re given to
the sound of voices in the hall. At the same moment, the door was thrown
open, and a servant announced, "Mrs. Tretherick and Mr. Robinson."

The afternoon train had just shrieked out its usual indignant protest
at stopping at Genoa at all, as Mr. Jack Prince entered the outskirts
of the town, and drove towards his hotel. He was wearied and cynical.
A drive of a dozen miles through unpicturesque outlying villages,
past small economic farmhouses, and hideous villas that violated his
fastidious taste, had, I fear, left that gentleman in a captious state
of mind. He would have even avoided his taciturn landlord as he drove up
to the door; but that functionary waylaid him on the steps. "There's a
lady in the sittin'-room, waitin' for ye." Mr. Prince hurried up stairs,
and entered the room as Mrs. Starbottle flew towards him.

She had changed sadly in the last ten years. Her figure was wasted
to half its size. The beautiful curves of her bust and shoulders were
broken or inverted. The once full, rounded arm was shrunken in its
sleeve; and the golden hoops that encircled her wan wrists almost
slipped from her hands as her long, scant fingers closed convulsively
around Jack's. Her cheek-bones were painted that afternoon with the
hectic of fever: somewhere in the hollows of those cheeks were buried
the dimples of long ago; but their graves were forgotten. Her lustrous
eyes were still beautiful, though the orbits were deeper than before.
Her mouth was still sweet, although the lips parted more easily over the
little teeth, and even in breathing, and showed more of them than she
was wont to do before. The glory of her blonde hair was still left: it
was finer, more silken and ethereal, yet it failed even in its plenitude
to cover the hollows of the blue-veined temples.

"Clara!" said Jack reproachfully.

"Oh, forgive me, Jack!" she said, falling into a chair, but still
clinging to his hand, "forgive me, dear; but I could not wait longer.
I should have died, Jack,--died before another night. Bear with me a
little longer (it will not be long), but let me stay. I may not see her,
I know; I shall not speak to her: but it's so sweet to feel that I am at
last near her, that I breathe the same air with my darling. I am better
already, Jack, I am indeed. And you have seen her to-day? How did
she look? What did she say? Tell me all, every thing, Jack. Was she
beautiful? They say she is. Has she grown? Would you have known her