was taking off her things. "On the Wednesday evening when I got home
to dinner Joyce told me that she feared Madame Vine was dying, and I
thought it right to see her."

"Certainly," returned Barbara. "Quite right."

"I went into her room, and I found that she was dying. But I found
something else, Barbara. She was not Madame Vine."

"Not Madame Vine!" echoed Barbara, believing in good truth that her
husband could not know what he was saying.

"It was my former wife, Isabel Vane."

Barbara's face flushed crimson, and then grew white as marble; and she
drew her hand unconsciously from Mr. Carlyles's. He did not appear to
notice the movement, but stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece while
he talked, giving her a rapid summary of the interview and its details.

"She could not stay away from her children, she said, and came back as
Madame Vine. What with the effects of the railroad accident in France,
and those spectacles she wore, and her style of dress, and her gray
hair, she felt secure in not being recognized. I am astonished now that
she was not discovered. Were such a thing related to me I should give no
credence to it."

Barbara's heart felt faint with its utter sickness, and she turned her
face from the view of her husband. Her first confused thoughts were
as Mr. Carlyle's had been--that she had been living in his house with
another wife. "Did you suspect her?" she breathed, in a low tone.

"Barbara! Had I suspected it, should I have allowed it to go on? She
implored my forgiveness for the past, and for having returned here, and
I gave it to her fully. I then went to West Lynne, to telegraph to Mount
Severn, and when I came back she was dead."

There was a pause. Mr. Carlyle began to perceive that his wife's face
was hidden from him.

"She said her heart was broken. Barbara, we cannot wonder at it."

There was no reply. Mr. Carlyle took his arm from the mantelpiece, and
moved so that he could see her countenance: a wan countenance, telling
of pain.

He laid his hand upon her shoulder, and made her look at him. "My
dearest, what is this?"

"Oh, Archibald!" she uttered, clasping her hands together, all her pent
up feelings bursting forth, and the tears streaming from her eyes, "has
this taken your love from me?"

He took both her hands in one of his, he put the other round her waist
and held her there, before him, never speaking, only looking gravely
into her face. Who could look at its sincere tru