man before her actually recoiled. She had uplifted one arm, and in
the gathering darkness of the night, she stood before him white and
terrible. So, for a second--then she came back to herself, and tore open
the note. Only half a dozen brief lines--the tragedies of life are ever
quickly written.

"Believe all that Liston tells you. I have been the greatest scoundrel
on earth to you, my poor Norine. I don't ask you to forgive me--that
would not be human, I only ask you to go and--if you can--forget."

"L. T."

No more. She looked up--out over the creeping night, on the sea, over
the lonely, white sands, and stood fixed and mute. The letter she had
looked for, longed for, prayed for, she had got at last!

In the dead stillness that followed, Mr. Liston felt more uncomfortable,
perhaps, then he had ever felt before in the whole course of his life.
In sheer desperation he broke it.

"You are not angry with me, I hope, Mrs. Laurence; I am but his uncle's
servant--when I am ordered I must obey. He was afraid to write all this;
it would be a very damaging confession to put on paper, so he sent me.
You are not angry with me?"

She put her hand to her head in a lost, dazed sort of way.

"Angry with you? Oh, no--why should I be? My head feels
strange--dizzy,--I don't want to hear any more to-night. I think I will
go home."

She turned slowly. He stood watching her with an anxious face. What he
knew would come, came. She had walked some dozen yards, then
suddenly--without warning, word or sound, she fell heavily, face
downward, like a stone.

CHAPTER XIII.

MR. LISTON'S STORY

Another autumnal twilight, ghostly and gray is creeping over the Chelsea
shore. In her pleasant chamber in the Chelsea cottage, Norine lies on
her white bed and looks out upon it. Looks out, but sees nothing. The
dark, burning, brilliant eyes might be stone blind for all they see of
the windy, fast drifting sky, of the strip of wet and slippery sands, of
the white-capped sea beyond. She might be stone deaf for all she hears
of the wintry soughing of the wind, of the dull, ceaseless boom of the
sea on the shore, or the light patter of the chill rain on the glass.
She lies here as she has lain from the first--rigid--stricken soul and
body.

Last evening, a little later than this, the Misses Waddle had sprung
from their seats with two shrill little shrieks at the apparition of Mr.
Liston entering hastily with Mrs. Laurence lying dead in