She cared little:  her sole desire was to last until summer.  She merely asked to end her hopeless life in loving arms—­to end it before those arms should recoil from her in horror.

No discovery.  Her husband was too indifferent toward her to watch her closely, or even to suspect her.  As early in June as might be she obtained permission to go to the seaside, and with an eagerness which would have found the hurricane slow she flew to Northport.

Leighton received her with a joy which at first blinded him to her enfeebled health.

“Oh, how could you stay so long away from me?” were his first words.  “Oh, my love, my darling wife! thank you for coming back to me.”

But after a few moments, when the first flush and, sparkle of excitement had died out of her cheeks and eyes, he asked eagerly, “What is the matter with you?  Have you been sick?”

“I am all well again, now that I see you,” she answered, putting out her arms to him with that little start of love and joy which had so often charmed him.

It absolutely seemed that in the presence of the object of her affection this erring woman became innocent.  Her smile was as simple and pure as that of childhood:  her violet eyes reminded one of a heaven without a cloud.  It must have been that, away from punishment and from terror, she did not feel herself to be guilty.

But the day of reckoning was approaching.  She had scarcely begun to regain an appearance of health under the stimulus of country air and renewed happiness, when a disquieting letter arrived from Duvernois.  In a tone which was more than usually authoritative, he directed her to meet him at Portland, to go to Nahant and Newport.  Did he suspect something?

She would have given years of life to be able to show the letter to Leighton and ask his counsel.  But here her punishment began to double upon her:  the being whom she most loved was precisely the one to whom she must not expose this trouble—­the one from whom she was most anxious to conceal it.

In secret, and with unconfided tears, she wrote a reply, alleging (what was true) that her feeble health demanded quiet, and praying that she might be spared the proposed journey.  For three days she feverishly expected an answer, knowing the while that she ought to go to Portland to meet Duvernois, should he chance to come, yet unable to tear herself away from Leighton, even for twenty-four hours.

In the afternoon of the third day she made one of her frequent visits of charity.  At the house of a poor and bed-ridden widow she met, as she had hoped to meet, her husband.  When they left the place he took her into his gig and carried her home.

It was a delicious day of mid June:  the sun was setting in clouds of crimson and gold; the earth was in its freshest summer glory.  In the beauty of the scene, and in the companionship of the heart which was all hers, she forgot, or seemed to forget, her troubles.  One hand rested on Leighton’s arm; her face was lifted steadily to his, like a flower to the light; her violet eyes were dewy and sparkling with happiness.  There were little clutches of her fingers on his wrist whenever he turned to look at her.  There were spasms of joy in her slender and somewhat wasted frame as she leaned from time to time against his shoulder.