ot wish
to be disturbed by any one until she rang."

Feeling deeply disappointed and depressed by her unusual obstinacy,
the wretched man went downstairs and shut himself into the library,
where he remained all day, while there was such an atmosphere of
loneliness and desolation about the house that even the servants
appeared to feel it, and went about with solemn faces and almost
stealthy steps.

Could any one have looked behind those closed doors he could not have
failed to have experienced a feeling of pity for the man; for if ever
a human being went down into the valley of humiliation, Gerald Goddard
sounded its uttermost depths, while he battled alone with all the
powers of evil that beset his soul.

When night came he was utterly exhausted, and sought his couch,
looking at least ten years older than he had appeared forty-eight
hours previous.

He slept heavily and dreamlessly, and did not awake till late, when
an imperative knock upon the door and a voice, calling in distress,
caused him to spring suddenly from his bed, and impressed him with a
sense of impending evil.

"What is it, Mary?" he inquired, upon recognizing the voice of his
wife's maid.

"Oh, sir! come--come to madam; she is very ill!" cried the girl, in a
frightened tone.

"I will be there immediately. Send James for the doctor, and then go
back to her," commanded her master, as he hurriedly began to dress.

Five minutes later he was in his wife's room, to find her lying upon
the lounge, just as he had seen her thirty-six hours previous.

It was evident that she had not been in bed at all for two nights, for
she still had on the same dress that she had worn at the Copley Square
Hotel.

But the shadow of death was on her white face; her eyes were glazed,
and though only partially closed, it was evident that she saw nothing.

She was still breathing, but faintly and irregularly. Her hands were
icy cold, and at the base of the nails there was the unmistakable
purple tint that indicated approaching dissolution.

Gerald Goddard was shocked beyond measure to find her thus, but he
arose to the occasion.

With his own hands and the assistance of the maid, he removed her
clothing, then wrapped her in blankets and put her in bed, when he
called for hot water bottles to place around her, hoping thus by
artificial heat to quicken the sluggish circulation and her failing
pulses.

But apparently there was no change in her, and when the physician