When Ida re-entered the house, the guests were still assembled in the drawing-room.

Eugene Mallard was standing a little apart from the rest, looking thoughtfully into vacancy.

As she entered the room, he started, and, to her surprise, he crossed over to her.

[205]

"Ida," he said, "will you come out on the porch with me for a few moments? I wish to speak with you."

She looked at him in terror. Had he learned of the return of Royal Ainsley?

A great darkness seemed to suddenly envelop her, and it was by the greatest effort that she kept herself from swooning. But the fresh air revived her.

Eugene placed a chair for her, and as she was trembling violently, she was glad to sink into it. There was a seat near. Eugene did not take it, but, instead, stood leaning against one of the fluted columns of the porch. For a few moments he was silent, and those few moments seemed like long years to Ida.

"I have brought you out here to have an earnest talk with you," he said, huskily. "The time has now come when we should try to understand each other. Don't you think so?"

She looked up at him in affright. Was he going to send her away? Was he growing tired of the position in which they stood to each other?

"Yes," she answered; and it caused her a desperate effort to utter the word.

"I am going to take you into my confidence, Ida," he said. "Come under this swinging lamp. I want to read you this letter."

She followed him with faltering steps.

To her great surprise she saw him take from his breast-pocket the very letter which Miss Fernly had sent, and which she had slipped into his desk. But she dared not tell him that she knew what the letter contained.

"I will preface my remarks by saying that the news of your illness has spread far and wide, and that the report was repeated in different forms. Instead of[206] saying that you were ill, some of the papers had it that my young wife had died. Miss Fernly, whom you have good reason to remember, thereupon wrote me this letter."

She listened, her face white as death. He handed her the letter. Every word made a new wound in her heart. How well she remembered each and every sentence! Slowly she read the letter through. Then she folded and handed it back to him.

"Ida," he said, "I have been trying to forget the past as no man has ever tried before. All my time has been given up to it. I have drawn a curtain over my past, and shut out its brightness, its hopes, from my life. I have pulled the roots of a beautiful budding plant from my soul, and bid it grow there no more. I have tried to do my duty by you, and now I have come to this conclusion—you must help me bury the past. I have brought you out here to ask you to be my wife in fact as well as in name."

He did not tell her that during her illness he had discovered the secret of her life—that she loved him with all the passionate love of her nature, and that his indifference was eating out her life.

Ever since he had been turning the matter over in his mind, and asking himself what he should do, and at last he was brought face to face with the truth—he had no right to marry her unless he intended living with her.

So clearly had his duty become defined to him that the path of the future was now plain before him. He must forget his love for Hildegarde, and the only way to do that was to ask the wife he had wedded to help him.

"I ask you this after much calm deliberation," he said, slowly. "Be my wife in reality as well as in name, and[207] we may yet make good and useful lives out of what is left of them!"

He heard a cry escape from her lips, but he could not tell whether it was one of pleasure or pain.

"I do not ask you to give my answer at once, unless you choose to do so," he said, gently.

He bent over her and took her hand. He was startled at its icy coldness. He could feel that she trembled at his touch.

"I have startled you," he said, gently. "I would advise you to go to your room, instead of mingling with the guests to-night. There you can reflect upon what you wish to do. I will leave you here," he said. But before he turned away, he involuntarily stooped down, and kissed the white face raised so appealingly to his.

It was the first caress he had ever offered her, and that kiss burned her face for long hours afterward. It filled her to the very depth of her soul, to the very center of her heart.

Like one stricken suddenly blind, Ida groped her way to her room.
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