Margaret stared at the doctor, who so calmly announced this appalling fact to her, with widely opened eyes and a blanched face.

Ignorant of her history, he was startled to find so young a creature in such a position, and he said, impelled to respect by her whole air and manner, "This is news, and very unwelcome news, to you?"

"I have this moment arrived from nursing my sister in Scotland," she said, hurriedly. "My husband has been alone.... All is very wretched; can you tell me where I could hear of a nurse, I suppose, and—servants?"

"You must have a male nurse," he said.

"I will send you in a man-servant I know of, and to-morrow things will be better." He stayed with her a little while, lost in astonishment over her beauty, her grace, and the extraordinary contrast existing between her and the man she called her husband.

"I shall be afraid—to-night. He might be ill."

"Oh! you must not be left alone with him," he answered, and then, noting her weariness and pallor, he said, "If you will go and have some refreshment I can wait here, and when I leave I will send you some one."

She thanked him, and went to see if there was any room she could take possession of. To her relief the rooms upstairs were all furnished; and when she had bathed her face and had some slight refreshment she went downstairs again.

"I may tell you that my own conviction is that this terrible business is not a habit," said the doctor, as she entered. "Mr.——" looking at her for the name which she supplied, "has not any of the signs of an habitual drunkard. He has had something now which has had a terrible effect upon him; when that effect is over he will perhaps never relapse. Of course, I speak from imperfect knowledge, but I think I am right."

Poor Margaret could not answer him. She saw him go with a feeling akin to despair. She sat looking at the fire, and then at the man she had vowed to honour—and obey.

She rose hurriedly from her seat and rushed to the open window, suffocating with the agony and horror of it all. Was this to be her life?

She had sinned, and this was her punishment; and she was so young, so very young. She had, perhaps, a long life before her. How she shrank from this prospect, and from another confronting her then. Tears came; and kneeling before the window she allowed them to fall. Never was any girl more wretched, never was any more forlorn, than this poor child; helpless, lovely, and endowed with many gifts she was as yet all unconscious of.

She was roused by a man's step on the pavement leading to the house. She had not heard him ring, but he entered; a stern, grave man, with eyes accustomed to control the weak will of others, accustomed to see scenes far worse than this—far more terrible.

He asked to be shown Mr. Drayton's bedroom, and then he turned to Mrs. Drayton, who stood still watching: "You can sleep without anxiety, madam," he said, respectfully; "I will look after this poor gentleman." And Margaret thanked him, and fled to her own room, where she locked herself in and wept and prayed by turns, and finally slept.

The sun shone brightly into her room next day, when she opened her weary eyes in all the dim consciousness of a heavy trial awaiting her.

She rang, and had her breakfast brought upstairs (such as it was), and her luggage.

The Limes was a pretty place—large for a suburban villa. There was an extensive lawn behind, and flower-beds; but beyond the shrubbery, and all round the place, was a high brick wall, on the top of which, in spite of a height which seemed to forbid such a possibility, was a quantity of broken glass to keep out intruders. This wall destroyed all Margaret's happiness, she thought it made the place seem like a prison.

She dressed and went downstairs, and was met by the man who had come in the previous evening. Mr. Drayton was better, but it was wiser not to see him just yet, he said, firmly but respectfully; and poor Margaret felt afraid he might see too plainly upon her face that this prohibition was a relief.

When the doctor called, which he did soon, he told her he had been asked by his wife to say she would gladly be of use, and could recommend servants: and all that day she was busy seeing them and arranging matters a little.

In a few days her husband walked into the dining-room; greeted her laughingly, as though she had only just returned; and was apparently as well as ever.

But she noticed that the man-servant, who had replaced the first person, paid no attention to him when he called for wine, and that he provided him with a weak dilution from the side-board.

The days passed on in monotonous regularity, Margaret's happiness consisting of not seeing her husband; her misery, when she did. She got books and read, and she cultivated her flowers; and tried to resign herself to her life. But it was impossible for her fervent and passionate nature to be resigned. Though she had herself put on this yoke, her anguish was no less.

She often tormented herself by wondering whether love would have outlived this terrible experience; surely the sincerest love would have received its death-blow.

Some months had passed when Margaret lived through a time in which death seemed very close at hand, and had her baby in her arms. She had not looked forward to this happily, but when it came, all motherhood awoke in her nature; all her love, pent up, and finding no outlet in another direction, flowed to this helpless and feeble creature. She lavished endless caresses upon it; she lived for it; she worshipped it.

