered that my cousin was in the habit of visiting me occasionally in the evening, and he poisoned my husband's mind with the foulest insinuations.

"He told him that William Crosby, my cousin, was an old lover, and that—oh, I cannot tell you what he said! He drove my husband, who was violent and passionate, half mad, and sent him home one night early, when he knew Will was sure to be with me. I remember that dreadful night so well—I have terrible reason to remember it. Will sat with me, talking of Helen, telling me he could wait no longer; that she had consented, and they were going to elope the very next night. While he was speaking the door was burst open, and Harry stood before us, livid with fury, a pistol in his hand. A second later, and there was a report—William Crosby sprang from his seat and fell forward, with a scream I shall never forget. I think I was screaming too; I can hardly recollect what I did, but the room was full in a moment, and my husband was gone—how, I don't know. That was two years ago, and I have never seen him since; but I think—"

She stopped short, for Kate Danton had caught her suddenly and violently by the arm, her eyes dilating.

"Agnes!" she exclaimed, passionately; "what is it you have been telling me? Who are you?"

Agnes Darling held up her clasped hands.

"Oh, Miss Danton," she cried, "for our dear Lord's sake, have pity on me! I am your brother's wretched wife!"



CHAPTER XXI.

DOCTOR DANTON'S GOOD WORKS.

The two women stood in the bleak twilight looking at each other—Agnes with piteous, imploring eyes, Kate dazed and hopelessly bewildered.

"My brother's wife!" she repeated. "You! Agnes Darling!"

"Oh, dear Miss Danton, have pity on me! Let me see him. Let me tell him I am innocent, and that I love him with my whole heart. Don't cast me off! Don't despise me! Indeed, I am not the guilty creature he thinks me!"

"Agnes, wait," Kate said, holding out her hand. "I am so confounded by this revelation that I hardly know what to do or say. Tell me how you found out my brother was here? Did you know it when you came?"

"Oh, no. I came as seamstress, with a lady from New York to Canada, and when I left her I lived in the Petite Rue de St. Jacques. There you found me; and I came here, never dreaming that I was to live in the same house with my lost husband."

"And how did you make the discovery? Did you see him?"

"Yes, Miss Danton; the night you were all away at the party, you remember. I saw him on the stairs, returning to his room. I thought then it was a spirit, and I fainted, as you know, and Doctor Danton was sent for, and he told me it was no spirit, but Harry himself."

"Doctor Danton!" exclaimed Kate, in unbounded astonishment. "How did Doctor Danton come to know anything about it?"

"Why, it was he—oh, I haven't told you. I must go back to that dreadful night when my cousin was shot. As I told you, the room was filled with people, and among them there was a young man—a Doctor, he told us—who made them lift poor Will on the bed, and proceeded to examine his wound. It was not fatal."

She stopped, for Kate had uttered a cry and grasped her arm.

"Not fatal!" she gasped. "Oh, Agnes! Agnes! Tell me he did not die!"

"He did not, thank Heaven. He lived, and lives still—thanks to the skill and care of Doctor Danton."

Kate clasped her hands with a fervent prayer of thanksgiving.

"Oh, my poor Harry!" she cried, "immured so long in those dismal rooms, when you were free to walk the world. But perhaps the punishment was merited. Go on, Agnes; tell me all."

"The wound was not fatal, but his state was very critical. Doctor Danton extracted the bullet, and remained with him all night. I was totally helpless. I don't remember anything about it, or anything that occurred for nearly a fortnight. Then I was in a neighbour's room; and she told me I had been very ill, and, but for the kindness and care of the young Doctor, must have died. She told me William lived, and was slowly getting better; but the good Doctor had hired a nurse to attend him, and came to the house every day. I saw him that very afternoon, and had a long talk with him. He told me his name was Doctor Danton, that he had come from Germany on business, and must return in a very few days now. He said he had friends in Canada, whom he had intended to visit, but this unfortunate affair had prevented him. He had not the heart to leave us in our forlorn and dangerous state. He would not tell his friends of his visit to America at all, so they would have no chance to feel offended. Oh, Miss Danton, I cannot tell you how good, how noble, how generous he was. He left New York the following week; but before he went he forced me to take money enough to keep me six months. I never felt wholly desolate until I saw him go, and then I thought my heart would break. Heaven bless him! He is the noblest man I ever knew."

Kate's heart thrilled with a sudden response. And this was the man she had slighted, and perhaps despised—this hero, this great, generous, good man!

"You are right," she said; "he is noble. And after that, Agnes, what did you do?"

"I dismissed the hired nurse, and took care of poor Will until he fully recovered. Then he resumed his business; and I went back, sick and sorrowful, to my old life. I can never tell you how miserable I was. The husband I loved was lost to me forever. He had gone, believing me guilty of the worst of crimes, and I should never see him again to tell him I was innocent. The thought nearly broke my heart; but I lived and lived, when, I only prayed, wickedly, I know, to die. I came to Canada—I came here; and here I met my best friend once more. I saw Harry, or an apparition, as I took it to be, until Doctor Danton assured me to the contrary. He did not know, but he suspected the truth—he is so clever; and now that he has seen him, and knows for certain, he told me to tell you who I was. Miss Danton, I have told you the simple truth, as Heaven hears me. I have been true and faithful in thought and word to the husband I loved. Don't send me away; don't disbelieve and despise me."

She lifted her streaming eyes and clasped hands in piteous supplication. There were tears, too, in the blue eyes of Kate as she took the little supplicant in her arms.

"Despise you, my poor Agnes! What a wretch you must take me to be! No, I believe you, I love you, you poor little broken-down child. I shall not send you away. I know Harry loves you yet; he calls for you continually in his delirium. I shall speak to papa; you shall see him to-night. Oh! to think how much unnecessary misery there is in the world."

She put her arm round her slender waist, and was drawing her towards the house. Before they reached it, a big dog came bounding and barking up the avenue and overtook them.

"Be quiet, Tiger," said Kate, halting. "Let us wait for Tiger's master, Agnes."

Tiger's master appeared a moment later. One glance sufficed to show him how matters stood.

He lifted his hat with a quiet smile.

"Good evening, Miss Danton; good evening, Mrs. Danton. I see you have come to an understanding at last."

"My brother—we all owe you a debt we can never repay," Kate said gravely; "and Agnes here pronounces you an uncanonized saint."

"So I am. The world will do justice to my stupendous merits by-and-by. You have been very much surprised by Agnes' story, Miss Danton?"

"Very much. We are going in to tell papa. You will come with us, Doctor?"

