the cushions of the carriage, her brain in a whirl, her heart
panting almost to suffocation.

At the entrance gate of the old mansion, Gerelda dismissed the cab.
Stealing around by the rear wall, she entered the grounds by an unused
gravel walk, and gained the arbor. Then she crept up to one of the
windows whose blind had swung open from a fierce gust of wind. The room
into which she gazed had not changed much. A bright fire glowed cheerily
in the grate, its radiance rendering all objects about it clear and
distinct.

She distinguished two figures standing hand in hand in the softened
shadows. The girl's face, radiant with the light of love, was upturned
toward the handsome one bending over her. He was talking to her in the
sweet, deep musical voice Gerelda remembered so well.

She saw the girl lay one little hand caressingly on his arm, and droop
her pretty, golden head until it nearly rested on his broad shoulder.
Then Gerelda heard him say, "I have in my pocket the wedding-gift with
which I am to present you. It is not so very costly, but you will
appreciate it, I hope," disclosing as he spoke a ruby velvet case, the
spring of which he touched lightly, and the lid flew back, revealing a
magnificent diamond necklace and a pendant star.

"Oh, Hubert, you can not mean that that is for me!" cried Jessie.

But the second dinner-bell rang, and ere the sound died away, Mrs.
Varrick and a few guests entered the room. All further private
conversation was now at an end, but from that moment all sights and
sounds were lost to the creature outside. She had fallen in a little
dark heap on the ice-covered porch, lost to the world's misery in
pitiful unconsciousness.

The house was wrapped in darkness when she woke to consciousness.
Gerelda struggled to her feet, muttering to herself that it was surely
death that was stealing slowly but surely over her.

Slowly, from over the distant hills, she heard some church-clock ring
out the hour. "Eleven!" she counted, in measured strokes. As the sound
died away, Gerelda crept round the house to the servants' entrance.

To her intense delight, the door yielded to her touch, and Gerelda
glided noiselessly across the threshold. The butler sat before the dying
embers of the fire, his paper was lying at his feet, and his glasses
were in his lap. So sound was his slumber that he did not awaken as the
door opened. Gerelda passed him like a shadow and gained the door-way
that led into the