has reason, good reason, for all this heat.
If she were candid enough she would
own it."

"But I warn her," said Jessica; " and as
you are her friend and champion, I ask you
to warn her. I wish her no ill, as I stand
here, though this and other steps have
been taken to injure me. Take care she be
not reckoned with in time, for all her
wealth."

Dudley's face was contorted with rage.
"Threats to that angel! Upon my word
here is an esprit fort. Threaten her
because she has been successful in getting
wealth and honour, and the liking and
love of friends?"

"You judge these things according to
your nature," said Jessica, calmly, and
rising to go away. " I utter no threats,
though I understand the insinuation. Let
her reckon with her own conscience for
all her treatment of me, beginning so
long ago. Only I again warn her, she
whose life is so precarious, these things
are not allowed to go on without
punishment."

"How noble, how generous! ' ' said Dudley,
bitterly. " We understand your insinuation,
Miss Bailey. But the Almighty does
not give us all strong chests and iron
blood-vessels."

She did not answer him, but left the
room. A version of that scene was over
the town before evening; how Miss Bailey
Lad publicly defied her rival through Mr.
Dudley, and warned her that she would be
punished. Before evening, too, that
defiance had reached that very rival.

Jessica was left to think upon this strange
news. So Conway was going away, and
the familiar image of the pretty yacht, to
which the place had grown so accustomed,
would be seen no more. Well, indeed,
might the doctor utter his unmeant
self-benediction, " God bless me!"

This, indeed, would be a relief; it would
bring a term, an end to the act, as it were.
Once he was gone, something would be over;
it was like the criminal longing for the day
of execution. She herself could not go till
he had gone; then she would go, rush out on
the world. She dared not think that he would
come to say good-bye. Even if he did, she
felt she could not see him; but still for
him not to make the attempt seemed almost
too stoical. But the miserable day wore on
and he never came. About three a sailor
arrived with a letter.

I am summoned away suddenly. All has
been arranged at Panton; and I shall go
through it all, as you would expect me to
do, with honour and loyalty. We must
not look back— at least I dare not....
Yet remember how solemnly I am bound to
you and you to me. From that there can
be no escape. Much may happen between ;
one of the thousand and one chances of the
world may turn up..... I have told
her bluntly— and I should have loathed
myself if I had not— how I had been forced
so suddenly into this match. She only
thinks me the more noble for the confession.
Yet still be patient. I have a strange
instinct that something must interpose
between me and this unworthy, this sinful
holocaust. I have been weak, foolish, and
culpable ; but do not deserve such a fate.
Neither have you deserved it. I owe you
the amende of a life ; and as this cannot
be paid, I shall find some way. Only wait
and hope : wait and hope, at least, until
this day two months hence. This is the
last letter I may write to you. Dearest,
injured Jessica, good-bye.

Often and often she read these words over
as the day wore on, and evening approached,
and the doctor, in full tenue, drove away to
his dinner at the castle. At her window,
removed from that blustering influence, she
could see the little port below, and a strange
fascination made her fasten her eyes upon
the yacht lying peacefully there, ill-fated
barque, that had brought her such misery
and yet such happiness. Even as she watched
she saw signs that foreshadowed departure—
sails half drooped, ready to spring
into position at a word, boats passing to
and fro, and rowing round. He was going,
sailing away, having accomplished his
double work. He had conquered both, and
she, that other, had conquered her. As
she watched, the idea sent a chill to her
very heart. As long as that elegant craft
reposed there—the first thing she saw in
the morning — though all was ended, it still
was a symbol, a sign that he was there
still. But after this day, that vacant space
and lonely harbour. She was, indeed,
anxious that she herself was gone, gone out
on the world. She had long made her
little plan. She had some money in her
own right, and there was a good aunt, or
elderly cousin — it matters not much which
—who was kind and sympathetic, though
she was dull and old-fashioned enough, with
whom she could live.

She watched until she felt herself
oppressed with fluttering anxiety, and then a