"If Mrs. Agnes does not make me blush by her laudations. Draw it mild, Agnes, won't you. You have no idea how modest I am."

He opened the front door and entered the hall as he spoke, followed by the two girls. The drawing-room door was ajar, but Eeny and her teacher were the only occupants of that palatial chamber.

"Try the dining-room," suggested Kate; "it is near dinner-hour; we will find some one there."

Doctor Frank ran down-stairs, three steps at a time, followed more decorously by his companions. Grace seated near the table, reading by the light of a tall lamp, was the only occupant. She lifted her eyes in astonishment at her brother's boisterous entrance.

"Where is papa?" Kate asked.

"Upstairs in the sick-room."

"Then wait here, Doctor; wait here, Agnes! I will go for him."

She ran lightly upstairs, and entered the sick man's bedroom. The shaded lamp lit it dimly, and showed her her father sitting by the bedside talking to his son. The invalid was better this evening—very, very weak, but no longer delirious.

"You are better, Harry dear, are you not?" his sister asked, stooping to kiss him; "and you can spare papa for half an hour? Can't you, Harry?"

A faint smile was his answer. He was too feeble to speak. Miss Danton summoned Ogden from one of the outer rooms, left him in charge, and bore her father off.

"What has happened, my dear?" the Captain asked. "There is a whole volume of news in your face."

Kate clasped her hands around his arm, and looked up in his face with her great earnest eyes.

"The most wonderful thing, papa! Just like a play or a novel! Who do you think is here?"

"Who? Not Rose come back, surely?"

"Rose? Oh, no!" Kate answered, with wonderful quietness. "You never could guess. Harry's wife!"

"What!"

"Papa! Poor Harry was dreadfully mistaken. She was innocent all the time. Doctor Frank knows all about it, and saved the life of the man Harry shot. It is Agnes Darling, papa. Isn't it the strangest thing you ever heard of?"

They were at the dining-room door by this time—Captain Danton in a state of the densest bewilderment, looking alternately at one and another of the group before him.

"What, in the name of all that's incomprehensible, does this mean? Kate, in Heaven's name, what have you been talking about?"

Miss Danton actually laughed at her father's mystified face.

"Sit down, papa, and I'll tell you all about it. Here!"

She wheeled up his chair and made him be seated, then leaning over the back, in her clear, sweet voice, she lucidly repeated the tale Agnes Darling had told her. The Captain and his wife sat utterly astounded; and Agnes, with her face hidden, was sobbing in her chair.

"Heaven bless me!" ejaculated the astonished master of Danton Hall. "Can I believe my ears? Agnes Darling, Harry's wife!"

"Yes, Captain," Doctor Frank said, "she is your son's wife—his innocent and deeply-injured wife. The man Crosby, in what he believed to be his dying hour, solemnly testified, in the presence of a clergyman, to her unimpeachable purity and fidelity. It was the evil work of that villain Furniss, from first to last. I have the written testimony of William Crosby in my pocket at this moment. He is alive and well, and married to the lady of whom he was speaking when your son shot him. I earnestly hope you will receive this poor child, and unite her to her husband, for I am as firmly convinced of her innocence as I am of my own existence at this moment."

"Receive her!" Captain Danton cried, with the water in his eyes. "That I will, with all my heart. Poor little girl—poor child," he said, going over and taking the weeping wife into his arms. "What a trial you have undergone! But it is over now, I trust. Thank Heaven my son is no murderer, and under Heaven, thanks to you, Doctor Danton. Don't cry, Agnes—don't cry. I am heartily rejoiced to find I have another daughter."

"Oh, take me to Harry!" Agnes pleaded. "Let me tell him I am innocent! Let me hear him say he forgives me!"

"Upon my word, I think the forgiveness should come from the other side," said the Captain. "He was always a hot-headed, foolish boy, but he has received a lesson, I think, he will never forget. How say you, Doctor, may this foolish little girl go to that foolish boy?"

"I think not yet," the Doctor replied. "In his present weak state the shock would be too much for him. He must be prepared first. How is he this evening?"

"Much better, not at all delirious."

"I will go and have a look at him," said Doctor Frank, rising. "Don't look so imploringly, Agnes; you shall see him before long. Miss Danton, have the goodness to accompany me. If we find him much better, I will let you break the news to him and then fetch Agnes. But mind, madame," raising a warning finger to the sobbing little woman, "no hysterics! I can't have my patient agitated. You promise to be very quiet, don't you!"

"Oh, yes! I'll try."

"Very good. Now, Miss Danton."

He ran up the stairs, followed by Kate. The sick man lay, as he had left him, quietly looking at the shaded lamp, very feeble—very, very feeble and wasted. The Doctor sat down beside him, felt his pulse, and asked him a few questions, to which the faint replies were lucid and intelligible.

"No fever to-night. No delirium. You're fifty per cent. better. We will have you all right now, in no time. Kate has brought an infallible remedy."

The sick man looked at his sister wonderingly.

"Can you bear the shock of some very good news, Harry darling?" Kate said stooping over him.

"Good news!" he repeated feebly, and with an incredulous look. "Good news for me!"

"Yes, indeed, thou man of little faith! The best news you ever heard. You won't agitate yourself, will you, if I tell you?"

Doctor Frank arose before he could reply.

"I leave you to tell him by yourself. I hear the dinner-bell; so adieu."

He descended to the dining-room and took his place at the table. Captain Danton's new-found daughter he compelled to take poor Rose's vacant place; but Agnes did not even make a pretence of eating anything. She sat with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes fixed steadily on the door, trying with all her might to be calm and wait.

The appetite of the whole family was considerably impaired by the revelation just made, and all waited anxiously the return of Kate. In half an hour the dining-room door opened, and that young lady appeared, very pale, and with traces of tears on her face, but smiling withal.

Agnes sprang up breathlessly.

"Come," Kate said, holding out her hand; "he is waiting for you!"

With a cry of joy Agnes hurried out of the room and upstairs.

At the green baize door Kate restrained her a moment.

"You must be very quiet, Agnes—very calm, and not excite or agitate him."

"Oh, yes! yes! Oh, let me go!"

Miss Danton opened the door and let her in. In a moment she was kneeling by the bedside, her arms around his weak head, showering kisses and tears on his pale, thin face.

"Forgive me!" she said. "Forgive me, my own, my dear, my lost husband. Oh, never think I was false. I never, never was, in thought or act, for one moment. Say you forgive me, my darling, and love me still."

Of course, Kate did not linger. When she again entered the dining-room, she found one of those she had left, gone.

"Where is Doctor Frank?" she asked.

