old him at once
whence it had come.

A deathly paleness overspread his face; a horrible numbness fell upon his
heart.

With trembling hands he tore it open, and one glance was sufficient to
tell him the nature of its contents.

It was the one bitter blow too much, even though he had half-expected it,
and, with a despairing cry that would have melted the hardest heart,
"Lost! lost! Virgie, my love! my love!" he fell prone upon the floor,
clutching that fatal paper in his grasp.

Long weeks of watching and anxiety followed--weeks during which Lady
Linton began to fear that she was paying dearly for her plotting and
treachery, even though her son might become the master of Heathdale in the
event of her brother's death.

But he did not die. His constitution was naturally rugged, and by the end
of winter, after many alternations of hope and fear, he slowly began to
rally.

As soon as he was able to be dressed and sit up he began to talk of going
again to America.

Of course Sir Herbert Randal vetoed such a proposition at once.

"You are not to stir outside the grounds of Heathdale for three months at
least," he said, decidedly.

"But I must, Sir Herbert. You have no idea how much is at stake," the sick
man pleaded.

"You must not. I cannot help how much there is at stake," returned the
physician, firmly. "I have had hard work to get you up, even so far, from
this nervous prostration and the least excitement or imprudence will cause
a dangerous relapse."

And so, with despair at his heart, Sir William was obliged to submit.

He tried to write to Virgie, intending to send the letter to her through
the lawyer whom she had employed and whose name had appeared in connection
with the papers he had received, but he could not; he found that his brain
was too weak to permit of the framing of even a sentence, and he knew that
he could never plead his cause successfully in such a state.

He shrank from asking any one else to write for him; his sister he knew
was not in sympathy with him, and he would not confide in her.

When his mind had become strong enough to realize what was going on about
him, he had one day asked Lady Linton to bring him both documents that had
come to him from America.

She obeyed him, making no comment, though her manner betrayed that she
knew well enough their character.

He told her to lock them in a certain drawer which no one was ever allowed
to open save himself.

She did so in his p