and said
no more.

In utter despair of moving him---feeling keenly, bitterly (if I must
own it), his merciless superiority to all that I had said to him in the
honest fervor of my devotion and my love--I thought of Major Fitz-David
as a last resort. In the dis ordered state of my mind at that moment, it
made no difference to me that the Major had already tried to reason with
him, and had failed. In the face of the facts I had a blind belief
in the influence of his old friend, if his old friend could only be
prevailed upon to support my view.

"Wait for me one moment," I said. "I want you to hear another opinion
besides mine."

I left him, and returned to the study. Major Fitz-David was not there. I
knocked at the door of communication with the front room. It was opened
instantly by the Major himself. The doctor had gone away. Benjamin still
remained in the room.

"Will you come and speak to Eustace?" I began. "If you will only say
what I want you to say--"

Before I could add a word more I heard the house door opened and closed.
Major Fitz-David and Benjamin heard it too. They looked at each other in
silence.

I ran back, before the Major could stop me, to the room in which I had
seen Eustace. It was empty. My husband had left the house.

CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN'S DECISION.

MY first impulse was the reckless impulse to follow Eustace--openly
through the streets.

The Major and Benjamin both opposed this hasty resolution on my part.
They appealed to my own sense of self-respect, without (so far as I
remember it) producing the slightest effect on my mind. They were more
successful when they entreated me next to be patient for my husband's
sake. In mercy to Eustace, they begged me to wait half an hour. If he
failed to return in that time, they pledged themselves to accompany me
in search of him to the hotel.

In mercy to Eustace I consented to wait. What I suffered under the
forced necessity for remaining passive at that crisis in my life no
words of mine can tell. It will be better if I go on with my narrative.

Benjamin was the first to ask me what had passed between my husband and
myself.

"You may speak freely, my dear," he said. "I know what has happened
since you have been in Major Fitz-David's house. No one has told me
about it; I found it out for myself. If you remember, I was struck by
the name of 'Macallan,' when you first mentioned it to me at my cottage.
I couldn't guess why at the time. I kn