The man who had come to the hotel was no clergyman; he was going to be married in December; I was to go back to my friends and trouble him no more. That was my fate. I had been betrayed from first to last, and he had done with me forever.

"Well, that is more than six months ago. I don't know whether hearts ever break except in books. I know I am living still, and likely to live. But not here. I have deceived you, Mr. Darcy; but I tell you the truth to-night. And to-night, if you like, I will go."

He rose slowly to his feet; swift, dark passion in his eyes--swift, heavy anger knitting his shaggy brows. He held to the arms of his chair and looked down upon her, his face set hard as iron.

"Sit there!" he ordered. "Tell me the scoundrel's name."

The dark eyes looked up at him; the gravely quiet voice spoke.

"His name is Laurence Thorndyke."

CHAPTER XVII.

A LETTER FROM PARIS.

It is a sunny summer afternoon. The New York pavements are blistering in the heat, and even Broadway looks half deserted. Up-town, brown stone mansions are hermetically sealed for the season, the "salt of the earth"

are drinking the waters at Saratoga, gazing at the trembling rapids of Niagara, or disporting themselves on the beach at Long Branch. The workers of the earth still burrow in their city holes, through heat, and dust, and din, and glare, and among them Richard Gilbert.

He sits alone this stifling August afternoon, in his down-town office.

The green shades that do their best to keep out the white blinding glare and fail, are closed. The windows stand wide, but no grateful breeze steals in. He sits at his desk in a loose linen coat, multitudinous documents labelled, scattered, and tied up before him. But it is a document that does not look legal, that is absorbing his attention. It is a letter, and the envelope, lying beside him on the floor, bears the French postmark. He sits and re-reads with a very grave and thoughtful face. "It is queer," he is thinking, "uncommonly queer. She must be an adventuress, and a clever one. Of course she has wheedled him into making a new will, and the lion's share will go to herself. Hum! I wonder what Thorndyke will say. Come in."

He pushes the paper away, and answers a discreet tap at the door.

"Lady and gentleman to see you, sir," announces a clerk and the lady and gentleman enter.

"Hope we don't disturb you, squire," says the gentleman, and Mr. Gilbert rises suddenly to his feet. "Me and Hetty, we thought as how it would keinder look bad to go back without droppin' in. Hot day, squire--now ain't it?"

"My dear Miss Kent--my dear Uncle Reuben, this is an unlooked-for pleasure. You in the city, and in the blazing month of August. What tempted you?"

"Well, now, blamed if I know. Only Hetty here, she's bin sorter ailin'

lately, and old Dr. Perkins, he said a change would do her a heap of good, and Hetty, she'd never seen New York, and so--that's about it.

Squire! we've had a letter."

He says it abruptly, staring very hard straight before him. Aunt Hetty fidgets in her chair, and Richard Gilbert's pale, worn face grows perhaps a shade paler.

"A letter," he repeats; "from _her_?"

"From her. Two letters, if it comes to that. One from this here town last Christmas--t'other from foreign parts a week ago. I want to show 'em to you. Here's number one."

He takes a letter in an envelope from his pocket, and hands it to the lawyer. It seems almost a lifetime ago, but the thrill that goes through Richard Gilbert at sight of that writing still!

"Last Christmas," he says glancing at the postmark, a shade of reproach in his tone. "And you never told me!"

"I never told you, squire. It ain't a pleasant sort of thing to talk about, least of all to you. She doesn't deserve a thought from you, Mr.

Gilbert--"

The lawyer stopped him with a gesture.

"I have forgiven her long ago," he answers; "she did not care for me.

Better she should fly from me before marriage than after. Thank Heaven she is alive to write at all."

He opens the note. It is very short.

"Dear Aunt Hetty--Dear Uncle Reuben--Dear Uncle Joe--if you will let me, unworthy as I am, still call you by the dear old names. This is the third time I have written since I left home, but I have reason to think you never received the first two letters. I wrote then, as I write now, to beg you on my knees for forgiveness. Oh, to see your dear faces once more--to look again on the peaceful old home. But it cannot be. What shall I say of myself? I am well--I am busy--I am as happy as I deserve, or can ever expect to be. I am safely sheltered in a good man's house. I have been to blame, but oh, not so much as you think. Some day I will come to you and tell you all. Yours,

"NORINE.

"P. S.--_He_ is well. I have seen him since I came to New York twice, though he has not seen me. May the good God bless him and forgive me.

"N. K. B."

Richard Gilbert read that postscript and turned away his head. He had been near her, then, twice, and had never known it. And she cared for him enough to pray for him still.

"Here's the other," said Reuben Kent; "that came a week ago."

He laid a large, foreign-looking letter on the desk, with many stamps, and an Italian postmark.

"From Florence," the lawyer said; "how can she have got there?"

It was as short as the first.

"She was well. Foreign travel had done wonders for her health and spirits. She was with kind friends. Impossible to say when she would return, but always, whether at home or abroad, she was their loving niece, NORINE BOURDON."

That was all. Very gravely the lawyer handed them back.

"Well, squire," Mr. Kent said, "what do you think?"

"That I am unutterably glad, and thankful to know she is alive and well, and with friends who are good to her. It might have been worse--it might have been worse."

"You believe these letters, then?"

"Undoubtedly I believe them. She is travelling as companion, no doubt, to some elderly lady. Such situations crop up occasionally. I see she gives you no address to which to write."

"I don't know that I should care to write if she did. _You_ may forgive her, squire, but by the Lord Harry! _I_ aint got that far yet. If she didn't run away with young Thorndyke, what did she run away at all for?"

"Because she cared so little for me, that facing the world alone was easier than becoming my wife. We won't talk of it, Mr. Kent. How long do you remain in town?"

Uncle Reuben rose.

"We go to-day, thank fortin'. How you, all of you, manage to live in such a Babel beats me! Can't you strike work, Mr. Gilbert, and run down to see us this blazin' summer weather?"

Mr. Gilbert shook his head with a smile.

"I am afraid not. I am very busy; I find hard work does me good. Well, good-by, old friend. I am sincerely glad to have read those letters--sincerely glad she is safe and well."