es, as when
a gust stirs an ash heap, and uncovers a dying ember.

"Erle Palma?"

"Has gone to Washington."

"May he never come back! O God! a hundred deaths would not satisfy
me! A hundred graves were not sufficient to hide him from my sight!"

She groaned and clasped her hand across her eyes.

"What dreadful thing has occurred? Tell me, you know that you can
trust me."

"Trust! no, no; not even the archangels that fan the throne of God. I
have done with trust. Take me in your room a little while. Hide me
from mamma until to-morrow; then it will make no difference who sees
me."

Regina led her to the low rocking chair in her own room, and took off
the common shawl and bonnet which she had used as a disguise, then
seized her cold nerveless hand.

"Do tell me your great sorrow."

"Something rare nowaday. I had a heart, a live, warm, loving heart,
and it is broken; dead--utterly dead. Regina, I was so happy
yesterday. Oh! I stood at the very gate of heaven, so close that all
the glory and the sweetness blew upon me, like June breezes over a
rose hedge; and the angels seemed to beckon me in. I went to meet
Belmont, to join him for ever, to turn my back on the world, and as
his wife pass into the Eden of his love and presence.... Now, another
gate yawns, and the fiends call me to come down, and if there really
be a hell, why then----"

For nearly a moment she remained silent.

"Olga, is he ill? Is he dead?"

A cry as of one indeed broken-hearted came from her quivering lips,
and she clasped her arms over her head.

"Oh, if he were indeed dead! If I could have seen him and kissed him
in his coffin! And known that he was still mine, all mine, even in
the grave----"

Her head sank upon her bosom, and after a brief pause she resumed in
an unnaturally calm voice.

"My world so lovely yesterday has gone to pieces; and for me life is
a black crumbling ruin. I hung all my hopes, my prayers, my fondest
dreams on one shining silver thread of trust, and it snapped, and all
fall together. We ask for fish, and are stung by scorpions; we pray
for bread--only bare bread for famishing hearts--and we are stoned.
Ah! it appears only a hideous dream; but I know it is awfully,
horribly true."

"What is true? Don't keep me in suspense."

Olga bent forward, put her large hands on Regina's shoulders as the
latter knelt in front of her, and answered drearily:

"He is married."

"Not Mr. Eggleston?"

"Yes, my Belmont.