hardly shows a trace for breathing things to follow until they feel
the transgression in wreck. How immensely nature seems to prefer men to
women!--But this paper is happier than the writer.

'Your TONY.'

That was the end. Emma kissed it in tears. They had often talked of the
possibility of a classic friendship between women, the alliance of a
mutual devotedness men choose to doubt of. She caught herself accusing
Tony of the lapse from friendship. Hither should the true friend have
flown unerringly.

The blunt ending of the letter likewise dealt a wound. She reperused
it, perused and meditated. The flight of Mrs. Warwick! She heard that
cry-fatal! But she had no means of putting a hand on her. 'Your Tony.'
The coldness might be set down to exhaustion: it might, yet her not
coming to her friend for counsel and love was a positive weight in the
indifferent scale. She read the letter backwards, and by snatches here
and there; many perusals and hours passed before the scattered creature
exhibited in its pages came to her out of the flying threads of the web
as her living Tony, whom she loved and prized and was ready to defend
gainst the world. By that time the fog had lifted; she saw the sky
on the borders of milky cloudfolds. Her invalid's chill sensitiveness
conceived a sympathy in the baring heavens, and lying on her sofa in the
drawing-room she gained strength of meditative vision, weak though she
was to help, through ceasing to brood on her wound and herself. She
cast herself into her dear Tony's feelings; and thus it came, that she
imagined Tony would visit The Crossways, where she kept souvenirs of her
father, his cane, and his writing-desk, and a precious miniature of him
hanging above it, before leaving England forever. The fancy sprang to
certainty; every speculation confirmed it.

Had Sir Lukin been at home she would have despatched him to The
Crossways at once. The West wind blew, and gave her a view of the Downs
beyond the Weald from her southern window. She thought it even
possible to drive there and reach the place, on the chance of her vivid
suggestion, some time after nightfall; but a walk across the room to try
her forces was too convincing of her inability. She walked with an ebony
silver-mounted stick, a present from Mr. Redworth. She was leaning on it
when the card of Thomas Redworth was handed to her.

CHAPTER VIII. IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A D