back and spend the
few days left to me here. Oh, it seems like home--it seems like Heaven
to sit within the sound of your voice once more! But I must depart at
once."

"Where, old friend?"

"I do not know yet; but God will direct me."

"As I trust that He will direct me," answered the countess, lifting her
eyes in momentary prayer. "Yates, you will never know what fearful
suspicions have haunted me--how hard and bitter they have made me. Oh,
had this letter come earlier!"

"I could not! I could not!"

"I know that, knowing you."

Hannah Yates lifted her grateful eyes for a moment, and dropped them
again.

"Now that I am free from the weight of these," she said, lifting the
casket in her hands, "the toil of my errand will be less."

The countess looked wistfully into the box, and shook her head.

"I have been unjust. I have accused that woman falsely. Until this
moment, Yates, I have not hesitated to proclaim my belief that the woman
they call Lady Hope had possessed herself of these diamonds as she had
won my daughter's husband. This is a wrong which wounds me to the soul.
It must be atoned for."

Hannah Yates moved toward the door, but heavily, and with the reluctance
of a woman whose strength had been overtasked. The old countess sat
gazing upon the jewels. How trivial and worthless they seemed to her
now! Yet the retention of these very diamonds had been a great cause of
offence against Lord Hope's second wife. How unjust, how cruel she had
been in this! Was it possible that, in other things, she had been
equally mistaken? She took up her daughter's letter and read it over.
The first shock of its reception had passed away, and nothing but the
quivering of the head remained of the fearful agitation that had shook
her little form like a reed.

Hannah Yates stood near the curtain, regarding her with a look of
yearning sympathy. How much she had suffered--how terribly she had
struggled to save that delicate creature from deeper sorrow--no human
being but herself would ever know; but the thought filled her heart with
infinite tenderness. She stepped back to the couch, took the hand which
lay in the lap of her old mistress, and kissed it.

The old lady lifted her eyes from the letter. They were full of
tears--those painful, cold tears which come in such scant drops to the
aged.

"Your hands are cold; you look tired. Ring for some wine and biscuit.
That poor, white face is a reproach to your mistress, Yat