him.

"Will you come with me, if you please?" she said deferentially,
addressing Anne. "Mrs. Heathcote would like to see you without delay."
She led the way with a quiet unhurrying step up a broad stairway, and
opened a door. In the darkened room, on a couch, a white form was
lying. Bagshot withdrew, and Anne, crossing the floor, sank down on her
knees beside the couch.

"Helen!" she said, in a broken voice; "oh, Helen! Helen!"

The white figure did not stir, save slowly to disengage one hand and
hold it out. But Anne, leaning forward, tenderly lifted the slight form
in her arms, and held it close to her breast.

"I could not help coming," she said. "Poor Helen! poor, poor Helen!"

She smoothed the fair hair away from the small face that lay still and
white upon her shoulder, and at that moment she pitied the stricken wife
so intensely that she forgot the rival, or rather made herself one with
her; for in death there is no rivalry, only a common grief. Helen did
not speak, but she moved closer to Anne, and Anne, holding her in her
arms, bent over her, soothing her with loving words, as though she had
been a little child.

The stranger remained with Mrs. Heathcote nearly two hours. Then she
went away, and Simpson, opening the door for her, noticed that her veil
was closely drawn, so that her face was concealed. She went up the
street to the end of the block, turned the corner, and disappeared. He
was still standing on the steps, taking a breath of fresh air, his
portly person and solemn face expressing, according to his idea, a
dignified grief appropriate to the occasion and the distinction of the
family he served--a family whose bereavements even were above the level
of ordinary sorrows, when his attention was attracted by the appearance
of a boy in uniform, bearing in his hand an orange-brown envelope. In
the possibilities of that well-known hue of hope and dread he forgot for
the moment even his occupation of arranging in his own mind elegant
formulas with which to answer the inquiries constantly made at the door
of the bereaved mansion. The boy ascended the steps; Bagshot, up stairs,
with her hand on the knob of Mrs. Heathcote's door, saw him, and came
down. The dispatch was for her mistress; she carried it to her. The next
instant a cry rang through the house. Captain Heathcote was safe.

The message was as follows:

* * * * *

"_To Mrs. Ward Heathcote:_

"My name given in