at the head of the bed. With forced calmness, she broke the
seal which the dead fingers had made so long ago, opened it shamelessly,
and read it.

"You who have loved me since the beginning of
time," the letter began, "will understand and
forgive me for what I do to-day. I do it because
I am not strong enough to go on and do my duty by
those who need me.

"If there should be meeting past the grave, some
day you and I shall come together again with no
barrier between us. I take with me the knowledge
of your love, which has sheltered and strengthened
and sustained me since the day we first met, and
which must make even a grave warm and sweet.

"And, remember this--dead though I am, I love you
still; you and my little lame baby who needs me so
and whom I must leave because I am not strong
enough to stay.

"Through life and in death and eternally,

"Yours,

"CONSTANCE."

In the letter was enclosed a long, silken tress of golden hair. It
curled around Miriam's fingers as though it were alive, and she thrust
it from her. It was cold and smooth and sinuous, like a snake. She
folded up the letter, put it back in the envelope with the lock of hair,
then returned it to its old hiding-place, with Barbara's.

"So, Constance," she said to herself, "you came for the letters? Come
and take them when you like--I do not fear you now."

[Sidenote: The Evidence]

All of her suspicions were crystallised into certainty by this one page
of proof. Constance might not have violated the letter of her marriage
vow--very probably had not even dreamed of it--but in spirit, she had
been false.

"Come, Constance," said Miriam, aloud; "come and take your letters.
When the hour comes, I shall tell him, and you cannot keep me from it."

[Sidenote: Triumph]

She was curiously at peace, now, and no longer afraid. Her dark eyes
blazed with triumph as she lay there in the candle light. The tension
within her had snapped when suspicion gave way to absolute knowledge.
Thwarted and denied and pushed aside all her life by Constance and her
memory, at last she had come to her own.

XIII

"Woman Suffrage"

There was a shuffling step on the stairway, accompanied by spasmodic
shrieks and an occasional "ouch."