He returned at last to find a letter of farewell forever—his beloved had been spirited away to other scenes. Then Egbert Mason left his native land, baffled, broken-hearted, and devoted the next three years to the study of special lines in his profession. 

 In a stately drawing room of an ideal Kentucky home are Eleanor Carleton and Egbert Mason, once more face to face. 

 "Oh, my love," he moaned, bending almost reverently before her, "what a mistake, I knew it all when too late. The letters were all found when that unhappy woman was sent to the asylum. Did you think I could change? 'Forget thee dear?'" he quoted unconsciously—he had said the lines so often; 

 [pg 69] 

[pg 69]

   "God knows I would not if I could: 

   For sweeter far has been to me the pain 

   Of love unsatisfied, than all the vain 

   And ill spent years I lived before we met." 

 Still she stood, gravely looking at him, her maturing beauty made the fairer by the sable gown she wore. 

 "Forgive me," then she spoke. "I thought you knew. I have been Leslie Walcott's wife these four months." 

 As he sat beside his solitary hearth there was a fumbling outside the door. He opened to admit old Ailsie, now crippled with rheumatic pains. 

 "I know'd dat was you. Marse Doctor, 'n I follered yer, I want to tell yer:—Mistress 'splained all 'bout dat 'fore she died. Dey wan't nothin' wrong. Her an' her ma was 'feared to let old Master know she hed run 'way an' married Marse Henry. He said he wan't gwine ter will her nary cent. So mistess and her sister, Miss Ellen, arter while, dey fotch her up to de springs. Den ole master he died sudden like, an' Marse Henry, he had done ben 'way off to New Auleens—never know'd dey had fooled old Master 'bout de chile an' all dat. Po' Mistress! she nebber could tell him no better, and she was always skeerd-like arter she seed you agin. But she sot right down dat day and writ all about it  [pg 

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