of his present visitor. He had left
her but three days ago for Midlandshire. How was it possible she had
tracked him hither? With what purpose she had done so he did not ask
himself, for he had already read it in her haggard face and hopeless
eyes.

"Have I come too late?" moaned she in a piteous, terror-stricken voice.

"For breakfast?--yes, madam," returned Richard, coldly; "but that can
easily be remedied;" and he feigned to touch the bell. His heart was
steel again; this woman's fear and care he felt were for his enemy, and
for him alone. It was plain she had no longer fear of himself.

"Where is my husband?" she gasped out. "Is he still alive?"

"I am not your husband's keeper, madam."

"But you are his murderer!" She held out her arm, and pointed at him
with a terrible significance. There was something clasped in her
trembling fingers which he could not discern.

"You speak in riddles, madam; and it seems to me your humor is somewhat
grim."

"I ask you once more, is my husband dead, and have I come too late?"

"I have not seen him for some days; I left him alive and well. What
makes you think him otherwise, or that I have harmed him?"

"This"--she advanced toward him, keeping her eyes steadily fixed upon
his own--"this was found among your things after you left my house!"

It was a ticket-of-leave--the one that had been given to Balfour on his
discharge from Lingmoor. It seemed impossible that Richard's colorless
face could have become still whiter, but it did so.

"Yes, that is mine," said he. "It was an imprudence in me to leave such
a token among curious people. You took an interest in my effects, it
seems."

"It was poor Mrs. Basil who found it, and who gave it to me." Her voice
was calm, and even cold; but the phrase "poor Mrs. Basil" alarmed him.

"The good lady is still unwell, then, is she?"

"She is dead."

"Dead!" Richard staggered to a chair, and pressed his hands to his
forehead. The only creature in the world on whom his slender hopes were
built had, then, departed from it! "When did she die?" inquired he in a
hollow voice, "and how?"

"On the evening of the day you left, and, as I believe, of a disease
which one like you will scarcely credit--of a broken heart."

Her manner and tone were hostile; but that moved not Richard one whit;
the cold and measured tones in which she had alluded to his mother's
death angered him, on the other hand, exceedingly. If his mother had
died of a b