The next day while Madam Dolores sat alone in her beautiful parlor, a card was brought to her. She read upon it the name of Walter Earle.

"I am so glad to meet you once more," he said, as she rose to receive him. "Valchester told me he had called upon you yesterday and I could not resist coming to-day."

The sensitive color Walter remembered so well, rose into Jaquelina's clear cheek.

"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Earle," she replied, and gave him her hand in a perfectly frank, unembarrassed way. Walter pressed it a moment with a quickened heart-beat, and then they sat down. He congratulated her on her brilliant career.

"You must tell me how it all came about," he said. "We all believed you dead. It seemed as if the earth must have opened and swallowed you that morning, when I left you at the park gates."

"I wish it had!" she cried, involuntarily, and a look of pain came over the eager, handsome face of the listener.

"Were you so unhappy, Lina?" he asked, sadly.

The white hands clasped each other tightly, and tears came into the sad, dark eyes, as she lifted them to Walter's face.

"I was wretched," she replied. "It seemed to me that my heart was broken."

"But you were not so desperate as I feared," he said. "For when you disappeared so strangely, and we could hear nothing of your fate, I was always afraid that you had drowned yourself."

"I was not quite so reckless, nor so romantic," said Jaquelina, with a slight air of surprise; "I was very anxious to get away from myself, but as that was impossible, I did the next best thing that occurred to me. I simply ran away from the scenes and associations which it was beyond my strength to endure any longer."

"You must have taken infinite pains to hide every trace of your flight," he said. "No one saw or heard anything of you after I parted from you."

"That is not so strange when you remember how early it was, and what a wet and chilly morning," replied Jaquelina, quietly. "I am almost sure I did not meet a single person on the road, but I went straight home. My uncle and aunt were very early risers, you know. They were both out of the house—uncle in the field, and his wife at the milking, I supposed. I went up-stairs to my room, donned a traveling suit, and, taking a small bag in my hand, left the house unobserved. I walked to the station and took an early train for Staunton."

"You had friends there?" said Walter, deeply interested in her quiet story.

"Only Professor Larue—my old music-teacher—and his wife," she replied. "I went to them quite sure of a welcome. They had always predicted great things of me," she added, with the deep color rushing to her cheeks.

"You have been with them always then?" he asked.

"Always," she replied. "They have supplied the place of the parents I never knew. I owe them everything."

"God bless them," said Walter, fervently. "I shall always love them because they were kind to you in your sorrow, Lina."

He could not help calling her Lina. He did not like the sound of her stage name, and "Miss Meredith" seemed so cold and formal in this moment when they had been parted so long. She did not seem to care. She looked at him now, and answered quietly:

"Yes, they were very kind—yet they never knew how much I needed love and kindness. They had only themselves to care for. The professor had always been wild over my voice. I was reckless, desperate. I allowed him to have his own way with me. He took me to Europe, procured musical instructors for me and in time I made my debut in opera."

"And from thenceforward it has been veni, vidi, vici," smiled Walter.

"Yes," she replied, with the calmness of indifference "I have been what the world calls very fortunate. I have won fame and gold—I have been loved and sought—I have had all the best the world has to give except"—here her low voice sank still lower—"except happiness."

"Poor child!" he said, involuntarily.

"Except happiness," she repeated, looking at him with her large, soft, mournful eyes. "That was impossible, you know."

An answering sadness came into Walter's blue eyes.

"Is happiness always to be an impossibility to you, Lina?" he asked.

"Always," she answered, with patient resignation.

"Lina, have you ever seen Gerald Huntington since that night?" he broke out.

"Never!" she replied, with a shudder, and her pale face grew paler still.

"And you have never guessed why he repudiated you in the very moment he made you his bride?"

"Never," she answered again. "There was some secret connected with it; something he found out when he saw the picture of my mother. I cannot tell what it was—I have no idea."

"I saw Gerald Huntington at the opera last night," he said, startlingly.

Jaquelina sprang to her feet, and looked at him in a very panic of terror.

"You saw him," she said, her breath coming and going in fluttering gasps. "Oh, Mr. Earle!" she cried out in wild hope and anxiety; "did Uncle Charlie ever try to get me freed from him, if indeed I was ever bound? for it seemed to me a mere farce—nothing more."

"He did not try, Lina—you were gone, and it seemed as if you were dead," Walter said, hesitatingly.

"He did not try—and Gerald Huntington is here? Oh, Mr. Earle! do you think he has recognized me? Why is he here? What does he mean to do? Oh, if I had never returned here!" Jaquelina cried, rapidly and excitedly.

Before Walter could reply the door was pushed open, and Violet Earle came quickly into the room.

"Walter—you here!" she cried.