closing the door, left her alone; and there Mrs. Rutledge found her, crouching in the depths of an easy-chair, her wan little face drooping like a fading lily. Mrs. Rutledge slipped into the girl’s cold hand a piece of crumpled[Pg 32] paper. It was the same that had been found between the stiffened fingers of the dead woman. [Pg 32] “You had better try to read it, my dear,” she said, softly. “It seems to be a paper of importance. The inquest is over, and the coroner is puzzled. There is no trace of poison in the body. It is all a mystery——” She checked herself abruptly, for Violet had opened the crumpled paper, and was reading what was written there—reading it with eyes dilated and dark with awful horror, a slow change creeping over her girlish face, a change that was fearful to see. Her features seemed to freeze down into a stone mask, and an icy look of despair settled slowly over her face. With a low moan, she crumpled the letter in her hand and staggered to her feet. She did not swoon away, or moan, or cry out, after the fashion of ordinary women. To her, as with many natures that suffer most intensely, the boon of unconsciousness was denied. Trembling like a leaf, she stood with that fatal letter clutched in one shaking hand, her dark eyes staring straight before her, fixed and wild. The library door opened softly, and a man crossed the threshold. Her eyes fell upon his face, and she started with a low cry of horror and hatred, a cry which ended in a broken moan of despair. It was Gilbert Warrington. [Pg 33] [Pg 33] CHAPTER IV. Her eyes rested upon his face with a wild stare of terror, which grew deeper and more intense as he crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him. Tall, dark, saturnine, he was not a pleasant person to look at as he came to a halt upon the rug before the fireless grate and stood staring into her frightened face with eyes full of cold scrutiny. For years she had been accustomed to see this man at long intervals, when he would suddenly and unexpectedly intrude upon her mother with some mysterious errand. There would be a private
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