"Gone," Grace said. "A messenger came for him—some one sick in the village. Do take your dinner. I am sure you must want it."

"How good he is," Kate thought. "How energetic and self-sacrificing. If I were a man, I should like to be such a man as he."

After this night of good news, Harry Danton's recovery was almost miraculously rapid. The despair that had deadened every energy, every hope, was gone. He was a new man; he had something to live for; a place in the world, and a lost character to retrieve. A week after that eventful night, he was able to sit up; a fortnight, and he was rapidly gaining vigour and strength, and health for his new life.

Agnes, that most devoted little wife, had hardly left these three mysterious rooms since she had first entered them. She was the best, the most untiring, the most tender of nurses, and won her way to the hearts of all. She was so gentle, so patient, so humble, it was impossible not to love her; and Captain Danton sometimes wondered if he had ever loved his lost, frivolous Rose as he loved his new daughter.

It had been agreed upon that, to avoid gossip and inquiry, Harry was not to show himself in the house, to the servants, but as soon as he was fully recovered, to leave for Quebec, with his wife, and take command of a vessel there.

His father had written to the ship-owners—old friends of his—and had cheerfully received their promise.

The vessel was to sail for Plymouth early in March, and it was now late in February.

Of course, Agnes was to go with him. Nothing could have separated these reunited married lovers now.

The days went by, the preparations for the journey progressed, the eve of departure came. The Danton family, with the Doctor and Father Francis, were assembled in the drawing-room, spending that last evening together. It was the first time, since his return to the Hall, Harry had been there. How little any of them dreamed it was to be the last!

They were not very merry, as they sat listening to Kate's music. Down in that dim recess where the piano stood, she sat, singing for the first time the old songs that Reginald Stanford had loved. She was almost surprised at herself to find how easily she could sing them, how little emotion the memories they brought awoke. Was the old love forever dead, then? And this new content at her heart—what did it mean? She hardly cared to ask. She could not have answered; she only knew she was happy, and that the past had lost power to give her pain.

It was late when they separated. Good-byes were said, and tender-hearted little Agnes cried as she said good-bye to Doctor Frank. The priest and the physician walked to the little village together, through the cold darkness of the starless winter night.

At the presbytery-gate they parted, Father Francis going in, Doctor Danton continuing his walk to the distant cottage of a poor sick patient. The man was dying. The young doctor lingered by his bedside until all was over, and morning was gray in the eastern sky when he left the house of death.

But what other light was that red in the sky, beside the light of morning? A crimson, lurid light that was spreading rapidly over the face of the cloudy heavens, and lighting even the village road with its unearthly glare? Fire! and in the direction of Danton Hall, growing brighter and brighter, and redder with every passing second. Others had seen it, too, and doors were flying open, and men and women flocking out.

"Fire! Fire!" a voice cried. "Danton Hall is on fire!"

And the cry was taken up and echoed and reechoed, and every one was rushing pell-mell in the direction of the Hall.

Doctor Frank was one of the first to arrive. The whole front of the old mansion seemed a sheet of fire and the red flames rushed up into the black sky with an awful roar. The family were only just aroused, and, with the servants, were flocking out, half-dressed. Doctor Frank's anxious eyes counted them; there were the Captain and Grace, Harry and Agnes, and last of all, Kate.

The servants were all there, but there was one missing still. Doctor Frank was by Grace's side in a moment.

"Where is Eeny?"

"Eeny! Is she not here?"

"No. Good Heaven, Grace! Is she in the house?"

Grace looked around wildly.

"Yes, yes! She must be! Oh, Frank—"

But Frank was gone, even while she spoke, into the burning house. There was still time. The lower hall and stairway were still free from fire, only filled with smoke.

He rushed through, and upstairs; in the second hall the smoke was suffocating, and the burning brands were falling from the blazing roof. Up the second flight of stairs he flew blinded, choked, singed. He knew Eeny's room; the door was unlocked, and he rushed in. The smoke or fire had not penetrated here yet, and on the bed the girl lay fast asleep, undisturbed by all the uproar around her.

To muffle her from head to foot in a blanket, snatch her up and fly out of the room, was but the work of a few seconds. The rushing smoke blinded and suffocated him, but he darted down the staircases as if his feet were winged. Huge cinders and burning flakes were falling in a fiery shower around him, but still he rushed blindly on. The lower hall was gained, a breeze of the blessed cold air blew on his face.

They were seen, they were saved, and a wild cheer arose from the breathless multitude. Just at that instant, with his foot on the threshold, an avalanche of fire seemed to fall on his head from the burning roof.

Another cry, this time a cry of wild horror arose from the crowd; he reeled, staggered like a drunken man; some one caught Eeny out of his arms as he fell to the ground.



CHAPTER XXII.

AFTER THE CROSS, THE CROWN.

The glare of a brilliant April sunset shone in the rainbow-hued western sky, and on the fresh, green earth, all arrayed in the budding promise of spring.

Grace Danton stood by the window of a long, low room, looking thoughtfully out at the orange and crimson dyes of the far-off sky.

The room in which she stood was not at all like the vast old-fashioned rooms of Danton Hall. It was long and narrow, and low-ceilinged, and very plainly furnished. There was the bed in the centre, a low, curtainless bed, and on it, pale, thin, and shadowy, lay Grace's brother, as he had lain for many weary weeks. He was asleep now, deeply, heavily, tossing no longer in the wild delirium of brain-fever, as he had tossed for so many interminable days and nights.

Grace dropped the curtain, and went back to her post by the bedside. As she did so, the door softly opened, and Kate, in a dark, unrustling dress and slippers of silence, came in. She had changed in those weeks; she looked paler and thinner, and the violet eyes had a more tender light, a sadder beauty than of old.

"Still asleep," she said, softly, looking at the bed. "Grace, I think your prayers have been heard."

"I trust so, dear. Is your father in?"

"No; he has ridden over to see how the builders get on. You must want tea, Grace. Go, I will take your place."

Grace arose and left the room, and Kate seated herself in the low chair, with eyes full of tender compassion. What a shadow he was of his former self—so pale, so thin, so wasted! The hand lying on the counterpane was almost transparent, and the forehead, streaked with damp brown hair, was like marble.

"Poor fellow!" Kate thought, pushing these stray locks softly back, and forgetting how dangerously akin pity is to love—"poor fellow!"

Yes, it has come to this. Sick—dying, perhaps—Kate Danton found how dear this once obnoxious young Doctor had grown to her heart. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight!" Now that she was on the verge of losing him forever, she discovered his value—discovered that her admiration was very like love. How could she help it? Women admire heroes so much! And was not this brave young Doctor a real hero? From first to last, had not his life in St. Croix been one list of good and generous deeds?

