."

"Yes, I know her," she said painfully and slowly. "You need search no
longer. She will be at your hotel to-night."

He started. Then he said: "I'm glad of that. How did you come to know? Are
you friends?"

Though her face was turned from him resolutely, he saw a flush creep up
her neck to her hair.

"We are not friends," she said vaguely. "But I know that she is coming to
see her daughter."

"Who is her daughter?"

She raised her parasol toward the spot where Mildred Margrave stood and
said, "That is her daughter."

"Miss Margrave? Why has she a different name?"

"Let Mrs. Gladney explain that to you. Do not make yourself known to the
daughter till you see her mother. Believe me, it will be better for the
daughter's sake."

She now turned and looked at him with a pity through which trembled
something like a troubled fear. "You asked me to forgive you," she said.
"Good-bye. Mark Telford, I do forgive you." She held out her hand. He took
it, shaking his head a little over it, but said no word.

"We had better part here and meet no more," she added.

"Pardon, but banishment," he said as he let her hand go.

"There is nothing else possible in this world," she rejoined in a muffled
voice.

"Nothing in this world," he replied. "Good-bye till we meet
again--somewhere."

So saying, he turned and walked rapidly away. Her eyes followed him, a
look of misery, horror and sorrow upon her. When he had disappeared in the
trees, she sat down on the bench. "It is dreadful," she whispered,
awestricken. "His friend her husband! His daughter there, and he does not
know her! What will the end of it be?"

She was glad she had forgiven him and glad he had the ring. She had
something in her life now that helped to wipe out the past--still, a
something of which she dared not think freely. The night before she had
sat in her room thinking of the man who was giving her what she had lost
many years past, and, as she thought, she felt his arm steal round her and
his lips on her cheek, but at that a mocking voice said in her ear: "You
are my wife. I am not dead." And her happy dream was gone.

George Hagar, looking up from below, saw her sitting alone and slowly made
his way toward her. The result of the meeting between these two seemed
evident. The man had gone. Never in his life had Hagar suffered more than
in the past half hour. That this woman whom he loved--the only woman he
had ever loved as a mature man loves--should