has succeeded. Note the words 'my wife and I
parted'--parted, never perhaps to meet again. She has all my love,
all my heart, all my unutterable respect and deep devotion; but, as
you know, she can never be mistress of my house. May Heaven forgive
you.

Arleigh."

She could have borne with his letter if it had been filled with the
wildest invictives--if he had reproached her, even cursed her; his
dignified forbearance, his simple acceptance of the wrong she had done
him, she could not tolerate.

She laid down the letter. It was all over now--the love for which she
would have given her life, the friendship that had once been so true,
the vengeance that had been so carefully planned. She had lost his love,
his friendship, his esteem. She could see him no more. He despised her.
There came to her a vision of what she might have been to him had things
been different--his friend, adviser, counselor--the woman upon whom he
would have looked as the friend of his chosen wife--the woman whom,
after all, he loved best--his sister, his truest confidante. All this
she might have been but for her revenge. She had forfeited it all now.
Her life would be spent as though he did not exist; and there was no one
but herself to blame.

Still she had had her revenge; she smiled bitterly to herself as she
thought of that. She had punished him. The beautiful face grew pale, and
the dark eyes shone through a mist of tears.

"I am not hardened enough," she said to herself, mockingly, "to be quite
happy over an evil deed. I want something more of wickedness in my
composition."

She parried skillfully all Lady Peters' questions; she professed entire
ignorance of all that had happened. People appealed to her as Lord
Arleigh's friend. They asked her:

"What does this mean? Lord Arleigh was married quietly, and separated
from his wife the same day. What does it mean?"

"I cannot tell, but you may rely upon it that a reasonable explanation
of the circumstances will be forthcoming," she would reply. "Lord
Arleigh is, as we all know, an honorable man, and I knew his wife."

"But what can it mean?" the questioners would persist.

"I cannot tell," she would answer, laughingly. "I only know we must give
the matter the best interpretation we can."

So she escaped; and no one associated the Duchess of Hazlewood with Lord
Arleigh's strange marriage. She knew that when her husband returned she
would have to give some kind