these two women, whose lives Laurence
Thorndyke has marred, never talk of him. She lies here and broods,
broods, broods ever--of the days that are gone and can never come again.

On the floor near, little Laurie is building a house of blocks, and
squat in the centre of a wool rug baby Nellie crows delightedly and
watches the progress of the architect. So the minutes tick off, and it
is an hour since Norine has entered the room.

In the library, before her entrance here, she has had an interview with
Richard Gilbert--it is of that interview and of him she sits thinking
now. Some business connected with Mr. Darcy's estate has brought him,
and she has asked him, constrainedly enough, for news of Laurence
Thorndyke.

"I keep Liston on his track," she said, playing nervously with her watch
chain. "Helen says little, but she suffers always. And Liston's news is
of the dreariest."

The strong, gray eyes of the lawyer had lifted sternly to her face. No
word of censure had ever escaped his lips--what right had he? but Norine
felt the steady rebuke of that firm, cold glance. He knew all, and she
felt he must utterly despise her now.

"He has fallen very low," Mr. Gilbert answered, briefly, "so low that it
is hardly possible for him to fall much lower. In losing his wife and
children he lost his last hold on respectability, his one last hope on
earth."

"He deserved to lose them," Norine said, with a flash of her black
eyes.

"Perhaps so. From all I hear _you_ should know best. But if stern
justice is to be meted to us all, after your merciless fashion, then
Heaven help us! If vengeance can gratify you, Mrs. Darcy, you may rest
well content. He has sunk as low as his worst enemy could wish. But--you
might have spared Helen."

Cold, cutting, the words of rebuke fell. He arose, gathering up his
papers, his face set and stern. Her face drooped--she covered it with
her hand, and turned away.

"She at least had never wronged you," Richard Gilbert pitilessly went
on. "Have you made her any happier, Mrs. Darcy, by taking her husband
from her? In spite of his myriad faults she loved him--she trusted him,
and so, neither poverty, hard work, nor neglect could make her
altogether miserable. _You_ led him on--led him on from the first, in
cold blood, working for your revenge. And when you had crazed his brain
by your smiles and fair words, and allurements, you brought his wife
here to overhear the passion you had labored to inspi