or a
grain of dust. The very ashes of her book had been cast forth with the
common refuse. The table was empty, not a paper littered it: a bronze
standish, in which the ink was frozen to a black ice and a useless pen
or two, alone met her search; all was in cruel order. The bed, with its
unpressed pillows smooth as iced snow--the easy-chair wheeled into a
corner of the room--the closed shutters without--everything was
desolate.

Mabel sat down upon the bed, the most dreary thing there; she looked
mournfully around. The wild eagerness died out of her features, and
lowering her face upon the cold pillow, she began to cry like a child.
Directly the chill of the night struck through and through her. She
shivered till the teeth chattered beneath her quivering lips; what with
grief, cold, and exhaustion, the poor lady had become helpless as
infancy. Forgetting where she was, and careless of everything on earth,
she gathered the bed-clothes slowly around her, and shuddered herself to
sleep.

CHAPTER LXXVI.
[
THE UNEXPECTED RETURN.

As General Harrington was dining at his club that day, a note was sent
up to him; and, as his meal had reached the last stage of a luxurious
dessert, he quietly broke open the envelope, and read:

"James Harrington has found means to see Lina, and she has told
him everything. I shall await you here during the next hour.
ZILLAH."

The General crushed this note slowly in his hand, a quiet smile stole
over his face, and sipping his wine with great complacency, he murmured:

"Well? but the life deeds are safe, what is his anger to me?"

But, directly a less pleasant thought forced itself on his mind; he
remembered that the deeds he exulted over, were only binding so long as
Mabel Harrington remained contentedly beneath his roof. What if James
should take advantage of the knowledge obtained from Lina, as a
counterbalancing power against him? What if Mabel should at once use
that knowledge to protect herself, and by suing out a divorce, cast all
the shame he had threatened to heap upon her, back upon his own head?
Certainly, James Harrington would not fail to inform her of the powers
of retaliation that lay within her grasp; perhaps even now she knew
everything.

He started up from the table, calling for his furred paletot, and gave
orders that his sleigh and horses should be brought round. The well-bred
waiters, whose du