The very first time she had ever seen him, he had been her champion, to save her from the insults and rudeness of two drunken soldiers. He had been a sort of guardian angel to poor Agnes in her great trouble. He had saved her brother's life and honour. He had perilled his own life to save that of her sister. The poor of St. Croix spoke of him only to praise and bless him. Was not this house besieged every day with scores of anxious inquirers? He was so good, so great, so noble, so self-sacrificing, so generous—oh! how could she help loving him? Not with the love that had once been Reginald Stanford's, whose only basis was a fanciful girl's liking for a handsome face, but a love far deeper and truer and stronger. She looked back now at the first infatuation, and wondered at herself. The scales had fallen from her eyes, and she saw her sister's husband in his true light—false, shallow, selfish, dishonourable.

"Oh," she thought, with untold thanksgiving in her heart, "what would have become of me if I had married him?"

There was another sore subject in her heart, too—that short-lived betrothal to Sir Ronald Keith. How low she must have fallen when she could do that! How she despised herself now for ever entertaining the thought of that base marriage. She could thank Father Francis at last. By the sick-bed of Doctor Frank she had learned a lesson that would last her a lifetime.

The radiance of the sunset was fading out of the sky, and the gray twilight was filling the room. She rose up, drew back the green curtains, and looked for a moment at the peaceful village street. When she returned to the bedside, the sleeper was awake, his eyes calm and clear for the first time. She restrained the exclamation of delight which arose to her lips, and tried to catch the one faint word he uttered:

"Water?"

She gently raised his head, her cheeks flushing, and held a glass of lemonade to his lips. A faint smile thanked her; and then his eyes closed, and he was asleep again. Kate sank down on her knees by the bedside, grateful tears falling from her eyes, to thank God for the life that would be spared.

From that evening the young man rallied fast.

The Doctor, who came from Montreal every day to see him, said it was all owing to his superb constitution and wondrous vitality. But he was very, very weak. It was days and days before he was strong enough to think, or speak, or move. He slept, by fits and starts, nearly all day long, recognizing his sister, and Kate, and Eeny, and the Captain, by his bedside, without wondering how they came to be there, or what had ailed him.

But strength to speak and think was slowly returning; and one evening, in the pale twilight, opening his eyes, he saw Kate sitting beside him, reading. He lay and watched her, strong enough to think how beautiful that perfect face was in the tender light, and to feel a delicious thrill of pleasure, weak as he was, at having her for a nurse.

Presently Kate looked from the book to the bed, and blushed beautifully to find the earnest brown eyes watching her so intently.

"I did not know you were awake," she said, composedly. "Shall I go and call Grace?"

"On no account. I don't want Grace. How long have I been sick?"

"Oh, many weeks; but you are getting better rapidly now."

"I can't recall it," he said, contracting his brows. "I know there was a fire, and I was in the house; but it is all confused. How was it?"

"The Hall was burned down, you know—poor old house!—and you rushed in to save Eeny, and—"

"Oh, I remember, I remember. A beam or something fell, and after that all is oblivion. I have had a fever, I suppose?"

"Yes, you have been a dreadful nuisance—talking all day and all night about all manner of subjects, and frightening us out of our lives."

The young man smiled.

"What did I talk about? Anything very foolish?"

"I dare say it was foolish enough, if one could have understood it, but it was nearly all Greek to me. Sometimes you were in Germany, talking about all manner of outlandish things; sometimes you were in New York, playing Good Samaritan to Agnes Darling."

"Oh, poor Agnes! Where is she?"

"Taken to the high seas. She and Harry had to go, much against their inclination, while you were so ill."

"And Eeny—did Eeny suffer any harm that night?"

"No; Doctor Frank was the only sufferer. The poor old house was burned to the ground. I was so sorry."

"And everything was lost?"

"No, a great many things were saved. And they are building a new and much more handsome Danton Hall, but I shall never love it as I did the old place."

"Where are we now?"

"In the village. We have taken this cottage until the new house is finished. Now don't ask any more questions. Too much talking isn't good for you."

"How very peremptory you are!" said the invalid, smiling; "and you have taken care of me all this weary time. What a trouble I must have been!"

"Didn't I say so! A shocking trouble. And now that you are able to converse rationally, you are more trouble than ever, asking so many questions. Go to sleep."

"Won't you let me thank you first?"

"No, thanks never would repay me for all the annoyance you have been. Show your gratitude by obedience, sir—stop talking and go to sleep!"

Perhaps Doctor Frank found it very pleasant to be ordered, for he obeyed with a smile on his face.

Of course, with such a nurse as Miss Danton, the man would be obstinate, indeed, who would not rally. Doctor Frank was the reverse of obdurate, and rallied with astonishing rapidity. His sister, Eeny, and Kate were the most devoted, the most attentive of nurses; but the hours that Captain Danton's eldest daughter sat by his bedside flew like so many minutes. It was very pleasant to lie there, propped up with pillows, with the April sunshine lying in yellow squares on the faded old carpet, and watch that beautiful face, bending over some piece of elaborate embroidery, or the humble dress of some village child. She read for him, too, charming romances, and poetry as sweet as the ripple of a sunlit brook, in that enchanting voice of hers; and Doctor Frank began to think convalescence the most delightful state of being that ever was heard of, and to wish it could last forever.

But, like all the pleasant things of this checkered life, it came to an end all too soon. The day arrived when he sat up in his easy chair by the open window, with the scented breezes blowing in his face, and watched dreamily the cows grazing in the fields, and the dark-eyed French girls tripping up and down the dusty road. Then, a little later, and he could walk about in the tiny garden before the cottage, and sit up the whole day long. He was getting better fast; and Miss Danton, concluding her occupation was gone, became very much like the Miss Danton of old. Not imperious and proud—she never would be that again—but reserved and distant, and altogether changed; the delightful readings were no more, the pleasant tete-a-tetes were among the things of the past, the long hours spent by his side, with some womanly work in her fingers, were over and gone. She was very kind and gentle still, and the smile that always greeted him was very bright and sweet, but that heavenly past was gone forever. Doctor Frank, about as clear-sighted as his sex generally are, of course never guessed within a mile of the truth.

"What a fool I was!" he thought, bitterly, "flattering myself with such insane dreams, because she was grateful to me for saving her sister's life, and pitied me when she thought I was at death's door. Why, she nursed every sick pauper in St. Croix as tenderly as she did me. She is right to put me back in my place before I have made an idiot of myself!"

