t die. You shall be free! If you had waited until
to-morrow----"

"It is already day," she told him, and, as though to confirm her, a
neighbouring steeple-clock clanged twice. He moved uneasily as his eyes
fell on the disordered coverlet, half dragged from the bed and trailing on
the floor. They shunned hers as he said, a dark flush rising through his
haggard pallor:

"I beg your pardon for the intrusion here. But you were away.... I could
not sleep, and the house was lonely.... Is your maid with you? Surely you
are not alone?"

She bent her head with a faint smile.

"Quite alone. I did not wish for a companion."

"It was not wise----" he began, and took a step door-wards. "I will call
one of the servants," he added, and was going, when he remembered, and
stopped, saying hoarsely:

"I forgot. They are gone. I have sent them all away!"

She looked at him in silence. He continued:

"I have paid and dismissed them. You will think it curious--you will know
the reason later--I have written to you to explain."

"I found upon your table a letter addressed to me," she said. He started,
knitting his black brows.

"You have not read it?" he asked, breathing quickly.

"Not yet." She touched her bosom, where the letter lay. "I have it here."

"Please do not open it! Give me back the letter!" He stretched out his
hand to take it, and breathed more freely when she drew it out and gave it
to him. And a sweet wild pang shot through him; the paper was so warm and
fragrant from the nest where it had lain so short a time. But he mastered
the emotion and tore open the envelope. He took from it the enclosure,
wrapped in folds of tissue-paper, and put it in her hand, saying, as he
thrust the letter in his coat-pocket:

"There is something that by right is yours."

"Mine?..." She unrolled the tissue-paper, and the brilliants that were set
about the miniature sent spurts of white and green and rosy fire between
the slender, ivory-hued fingers that turned it about. She gave a little
gasping cry of recognition:

"It is--me! How could you have managed----?" Then, as the sweet grey eyes
of fair dead Lucy smiled up into her own: "I do not know how I am sure of
it," she said, with a catching in her breath, "but this must be my
mother!"

Saxham bent his head in answer to her look. His eyes bade her question no
further. She faltered:

"May I not know how it came into your hands?"

"Through the death," Saxham answered, "of an evi