stranger and ye took me in.' But it breaks my heart to hear you speak in
that hopeless tone. I know--I feel sure that the 'broken thread of your
life,' as you express it, will be joined again. I cannot contemplate
with resignation that you, with your noble character and grand
possibilities for doing good, should carry this unhealed wound to your
grave. But I shall not go home to leave you here," she added,
resolutely; "if you stay to care for this poor, suffering stranger, I
shall stay to look after you."

"Mother, I cannot permit it," Vane began, but she interrupted him.

"I am inexorable," she said, firmly. "You know that the warm weather is
not depressing to me, as to most people, and anxiety would prey upon me
more than the climate, so it will be useless to urge me further."

Thus it was settled, and those two royal-hearted people remained for
another month in that deserted hotel, and devoted themselves to the care
of Wallace Richardson during his critical illness.

He was very, very ill, but as the physician had said, possessed a
splendid constitution, and, after a fierce battle with disease, he began
slowly to recover--at least his physical health.

But his mind seemed sadly clouded, a condition caused by the pressure of
a clot of blood upon his brain, the doctor said, and time alone would
show whether he would ever entirely regain the use of his mental
faculties; absorption was the only process by which it could be
achieved, and this might be slow or rapid, as his general health
improved.

At the end of four weeks it was thought that he might safely be moved;
indeed, the physician advised it, thinking he would gain strength faster
in a more invigorating atmosphere, and Vane determined to convey him
directly to the Isle of Wight, whither he had intended taking Violet.

It seemed almost like the mockery of fate that, instead of taking the
woman whom he had loved and hoped to make his wife to this beautiful
summer home, he should remove hither the man whom she had loved and
secretly married, to nurse him back to health.

The change proved to be very beneficial, and Wallace began to gain
strength, both physically and mentally, almost immediately.

Possibly the change in medical treatment had also something to do with
this improvement, for Lord Cameron placed him under the care of one of
the most skillful physicians of London, who happened to be summering on
the island.

He did not appear to regard the ca