So the convalescent gentleman became moody, and silent and generally disagreeable; and Grace was the only one who guessed at his feelings and was sorry for him. But he grew well in spite of hidden trouble, and began to think of what he was to do in the future.

"I'll go back to Montreal next week, I think," he said to his sister; "now that the fever has gone, it won't pay to stay here. If I don't get on in Montreal, I'll try New York."

Man proposes, etc. That evening's mail brought him a letter that materially altered all his plans. He sat so long silent and thoughtful after reading it, that Grace looked at him in surprise.

"You look as grave as an owl, Frank. Whom is your letter from?"

Doctor Frank started out of his reverie to find Kate's eyes fixed inquiringly upon him too.

"From Messrs. Grayson & Hambert, my uncle's solicitors. He is dead."

Grace uttered a little cry.

"Dead! Frank! And you are his heir?"

"Yes."

"How much has he left?" Mrs. Danton asked, breathlessly.

"Twenty thousand pounds."

Grace clasped her hands.

"Twenty thousand pounds? My dear Frank! You have no need to go slaving at your profession now."

Her brother looked at her in quiet surprise.

"I shall slave at my profession all the same. This windfall will, however, alter my plans a good deal. I must start for Montreal to-morrow morning."

He rose and left the room. Grace turned to her step-daughter.

"I am afraid you must think us heartless, Kate; but we have known very little of this uncle, and that little was not favourable. He was a miser—a stern and hard man—living always alone and with few friends. I am so thankful he left his money to Frank."

Doctor Frank left St. Croix next morning for the city, and his absence made a strange blank in the family. The spring days wore on slowly. April was gone, and it was May. Captain Danton was absent the best part of every day, superintending the erection of the new house, and the three women were left alone. Miss Danton grew listless and languid. She spent her days in purposeless loiterings in and out of the cottage, in long reveries and solitary walks.

The middle of May came without bringing the young Doctor, or even a letter from him. The family were seated one moonlight night in the large, old-fashioned porch in front of the cottage, enjoying the moonlight and Eeny's piano. Kate sat in a rustic arm-chair just outside, looking up at the silvery crescent swimming through pearly clouds, and the flickering shadows of the climbing sweetbrier coming and going on her fair face. Captain Danton smoked and Grace talked to him; and while she sat, Father Francis opened the garden gate and joined them.

"Have you heard from your brother yet?" he asked of Grace, after a few moments' preliminary conversation.

"No; it is rather strange that he does not write."

"He told me to make his apologies. I had a letter from him to-day. He is very busy preparing to go away."

"Go away! Go where?"

"To Germany; he leaves in a week."

"And will he not come down to say good-bye?" inquired Grace, indignantly.

"Oh, certainly! He will be here in a day or two."

"And how long is he going to stay abroad?"

"That seems uncertain. A year or two, probably, at the very least."

Grace stole a look at Kate, but Kate had drawn back into the shadow of the porch, and her face was not to be seen. Father Francis lingered for half an hour, and then departed; and as the dew was falling heavily, the group in the porch arose to go in. The young lady in the easy-chair did not stir.

"Come in, Kate," her father said, "it is too damp to remain there."

"Yes, papa, presently."

About a quarter of an hour later, she entered the parlour to say good-night, very pale, as they all noticed.

"I knew sitting in the night air was bad," her father said. "You are as white as a ghost."

Miss Danton was very grave and still for the next two days—a little sad, Grace thought. On the third day, Doctor Frank arrived. It was late in the afternoon, and he was to depart again early next morning.

"What are you running away for now?" asked his sister, with asperity. "What has put this German notion in your head?"

The young man smiled.

"My dear Grace, don't wear that severe face. Why should I not go? What is to detain me here?"

This was such an unanswerable question that Grace only turned away impatiently; and Kate, who was in the room, fancying the brother and sister might wish to be alone, arose and departed. As the door closed after her, Captain Danton's wife faced round and renewed the attack.

"If you want to know what is to detain you here, I can tell you now. Stay at home and marry Kate Danton."

Her brother laughed, but in rather a constrained way.

"That is easier said than done, sister mine. Miss Danton never did more than tolerate me in her life—sometimes not even that. Impossibilities are not so easily achieved as you think."

"Suppose you try."

"And be refused for my pains. No, thank you."

"Very well," said Mrs. Grace with a shrug; "a wilful man must have his way! You cannot tell whether you will be refused or not until you ask."

"I have a tolerably strong conviction, though. No, Mrs. Grace, I shall go to Germany, and forget my folly; for that I have been an idiot, I don't deny."

"And are so still! Do as you please, however; it is no affair of mine."

Doctor Frank rode over to the new building to see how it progressed. It was late when he returned with the Captain, and he found that Kate had departed to spend the evening with Miss Howard. If he wanted further proof of her indifference, surely he had it here.

It was very late, and the family had retired before Miss Danton came home. She was good enough though, to rise, very early next morning to say good-bye. Doctor Frank took his hasty breakfast, and came into the parlour, where he found her alone.

"I thought I was not to have the pleasure of seeing you before I went," he said, holding out his hand. "I have but ten minutes left: so good-bye."

His voice shook a little as he said it. In spite of every effort, her fingers closed around his, and her eyes looked up at him with her whole heart in their clear depths.

"Kate!" he exclaimed, the colour rushing to his face with a sudden thrill of ecstasy, and his hand closing tight over the slender fingers he held. "Kate!"

She turned away, her own cheeks dyed, not daring to meet that eager, questioning look.

"Kate!" he cried, appealingly; "it is because I love you I am going away. I never thought to tell you."

* * * * *

Five minutes later Grace opened the door impetuously.

"Frank, don't you know you will be la—Oh, I beg pardon."

She closed it hastily, and retreated. The Captain, standing in the doorway, looked impatiently at his watch.

"What keeps the fellow? He'll be late to a dead certainty."

Grace laughed.

"There is no hurry, I think. I don't believe Frank will go to Germany this time."



CHAPTER XXIII.

LONG HAVE I BEEN TRUE TO YOU, NOW I'M TRUE NO LONGER.

Far away from the blue skies, and bracing breezes of Lower Canada, the twilight of a dull April day was closing down over the din and tumult of London.

It had been a wretched day—a day of sopping rain and enervating mist. The newly-lighted street-lamps blinked dismally through the wet fog, and the pedestrians hurried along, poising umbrellas, and buttoned up to the chin.

