, and drawing back the curtain so
that the last rays of sunlight fall across the floor. "Is there any
news? Have they found a trace of my robbers?"

"For the time being, your robbers, are forgotten," smiling slightly.
"W---- has had a fresh sensation this afternoon."

"So! and I have become a lesser light? Well, so goes the world! Of
course it won't be as interesting as the story of my own woes; but, who
is the newest candidate for sensational honors?"

"Your friend, Miss Sybil Lamotte."

Instantly her careless tone changes to one of gravity. For a moment she
has forgotten Sybil, and her note; now she remembers both, and
involuntarily glances out toward the west. The sun is almost gone, but
still darts red gleams across the sky. Moving nearer she seats herself,
and scans his face a moment, and then, while she motions him to a seat
opposite her, says, in that low even tone that is usual to her in all
serious moods.

"And what of Sybil Lamotte?" Her eyes search his face; instinctively she
knows that something serious has happened; she dreads, yet, with her
natural bravery, resolves to hear the worst at once.

"She has--eloped."

"Eloped! But why? Sybil eloped--then it must be with Ray Vandyck,"
drawing a breath of relief.

"No," gloomily. "It is _not_ Raymond Vandyck. That would have been
simply a piece of romantic folly, since no one would long oppose Ray,
but this--this thing that she has done, is worse than folly, it is
crime, madness."

"Not Ray! and yet Sybil lo--Doctor Heath tell the whole truth, the very
worst, quickly."

"Sybil loved Raymond Vandyck, that is what you were about to say, Miss
Wardour. You would have betrayed no secret; poor young Vandyck honors me
with his confidence. I left him, not half an hour ago, prostrate, half
maddened with grief and rage; grief, when he thinks of Sybil lost to
him, and fury when he thinks of the man she has chosen. I never saw him;
but if the public voice speaks truth, John Burrill is all that is vulgar
and corrupt."

"_John Burrill!_" Constance springs to her feet with eyes flashing.
"John Burrill! Why, he is a brute; mentally, morally, physically, _a
brute_. And you couple his name with that of Sybil Lamotte? Doctor
Heath, this is an infamous trick. Some one has lied to you. You have
never seen him, you say; if you _had_ you could not have been duped. _I_
know him, as one grows to know any notorious character in a town like
this, from seeing him reeling into