voy-extraordinary from my honorable
and chivalric husband, to demand release from the bonds that doom me
to wear his name and you to live without that spotless aegis? Since my
fortune no longer percolates through the sieve of his pocket, and
legal quibbles can not now avail to wring thousands from my purse, he
desires a divorce, in order to remove to your fair wrists the fetters
which have proved more galling to mine than those of iron."

"Evelyn, insult must not be heaped upon injury. As God hears me, I
tell you solemnly that you have seen your husband since I have. Upon
Maurice Carlyle's face I have never looked since that fatal hour when
I last saw yours, ghastly and rigid, against the background of
guava-boughs. From that day until this, I have neither seen, nor
spoken, nor written to him."

"Then why are you here, to torment me with the sight of your face,
which would darken the precincts of heaven, if I met it inside of the
gates of pearl?"

"I have come to exonerate myself from the aspersions that in your
frenzy you have cast upon me. Evelyn, I am here to prove that my
wrongs are greater than yours,--and if either should crave pardon, it
would best become you to sue for it at my hands. But for you, I should
have been a happy wife,--blessed with a devoted husband and fond
mother; and now in my loneliness I stand for vindication before her
who robbed me of every earthly hope, and blotted all light, all
verdure, all beauty from my life. You had known Maurice Carlyle six
weeks, when you gave him your hand. I had grown up at his side,--had
loved, trusted, prayed, and labored for him,--had been his promised
wife for seven dreary years of toil and separation, and was counting
the hours until the moment when he would lead me to the altar. Ah,
Evelyn,--"

A violent spell of coughing interrupted the governess, and when it
ended she did not complete the sentence.

Impatiently Mrs. Gerome motioned to her to continue, and, turning her
head which had been averted, the hostess saw that her guest was
endeavoring to stanch a stream of blood that trickled across her lips.
Involuntarily the former started forward and drew an easy-chair close
to the slender figure which leaned for support against the corner of
the piano.

"Are you ill? Pray sit down."

"It is only a hemorrhage from my lungs, which I have long had reason
to expect."

Wearily she sank into the chair, and hastily pouring a glass of water
from a gilt-starred