present to her fancy. Harold Routledge was wounded seriously in the
duel, but not killed; he is near Lilian; seeing her every day; but he is
her friend, rather than her lover, now; she talks with him of her child,
and he feels how utterly hopeless his own passion is in the presence of
an all-absorbing mother's love. It is discovered that the child is
living peacefully among kind guardians in a French convent; and
Routledge determines to cross the ocean with the necessary evidence and
bring the little one back to its mother. He breaks the news to Lilian
tenderly and gently. A gleam of joy illuminates her face for the first
time since the terrible night, two years before, and Routledge feels
that the only barrier to his own happiness has been removed. But the
sudden return and reappearance of the husband falls like a stroke of
fate upon both. As the curtain descends on the fourth act, Lilian lies
fainting on the floor, with Natalie at her side, while the two men stand
face to face above the unconscious woman whom they both love. Three
lives ruined--because Lilian's father, having lost his wealth, in his
old age, dared not, as he himself expressed it, leave a tenderly
nurtured daughter to a merciless world. The world is merciless, perhaps,
but it is not so utterly and hopelessly merciless to any man or woman as
one's heart may be.

Lilian comes back to consciousness on her deathbed. Her child had
returned to her only as a messenger from heaven, summoning her home. But
the message had been whispered in unconscious ears; for she had not seen
the little girl, who was removed before the mother had recovered from
her swoon. They dare not tell her now that Natalie is on this side of
the ocean and asleep in the next room. Mr. Strebelow had heard in a
distant land, travelling to distract his mind from the great sorrow of
his own life, of Lilian's condition, and he hastened back to undo the
wrong he felt that he had committed. She asks to see him; she kisses his