Augusta did not need his attentions, for Lord Hardy devoted himself to her, and nothing which Daisy could do availed to lure him from her side.  Once when Allen said to her that “Hardy seemed pretty hard hit with Gus,” her lip curled scornfully, but she dared not express her real feelings and say how little the Irish lord cared for the girl herself.  She must not offend the Rossiter-Brownes, and she smiled sweetly upon her rival, and called her “Gussie dear,” and flattered Mrs. Browne, and made eyes at Mr. Browne, and asked him to bet for her in the smoking-room, where he spent most of his time with a set of men who are always there, smoking, drinking, joking, and betting upon the daily speed of the ship, or any other trivial thing to pass away the time.  So, while his son flirted with the fair lady on deck, Mr. Browne bet for her in the smoking-room with so good success, that when the losses and gains were footed up she found herself richer by one hundred and fifty dollars than when she left Liverpool.  Mrs. Browne did not believe in betting.  It was as bad as gambling, she said.  And Daisy admitted it, but said, with, tears in her eyes, that it would do so much good to Bessie and her sick husband, to whom she should send every farthing as soon as she reached New York.

The voyage had been unusually long, but this was their last day out.  New York was in sight, and in her most becoming attire Daisy stood upon the deck, looking eagerly at the, to her, new world, and wholly unconscious of the shock awaiting her on the shore which they were slowly nearing.  At last the ship reached the dock, the plank was thrown out, and a throng of passengers crowed the gangway.

“Is Mrs. Archibald McPherson on board?” was shouted through the ship, and in a flutter of expectation Daisy went forward, announcing herself as the lady in question.  “A telegram has been waiting for you more than a week,” was the response, as the officer placed in her hand the yellow missive whose purport he knew.

“A message for me!  Where could it have come from, I wonder,” Daisy said, as, without a suspicion of the truth, she broke the seal and read: 

    “STONELEIGH, June ——.

    “Your husband died this morning, quietly and peacefully.  Bessie
    well, but very tired.

    “GREY JERROLD.”

“Oh-h!  Archie, my husband!” Daisy cried, bitterly as she sank down into a chair and covered her face with her hands, while over her for a moment there swept a great wave of regret for the man she had loved in the days when she was innocent and young, and not the hard, selfish woman of the world that she was now.  “Archie is dead, dead!” she moaned, as the Rossiter-Brownes gathered around her, together with Lord Hardy, who took the telegram from her and read it aloud, while he, too, experienced a throb of pain for the man he had known so long and esteemed so highly, even while he despised him for his weakness in suffering his wife to lead the life she had.