At the window of a shabby-genteel London lodging-house a young woman sat, this dreary April evening, looking out at the cheering prospect of dripping roofs and muddy pavement. She sat with her chin resting on her hands, staring vacantly at the passers-by, with eyes that took no interest in what she saw. She was quite young, and had been very pretty, for the loose, unkempt hair was of brightest auburn, the dull eyes of hazel brown, and the features pretty and delicate. But the look of intense sulkiness the girl's face wore would have spoiled a far more beautiful countenance, and there were traces of sickness and trouble, all too visible. She was dressed in a soiled silk, arabesqued with stains, and a general air of neglect and disorder characterized her and her surroundings. The carpet was littered and unswept, the chairs were at sixes and sevens, and a baby's crib, wherein a very new and pink infant reposed, stood in the middle of the room.

The young woman sat at the window gazing sullenly out at the dismal night for upwards of an hour, in all that time hardly moving. Presently there was a tap at the door, and an instant after, it opened, and a smart young person entered and began briskly laying the cloth for supper. The young person was the landlady's daughter, and the girl at the window only gave her one glance, and then turned unsocially away.

"Ain't you lonesome here, Mrs. Stanford, all alone by yourself?" asked the young person, as she lit the lamp. "Mother says it must be awful dull for you, with Mr. Stanford away all the time."

"I am pretty well used to it," answered Mrs. Stanford, bitterly. "I ought to be reconciled to it by this time. Is it after seven?"

"Yes, ma'am. Mr. Stanford comes home at seven, don't he? He ought to be here soon, now. Mother says she wishes you would come down to the parlour and sit with us of a day, instead of being moped up here."

Mrs. Stanford made no reply whatever to this good-natured speech, and the sulky expression seemed to deepen on her face. The young person, finished setting the table, and was briskly departing, when Mrs. Stanford's voice arrested her.

"If Mr. Stanford is not here in half an hour, you can bring up dinner."

As Mrs. Stanford spoke, the pink infant in the crib awoke and set up a dismal wail. The young mother arose, with an impatient sigh, lifted the babe, and sat down in a low nurse-chair, to soothe it to sleep again. But the baby was fretful, and cried and moaned drearily, and resisted every effort to be soothed to sleep.

"Oh, dear, dear!" Rose cried, impatiently, giving it an irritated shake. "What a torment you are! What a trouble and wretchedness everything is!"

She swayed to and fro in her rocking-chair, humming drearily some melancholy air, until, by-and-by, baby, worn out, wailingly dropped off asleep again in her arms.

As it did so, the door opened a second time, and the brisk young person entered with the first course. Mrs. Stanford placed her first-born back in the crib, and sat down to her solitary dinner. She ate very little. The lodging-house soups and roasts had never been so distasteful before. She pushed the things away, with a feeling of loathing, and went back to her low chair, and fell into a train of dismal misery. Her thoughts went back to Canada to her happy home at Danton Hall.

Only one little year ago she had given the world for love, and thought it well lost—and now! Love's young dream, splendid in theory, is not always quite so splendid in practice. Love's young dream had wound up after eleven months, in poverty, privation, sickness and trouble, a neglectful husband, and a crying baby! How happy she had been in that bright girlhood, gone forever! Life had been one long summer holiday, and she dressed in silks and jewels, one of the queen-bees in the great human hive. The silks and the jewels had gone to the pawnbroker long ago, and here she sat, alone, in a miserable lodging-house, subsisting on unpalatable food, sleeping on a hard mattress, sick and wretched, with that whimpering infant's wails in her ears all day and all night. Oh! how long ago it seemed since she had been bright, and beautiful, and happy, and free—hundreds of years ago at the very least! She sighed in bitter sorrow, as she thought of the past—the irredeemable past.

"Oh, what a fool I was!" she thought, bursting into hysterical tears. "If I had only married Jules La Touche, how happy I might have been! He loved me, poor fellow, and would have been true always, and I would have been rich, and happy, and honoured. Now I am poor, and sick, and neglected, and despised, and I wish I were dead, and all the trouble over!"

Mrs. Stanford sat in her low chair, brooding over such dismal thoughts as these, while the slow hours dragged on. The baby slept, for a wonder. A neighbouring church clock struck the hours solemnly one after another—ten, eleven, twelve! No Mr. Stanford yet, but that was nothing new. As midnight, struck, Rose got up, secured the door, and going into an inner room, flung herself, dressed as she was, on the bed, and fell into the heavy, dreamless sleep of exhaustion.

She slept so soundly that she never heard a key turn in the lock, about three in the morning, or a man's unsteady step crossing the floor. The lamp still burning on the table, enabled Mr. Reginald Stanford to see what he was about, otherwise, serious consequences might have ensued. For Mr. Stanford was not quite steady on his legs, and lurched as he walked, as if his wife's sitting-room had been the deck of a storm-tossed vessel.

"I s'pose she's gone to bed," muttered Mr. Stanford, hiccoughing. "Don't want to wake her—makes a devil of a row! I ain't drunk, but I don't want to wake her."

Mr. Stanford lurched unsteadily across the parlour, and reconnoitred the bedroom. He nodded sagaciously, seeing his wife there asleep, and after making one or two futile efforts to remove his boots, stretched himself, boots and all, on a lounge in the sitting-room, and in two minutes was as sound as one of the Seven Sleepers.

It was late next morning before either of the happy pair awoke. A vague idea that there was a noise in the air aroused the gentleman about nine o'clock. The dense fog in his brain, that a too liberal allowance of rosy wine is too apt to engender, took some time to clear away; but when it did, he became conscious that the noise was not part of his dreams, but some one knocking loudly at the door.

Mr. Stanford staggered sleepily across the apartment, unlocked the door, and admitted the brisk young woman who brought them their meals.

Mr. Stanford, yawning very much, proceeded to make his toilet. Twelve months of matrimony had changed the handsome ex-lieutenant, and not for the better. He looked thinner and paler; his eyes were sunken, and encircled by dark halos, telling of night revels and morning headaches. But that wonderful beauty that had magnetized Rose Danton was there still; the features as perfect as ever; the black eyes as lustrous; all the old graceful ease and nonchalance of manner characterized him yet. But the beauty that had blinded and dazzled her had lost its power to charm. She had been married to him a year—quite long enough to be disenchanted. That handsome face might fascinate other foolish moths; it had lost its power to dazzle her long, long ago. Perhaps the disenchantment was mutual; for the pretty, rose-cheeked, starry-eyed girl who had captivated his idle fancy had become a dream of the past, and his wife was a pale, sickly, peevish invalid, with frowsy hair and slipshod feet.

The clattering of the cups and saucers awoke the baby, who began squalling dismally; and the baby's cries awoke the baby's mamma. Rose got up, feeling cramped and unrefreshed, and came out into the parlour with the infant in her arms. Her husband turned from a dreary contemplation of the sun trying to force its way through a dull, yellow fog, and dropped the curtain.

