st agony all the time.

"NEW YORK, July 18th.

"MY OWN DEAREST GRACE,--I write you these few lines in wonder and pain.
I have sent you at least fifteen letters, and in most of them I have
begged you to write to me at the Post-office, New York; yet not one line
is here to greet me in your dear handwriting. Yet my letters must have
all reached Woodbine Villa, or why are they not sent back? Of three
letters I sent to my mother, two have been returned from Aberystwith,
marked, 'Gone away, and not left her address.'

"I have turned this horrible thing every way in my mind, and even prayed
God to assist my understanding; and I come back always to the same idea
that some scoundrel has intercepted my letters.

"The first of these I wrote at the works on the evening I left
Hillsborough; the next I wrote from Boston, after my long illness, in
great distress of mind on your account; for I put myself in your place,
and thought what agony it would be to me if nine weeks passed, and no
word from you. The rest were written from various cities, telling you I
was making our fortune, and should soon be home. Oh, I can not write of
such trifles now!

"My own darling, let me find you alive; that is all I ask. I know I
shall find you true to me, if you are alive.

"Perhaps it would have been better if my heart had not been so entirely
filled by you. God has tried me hard in some things, but He has blessed
me with true friends. It was ungrateful of me not to write to such
true friends as Dr. Amboyne and Jael Dence. But, whenever I thought of
England, I saw only you.

"By this post I write to Dr. Amboyne, Mr. Bolt, Mr. Bayne, and Jael
Dence.

"This will surely baffle the enemy who has stopped all my letters to
you, and will stop this one, I dare say.

"I say no more, beloved one. What is the use? You will perhaps never see
this letter, and you know more than I can say, for you know how I love
you: and that is a great deal more than ever I can put on paper.

"I sail for England in four days. God help me to get over the interval.

"I forget whether I told you I had made my fortune. Your devoted and
most unhappy lover,

"Henry."

Grace managed to read this, in spite of the sobs and moans that shook
her, and the film that half blinded her; and, when she had read it,
sank heavily down, and sat all crushed together, with hands working like
frenzy.

Jael kneeled beside her, and kissed and wept over her, unheeded.

Then Jael p