to my husband at any moment.

I have no sort of claim on you. And, Heaven knows, I have little
reason to trust you. But I thought you meant fairly by me when we

spoke together at this house. In that belief, I entreat you to
tell me if Father Benwell has intruded himself into your

confidence--or even if you have hinted anything to him which
gives him a hold over me.

II.
_From Mr. Winterfield to Mrs. Romayne._

Both your letters have reached me.
I have good reason for believing that you are entirely mistaken

in your estimate of Father Benwell's character. But I know, by
sad experience, how you hold to your opinions when they are once

formed; and I am eager to relieve you of all anxiety, so far as I
am concerned. I have not said one word--I have not even let slip

the slightest hint--which could inform Father Benwell of that
past event in our lives to which your letter alludes. Your secret

is a sacred secret to me; and it has been, and shall be, sacredly
kept.

There is a sentence in your letter which has given me great pain.
You reiterate the cruel language of the bygone time. You say,

"Heaven knows I have little reason to trust you."
I have reasons, on my side, for not justifying myself--except

under certain conditions. I mean under conditions which might
place me in a position to serve and advise you as a friend or

brother. In that case, I undertake to prove, even to you, that it
was a cruel injustice ever to have doubted me, and that there is

no man living whom y ou can more implicitly trust than myself.
My address, when I am in London, is at the head of this page.

III.
_From Dr. Wybrow to Mr. Winterfield._

Dear Sir--I have received your letter, mentioning that you wish
to accompany me, at my next visit to the asylum, to see the

French boy, so strangely associated with the papers delivered to
you by Father Benwell.

Your proposal reaches me too late. The poor creature's troubled
life has come to an end. He never rallied from the exhausting

effect of the fever. To the last he was attended by his mother.
I write with true sympathy for that excellent lady--but I cannot

conceal from you or from myself that this death is not to be
regretted. In a case of the same extraordinary kind, recorded in

print, the patient recovered from the fever, and his insanity
returned with his returning health.

Faithfully yours,
JOSEPH WYBROW.

CHAPTER VI.
THE SADDEST OF ALL WORDS.

ON the tenth morning, dating from the dispatch of Father
Benwell's last letter to Rome, Penrose was writing in the study

at Ten Acres Lodge, while Romayne sat at the other end of the
room, looking listlessly at a blank sheet of paper, with the pen

lying idle beside it. On a sudden he rose, and, snatching up
paper and pen, threw them irritably into the fire.

"Don't trouble yourself to write any longer," he said to Penrose.
"My dream is over. Throw my manuscripts into the waste paper

basket, and never speak to me of literary work again."
"Every man devoted to literature has these fits of despondency,"

Penrose answered. "Don't think of your work. Send for your horse,
and trust to fresh air and exercise to relieve your mind."

Romayne barely listened. He turned round at the fireplace and
studied the reflection of his face in the glass.

"I look worse and worse," he said thoughtfully to himself.
It was true. His flesh had fallen away; his face had withered and

whitened; he stooped like an old man. The change for the worse
had been steadilyproceeding from the time when he left Vange

Abbey.
"It's useless to conceal it from me!" he burst out, turning

toward Penrose. "I believe I am in some way answerable--though
you all deny it--for the French boy's death. Why not? His voice

is still in my ears, and the stain of his brother's blood is on
me. I am under a spell! Do you believe in the witches--the

merciless old women who made wax images of the people who injured
them, and stuck pins in their mock likenesses, to register the

slow wasting away of their victims day after day? People
disbelieve it in these times, but it has never been disproved."

He stopped, looked at Penrose, and suddenly changed his tone.
"Arthur! what is the matter with you? Have you had a bad night?

Has anything happened?"
For the first time in Romayne's experience of him, Penrose

answered evasively.
"Is there nothing to make me anxious," he said, "when I hear you

talk as you are talking now? The poor French boy died of a fever.
Must I remind you again that he owed the happiest days of his

life to you and your good wife?"
Romayne still looked at him without attending to what he said.

"Surely you don't think I am deceiving you?" Penrose
remonstrated.

"No; I was thinking of something else. I was wondering whether I
really know you as well as I thought I did. Am I mistaken in

supposing that you are not an ambitious man?"
"My only ambition is to lead a worthy life, and to be as useful

to my fellow-creatures as I can. Does that satisfy you?"
Romayne hesitated. "It seems strange--" he began.

"What seems strange?"
"I don't say it seems strange that you should be a priest,"

Romayne explained. "I am only surprised that a man of your simple
way of thinking should have attached himself to the Order of the

Jesuits."
"I can quite understand that," said Penrose. "But you should

remember that circumstances often influence a man in his choice
of a vocation. It has been so with me. I am a member of a Roman

Catholic family. A Jesuit College was near our place of abode,
and a near relative of mine--since dead--was one of the resident

priests." He paused, and added in a lower tone: "When I was
little more than a lad I suffered a disappointment, which altered

my character for life. I took refuge in the College, and I have
found patience and peace of mind since that time. Oh, my friend,

you might have been a more contented man--" He stopped again. His
interest in the husband had all but deceived him into forgetting

his promise to the wife.
Romayne held out his hand. "I hope I have not thoughtlessly hurt

you?" he said.
Penrose took the offered hand, and pressed it fervently. He tried

to speak--and suddenly shuddered, like a man in pain. "I am not
very well this morning," he stammered; "a turn in the garden will

do me good."
Romayne's doubts were confirmed by the manner in which Penrose

left him. Something had unquestionably happened, which his friend
shrank from communicating to him. He sat down again at his desk

and tried to read. The time passed--and he was still left alone.
When the door was at last opened it was only Stella who entered

the room.
"Have you seen Penrose?" he asked.

The estrangement between them had been steadily widening of late.
Romayne had expressed his resentment at his wife's interference

between Penrose and himself by that air of contemptuous endurance
which is the hardest penalty that a man can inflict on the woman