the much creased, much crumpled bit of paper which was
her only link to youth, to her life, and to her love.

"This is all that will interest you," said she, her eyes brimming in
spite of herself. "It is my marriage certificate. The one thing that
proves me an honest woman and the equal of--" she paused, biting back
her words and saying instead--"of any one I see. My husband was a
gentleman."

It was with trembling hands I unfolded the worn sheet. Somehow the
tragedy of the lives my own had touched so nearly for the last few days
had become an essential part of me.

"John Silverthorn Brainard," I read, the name identical with the one I
had just seen as the early signature of the man who claimed a husband's
rights over Mrs. Packard. The date with what anxiety I looked at
it!--preceded by two years that of the time he united himself to Olympia
Brewster. No proof of the utter falsity of his dishonorable claim could
be more complete. As I folded up the paper and handed it back, Bess
noted the change which had come to me. Panting with excitement she
cried:

"You look happy, happy! You know something you have not told me. What?
what? I'm suffocating, mad to know; speak--speak--"

"Your husband is a man not unknown to any of us. You have seen him
constantly. He is--"

"Yes, yes; did he tell you himself? Has he done me so much justice? Oh,
say that his heart has softened at last; that he is ready to recognize
me; that I have not got to find those bonds--but you do not know about
the bonds--nobody does. I shouldn't have spoken; he would be angry if
he knew. Angry? and I have suffered so much from his anger! He is not a
gentle man."

How differently she said this from the gentleman of a few minutes back!

"But he doesn't know that I am here," she burst out in another instant,
as I hunted for some word to say. "He would kill me if he did; he once
swore that he would kill me if I ever approached him or put in any claim
to him till he was ready to own me for his wife and give me the place
that is due me. Don't tell me that I have betrayed myself, I've been so
careful; kept myself so entirely out of his eyes, even last night when
I saw the doctor go in and felt that it was for him, and pictured him
to myself as dying without a word from me or a look to help me bear the
pain. He was ill, wasn't he?--but he got better. I saw him come out,
very feeble and uncertain. Not like himself, not like the strong
and too, too handsome