Her letters to Grace, so scanty and so bare of any information, were now full of her infant, its progress, and its wonderful intelligence.

Mr. Drayton showed no feeling but that of jealousy in connection with it; but Margaret did not mind. It slept in her room, and she devoted herself to it.

Up to this time Mr. Drayton had never again given her cause for fearing him.

Even the experienced servant pronounced him as well as any one, and he resumed his usual occupations.

One night Margaret was upstairs with her child—late.

There had been a thunder-storm, and the thunder was still growling in the distance. Rain came on, and as Margaret sat by her little one she felt only natural pity for any wayfarers on such a stormy night.

How it poured, and how dark the night was! She closed the shutters for fear of the baby's slumbers being disturbed by the loud splashing of the rain upon a lower roof of an outhouse, and was taking up her book again, when her husband walked into the room, looking perfectly wild, a paper in his hand. With great difficulty she got him to go downstairs with her, calling her nurse to go to the child.

Cautious, and seeing how frightfully excited he was, she sat down near the bell, and tried to speak to him quietly.

But she was frightened when she saw that the paper he held was the record of her opinion of his character, written in Germany—that she had meant to destroy, and had long forgotten.

"So, madam," her husband said furiously, "this is your candid opinion of me." He spoke in a tone of concentrated rage.

"It was written long ago," faltered Margaret.

"Oh, it was written long ago. Well, now I know your opinion of me I shall alter my conduct towards you—you sneaking...."

He came towards her. Margaret, frightened, rang the bell, and the sound was to her surprise repeated outside. There was a commotion in the hall. Before she could speak Grace, wet, wearied, but with all her accustomed nonchalance, stepped into the room.

Before the sisters could clasp each other Mr. Drayton rushed between them furious. The sight of Grace, whom he hated, drove him to frenzy, and the servant entreated her to go, as he did his utmost to restrain him.

"Yes, you had better go, darling," sobbed Margaret.

"But you will not remain here, you will come too," pleaded Grace, panting.

"Oh, Grace, my child! I cannot leave it—I cannot risk moving it."

She wrote the doctor's address in pencil, and saw her sister go, resolved that she would go and see her the next morning.

"The doctor will help you, Grace, and if you get some nice rooms I will manage for you."

She saw the frail figure in the cab, and, struck by the forlornness of her departure, she sent a servant with her. Then she went up stairs, and carefully locking the door tried to face this new and terrible complication.

What was she to do?

For the first time now she was really frightened. Her husband's expression had been so full of malice. How could she go on living in this way?

She thought long and deeply about it, and resolved that next day she would take baby to see Grace, leave it with her, and go and consult some clever lawyer as to what was possible for her to do. In her ignorance and inexperience she thought that the fact of his drinking would free her. She had yet much to learn.

Next day Mr. Drayton was not out of his room, and the discreet man-servant advised her to make haste and go out before he was up.

"He has been very troublesome and violent," he said, "and you had better not see him. He's got a turn against you just now, and how he got anything completely passes me. I have been watching him like a cat."

In a short time Margaret, with her nurse and baby, went off to see Grace, and much to her annoyance did not find her alone. Paul Lyons was there, full of sympathy, but sympathy expressed with very little tact; and while wishing to be a real friend—indeed, longing to hold that position—he wounded Margaret's pride by the way in which he allowed himself to speak to her of her husband.

She carried her point, however, and taking the train to London she went to a lawyer she had heard of, knowing no one herself. Her visit there was productive of no comfort to her.

Mr. Spratt was a busy man, and looked upon all feminine clients in the light of obstructions. This one was very pretty, but an obstructionist nevertheless.

"How can I serve you, madam?" were his first words, and Margaret did not quite know how to state her case.

She looked at him for some moments, and his patience, not very unnaturally, began to give way. He wore blue spectacles, a circumstance which reduced every one to the same hue as regarded complexion, which was at the same time a drawback and a safeguard. Impelled to speak by his evident impatience, Margaret asked him with a trembling voice, "If a man drinks, can a wife leave him?"

"By mutual consent. If he illtreats her she can perhaps do so—by arrangement. Madam," he said, softening a little—a very little—at the soft pleading tones of her voice, "all you say to me is confidential—state your own, and not an abstract case. Does your husband drink?"

