“You have never told me your whole name, Harry,” she said tenderly, with the design of leading him away from the subject of his grief.

“Harry Benedict.”

He felt the thrill that ran through her frame, as if it had been a shock of electricity.  The arms that held him trembled, and half relaxed their hold upon him.  Her heart struggled, intermitted its beat, then throbbed against his reclining head as if it were a hammer.  He raised himself, and looked up at her face.  It was pale and ghastly; and her eyes were dimly looking far off, as if unconscious of anything near.

“Are you ill?”

There was no answer.

“Are you ill?” with a voice of alarm.

The blood mounted to her face again.

“It was a bad turn,” she said.  “Don’t mind it.  I’m better now.”

“Isn’t it better for me to sit in a chair?” he inquired, trying to rise.

She tightened her grasp upon him.

“No, no.  I am better with you here.  I wish you were never to leave me.”

Again they sat a long time in silence.  Then she said: 

“Harry, can you write?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there is a pencil on the table, and paper.  Go and write your father’s name.  Then come and give me a kiss, and then go home.  I shall see you again, perhaps to-night.  I suppose I ought to apologize to Mrs. Balfour for keeping you so long.”

Harry did her bidding.  She did not look at him, but turned her eyes to the window.  There she saw Mr. Belcher, who had just been sent away from the door.  He bowed, and she returned the bow, but the smile she summoned to her face by force of habit, failed quickly, for her heart had learned to despise him.

Harry wrote the name, left it upon the table, and then came to get his kiss.  The caress was calmer and tenderer than any she had given him.  His instinct detected the change; and, when he bade her a good night, it seemed as if she had grown motherly,—­as if a new life had been developed in her that subordinated the old,—­as if, in her life, the sun had set, and the moon had risen.

She had no doubt that as Harry left the door Mr. Belcher would see him, and seek admission at once on his hateful business, for, strong as his passion was for Mrs. Dillingham, he never forgot his knavish affairs, in which he sought to use her as a tool.  So when she summoned the servant to let Harry out, she told him that if Mr. Belcher should call, he was to be informed that she was too ill to see him.

Mr. Belcher did call within three minutes after the door closed on the lad.  He had a triumphant smile on his face, as if he did not doubt that Mrs. Dillingham had been engaged in forwarding his own dirty work.  His face blackened as he received her message, and he went wondering home, with ill-natured curses on his lips that will not bear repeating.

Mrs. Dillingham closed the doors of her drawing-room, took the paper on which Harry had written, and resumed her seat.  For the hour that lay between her and her dinner, she held the paper in her cold, wet hand.  She knew the name she should find there, and she determined that before her eye should verify the prophecy of her heart, she would achieve perfect self-control.