e city of
A.P., a resting place was found for the stranger who had suddenly dashed
from their lips the scarcely tasted cup of happiness. Mr. Luzerne
employed for her the best medical skill he could obtain. She was
suffering from nervous prostration and brain fever. Annette was constant
in her attentions to the sufferer, and day after day listened to her
delirious ravings. Sometimes she would speak of a diamond necklace, and
say so beseechingly, "Clarence, don't look at me so. You surely can't
think that I am guilty. I will go away and hide myself from you.
Clarence, you never loved me or you would not believe me guilty."

But at length a good constitution and careful nursing overmastered
disease, and she showed signs of recovery. Annette watched over her when
her wild ravings sounded in her ears like requiems for the loved and
cherished dead. Between her and the happiness she had so fondly
anticipated, stood that one blighted life, but she watched that life
just as carefully as if it had been the dearest life on earth she knew.

One day, as Annette sat by her bedside, she surmised from the look on
her face that the wandering reason of the sufferer had returned.
Beckoning to Annette she said "Who are you and where am I?"

Annette answered, "I am your friend and you are with friends."

"Poor Clarence," she murmured to herself; "more sinned against than
sinning."

"My dear friend," Annette said very tenderly, "you have been very ill,
and I am afraid that if you do not be very quiet you will be very sick
again." Annette gently smoothed her beautiful hair and tried to soothe
her into quietness. Rest and careful nursing soon wrought a wondrous
change in Marie Luzerne, but Annette thoughtfully refrained from all
reference to her past history and waited for time to unravel the mystery
she could not understand, and with this unsolved mystery the match
between her and Luzerne was broken off. At length, one day when Marie's
health was nearly restored, she asked for writing materials, and said,
"I mean to advertise for my mother in a Southern paper. It seems like a
horrid dream that all I knew or loved, even my husband, whom I deserted,
believed that I was dead, till I came suddenly on him in the park with a
young lady by his side. She looked like you. Was it you?"

"Yes," said Annette, as a sigh of relief came to her lips. If Clarence
had wooed and won her he had not willfully deceived her. "Oh, how I
would like to see him.