spoke of Morabita, the famous _prima donna_, and of gentle
Mrs. Chifney down at the Brockhurst racing-stables. He grew heated in
discussion with Lord Fallowfeild. He petted little Lady Constance
Quayle. He called Camp, coaxed and chaffed the dog merrily--whereat
Lady Calmady rose from her place by the bedside and stood at one of the
dim, shuttered windows for a while. He spoke of places, too, and of
happenings in them, from Westchurch to Constantinople, from a nautch at
Singapore to a country fair at Farley Row. But, recurrent through all
his wanderings, were allusions, unsparing in revolt and in self-abasement,
to a woman whom he had loved and who had dealt very vilely with him,
putting some unpardonable shame upon him, and to a man whom he himself
had very basely wronged. The name, neither of man nor woman, did
Katherine learn.--Madame de Vallorbes' name, for which she could not
but listen, he never mentioned, nor did he mention her own.--And
recurrent, also, running as a black thread through all his speech, was
lament, not unmanly but very terrible to hear--the lament of a creature,
captive, maimed, imprisoned, perpetually striving, perpetually
frustrated in the effort, to escape. And, noting all this, Katherine
not only divined very dark and evil pages in the history of her beloved
one, but a struggle so continuous and a sorrow so abiding that, in her
estimation at all events, they cancelled and expiated the darkness and
evil of those same pages. While the mystery, both of wrong done and
sorrow suffered, so wrought upon her that, having, in the first ecstasy
of recovered human love, deserted and depreciated the godward love a
little, she now ran back imploring assurance and renewal of that last,
in all penitence and humility, lest, deprived of the counsel and sure
support of it, she should fail to read the present and deal with the
future aright--if, indeed, any future still remained for that beloved
one other than the yawning void of death and inscrutable silence of the
grave!

The better part of a week passed thus, and then, one fair morning,
Winter, bringing her breakfast to the anteroom of that same sea-blue,
sea-green bedchamber--sometime tenanted by Helen de Vallorbes--disclosed
a beaming countenance.

"Mr. Powell wishes me to inform your ladyship that Sir Richard has
passed a very good night. He has come to himself, my lady, and has
asked for you."

The butler's hands shook as he set down the tray.

"I h