t be destroyed, pursued her. She grew so
pale, so thin, so nervous, that Lord Atherton was alarmed about her.

If she had loved her husband less her despair would not have been so
great. Sooner than he should read those ill-considered words--those
protestations of love that made her face flush with flame--sooner than
he should read those she would die any death. For it had come to that;
she looked for death to save her. She felt powerless in the hands of a
villain who would never cease to persecute her.

She sent no answer to the letter. What could she say? She made one or
two despairing efforts to get the money, found it impossible, then gave
herself up for lost.

She did not write, but there came another note from him saying that
unless he heard from her that the money was coming he would wait upon
her husband on Friday morning and tell him all.

There was no further respite for her--the sword had fallen--she could
not live and face it; she could not live knowing that her husband was to
read those words of her folly, that he was to know all the deceit, the
clandestine correspondence that weighed now so bear it.

"I shall never look in his face again," she said to herself. "I could
never bear that he should see me after he knows that."

She weighed it well in her mind. She looked at it in every way, but the
more she thought of it the more impossible it seemed. She could not
bring disgrace on her husband and live. She could not doom her only
child to sorrow and shame, yet live. She could not bear the ignominy of
the exposure. She, who had been so proud of her fair fame, of her
spotless name, her high reputation. It was not possible. She could not
bear it. Her hands trembled. All the strength seemed to leave her. She
fell half-fainting--moaning with white lips that she could not bear it
and live.

Must she die? Must she part with the sweet, warm life that filled her
veins? Must she seek death because she could no longer live?

No, she dare not.

"I cannot live and I dare not die," she moaned. "I am utterly wretched,
utterly hopeless and miserable. Life and death alike are full of terrors
for me."

What should she do? Through the long, burning hours, through the long,
dreary nights, she asked herself that question--What should she do?

Her husband, alarmed at her white face and altered manner, talked of
summoning a physician to her. Her friends advised change of air, but
there was no human help for her.

Th