it, had
fluttered out unheeded as she drew it from the envelope, and now lay upon
the floor at her feet.

Later she examined the paper, and found a notice of the marriage of
William Heath and Margaret Stanhope. Whether Lady Linton had been the
cause of it to further her schemes, or whether some strange fatality had
occasioned the mistake, it would be difficult to say, but the paragraph
read:

"Married:--On the 28th instant, in the Heath Chapel, Sir William Heath, of
Heathdale, to Miss Margaret Stanhope, only daughter of the late Sidney
Stanhope."

Thus was added the last drop to the cup of bitterness which Virgie had to
drink.

There had been a strange mixture of truth and falsehood in the letter
which Lady Linton wrote to Mrs. Farnum.

Her brother was away for a day or two on a matter of business when
Virgie's imploring epistle arrived--a circumstance for which his sister
was most thankful, for it was no trifling matter for her to be always on
the alert to intercept the letters that passed, through the bag at
Heathdale. But she had succeeded in accomplishing this by having had an
extra key made for the lock and always accompanying the carriage when it
went for the mail.

This drive she called her "constitutional," and as the carriage was a
closed one, she could readily unlock the bag and abstract the letters she
wanted without being seen, and consequently was never suspected of having
anything to do with the interrupted correspondence of Sir William and
Virgie.

She had also been interrupted while writing to Mrs. Farnum by the return
of her brother and the entrance of her cousin's new wife. Afterward she
had had a talk with Sir William, in which he confessed to feeling greatly
"troubled" regarding Virgie and her long, unaccountable silence. He said
he felt that he had "done wrong" to have left her so long, for, as it had
proved, his mother was gradually though slowly improving, and he might
have gone and returned without affecting her health; he should see Sir
Herbert Randal when he came again, and make arrangements to sail
immediately for America. But Lady Linton cunningly provided against this
calamity by privately informing the physician that her mother was worrying
over this threatened departure, and he succeeded in prevailing upon the
baronet to wait a week or two longer.

Sir William had, indeed, given his sister a hundred-pound note, but it was
for the benefit of a poor girl who had been crippled by