the centre of a large empty apartment which had once been the saloon,
and face to face with Mrs. Hurdlestone.

Elinor carefully locked the door, and placing the light on the
mantel-shelf, stood before the astonished Algernon, like some
memory-haunting phantom of the past.

Yes. It was Elinor--his Elinor; but not a vestige remained of the grace
and beauty that had won his youthful heart. So great was the change
produced by years of hopeless misery, that Algernon, in the haggard and
careworn being before him, did not at first recognise the object of his
early love. Painfully conscious of this humiliating fact, Elinor at
length said--"I do not wonder that Mr. Algernon Hurdlestone has
forgotten me; I once was Elinor Wildegrave."

A gush of tears--of bitter, heart-felt, agonizing tears--followed this
avowal, and her whole frame trembled with the overpowering emotions
which filled her mind.

Too much overcome by surprise to speak, Algernon took her hand, and for
a few minutes looked earnestly in her altered face. What a mournful
history of mental and physical suffering was written there! That look of
tender regard recalled the blighted hopes and wasted affections of other
years; and the wretched Elinor, unable to control her grief, bowed her
head upon her hands, and groaned aloud.

"Oh, Elinor!--and is it thus we meet? You might have been happy with me.
How could you, for the paltry love of gain, become the wife of Mark
Hurdlestone?"