y not given
it purposely. Could I judge her?

Yet, an honest, loyal man like Lance ought not to be so cruelly
deceived. I felt sure myself that if she spoke to him--if she told him
her story with the same pathos with which she had told it to me, he
would forgive her--he must forgive her. I could not reconcile it with my
conscience to keep silence, I could not, and I believed that the truth
might be told with safety. So, after long thinking and deliberation, I
came to the conclusion that Lance must know, and that she must tell him
herself.

It was in the middle of a bright, sunshiny afternoon when they returned.
When Lance brought his wife into the drawing-room he seemed very anxious
over her.

"Frances does not seem well," he said to me. "Ring the bell, John, and
order some hot tea; she is as cold as death."

Her eyes met mine, and in them I read the question--"What are you going
to do?" I was struck by her dreadful pallor.

"Is your head bad again today?" I asked.

"Yes, it aches very much," she replied.

The hot tea came, and it seemed to revive her; but after a few minutes
the dreadful shivering came over her again. She stood up.

"Lance," she said, "I will go to my room, and you must lead me; my head
aches so that I am blind."

She left her pretty drawing-room, never to re-enter it. The next day at
noon Lance came to me with a sad face.

"John, my wife is very ill, and I have just heard bad news."

"What is it, Lance?" I asked.

"Why, that the girl she went yesterday to see, Rose Winter, is ill with
the most malignant type of small-pox."

I looked at him in horror.

"Do you think," I gasped, "that the--that Mrs. Fleming has caught it?"

"I am quite sure," he replied. "I have just sent for the doctor, and
have telegraphed to the hospital for two nurses. And my old friend," he
added, "I am afraid it is going to be a bad case."

It was a bad case. I never left him while the suspense lasted; but it
was soon over. She suffered intensely, for the disease was of the most
virulent type. It was soon over. Lance came to me one afternoon, and I
read the verdict in his face.

"She will die," he said, hoarsely. "They cannot save her," and the day
after that he came to me again with wistful eyes.

"John," he said, slowly, "my wife is dying, and she wants to see you.
Will you see her?"

"Most certainly," I replied.

She smiled when she saw me, and beckoned me to her. Ah, poor soul! her
judgment had indee