“Did I not tell you that this evil woman would bring evil news.”  Then addressing Lady Bellamy, “But stop, you forget what I said to you, you do not speak the truth.  Arthur dead!  How can Arthur be dead and I alive?  How is it that I do not know he is dead?  Oh, for shame, it is not true, he is not dead.”

“This seems to me to be a thankless as well as a painful task,” said Lady Bellamy, hoarsely, “but, if you will not believe me, look here, you know this, I suppose?  I took it, as he asked me to do, from his dead hand that it might be given back to you.”

“If Mr. Heigham is dead,” said Mr. Fraser, “how do you know it, where did he die, and what of?”

“I know it, Mr. Fraser, because it was my sad duty to nurse him through his last illness at Madeira.  He died of enteric fever.  I have got a copy of his burial certificate here which I had taken from the Portuguese books.  He seems to have had no relations living, poor young man, but Sir John communicated with the family lawyer.  Here is the certificate,” and she handed Mr. Fraser a paper written in Portuguese and officially stamped.

“You say,” broke in Angela, “that you took this ring from his dead hand, the hand on which I placed it.  I do not believe you.  You beguiled it from his living hand.  It cannot be that he is dead; for, if he were, I should have felt it.  Oh, Arthur!” and in her misery she stretched out her arms and turned her agonized eyes upwards, “if you are dead, come to me, and let me see your spirit face, and hear the whisper of your wings.  Have you no voice in the silence?  You see he does not come, he is not dead; if he were dead, Heaven could not hold him from my side, or, if it could, it would have drawn me up to his.”

“My love, my love,” said Mr. Fraser, in a scared voice, “it is not God’s will that the dead should come back to us thus——­”

“My poor Angela, why will you not believe me?  This is so very painful, do you suppose that I want to torture you by saying what is not true about your love?  The idea is absurd.  I had meant to keep it till you were calmer; but I have a letter for you.  Read it and convince yourself.”

Angela almost snatched the paper from her outstretched hand.  It ran thus, in characters almost illegible from weakness:—­

 “Dearest,—­Good-bye.  I am dying of fever.  Lady Bellamy will take
  back your ring when it is over.  Try to forget me, and be happy. 
  Too weak to write more.  Good-bye.  God——­”

At the foot of this broken and almost illegible letter was scrawled the word, “ARTHUR.”

Angela read it slowly, and then at length the poison did its work.  She did not speak wildly any more, or call upon Arthur; she was stung back to sense, but all the light went out of her eyes.

“It is his writing,” she said, slowly.  “I beg your pardon.  It was good of you to nurse him.”

Then, pressing the paper to her bosom with one hand, with the other she groped her way towards the door.