only? Constance, I wish I were buried,
too.

SYBIL

P. S.--Con., never let my relatives see this note. They will have
enough to bear.

So runs the note.

Half an hour later, Constance Wardour comes quietly into the
drawing-room. So quietly, that her approach is not observed by Dr.
Heath, until her voice breaks the silence, and he starts up from the
reverie in which he has been indulging, to see her standing before him,
with pale cheeks, and troubled, anxious eyes.

"Has my rudeness been quite unpardonable?" she says, appealingly.
"Truly, I have had no idea of the flight of time. I have been sitting up
there," motioning toward the upper floor, "stunned, and yet trying to
think. I have gained a little self-possession," smiling slightly, as she
sinks into a seat, "but not my senses. I thought myself equal to most
emergencies, but this is more than an emergency,--it is a mystery, a
terror! For the first time in my life, I can't think, I can't reason. I
don't know what to do!"

It is her turn to speak in riddles; his, not to comprehend. But, being a
man, he closes his lips and waits.

"Something terrible has befallen Sybil Lamotte," she goes on, gradually
regaining a measure of her natural tone and manner. "I need an adviser,
or I had better say, a confidante, for it amounts to that. You know
Sybil, and you know poor Ray. You are, I believe, a capital judge of
human nature. This morning, just after you left, as you know, Mr.
Lamotte and his son called here, and Frank put in my hand this note from
Sybil." For the first time he observes the letter which she holds
between her two hands. "For reasons stated on the outside of the
envelope, which was enclosed in another, I did not break the seal
until--now. It may seem like violating Sybil's confidence, but I feel
justified in doing what I do. I have no one to advise me, Aunt Honor
being worse than myself in a crisis like this; and I believe that both
Sybil and I can trust you. Dr. Heath, please read that letter."

He looks at it doubtfully, but does not take it from her extended hand.

"You are sure it is best?" hesitatingly. "You wish it?"

"I wish it," with a touch of her natural imperiousness; "I believe it is
best."

Silently he takes the letter from her hand, silently reads the lines
upon the envelope, while she thinks how sensible he is not to have
uttered some stereotyped phrase, expressive of his sense of the high
honor she does him by