who answered the bell whether Mrs.
Grey was at home, he was answered in the affirmative and invited to
enter the house.

The boy opened a door on the right hand of the narrow entrance passage,
and Alden passed into the parlor and found himself, unannounced, in the
presence of his false love.

There was no one with her, and she was sitting at a table, with drawing
materials before her, apparently engaged in copying a picture.

Hearing the door open and shut, she lifted her head and looked up.

Seeing Alden Lytton standing before her, she dropped the pencil from her
fingers, turned deathly pale and stared at him in silence.

Alden, if the truth must be told, was scarcely less agitated; but he
soon recovered his self-command.

"I should apologize," he said, "for coming in unannounced; but I did not
know that you were here. I was shown into this room by the waiter,
supposing that I was to remain here until he took my card to you."

She neither moved nor spoke, but sat and stared at him.

"I have only come as the bearer of a letter to you from Miss
Cavendish--a letter that I promised to deliver in person. Here it is,"
he said, laying the little packet on the table before her.

Still she made no answer to his words, nor any acknowledgment of his
service. She did not even take up Emma's letter.

"And now, having done my errand, I will bid you good-afternoon, Mrs.
Grey," he said, bowing and turning to leave the room.

That broke the panic-stricken spell that held her still.

She started up and clasped her hands suddenly together, exclaiming:

"No, no, no; for pity's sake don't go yet! Now that you are here, for
Heaven's sake stay a moment and listen to me!"

"What can you possibly have to say to me, Mrs. Grey?" coolly inquired
the young man.

"Oh, sit down--sit down one little moment and hear me! I have not got
the plague, that you should hasten from me so," she pleaded.

It was in Alden's thoughts to say that moral plagues were even more
dangerous and fatal than material ones; but the woman before him looked
so really distressed that he forbore.

"I know that you have ceased to love me," she went on in a broken voice.
"I know, of course, that you have ceased to love me--"

"Yes, I am thoroughly cured of that egregious boyish folly," assented
Alden, grimly.

"I know it, and I would not seek to recover your lost, lost love; but--"

Her voice, that had been faltering, now quite broke down, and she burst
in