"Yes," said poor Margaret.

"Does he illtreat you when he is drunk?"

"No," said the poor child, trembling—"he—he frightens me."

"Ah! you see the law recognizes cruelty, and another thing, as a cause for legal separation, or even a divorce, but the fact of a man's being a drunkard is not taken into account."

"Not taken into account?" said Margaret, repeating his words in strongest surprise.

"No. So little does this fact—a very terrible fact—tell against a man in the eyes of the law, that, though you are too young to have children, supposing you had children, and that you left the father, the law gives the children to him and not to you—they remain with him, they do not go with you."

"God help me!" she murmured, fervently, her heart standing still in the great shock of this announcement. And if she had left him, as she had once thought of doing, her baby might have been kept from her.

"Then you cannot help me!"

"I am afraid not," he said, not unkindly; "the law as regards the rights of mothers is a little one-sided—a little unjust, I allow, but till they are altered——"

"Good-bye," said Margaret, seized now with a sort of terror, lest something should have happened to her infant during her absence—she felt so far from it, she must hurry back.

"Good-bye, madam," said the old lawyer, seeing before him somebody not usual in his experience. "If your husband ever strikes you we might have a case."

"And my baby!"

"Good gracious—a baby! You have an infant? you look so very young," he said, in a tone of apology. "Ah, well, you see, we need not go into that question just now."

She went downstairs utterly broken down. She had always clung to a belief that if things got very bad she would be able to go. She had had a sort of blind belief that the laws of her country—boasted of so often, and the outcome of so much intellect and ability—were there to fall back upon and to protect her.

She stopped to take breath and gather herself together for a moment, and she was just moving away from the door when some one passed in a hansom,—in another moment he had pulled up short, jumped out, and dismissed the cabman. Then he was beside her, and in the moment of her deepest anguish Sir Albert Gerald stood beside her.

She was utterly miserable, too much crushed to feel surprised. He saw that she was quite unfit to be spoken to, that she had sustained some great shock, and he tried to think rapidly what was best for her.

"I wish to go back to my sister," she said at length in a low voice. "Will you take me there?"

He called a cab and put her into it, and got in and told the man to drive to the station.

What was the meaning of all this? She said her sister, not her husband. Had she left her husband? He was longing to know all, and yet he could not ask her anything.

"You know you can depend upon my friendship," he said earnestly to her, and the kindness of his tone, the care he took of her, everything contrasted with the misery of her home, and she lay back in the railway carriage with great tears unconsciously rolling over her face. He saw her safe to her sister's door, and there he left her, anxious not to increase her difficulties, but determined to be at hand should she require help.

"Here is my address," he said, as he gave it to her. "At any moment I am ready to serve you, and I trust and hope you will not refuse me this one thing left for me to do—let me be of some use to you."

"Thank you," said Margaret, gratefully. "If I go for help to any one I will go to you." And as she left him her smile of perfect confidence went to his heart.

Grace could not understand her sister's wild rapture when she once more held her baby in her arms. "I nearly lost you, oh, my darling!" she heard her murmur, and she lavished endearments upon it; and she seemed to hear nothing, see nothing, but it.

"A round chubby-faced baby, with no particular anything to distinguish it from other babies," was Grace's way of putting it.

Margaret had sustained so severe a shock that she was neither pleased nor displeased when Mr. Lyons appeared again, ready and anxious to walk to the Limes to see her home, and to try and have leave to call upon her.

As they drew near the place, however, Mr. Drayton was on the step (with his servant) looking out for his wife.

He was horribly afraid she had gone, and now that he was himself again he could not remember what had passed. His servant could not or would not remind him of anything, and the vague feeling of fright at having said or done something terribly violent, filled him with dread. But all these remorseful feelings were swept away when he saw Mr. Paul Lyons as her escort, the nurse and baby bringing up the rear.

She turned abruptly when she came up to him, and, as he slammed the heavy gate behind the small party who entered, a thrill of fear passed through poor Margaret's heart.

She felt as though a prison door had closed upon her.

Alas! could she have looked forward and seen the real future lying before her, how far, far deeper had been her anguish—how agonized her feelings!

She went upstairs with her baby. She had seen her husband turn into his sitting-room down stairs, and she stayed till dinner was ready, then she met him.

He was silent and sullen during dinner, and she tried in vain to get him to speak.

