threshold no more, and that as far as practicable you keep yourself
from her sight.

Faithfully,

ARTHUR WINSLOW.


With his swivel-chair overturned behind him the young lawyer stood at
the desk of his inner office, read this letter through at headlong
speed, turned it again, and re-read it slowly, searchingly, from his own
name to its writer's.

Then readjusting his chair he stepped to a door, asked a clerk in the
outer office to order his cutter, turned back, and was closing his desk,
when his partner came to him.

"Byington, are you ill?" asked the fatherly man.

"No; I'm only going out on some business. I'll be back about--" He
looked at his watch.

"Byington, don't go. You're ill. You don't realize how ill you are. If
you go at all, go home, and let me send some one with you. Why, your
hand is as cold"--

"I'm all right," said the young man, freeing his hand and smiling with
white lips. He took his hat and passed out.

Meanwhile Isabel lay on her bed too overwhelmed to rise. In his room