But why is not Frank Headley with them, when he is needed most?  And why are Valencia’s eyes more red with weeping than even her sister’s sorrow need have made them?

Because Frank Headley is rolling away in a French railway, on his road to Marseilles, and to what Heaven shall find for him to do.

Yes, he is gone Eastward Ho among the many; will he come Westward Ho again, among the few?

They are at the door of Elsley’s lodgings now.  Tom Thurnall meets them there, and bows them upstairs silently.  Lucia is so weak that she has to cling to the banister a moment; and then, with a strong shudder, the spirit conquers the flesh, and she hurries up before them both.

It is a small low room—­Valencia had expected that:  but she had expected, too, confusion and wretchedness:  for a note from Major Campbell, ere he started, had told her of the condition in which Elsley had been found.  Instead, she finds neatness—­even gaiety; fresh damask linen, comfortable furniture, a vase of hothouse flowers, while the air was full of cool perfumes.  No one is likely to tell her that Mary has furnished all at Tom’s hint—­“We must smarten up the place, for the poor wife’s sake.  It will take something off the shock; and I want to avoid shocks for her.”

So Tom had worked with his own hands that morning; arranging the room as carefully as any woman, with that true doctor’s forethought and consideration, which often issues in the loftiest, because the most unconscious, benevolence.

He paused at the door—­

“Will you go in?” whispered he to Valencia, in a tone which meant—­“you had better not.”

“Not yet—­I daresay he is too weak.”

Lucia darted in, and Tom shut the door behind her, and waited at the stair-head.  “Better,” thought he, “to let the two poor creatures settle their own concerns.  It must end soon, in any case.”

Lucia rushed to the bed-side, drew back the curtains—­

“Tom!” moaned Elsley.

“Not Tom!—­Lucia!”

“Lucia?—­Lucia St. Just!” answered he, in a low abstracted voice, as if trying to recollect.

“Lucia Vavasour!—­your Lucia!”

Elsley slowly raised himself upon his elbow, and looked into her face with a sad inquiring gaze.

“Elsley—­darling Elsley!—­don’t you know me?”

“Yes, very well indeed; better than you know me.  I am not Vavasour at all.  My name is Briggs—­John Briggs, the apothecary’s son, come home to Whitbury to die.”

She did not hear, or did not care for those last words.

“Elsley!  I am your wife!—­your own wife!—­who never loved any one but you—­never, never, never!”

“Yes, my wife, at least!—­Curse them, that they cannot deny!” said he, in the same abstracted voice.

“Oh God! is he mad?” thought she.  “Elsley, speak to me!—­I am your Lucia—­your love—­”

And she tore off her bonnet, and threw herself beside him on the bed, and clasped him in her arms, murmuring,—­“Your wife! who never loved any one but you!”