ed a
little more patience, been a trifle less restless and feverish in his
search, he might have succeeded in his quest.

But he was so wretched; so worn and discouraged with his constant and
fruitless seeking, that he could not remain in one place long at a time,
and so wandered here and there, until, months having elapsed, he had been
in nearly every State in the Union, reaping only disappointment and
anguish of spirit.

Then there came again a summons for him to go home--his mother had been
stricken with another shock, and, with a heavy heart, a feeling as if all
the world were against him and his whole life ruined, he went back to his
desolate home and the sick one there.

Lady Heath only lived a few days after the second return of her son. He
reached Heathdale just in season to see the sands of her life run out and
to close her eyes in their last long sleep; then they laid her in the
family vault, and Sir William felt as if he had nothing now to bind him to
his home.

"I cannot stay here--I must go away again he said one day, in despair, to
his sister, and her heart sank at his words.

"Well, I hope you are not going to America again, whatever you do," she
remarked, with some unpatience.

"If going to America would result in finding my wife, I would go a
thousand times over," Sir William responded, sternly, and then added, with
a note of agony in his voice: "Oh, where can my darling have hidden
herself? Miriam," turning suddenly upon his sister, "can you suggest any
reason for this terrible misunderstanding?--who could have intercepted all
of our letters?--who could have conspired, for it seems like a conspiracy,
to separate us?"

For a moment Lady Linton turned faint and sick with the fear that he had
discovered something to arouse his suspicions against her; but second
thought told her that such could not be the case.

"What could I suggest?" she demanded, assuming an expression of surprise.
"You forget that I know nothing of this woman who lured your heart from
us, save what I have been told. She may have had a rustic lover who is
seeking his revenge by trying to separate you--a lover who has poisoned
her mind against you, and perhaps won her allegiance back to himself."

"What utter nonsense you are talking, Miriam!" the baronet interrupted,
indignantly. "How little you appreciate the refinement of the girl whom I
have married! True, you have never seen her; but one look at the face that
I have shown