“But you haven’t told me who this man is.  How odd it would be, if I knew him!”

“I would rather not have you know.  The secret isn’t a fatal one, to be sure; but I prefer to keep it.”

Suddenly she stepped back from the window, ashy pale, and gasping hysterically.  Mrs. Sandford rose hastily to assist her, and, as she did so, noticed her old acquaintance, Mr. Greenleaf, on the opposite sidewalk.  She helped Alice to her seat and brought her a glass of water, and, as she did so, in an instant the long track of the past was illumined as by a flash of lightning.  She saw the reason for Greenleaf’s conduct towards her sister-in-law, Marcia.  She remembered his early fascination, his long, vacillating resistance, his brief engagement, and the stormy scene when it was broken.  She had seen the thread of Fate spun for each, without knowing that invisible strands connected them.  She had begun to read a tale of sorrow, but the page was torn, and now she had finished it upon the chance-found fragment; the irregular and jagged edges fitted together like mosaic-work.

What a mystery is Truth!  A Lie may simulate its form or hue, and, taken by itself, may deceive the most acute observer.  But in the affairs of the world, every fact is related; it meets and is joined by other facts on every side,—­the whole forming an harmonious figure in all its angles and curves as well as in its gradations of color.  Each truth slips easily into its predestined place; a lie, however trivial, has no place; its angles are belligerent, its colors false; it makes confusion, and is thrown out as soon as the eye of the Master falls upon it.

Alice revived.

“Did I speak?” she asked.

“No,—­you said nothing.”

“I am glad.  I feared I had been foolish.  It was a mere passing faintness.”

Mrs. Sandford thought it was the cause of the faintness that was passing, but she prudently kept her discovery to herself.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Fletcher rose next morning betimes, after a night of fitful and unrefreshing slumber.  In his dreams he had sought Bullion in vain; that substantial person seemed to have become a new Proteus, and to escape, when nearly overtaken, by taking refuge in some unexpected transformation.  Sometimes the scene changed, and it was the dreamer that was flying, while Sandford, shod with swiftness, pursued him, swinging a lasso; and as often as the fierce hunter whirled the deadly coil, Fletcher awoke with a suffocating sensation, and a cold sweat trickling from his forehead.  At breakfast, his wife noticed with intense anxiety his sharpened features and his evident preoccupation of mind.  He hurried off, snatching a kiss from the baby and from the mother who held it, and walked towards Bullion’s office.  He knew Bullion was an early riser, and he felt sure of being able to see him before the usual hour of commencing business.  But the office was not even opened; and, looking through the glass door, he saw that there was no fire in the grate.  What was the meaning of this?  Going into the street, he met Tonsor near the post-office.  At the first sight of the broker’s face, Fletcher’s heart seemed to stop beating.