man, and you will have nothing to fear.'

As a woman and a mother she could go no further, and Betty's
desperate attempt to infect herself the week before as a means of
repelling him, together with the alarming possibility that, after
all, she had not gone to her father but to her lover, was not
revealed.

'Well,' sighed the diplomatist, in a tone unexpectedly quiet, 'such
things have been known before. After all, she may prefer me to him
some day, when she reflects how very differently I might have acted
than I am going to act towards her. But I'll say no more about that
now. I can have a bed at your house for to-night?'

'To-night, certainly. And you leave to-morrow morning early?' She
spoke anxiously, for on no account did she wish him to make further
discoveries. 'My husband is so seriously ill,' she continued, 'that
my absence and Betty's on your arrival is naturally accounted for.'

He promised to leave early, and to write to her soon. 'And when I
think the time is ripe,' he said, 'I'll write to her. I may have
something to tell her that will bring her to graciousness.'

It was about one o'clock in the morning when Mrs. Dornell reached
Falls-Park. A double blow awaited her there. Betty had not
arrived; her flight had been elsewhither; and her stricken mother
divined with whom. She ascended to the bedside of her husband,
where to her concern she found that the physician had given up all
hope. The Squire was sinking, and his extreme weakness had almost
changed his character, except in the particular that his old