“I loved him so!” she thought—­“my precious father!  Oh, it was hard to let him go!”

She cried until she could literally cry no longer.  Then she arose.  It was quite dark now, and she lighted her lamp.

“I will read his letter,” she said to herself—­“the letter he left for me.  I will learn this terrible secret that blighted his life.”

There was her writing-case on the table.  She opened it and took out the letter.  She looked sadly at the superscription a moment, then opened it and began to read.

“It will be like his voice speaking to me from the grave,” she thought.  “My own devoted father!”

Half an hour passed.  The letter was long and closely written, and the girl read it slowly from beginning to end.

It dropped in her lap.  She sat there, staring straight before her, with a fixed, vacant stare.  Then she arose slowly, placed it in the writing-case, put her hand to her head confusedly, and turned with a bewildered look.

Her face flushed dark red; the room was reeling, the walls rocking dizzily.  She made a step forward with both hands blindly outstretched, and fell headlong to the floor.

Next morning Sir Everard Kingsland, descending to his hotel breakfast, found a sealed note beside his plate.  He opened it, and saw it was from the directress of the Pensionnat des Demoiselles.

MONSIEUR,—­It is with regret I inform you Mademoiselle Hunsden is very ill.  When you left her last evening she ascended to her room at once.  An hour after, sitting in an apartment underneath, I heard a heavy fall.  I ran up at once.  Mademoiselle lay on the floor in a dead swoon.  I rang the bell; I raised her; I sent for the doctor.  It was a very long swoon—­it was very difficult to restore her.  Mademoiselle was very ill all night—­out of herself—­delirious.  The doctor fears for the brain.  Ah, mon Dieu! it is very sad—­it is deplorable!  We all weep for the poor Mademoiselle Hunsden.  I am, monsieur, with profoundest sentiments of sorrow and pity, MARIE JUSTINE CELESTE BEAUFORT.

The young baronet waited for no breakfast.  He seized his hat, tore out of the hotel, sprung into a fiacre, and was whirled at once to the pension.

Madame came to him to the parlor, her lace handkerchief to her eyes.  Mademoiselle was very ill.  Monsieur could not see her, of course, but he must not despair.

Doctor Pillule had hopes.  She was so young, so strong; but the shock of her father’s death must have been preying on her mind.  Madame’s sympathy was inexpressible.

Harriet lay ill for many days—­delirious often, murmuring things pitiably small, calling on her father, on her lover—­sometimes on her horses and dogs.  The physician was skillful, and life won the battle.  But it was a weary time before they let her descend to the parlor to see that impatient lover of hers.