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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well?"

"Unless she is dead."

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

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

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

Inez sighed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, Miss Stuart had come."

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

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

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

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

"You wish to see me, madame?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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