o fond and careful of his
beautiful wife to rebel against this verdict.

A week or two passed and Virgie appeared to be improving, when, one
morning, there came a cablegram from Heathdale, announcing that the
dowager Lady Heath was alarmingly ill, and imploring the baronet's
immediate return if he desired to see her alive.

The message threw the young husband into a distressing state of mind.

It seemed like harshest cruelty to obey the summons and leave his wife
alone in that strange city. And yet the alternative of remaining and
allowing his mother to die without seeing him once more, seemed almost
equally unkind.

He sought Dr. Knox again in his extremity and explained his desperate
situation.

"I could not answer for the consequences if you take your wife; it will be
a fearful risk for Mrs. Heath to go. She <i>might</i> endure the voyage safely,
but the probabilities are that she would not," the physician gravely told
him. "But," he added, kindly, "I sympathize with you--I appreciate your
dilemma, and, if <i>you</i> must go, I advise you to leave her in my charge and
I promise faithfully to give her every attention during your enforced
absence."

This seemed the only thing to be done and Sir William finally decided to
return to his home alone.

Virgie herself urged him to go, though her heart was almost breaking at
the thought of the separation, for it <i>might</i> be that she would never see
him again.

Still she was brave--she put aside her own feelings out of regard for the
duty which he owed his mother, and there was a possibility that he could
return to her in the course of two or three weeks.

"Do not feel unduly anxious for me, Will," she said to him, on the evening
before he was to sail, "I know that Dr. Knox will do all for me that you
can wish. I will either write or send some message to you by every
steamer, and I am going to trust that everything will be well."

"But it is agony to me to leave you--oh! my darling, if your heart fails
you in the least, if you say you prefer to have me stay, I will not go
even now," he said, his own courage failing him and having more than half
a mind to renounce his intended voyage even at that late hour.

"No, dear, I know that it is your duty to go," Virgie answered, gently. "I
should never forgive myself, if your mother should die, for keeping you
from her at such a time."

"But if--I should lose you, too," he was going to say, but checked himself
and co