e. Lady
Jane's carriage was driving away. Would the husband come back? (See what
a thing habit is! Even Mr. Delamayn still mechanically thought of him as
the husband--in the face of the law! in the face of the facts!)

No. Then minutes passed. And no sign of the husband coming back.

It was not wise to make a scandal in the house. It was not desirable (on
his own sole responsibility) to let the servants see what had happened.
Still, there she lay senseless. The cool evening air came in through
the open window and lifted the light ribbons in her lace cap, lifted
the little lock of hair that had broken loose and drooped over her neck.
Still, there she lay--the wife who had loved him, the mother of his
child--there she lay.

He stretched out his hand to ring the bell and summon help.

At the same moment the quiet of the summer evening was once more
disturbed. He held his hand suspended over the bell. The noise outside
came nearer. It was again the trampling of horses and the grating of
wheels. Advancing--rapidly advancing--stopping at the house.

Was Lady Jane coming back?

Was the husband coming back?

There was a loud ring at the bell--a quick opening of the house-door--a
rustling of a woman's dress in the passage. The door of the room opened,
and the woman appeared--alone. Not Lady Jane. A stranger--older, years
older, than Lady Jane. A plain woman, perhaps, at other times. A woman
almost beautiful now, with the eager happiness that beamed in her face.

She saw the figure on the sofa. She ran to it with a cry--a cry of
recognition and a cry of terror in one. She dropped on her knees--and
laid that helpless head on her bosom, and kissed, with a sister's
kisses, that cold, white cheek.

"Oh, my darling!" she said. "Is it thus we meet again?"

Yes! After all the years that had passed since the parting in the cabin
of the ship, it was thus the two school-friends met again.

Part the Second.

THE MARCH OF TIME.

V.

ADVANCING from time past to time present, the Prologue leaves the date
last attained (the summer of eighteen hundred and fifty-five), and
travels on through an interval of twelve years--tells who lived, who
died, who prospered, and who failed among the persons concerned in the
tragedy at the Hampstead villa--and, this done, leaves the reader at the
opening of THE STORY in the spring of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight.

The record begins with a marriage--the marriage of Mr. Vanborough and
L