ul unrest. The averted
face of Lady Thetford never turned, but a smothered voice bade her go
on.

"A year passed, my lady, and I still lived in the house at Windsor, but
quite alone now. My punishment had begun very early; two or three months
sufficed to weary my husband of his childish village girl, and make him
thoroughly repent his folly. I saw it from the first--he never tried to
hide it from me; his absences grew longer and longer, more and more
frequent, until at last he ceased coming altogether. Vyking, the valet,
came and went; and Vyking told me the truth--the hard, cruel, bitter
truth, that I was never to see my husband more.

"'It was the maddest act of a mad young man's life,' Vyking said to me,
coolly, 'and he's repented of it, as I knew he would repent. You'll
never see him again, mistress, and you needn't search for him, either.
When you find last winter's snow, last autumn's partridges, then you may
hope to find him.'

"'But I am his wife,' I said; 'nothing can undo that--his lawful, wedded
wife.'

"'Yes,' said Vyking, 'his wife fast enough; but there's the law of
divorce, and there's no witness but me alive. You can do your best; and
the best you can do is to take it easy and submit. He'll provide for you
handsomely; and when he gets the divorce, if you like, I'll marry you
myself.'

"I had grown to expect some such revelation, I had been neglected so
long. My lady, I don't speak of my feelings, my anguish and shame, and
remorse and despair.--I only tell you here simple facts. But in the days
and weeks which followed, I suffered as I never can suffer again in this
world.

"I was held little better than a prisoner in the house at Windsor after
that; and I think Vyking never gave up the hope that I would one day
consent to marry him. More than once I tried to run away, to get on the
track of my betrayer, but always to be met and foiled. I have gone down
on my knees to that man Vyking, but I might as well have knelt to a
statue of stone.

"'I'll tell you what we'll do,' he said, 'we'll go to London. People are
beginning to look and talk about here; there they know how to mind their
own business.'

"I consented readily enough. My one hope now was to find the man who had
wronged me, and in London I thought I stood a better chance than at
Windsor. We started, Vyking and I; but driving to the station we met
with an accident, our horse ran away and I was thrown out; after that I
hardly remember anyt