at young face had been bright with fairest beauty,
eloquent with truest love, lit with passion and with poetry--now it was
like a white mask.

Slowly, and as though it was with difficulty that she understood Lady
Arleigh read the letter through, and then--she did not scream or cry
out--she raised her eyes to his face. He saw in them a depth of human
sorrow and human woe which words are powerless to express.

So they looked at each other in passionate anguish. No words passed--of
what avail were they? Each read the heart of the other. They knew that
they must part. Then the closely-written pages fell to the ground, and
Madaline's hands clasped each other in helpless anguish. The golden head
fell forward on her breast. He noticed that in her agitation and sorrow
she did not cling to him as she had clung before--that she did not even
touch him. She seemed by instinct to understand that she was his wife
now in name only.

So for some minutes they sat, while the sunset glowed in the west. He
was the first to speak.

"My dear Madaline," he said, "my poor wife"--his voice seemed to startle
her into new life and new pain--"I would rather have died than have
given you this pain."

"I know it--I am sure of it," she said, "but, oh, Norman, how can I
release you?"

"There is happily no question about that," he answered.

He saw her rise from her seat and stretch out her arms.

"What have I done," she cried, "that I must suffer so cruelly? What have
I done?"

"Madaline," said Lord Arleigh, "I do not think that so cruel a fate has
ever befallen any one as has befallen us. I do not believe that any one
has ever suffered so cruelly, my darling. If death had parted us, the
trial would have been easier to bear."

She turned her sad eyes to him.

"It is very cruel," she said, with a shudder. "I did not think the
duchess would be so cruel."

"It is more than that--it is infamous!" he cried. "It is vengeance
worthier of a fiend than of a woman."

"And I loved her so!" said the young girl, mournfully. "Husband, I will
not reproach you--your love was chivalrous and noble; but why did you
not let me speak freely to you? I declared to you that no doubt ever
crossed my mind. I thought you knew all, though I considered it strange
that you, so proud of your noble birth, should wish to marry me. I never
imagined that you had been deceived. The duchess told me that you knew
the whole history of my father's crime, that you were famil