e had promised Mrs. Errol that she would
take a long rest, but there was no rest for her. She knew that she would
hear from Lucas the moment he had anything definite to report; but a new
and ghastly fear now assailed her. What if Nap had not returned to
Baronmead? What if he had gone direct to the asylum, there to snatch his
opportunity while his fury was at its height?

The thought turned her sick. She rose, scarcely knowing what she did, and
moved across the room to her escritoire. The vague idea of penning some
sort of warning was in her mind, but before she reached it the conviction
stabbed her that it would be too late. No warning would be of any avail.
If that had been Nap Errol's intention, by this time the deed was done.
And if that were so, she was in part guilty of her husband's murder.

Powerless, she sank upon her knees by the open window, striving
painfully, piteously, vainly, to pray. But no words came to her, no
prayer rose from her wrung heart. It was as though she knelt in outer
darkness before a locked door.

In that hour Anne Carfax went down into that Place of Desolation which
some call hell and some the bitter school of sorrow--that place in which
each soul is alone with its agony and its sin, that place where no light
shines and no voice is heard, where, groping along the edge of
destruction, the wanderer seeks its Maker and finds Him not, where even
the Son of God Himself once lost His faith.

And in that hour she knew why her love lay wounded unto death, though not
then did she recognise the revelation as a crowning mercy. She saw
herself bruised and abased, humbled beyond belief. She saw her proud
purity brought low, brought down to the very mire which all her life she
had resolutely ignored, from the very though of which she had always
withdrawn herself as from an evil miasma that bred corruption. She saw
herself a sinner, sunk incredibly low, a woman who had worshipped Love
indeed, but at a forbidden shrine, a woman moreover bereft of all things,
who had seen her sacrifice crumble to ashes and had no more to offer.

Through her mind flashed a single sentence that had often and often set
her wondering: "From him that hath not shall be taken away even that
which he seemeth to have." She knew its meaning now. It scorched her
inmost soul. Such an one was she. No effort had she ever made to possess
her husband's love. No love had she ever offered to him; duty and
submission indeed, but love--ne