Jaquelina's wail of anguish penetrated to every ear in the house. Those who had sent her alone to break the terrible news to Ronald, came hurrying in now, and found her weeping and wringing her hands, and wildly calling on Ronald to speak to her once more.

"Ronald is dead!" she cried to them. "I tried to tell him gently, but he could not bear it. It has killed him—oh, my darling, my darling!"

Walter Earle hurried to the bedside, while the shrieks of the women filled the room. He pushed Jaquelina gently aside, and bent over the still form of his friend. He laid his hand on the quiet heart.

"Do not tell me that he is dead—my only child, my precious Ronald!" cried the frightened mother.

Walter was silent. He felt the cold hands, the still heart over and over again. At last he turned to his mother, who stood weeping by his side.

"I cannot believe he is dead," he said. "I can feel no pulse, and no beat of the heart. Yet it is possible that he is only prostrated by the suddenness of the shock. He may possibly revive. Send for the doctor immediately."

Then he saw that Mrs. Valchester had fainted, and that Jaquelina chafing her cold hands and bathing them with her tears. He lifted the form of the insensible woman and bore her into the next room.

"Lina, you must come in here—and you, too, Violet," he said. "You must do what you can for Mrs. Valchester. I do not believe that Ronald is dead. I will try every means to revive him."

He left them and went back to Ronald, who still lay like one dead on his pillow. With all that Lina and Violet could do, it was a long time before they could rouse Mrs. Valchester from her deep swoon. In the meantime they could hear the hurrying footsteps coming and going in Ronald's room. The doctor had been sent for and arrived, but it was an hour before Mrs. Earle came softly into the room and said, with gentle joy on her sweet face:

"Walter was right—Ronald is living!"

"Living!" they echoed, and then the three women wept for joy—the mother who had borne him, the girl who was to have been his wife, and Violet who loved him secretly and vainly.

He was living, but life hung on the merest thread. No one could be admitted into the room that night but the doctor and Walter Earle and his mother. He was unable to bear even the joyful excitement his own mother could not have suppressed on seeing him.

He was nervous and restless. The doctor stayed with him all night. He slept for a few hours under the influence of a strong opiate. Then vivid consciousness and memory returned. He pleaded with the physician for a boon which was firmly refused.

But in the glimmering dawn of the new day, which had come in rainy and damp and sunless, the physician stood in the doorway of the next room, where the sleepless watchers waited for the hourly bulletins that came from the sufferer.

"He wishes to see Miss Meredith," he said, gravely.

"And not me!" Mrs. Valchester cried.

"Yes, if I would permit it," said the doctor. "But I am afraid of the excitement. I can admit but one at the time, and Miss Meredith must go first. He has asked for her so often I can no longer refuse his prayer."

Jaquelina rose from her crouching attitude in which she had remained cramped on the hearth-rug all night, shivering and wretched.

"You must go to him alone," said the kindly physician. "He wishes it so earnestly. Try to be very calm, my child. Agree to everything he says. If he becomes excited, call me into the room."

Jaquelina went very quietly, though her dark eyes shone like stars. She did not know with what a baleful gaze Violet watched her as she went into that room where the idol of both their hearts waited for her coming.

They listened, fearful of some excited cry, but no sound came from the next room save a murmur of low, hushed voices. In a very little while—ten or fifteen minutes at the most—the door opened and Jaquelina came out again.

"My dear," the old physician cried out in alarm, and he went up to her involuntarily. The strange pallor on her beautiful young face frightened him.

She lifted her heavy, dark eyes that seemed to have no light or beauty left in them any more, and looked up at him.

"Doctor Leslie," she said, "will you let his mother go to him now? He is not excited. I think he is quite calm, but perhaps his mother may comfort him."

She went out into the hall the next moment. No one thought of stopping her. Her strange appearance had almost frightened them. Doctor Leslie led Mrs. Valchester quietly into her son's room. Jaquelina went softly down-stairs and took her shawl and hat from the rack in the hall. She put them on mechanically and stole quietly out of the house into the chilly, rainy world that lay outside.

She walked quietly along the wet and sodden path across the lawn, little dreaming that Walter Earle had observed her from an upper window and was hastening after her. She turned with a start at his light touch upon her arm.

"Lina, what does this mean?" he cried.

"I am going home," she said, with hard, dry lips.

"Not in the rain," said Walter, "the walk is too far. I will drive you over in the phaeton after breakfast."

"I must go now," she said, pushing on resolutely through the chilling autumn drizzle. "I do not mind the walk."

"I do not understand you, Lina," he said, gravely. "Why did you not wait and see Valchester? He will be very disappointed at your going."

"I have seen him," she replied, still walking on. "Doctor Leslie allowed me to go in a few minutes."

Walter could not understand her strange gravity and quietude. It seemed as if years had suddenly fallen on the bright young head and made of her a mature and thoughtful woman.

"You will come back and see Ronald again?" he said, interrogatively.

She lifted her heavy eyes and gave him one swift look whose hopeless despair never passed from his memory.

"I shall never see Mr. Valchester again," she said, mournfully.

"Never—why not, Lina?" he cried, surprised.

"He has given me up," she said.

"Why?" Walter queried again in bewilderment. "It will be all right after your Uncle Charles obtains a divorce for you—will it not?"

She looked at him again with those heavy, hopeless eyes.

"No, never again," she said. "Mr. Valchester has told me that he does not believe that human law can repeal a union cemented by a priest of God. He does not believe in divorces. As long as Gerald Huntington lives, he believes I am bound to him."

"Valchester is mad—delirious," Walter muttered, indignantly. "For myself, I hold that it was no marriage at all!"

They were nearing the lawn gates, and in a moment she looked up at him.

"Mr. Earle," she said, "we are almost at the lawn gates. Will you excuse me if I go on alone from here? You are very kind, but—it seems to me I cannot bear the sight of a human face."

Walter bowed and turned back silently, leaving her to pursue her walk alone.