"Good-morning, my dear," said Mr. Stanford, pouring out a cup of tea. "How are you to-day? Can't you make that disagreeable youngster hold his confounded tongue?"

"What time did you get home last night?" demanded Mrs. Stanford, with flashing eyes.

"It wasn't last night, my dear," replied Mr. Stanford, serenely, buttering his roll; "it was sometime this morning, I believe."

"And of course you were drunk as usual!"

"My love, pray don't speak so loudly; they'll hear you down stairs," remonstrated the gentleman. "Really, I believe I had been imbibing a little too freely. I hope I did not disturb you. I made as little noise as possible on purpose, I assure you. I even slept in my boots, not being in a condition to take them off. Wash your face, my dear, and comb your hair—they both need it very much—and come take some breakfast. If that baby of yours won't hold its tongue, please to throw it out of the window."

Mrs. Stanford's reply was to sink into the rocking-chair and burst into a passion of tears.

"Don't, pray!" remonstrated Mr. Stanford; "one's enough to cry at a time. Do come and have some breakfast. You're hysterical this morning, that is evident, and a cup of tea will do you good."

"I wish I were dead!" burst out Rose, passionately. "I wish I had been dead before I ever saw your face!"

"I dare say, my love. I can understand your feelings, and sympathize with them perfectly."

"Oh, what a fool I was!" cried Rose, rocking violently backward and forward; "to leave my happy home, my indulgent father, my true and devoted lover, for you! To leave wealth and happiness for poverty, and privation, and neglect, and misery! Oh, fool! fool! fool! that I was!"

"Very true, my dear," murmured Mr. Stanford sympathetically. "I don't mind confessing that I was a fool myself. You cannot regret your marriage any more than I do mine."

This was a little too much. Rose sprang up, flinging the baby into the cradle, and faced her lord and master with cheeks of flame and eyes of fire.

"You villain!" she cried. "You cruel, cold-blooded villain, I hate you! Do you hear, Reginald Stanford, I hate you! You have deceived me as shamefully as ever man deceived woman! Do you think I don't know where you were last night, or whom you were with? Don't I know it was with that miserable, degraded Frenchwoman—that disgusting Madame Millefleur—whom I would have whipped through the streets of London, if I could."

"I don't doubt it, my dear," murmured Mr. Stanford, still unruffled by his wife's storm of passion. "Your gentle sex are famous for the mercy they always show to their fairer sisters. Your penetration does you infinite credit, Mrs. Stanford. I was with Madame Millefleur."

Rose stood glaring at him, white and panting with rage too intense for words. Reginald Stanford stood up, meeting her fierce regards with wonderful coolness.

"You're not going to tear my hair out, are you, Rose? You see the way of it was this: Coming from the office where I have the honour to be clerk—thanks to my marriage—I met Madame Millefleur, that most bewitching and wealthy of French widows. She is in love with me, my dear. It may seem unaccountable to you how any one can be in love with me, but the fact is so. She is in love with me almost as much as pretty Rose Danton was once upon a time, and gave me an invitation to accompany her to the opera last night. Of course I was enchanted. The opera is a rare luxury now, and la Millefleur is all the fashion. I had the happiness of bending over her chair all the evening—don't glare so, my love, it makes you quite hideous—and accepted a seat beside her in the carriage when it was all over. A delicious petit souper awaited us in Madame's bijou of a boudoir; and I don't mind owning I was a little disguised by sparkling Moselle when I came home. Open confessions are good for the soul—there is one for you, my dear."

Her face was livid as she listened, and he smiled up at her with a smile that nearly drove her mad.

"I hate you, Reginald Stanford!" was all she could say. "I hate you! I hate you!"

"Quite likely, my love; but I dare say I shall survive that. You would rather I didn't come here any more, I suppose, Mrs. Stanford?"

"I never want to see your hateful, wicked face again. I wish I had been dead before I ever saw it."

"And I wish whatever you wish, dearest and best," he said, with a sneering laugh; "if you ever see my wicked, hateful face again, it shall be no fault of mine. Perhaps you had better go back to Canada. M. La Touche was very much in love with you last year, and may overlook this little episode in your life, and take you to his bosom yet. Good morning, Mrs. Stanford. I am going to call on Madame Millefleur."

He took his hat and left the room, and Rose dropped down in her chair and covered her face with her hands.

If Kate Danton and Jules La Touche ever wished for revenge, they should have seen the woman who so cruelly wronged them at that moment. Vengeance more bitter, more terrible than her worst enemy could wish, had overtaken and crushed her to the earth.

How that long, miserable day passed, the poor child never knew. It came to an end, and the longer, more miserable night followed. Another morning, another day of unutterable wretchedness, and a second night of tears and sleeplessness. The third day came and passed, and still Reginald Stanford never returned. The evening of the third day brought her a letter, with Napoleon's head on the corner.

"Hotel Du Louvre, Paris, April 10.

My Dear Mrs. Stanford:—For you have still the unhappiness of bearing that odious name, although I have no doubt Captain Danton will shortly take the proper steps to relieve you of it. According to promise, I have rid you of my hateful presence, and forever. You see I am in brilliant Paris, in a palatial hotel, enjoying all the luxuries wealth can procure, and Madame Millefleur is my companion. The contrast between my life this week and my life last is somewhat striking. The frowning countenance of Mrs. Stanford is replaced by the ever-smiling face of my dark-eyed Adele, and the shabby lodgings in Crown street, Strand, are exchanged for this chamber of Eastern gorgeousness. I am happy, and so, no doubt, are you. Go back to Canada, my dear Mrs. Stanford. Papa will receive his little runaway with open arms, and kill the fatted calf to welcome her. The dear Jules may still be faithful, and you may yet be thrice blessed as Madame La Touche. Ah, I forget—you belong to the Church, and so does he, that does not believe in divorce. What a pity!

"I beg you will feel no uneasiness upon pecuniary matters, my dear Rose. I write by this post to our good landlady, inclosing the next six months' rent, and in this you will find a check for all present wants.

"I believe this is all I have to say, and Adele is waiting for me to escort her on a shopping expedition. Adieu, my Rose; believe me, with the best wishes for your future happiness, to be Ever your friend,

"Reginald Reinecourt Stanford."



CHAPTER XXIV.

COALS OF FIRE.

