lves out of her brow,
and she was soon sleeping quietly and restfully.

When her regular breathing assured the watcher beside her that
oblivion had sealed her senses for the time, she bent over her,
touched her lips softly to her forehead, and murmured:

"Dear heart, they shall never hold you to that wicked ceremony--to
that unholy bond! If the law will not cancel it, if they have sprung
the trap upon you so cunningly that the court cannot free you, they
shall at least leave you in peace and virtually free, and you shall
never want for a friend as long as--as--Gertrude Weld lives," she
concluded, a peculiar smile wreathing her lips.

While this strange woman sat in that third-story room and watched her
sleeping patient, the hours sped by on rapid wings to the merry
dancers below, very few of whom concerned themselves about, or even
knew of, the tragic ending of the marriage which they had witnessed
earlier in the evening.

But oh, how heavily these hours dragged to one among that smiling
throng!

Anna Goddard could scarcely control her impatience for her guests to
be gone--for the terrible farce to end.

How terrible it all was to her not one of the gay people around her
could suspect, for she was obliged to fawn and smile as if she were in
thorough sympathy with the scene, and to attend to her duties as
hostess and to all the petty details required by so-called etiquette,
in order to preserve the prestige which she had acquired for
entertaining handsomely.

But there was a deadly fear at her heart--an agony of apprehension, a
dread of a fate which, to her, would have been worse than death.

Her husband and brother had disappeared entirely from the ball-room, a
circumstance which only added to her perplexity and distress.

When she saw signs of the ball breaking up she sent an imperative
message to her husband to join her, for she knew that it would cause
unpleasant remarks if the master of the house should fail to put in an
appearance to "speed the parting guest."

But she almost wished, when he came to her side, that she had not sent
for him, for he seemed like one who had lost his hold upon every hope
in the world, and looked so coldly upon her that she would rather have
had him plunge a dagger into her heart.

But the weary evening was over at length--the last guest from outside
was gone--the last visitor in the house had retired.

Her husband also had watched his opportunity, when she was looking
an