ll preserved her icy resignation; she seemed beyond all
reach now of the fear that had once mastered her, of the remorse that
had once tortured her soul. With a firm hand she gave him the promised
money. With a firm face she looked her last at him. "I'm not to blame,"
he whispered, eagerly; "I have only done what you asked me." She bowed
her head; she bent it toward him kindly and let him touch her fore-head
with his lips. "Take care!" he said. "My last words are--for God's sake
take care when I'm gone!" She turned from him with a smile, and spoke
her farewell words to his wife. Mrs. Wragge tried hard to face her loss
bravely--the loss of the friend whose presence had fallen like light
from Heaven over the dim pathway of her life. "You have been very good
to me, my dear; I thank you kindly; I thank you with all my heart." She
could say no more; she clung to Magdalen in a passion of tears, as her
mother might have clung to her, if her mother had lived to see that
horrible day. "I'm frightened for you!" cried the poor creature, in a
wild, wailing voice. "Oh, my darling, I'm frightened for you!" Magdalen
desperately drew herself free--kissed her--and hurried out to the door.
The expression of that artless gratitude, the cry of that guileless
love, shook her as nothing else had shaken her that day. It was a refuge
to get to the carriage--a refuge, though the man she had married stood
there waiting for her at the door.

Mrs. Wragge tried to follow her into the garden. But the captain had
seen Magdalen's face as she ran out, and he steadily held his wife back
in the passage. From that distance the last farewells were exchanged.
As long as the carriage was in sight, Magdalen looked back at them; she
waved her handkerchief as she turned the corner. In a moment more
the last thread which bound her to them was broken; the familiar
companionship of many months was a thing of the past already!

Captain Wragge closed the house door on the idlers who were looking in
from the Parade. He led his wife back into the sitting-room, and spoke
to her with a forbearance which she had never yet experienced from him.

"She has gone her way," he said, "and in another hour we shall have gone
ours. Cry your cry out--I don't deny she's worth crying for."

Even then--even when the dread of Magdalen's future was at its
darkest in his mind--the ruling habit of the man's life clung to him.
Mechanically he unlocked his dispatch-box. Mechanically he op