be alone with the man who had
made shipwreck of her best days set his veins on fire. She had once loved
Mark Telford. Was it impossible that she should love him again? He tried
to put the thought from him as ungenerous, unmanly, but there is a maggot
which gets into men's brains at times, and it works its will in spite of
them. He reasoned with himself. He recalled the look of perfect confidence
and honesty with which she regarded him before they parted just now. He
talked gayly to Baron and Mildred Margrave, told them to what different
periods of architecture the ruins belonged, and by sheer force of will
drove away a suspicion--a fear--as unreasonable as it was foolish. Yet, as
he talked, the remembrance of the news he had to tell Mrs. Detlor, which
might--probably would--be shipwreck to his hopes of marriage, came upon
him, and presently made him silent, so that he wandered away from the
others. He was concerned as to whether he should tell Mrs. Detlor at once
what Baron had told him or hold it till next day, when she might, perhaps,
be better prepared to hear it, though he could not help a smile at this,
for would not any woman--ought not any woman to--be glad that her husband
was alive? He would wait. He would see how she had borne the interview
with Telford.

Presently he saw that Telford was gone. When he reached her, she was
sitting, as he had often seen her, perfectly still, her hands folded in
her lap upon her parasol, her features held in control, save that in her
eyes was a bright, hot flame which so many have desired to see in the eyes
of those they love and have not seen. The hunger of these is like the
thirst of the people who waited for Moses to strike the rock.

He sat down without speaking. "He is gone," he said at last.

"Yes. Look at me and tell me if, from my face, you would think I had been
seeing dreadful things." She smiled sadly at him.

"No, I could not think it. I see nothing more than a kind of sadness. The
rest is all beauty."

"Oh, hush!" she replied solemnly. "Do not say those things now."

"I will not if you do not wish to hear them. What dreadful things have
you seen?"

"You know so much you should know everything," she said, "at least all of
what may happen."

Then she told him who Mildred Margrave was; how years before, when the
girl's mother was very ill and it was thought she would die, the Margraves
had taken the child and promised that she should be as their own and a
comp