One afternoon, about a fortnight after the receipt of that letter from France, Rose Stanford sat alone once more in the shabby little parlour of the London lodging-house. It was late in April, but a fire burned feebly in the little grate, and she sat cowering over it wrapped in a large shawl. She had changed terribly during these two weeks; she had grown old, and hollow-eyed, a haggard, worn, wretched woman.

It was her third day up, this April afternoon, for a low, miserable fever had confined her to her bed, and worn her to the pallid shadow she was now. She had just finished writing a letter, a long, sad letter, and it lay in her lap while she sat shivering over the fire. It was a letter to her father, a tardy prayer for forgiveness, and a confession of all her misdoings and wrongs—of Reginald Stanford's rather, for, of course, all the blame was thrown upon him, though, if Rose had told the truth, she would have found herself the more in fault of the two.

"I am sick, and poor, and broken-hearted," wrote Mrs. Stanford; "and I want to go home and die. I have been very wicked, papa, but I have suffered so much, that even those I have wronged most might forgive me. Write to me at once, and say I may go home; I only want to go and die in peace. I feel that I am dying now."

She folded the letter with a weary sigh and a hand that shook like an old woman's, and rising, rang the bell. The brisk young woman answered the summons at once with a smile on her face, and Mrs. Stanford's baby crowing in her arms. They had been very kind to the poor young mother and the fatherless babe during this time of trial; but Mrs. Stanford was too ill and broken down to think about it, or feel grateful.

"Here, Jane," said Mrs. Stanford, holding out the letter, "give me the baby, and post this letter."

Jane obeyed; and Rose, with the infant in her lap, sat staring gloomily at the red coals.

"Two weeks before it will reach them, two weeks more before an answer can arrive, and another two weeks before I can be with them. Oh, dear me! dear me! how shall I drag out life during these interminable weeks. If I could only die at once and end it all."

Tears of unutterable wretchedness and loneliness and misery coursed down her pale, thin cheeks. Surely no one ever paid more dearly for love's short madness than this unfortunate little Rose.

"Marry in haste and repent at leisure," she thought, with unspeakable bitterness. "Oh, how happy I might have been to-day if I had only done right last year. But I was mad and treacherous and false, and I dare-say it serves me right. How can I ever look them in the face when I go home?"

The weary weeks dragged on, how wearily and miserably only Rose knew. She never went out; she sat all day long in that shabby parlour, and stared blankly at the passers-by in the street, waiting, waiting.

The good-natured landlady and her daughter took charge of the baby during those wretched weeks of expectation, or Mrs. Reginald Stanford's only son would have been sadly neglected.

April was gone; May came in, bringing the anniversary of Rose's ill-starred marriage and finding her in that worst widowhood, a day of ceaseless tears and regrets to the unhappy, deserted wife. The bright May days went by, one after another, passing as wretched days and more wretched nights do pass somehow; and June had taken its place. In all this long, long time, no letter had come for Rose. How she watched and waited for it; how she had strained her eyes day after day to catch sight of the postman; how her heart leaped up and throbbed when she saw him approach, and sank down in her breast like lead as he went by, only those can know who have watched and waited like her. A sickening sense of despair stole over her at last. They had forgotten her; they hated and despised her, and left her to her fate. There was nothing for it but to go to the alms-house and die, like any other pauper.

She had been mad when she fancied they could forgive her. Her sins had been too great. All the world had deserted her, and the sooner she was dead and out of the way the better.

She sat in the misty June twilight thinking this, with a sad, hopeless kind of resignation. It was the fifth of June. Could she forget that this very day twelvemonth was to have been her wedding-day? Poor Jules—poor Kate! Oh, what a wretch she had been!

She covered her face with her hands, tears falling like rain through her thin fingers.

"I wonder if they will be sorry for me, and forgive me, when they hear I am dead?" she thought. "Oh, how I live, and live; when other women would have died long ago with half this trouble. Only nineteen, and with nothing left to wish for but death."

There was a tap at the door. Before she could speak it was opened, and Jane, the brisk, came rustling in.

"There's a gentleman down-stairs, Mrs. Stanford, asking to see you."

Rose sprang up, her lips apart, her eyes dilating.

"To see me! A gentleman! Jane, is it Mr. Stanford?"

Jane shook her head.

"Not a bit like Mr. Stanford, ma'am; not near so 'andsome, though a very fine-looking gentleman. He said, to tell you as 'ow a friend wanted to see you."

A friend! Oh, who could it be? She made a motion to Jane to show him up—she was too agitated to speak. She stood with her hands clasped over her beating heart, breathless, waiting.

A man's quick step flew up the stairs; a tall figure stood in the doorway, hat in hand.

Rose uttered a faint cry. She had thought of her father, of Jules La Touche, never once of him who stood before her.

"Doctor Frank!" she gasped; and then she was holding to a chair for support, feeling the walls swimming around her.

Doctor Frank took her in his arms, and kissed her pale cheek as tenderly and pityingly as her father might have done.

"My poor child! My poor little Rose! What a shadow you are! Don't cry so—pray don't!"

She bowed her weary head against his shoulder, and broke out into hysterical sobbing. It was so good to see that friendly familiar face once more—she clung to him with a sense of unspeakable trust and relief, and cried in the fullness of her heart.

He let her tears flow for awhile, sitting beside her, and stroking the faded, disordered hair away from the wan, pale face.

"There! there!" he said, at last, "we have had tears enough now. Look up and let me talk to you. What did you think when you received no answer to your letter?"

"I thought you all very cruel. I thought I was forgotten."

"Of course you did; but you are not forgotten, and it is my fault that you have had no letter. I wanted to surprise you; and I have brought a letter from your father breathing nothing but love and forgiveness."

"Give it to me!" cried Rose, breathlessly; "give it to me!"

"Can't, unfortunately, yet awhile. I left it at my hotel. Don't look so disappointed. I am going to take you there in half an hour. Hallo! Is that the baby?"

Reginald Stanford, Junior, asleep in his crib, set up a sudden squall at this moment.

Doctor Frank crossed the floor, and hoisted him up in a twinkling.

"Why, he's a splendid little fellow, Rose, and the very image of—What do you call him?"

"Reginald," Rose said, in a very subdued tone.

"Well, Master Reginald, you and I are going to be good friends, aren't we, and you're not going to cry?"

He hoisted him high in the air, and baby answered with a loud crow.

"That's right. Babies always take to me, Rose. You don't know how many dozens I have nursed in my time. But you don't ask me any questions about home. Aren't you curious to know how they all get on?"

"Papa is married, I suppose?" Rose said.

"Of course—last January. And Danton Hall was burnt down; and they have built up another twice as big and three times as handsome. And Mr. Richards—you remember the mysterious invalid, Rose?"