It was a dismal meal. Margaret was tired by her unwonted exertions, and frightfully depressed by the news she had heard, and Mr. Drayton was jealous and miserable and full of plans of vindictive revenge, his wife's written opinion of him rankling in his heart.

Next day fresh complications arose. Grace sent her sister a note asking her if she could pay for the attendant and various luxuries she had had. "I don't think I told you that I had a violent tiff with old Sandford when I left him, so of course I cannot ask him for money. Will you send it to me to-day, please?"

Margaret had spent the very little she had in her yesterday's expedition; but she thought, though her husband would not have her sister in the house that he would not mind helping her. He had been generous enough when they were at Torbreck.

"Will you please give me a cheque?" she said to him when they met.

"What for?"

"I want to pay some things for my sister. You will not allow her to come here. She is not well enough to go back to Scotland. She wants the money."

"Does she?" he said. "Then she may want it! Not one single farthing of my money shall she have, that I swear!" and he thumped his hand down upon the table with violence.

"What am I to do?" asked his wife, in a tone of distress.

"What do I care? I feed and clothe you because you are my wife. I told you before I have not married your sister, and I will have nothing to do with her."

"I must go and see her, then, and make some arrangement for her," said Margaret, turning away.

"Not so fast," he said, while a laugh rang through the room that made her shiver again. "You do not go out again without me. I can tell you I am not going to allow a wretched stick of a fellow to run about with my wife any more—no, no!"

For one second, fear lest Sir Albert's escort should have been known to him—in itself so innocent, but perhaps she now thought imprudent—she coloured a little, and he noticed it, and it increased his rage.

"Mr. Lyons never shall have the pleasure of escorting you again," he said. "I will take care of that. Darby and Joan—Darby and Joan!" and another wild burst of laughter rang out.

Margaret left him to think over her next step, and to send Grace a few lines to account for her non-appearance. She resolved to write to Mrs. Dorriman, and to lay before her something of her sad position. The whole truth she could not bring herself to put down.

But time went on; she got no letter from Grace nor from Mrs. Dorriman. Her husband seemed to spend his whole time in watching her, and if she attempted to go out he was beside her. She appealed to the man-servant, but he told her he was only there to see that her husband did not go out alone, and did not drink, for nothing else; that he could not interfere. "I cannot aid and abet you, madam," he said; "it may be your sister, again it may not be, and if something comes of it, it will not look well for me."

Margaret's indignant young face quelled him, and he stopped short.

She was perfectly helpless. She could wander in the grounds, and see little of her husband. She could spend hours with her child, but she never could go out. She felt that this was indeed a prison, and she a prisoner!

She had not even the comfort of knowing that Grace had got her letters, since she received no answer; then she was terrified lest Grace should write and say something in her letter about Mr. Drayton.

She was utterly wretched about her; her nurse was a timid woman, and she had had one rebuff; she was afraid of altering her position towards her, and altogether the poor thing did not know what to do.

She was standing near the front door watching her baby go out into the garden when the front door bell rang violently, so loudly as to make her start. Before it could be opened the key had to be obtained from Mr. Drayton. When it was answered, Margaret, who had paused a little from curiosity, waited to see who could come to this sad and forlorn place.

To her amazement she saw Sir Albert Gerald. He saw her, and before any conventional denial could be given he sprang forward and greeted her joyfully.

She was so overwhelmed with joy now that a friendly face appeared that she forgot everything but that she saw before her one who would go for her to her sister. She clung to his hand and led him into the sitting-room, where her husband, with angry eyes, was watching her.

But he said nothing; he rose and gave his hand, and a new fear came upon Margaret. If Mr. Drayton could so control himself, was there not cunning present? She knew that he drank. Now she feared he was mad. A remembrance of her earliest instinct against him came to her, and she covered her face with her hands. She could not say a word to Sir Albert without his hearing it, and she felt so thankful to him for keeping Mr. Drayton in conversation; it gave her time to think.

Abruptly then, she spoke of her sister, and begged him to go and see her, to let her know how she was. "You are a friend," she said; "you will see if you can help her. I cannot go and see her just now, much as I long to do so!"

Tears came into her eyes; he was shocked and frightened for her. There was something sinister in Mr. Drayton's expression.

He stayed as long as he could, and then he left, promising to return; and he left Margaret happier because of his promise to see her sister.

