--"

"Better?--expecting me?" almost shrieks she, as Valencia and Mary (for
it is she) help her to the carriage. Mary puts them in, and turns away.

"Are you not coming too?" asks Valencia, who is puzzled.

"No, thank you, madam; I am going to take a walk. John, you know where
to drive these ladies."

Little Mary does not think it necessary to say that she, with her
father's carriage, has been down to two other afternoon trains, upon the
chance of finding them.

But why is not Frank Headley with them, when he is needed most? And why
are Valencia's eyes more red with weeping than even her sister's sorrow
need have made them?

Because Frank Headley is rolling away in a French railway, on his road
to Marseilles, and to what Heaven shall find for him to do.

Yes, he is gone Eastward Ho among the many; will he come Westward Ho
again, among the few?

They are at the door of Elsley's lodgings now. Tom Thurnall meets them
there, and bows them upstairs silently. Lucia is so weak that she has to
cling to the banister a moment; and then, with a strong shudder, the
spirit conquers the flesh, and she hurries up before them both.

It is a small low room--Valencia had expected that: but she had
expected, too, confusion and wretchedness: for a note from Major
Campbell, ere he started, had told her of the condition in which Elsley
had been found. Instead, she finds neatness--even gaiety; fresh damask
linen, comfortable furniture, a vase of hothouse flowers, while the air
was full of cool perfumes. No one is likely to tell her that Mary has
furnished all at Tom's hint--"We must smarten up the place, for the poor
wife's sake. It will take something off the shock; and I want to avoid
shocks for her."

So Tom had worked with his own hands that morning; arranging the room as
carefully as any woman, with that true doctor's forethought and
consideration, which often issues in the loftiest, because the most
unconscious, benevolence.

He paused at the door--

"Will you go in?" whispered he to Valencia, in a tone which meant--"you
had better not."

"Not yet--I daresay he is too weak."

Lucia darted in, and Tom shut the door behind her, and waited at the
stair-head. "Better," thought he, "to let the two poor creatures settle
their own concerns. It must end soon, in any case."

Lucia rushed to the bed-side, drew back the curtains--

"Tom!" moaned Elsley.

"Not Tom!--Lucia!"

"Lucia?--Lucia St. Just!" answered he, in a low ab