“In this case it is unavoidable.”

“May I, without seeming curious, ask you a question?” said the earl.

“Certainly—­as many as you like.”

“You can please yourself about answering it,” observed the earl; and then he added:  “Tell me, is it a case of insanity?  Has your wife any hereditary tendency to anything of that kind?”

“No,” replied Lord Arleigh; “it is nothing of that description.  My wife is to me perfect in body and mind; I can add nothing to that.”

“Then your story is a marvel; I do not—­I cannot understand it.  Still I must say that, unless there is something far deeper and more terrible than I can imagine, you have done wrong to part from your wife.”

“I wish I could think so.  But my doom is fixed, and no matter how long I live, or she lives, it can never be altered.”

“My story is a sad one,” observed Lord Mountdean, “but it is not so sad as yours.  I married when I was quite young—­married against my father’s wish, and without his consent.  The lady I loved was like your own; she was below me in position, but in nothing else.  She was the daughter of a clergyman, a lady of striking beauty, good education and manners.  I need not trouble you by telling you how it came about.  I married her against my father’s wish; he was in Italy at the time for his health—­he had been there indeed for some years.  I married her privately; our secret was well kept.  Some time after our marriage I received a telegram stating that my father was dying and wished to see me.  At that very time we were expecting the birth of what we hoped would be a son and heir.  But I was anxious that my father should see and bless my wife before he died.  She assured me that the journey would not hurt her, that no evil consequences would ensue; and, as I longed intensely for my father to see her, it was arranged that we should go together.  A few hours of the journey passed happily enough, and then my poor wife was taken ill.  Heaven pardon me because of my youth, my ignorance, my inexperience!  I think sometimes that I might have saved her—­but it is impossible to tell.  We stopped at a little town called Castledene, and I drove to the hotel.  There were races, or something of the kind, going on in the neighborhood, and the proprietors could not accommodate us.  I drove to the doctor, who was a good Samaritan; he took us into his house—­my child was born, and my wife died there.  It was not a son and heir, as we had hoped it might be, but a little daughter, as fair as her mother.  Ah, Lord Arleigh, you have had your troubles, I have had mine.  My wife was buried at Castledene—­my beautiful young wife, whom I loved so dearly.  I left my child, under the doctor’s care, with a nurse, having arranged to pay so much per annum for her, and intending when I returned to England to take her home to Wood Lynton as my heiress.  My father, contrary to the verdict of the physicians, lingered about three years.  Then he died, and I became Earl of Mountdean.  The first thing I did was to hurry to Castledene.  Can you imagine my horror when I found that all trace of my child was lost?  The poor doctor had met with some terrible death, and the woman who had charge of my little one had left the neighborhood.  Can you imagine what this blow was to me?  Since then my life has been spent in one unceasing effort to find my daughter.”