horndyke;--Will you come and spend the evening with me?
Fetch the little people. I shall be quite alone.

"JANE LISTON-DARCY."

It was not the first time such notes had come to the tenement house--not
the first time they had been accepted. Laurence was always away. The
late hours had begun again. The evenings at home were so dreary. It was
a glimpse of the old glad life, before poverty and hard work had ground
her down. Yes, she would go.

Mrs. Darcy, very simply, but very prettily dressed, welcomed her. Baby
Nellie she took in her arms and kissed fondly, but little Laurie, with
his father's bold, blue eyes and trick of face, she shrank from. The
father she could face unmoved; the old pain actually came back when she
looked at the child.

As they sat, a pretty group in the gas-light, a card was brought in.
Mrs. Darcy put the baby off her lap and passed the card to Helen.

"Your husband," she said. "He begged for this interview, and--I have
granted it. But I wished you to be present. Whether I do right or wrong,
you shall hear what he has to say to me. You love and trust him still.
You shall hear how worthy he is of it. But first--have you ever heard
the name of Norine Bourdon?"

"Norine Bourdon! the girl whom Laurence--"

"Betrayed by a false marriage--for whom he was disinherited. I am she."

"You!" Helen Thorndyke recoiled.

"It was Norine Bourdon, not Jane Liston, Mr. Darcy adopted. Have you not
then the right to hear what your husband has to say to me? But it shall
be as you wish."

"I wish to hear," Helen answered, almost fiercely. "I _will_ hear."

Norine threw open a door.

"Wait in this room. I will leave the door ajar. My maid shall take the
children. And be sure of this--neither by word nor look shall I tempt
your husband to say one word more than he has come to say to-night."

Helen Thorndyke passed into the inner room. Norine Darcy rang for the
servant waiting without.

"Show Mr. Thorndyke up."

He came, bounding lightly and eagerly up the stairs, and entered. She
arose from her seat to meet him. In full evening dress, his face
slightly flushed, his blue eyes all alight with eagerness, he had never
perhaps, in the days when she had adored him, looked so handsome as now.

She smiled a little to herself as she recalled that infatuation; how
long ago it seemed. And for this good-looking, well-dressed, heartless
libertine, she had gone near to the gates of death.

"Norine!"

He clasped the