ith fears of what might
happen in those few fatal days, during which Mr. Carden, Grace herself,
and a household over which he had no control, would occupy the house,
and would receive the Postman, whose very face showed him incorruptible.

He stayed till the last moment; stopped a letter of five lines from
Little, in which he said he should be in New York very soon, en route
for England; and the very next day he received the Cardens, with a
smiling countenance and a fainting heart, and then vacated the premises.
He ordered Lally to hang about the Villa at certain hours when the post
came in, and do his best. But his was catching at a straw. His real hope
was that neither Little himself, nor a letter in his handwriting, might
come in that short interval.

It wanted but five days to the wedding.

Hitherto it had been a game of skill, now it was a game of chance; and
every morning he wished it was evening, every evening he wished it was
morning.

The day Raby came back from Eastbank he dined at home, and, in an
unguarded moment, said something or other, on which Mrs. Little
cross-examined him so swiftly and so keenly that he stammered, and let
out Grace Carden was on the point of marriage.

"Marriage, while my son is alive!" said Mrs. Little, and looked from
him to Jael Dence, at first with amazement, and afterward with a strange
expression that showed her mind was working.

A sort of vague alarm fell upon the other two, and they waited, in utter
confusion, for what might follow.

But the mother was not ready to suspect so horrible a thing as her son's
death. She took a more obvious view, and inveighed bitterly against
Grace Carden.

She questioned Raby as to the cause, but it was Jael who answered her.
"I believe nobody knows the rights of it but Miss Carden herself."

"The cause is her utter fickleness; but she never really loved him. My
poor Henry!"

"Oh yes, she did," said Raby. "She was at death's door a few months
ago."

"At death's door for one man, and now going to marry another!"

"Why not?" said Raby, hard pushed; "she is a woman."

"And why did you not tell me till now?" asked Mrs. Little, loftily
ignoring her brother's pitiable attempt at a sneer.

Raby's reply to this was happier.

"Why, what the better are you for knowing it now? We had orders not to
worry you unnecessarily. Had we not, Jael?"

"That is all very well, in some things. But, where my son is concerned,
pray never keep the tru