ubly anxious to have Howard free himself. But he does
not seem able to do so. If his wife had only known----"

Was there a quiver in the lids I was watching? I half raised my hand and
then I let it drop again, convinced that I had been mistaken. Miss
Althorpe at once continued:

"She was not a bad-hearted woman, only vain and frivolous. She had set
her heart on ruling in the great leather-merchant's house, and she did
not know how to bear her disappointment. I have sympathy for her myself.
When I saw her----"

Saw her! I started, upsetting a small work-basket at my side which for
once I did not stop to pick up.

"You have seen her!" I repeated, dropping my eyes from the patient to
fix them in my unbounded astonishment on Miss Althorpe's face.

"Yes, more than once. She was--if she were living I would not repeat
this--a nursery governess in a family where I once visited. That was
before her marriage; before she had met either Howard or Franklin Van
Burnam."

I was so overwhelmed, that for once I found difficulty in speaking. I
glanced from her to the white form in the shrouded bed, and back again
in ever-growing astonishment and dismay.

"You have seen her!" I at last reiterated in what I meant to be a
whisper, but which fell little short of being a cry, "and you took in
this girl?"

Her surprise at this burst was almost equal to mine.

"Yes, why not; what have they in common?"

I sank back, my house of cards was trembling to its foundations.

"Do they--do they not look alike?" I gasped. "I thought--I imagined----"

"Louise Van Burnam look like that girl! O no, they were very different
sort of women. What made you think there was any resemblance between
them?"

I did not answer her; the structure I had reared with such care and
circumspection had fallen about my ears and I lay gasping under the
ruins.

XXV.

"THE RINGS! WHERE ARE THE RINGS?"

Had Mr. Gryce been present, I would have instantly triumphed over my
disappointment, bottled up my chagrin, and been the inscrutable Amelia
Butterworth before he could say, "Something has gone wrong with this
woman!" But Mr. Gryce was not present, and though I did not betray the
half I felt. I yet showed enough emotion for Miss Althorpe to remark:

"You seemed surprised by what I have told you. Has any one said that
these two women were alike?"

Having to speak, I became myself again in a trice, and nodded
vigorously.

"Some one was so foolish," I r