Mr. Drayton began to move restlessly about the room after Sir Albert's departure, and came suddenly close up to his wife; looking at her with a malicious smile, he said, "You shall never speak to another man so long as I live!" Margaret did not answer, but she rang the bell, and left him muttering to himself vengeance upon her and her visitor.

Sir Albert, meanwhile, went to Grace's lodgings, to find her ill, nervous, and most anxious about poor Margaret. She had no comforts about her and no proper attendance; and seeing how really ill she was, and with poor Margaret full in his mind, he telegraphed to Mrs. Dorriman, and entreated her to lose no time, but to come south.

Next day he went to see Grace, and found her in one of her most excited moods, her eyes sparkling, her colour high.

She was at one moment making fun of everything, the next dwelling upon their own history.

She was full of remorse about Margaret. "It is so dreadful; I drove her to it—it is like a murder."

"I never understood it," Sir Albert said, in a low voice.

"Of course not. Poor darling! when he first proposed to her we were at Renton, and oh, it was hateful to me then, though I think it tolerable now; and I was wild to get away—anywhere from that smoky place. Poor Margaret refused him, and told me about it.... You will see why I am so heart-broken now. I was disappointed. I was so selfish, and I thought she might have done it."

"Is that when——"

"Now, do not interrupt me," she said, struggling to speak in a light tone, though her heart was heavy. "I am just like a clock, I can go on when I am wound up, and if I am put back I strike all wrong."

"I will not interrupt you—but," he said, colouring, "would your sister wish me to hear all this—think only of her—if she disliked it?"

"I am not thinking or talking of her, except with reference to my part of the story," said Grace, pettishly.

"Well, we went to Lornbay, I daresay you remember the place well, as you were laid-up there. Well, Margaret had another lover there" (she did not see him start), "and this long, lanky, would-be fast youth also wished to marry my Margaret, and, of course, she said, No; and I was not at all annoyed," she continued, naÏvely, "for he had not a sixpence.

"Well—you see I begin all my sentences with that useful word—but it was anything but well now. We went off to a most detestable little village called Torbreck, and there I stupidly caught cold and coughed. I never heard of any one who coughed as I did. Then Mr. Drayton found us out, and I forget exactly what he did, but he gave us ever so many things, and grapes; and how I thanked him. Then he again wanted to marry Margaret. "Oh!" she exclaimed, the tears running down her face, "I never, never can forget one night." She came and knelt beside my bed, and she asked me if this sacrifice would really be what I wished; she said it would be giving her life, and that it was worse for her now than it had been before she had been at Lornbay. Sir Albert, do not turn away from me now. You cannot hate my deed worse than I do—you cannot have a lower opinion of me than I have of myself. I excited myself, and I bid her "do it!" and Grace lay back in her chair utterly exhausted."

What could the young man say? The deed was done and nothing could undo it. The utter selfishness of Grace's conduct could find no excuse; he tried to master his emotion; he could only succeed in saying in a broken voice something about God's forgiveness.

But Grace was past all the anguish of seeing this horror in his face. She had exerted herself to tell him the story, and put Margaret right in his eyes; and she had given way to exhaustion, and was deaf and blind to all that passed round her—for the time.

He stayed a little while, and left her, shocked at the violence of his own feeling against her.

The image of his poor childish love—kneeling beside the bedside of the sister she adored, who sacrificed her remorselessly—for what? A few luxuries.

It was absolutely terrible to think of, and he forgot to take into account the feebleness of health that might have impaired judgment. He waited in London till he thought Mrs. Dorriman had time to answer, whence for fear of any mistakes he had dated his telegram. Her answer came, and was not fully satisfactory. My brother is very ill, and I cannot leave him, but I send my maid Jean.

He went again to Grace's lodgings, and he told the landlady that an old family servant was on her way. Then he tried to think how best to convey this news to Margaret.

He felt that his having been admitted was a chance, and he was afraid of making things worse for her by going there too often; but he must risk something, she must know in some way about her sister, she must have her mind set at rest.

Unable to make up his mind he was wandering about when he was attracted by a curious-looking book in a bookseller's shop. It was something more than a shop, for he read there that it was no less a place than the office of the "Industrious Workman," a paper he knew by name.

He went in to ask the price of the book, and the intelligent little man, who was tearfully reading a poem, put it down to attend to him, saying as he did so, "I beg pardon for being so absorbed, but I have something very lovely here;" and handing him the paper Sir Albert recognised in the neatly-written lines—Margaret's handwriting.