ing between them.

Fitzpiers stumbled and all but fell. Stretching down his hand to
ascertain the obstruction, it came in contact with a confused mass of
silken drapery and iron-work that conveyed absolutely no explanatory
idea to his mind at all. It was but the work of a moment to strike a
match; and then he saw a sight which congealed his blood.

The man-trap was thrown; and between its jaws was part of a woman's
clothing--a patterned silk skirt--gripped with such violence that the
iron teeth had passed through it, skewering its tissue in a score of
places. He immediately recognized the skirt as that of one of his
wife's gowns--the gown that she had worn when she met him on the very
last occasion.

Fitzpiers had often studied the effect of these instruments when
examining the collection at Hintock House, and the conception instantly
flashed through him that Grace had been caught, taken out mangled by
some chance passer, and carried home, some of her clothes being left
behind in the difficulty of getting her free. The shock of this
conviction, striking into the very current of high hope, was so great
that he cried out like one in corporal agony, and in his misery bowed
himself down to the ground.

Of all the degrees and qualities of punishment that Fitzpiers had
undergone since his sins against Grace first began, not any even
approximated in intensity to this.

"Oh, my own--my darling! Oh, cruel Heaven--it is too much, this!" he
cried, writhing and rocking himself over the sorry accessaries of her
he deplored.

The voice of his distress was sufficiently loud to be audible to any
one who might have been there to hear it; and one there was. Right and
left of the narrow pass between the oaks were dense bushes; and now
from behind these a female figure glided, whose appearance even in the
gloom was, though graceful in outline, noticeably strange.

She was in white up to the waist, and figured above. She was, in
short, Grace, his wife, lacking the portion of her dress which the gin
retained.

"Don't be grieved about me--don't, dear Edgar!" she exclaimed, rushing
up and bending over him. "I am not hurt a bit! I was coming on to find
you after I had released myself, but I heard footsteps; and I hid away,
because I was without some of my clothing, and I did not know who the
person might be."

Fitzpiers had sprung to his feet, and his next act was no less
unpremeditated by him than it was irresistible by her, a