.

It was only upon the third day, when telegrams of congratulation began
to pour in upon him by the dozen, that he knew anything about the
announcement that had appeared in the _Morning Post_.

Yes, he was caught and chained at last, and for the next week had moods
of gnashing his teeth, and feeling the most degraded of men, alternating
with hours of trying to persuade himself that it was the best thing
which could have happened to him.

Mrs. Cricklander, now that she had gained her end, wisely left him for a
day or two in peace to the care of Arabella and the nurses, drawing the
net closer each hour by her public parade of her position as his
_fiancee_. She wrote the most exquisite and womanly letter to thank her
many friends for their kind congratulations--and lamented, now that the
truth being known would not matter, that John had had a slight relapse,
and was not quite so well.

But, of course, she was taking every care of him, and so he soon would
be his old exuberant self!

Thus the period of John Derringham's purgatory began.

CHAPTER XXV

Grieving is such a satisfactory and dramatic thing when you can fling
yourself down upon the ground and cry aloud and tear your hair. But if
some great blow must be borne without a sign, then indeed it wrings the
heart and saps the forces of life.

When Halcyone got to her room, the housemaids were there beginning to
make her bed--so it was no refuge for her--and she was obliged to go
down again. The big drawing-rooms would be untenanted at this moment, so
she turned the handle of the door and crept in there. The modern
brightly gilt Louis XVI furniture glared at her, but she sank into a big
chair thankful to find any support.

What was this which had fallen upon her?--The winter, indeed--or, more
than that, not only the winter but the end of life, like the flash of
lightning which had struck the tree in the park the night before that
day which was to have seen her wedding?

And as she sat there in dumb, silent, hideous agony which crushed for
the moment belief and hope, a canary from the aviary beyond set up a
trilling song. She listened for a second; it seemed to hurt her more.
The poor bird was in captivity, as was her soul. And then, while the
little songster went on, undismayed by its cage, a reaction set in. If
the soft-feathered creature could sing there beyond the bars, what right
had she to doubt God for one second? No--there should never be any
d