nner
room, at which he gazes with such troubled eyes, "one more unfortunate"
lies battling with woman's utter despair.

"Poor soul," Mr. Liston says inwardly. "Will she perish as Lucy West
perished, while he lives and marries, is rich, courted, and happy? No, I
will tell her the truth sooner, that she is his wife, that the marriage
was legal, though he does not suspect it, and when Helen Holmes is his
wife she shall come forward and convict him of bigamy, and my lordly Mr.
Laurence, how will it be with you then!"

"Mr. Liston."

He had literally leaped to his feet with a nervous cry. He had heard no
sound, but the chamber door had opened and she had come forth. Her soft
French accented voice spoke his name, in the shadowy gloaming she stood
before him, her face white and still, and awfully death-like. As she
came forward in her white dressing gown, her loose black hair falling,
her great black eyes shining she was so unearthly, so like a spirit,
that involuntarily he recoiled.

"I have startled you," she said. "I beg your pardon. I did not know you
were here, but I am glad you are. To-morrow I will leave this
house--to-night I should like to say a few words to you."

She was very quiet, ominously quiet. She sat down as she spoke, close
to the fire; her hands folded in her lap, her weird looking eyes fixed
on his face. Nervously Mr. Liston got up and looked around for a bell.

"Shall I ring, I mean call, for lights. I am very glad to see you up,
Miss Bour--I mean Mrs. Laurence."

"Thank you" she answered gently "and no, please--don't ask for a lamp.
Such a wretch as I am naturally prefers the dark. Mr. Liston," with
strange, swift abruptness, "I have lain in there, and within the last
few hours I have been able to think. I believe all that you have told
me. I know what I am--as utterly lost and forlorn a sinner as the wide
earth holds. I know what _he_ is--a greater villain than if, on the
night I saw him first, he had stabbed me to the heart. All this I know.
Mr. Liston, will you tell me something more. Are you Laurence
Thorndyke's friend or enemy?"

In the course of his forty years of life, Mr. Liston had come across a
good many incomprehensible women, but perhaps, he had never been quite
so completely taken aback before. She spoke the name of her betrayer, of
the man she had loved so passionately, and in one moment had lost for
ever, without one tremor or falter. The sombre eyes were looking at him
full. He