Thanks to the thoughtfulness of Arthur Tracy, the cottage was furnished comfortably and even prettily when Mrs. Crawford entered it, and it was from the same kind friend that her resources mostly had come up to the day when, three years after her marriage, Amy Hastings came home to die, bringing with her a little two-year-old boy, whom, she called Harold, for his father.  Just where the father was, if indeed he were living, she did not know.  He had left her in London six months before, saying he was going over to Paris for a few days, and should be back almost before she had time to miss him.  Just before he left her he said to her, playfully: 

’Cheer up, petite.  I have not been quite as regular in my habits as I ought to have been, but London is not the place for a man of my tastes—­too many temptations for a fellow like me.  When I come back we will go into the country, where you can have a garden, with flowers and chickens, and grow fat and pretty again.  You are not much like the girl I married.  Good-bye.’

He kissed her and the baby, and went whistling down the stairs.  She never saw him again, and only heard from him once.  Then he was in Paris, and had decided to go for a week to Pau, where he said they were having such fine fox hunts.  Weeks went by and he never wrote nor came, and Amy would have been utterly destitute and friendless but for Arthur Tracy, who, when her need was greatest, went to her, telling her that he had never been far from her, but had watched over her vigilantly to see that no harm came to her.  When her husband went to Paris he knew it through a detective, and from the same source knew when he went to Pau, where all trace of him had been lost.

‘But we are sure to find him again,’ he said, encouragingly; ’and meantime I shall see that you do not suffer.  As an old friend of your husband, you will allow me to care for you until he is found.’

And Amy, who had no alternative, accepted his care, and tried to seem cheerful and brave while waiting for the husband who never came back.

At last when all hope of seeing him again was gone, Arthur sent her home to the cottage in the lane, where her mother received her gladly, thanking Heaven that she had her daughter back again.  But not for long.  Poor Amy’s heart was broken.  She loved her husband devotedly, and his cruel desertion of her—­for she knew now it was that—­hurt her more than years of suffering with him could have done.  Occasionally she heard from Arthur, who was still busy in search of the delinquent, and who always sent in his letter a substantial proof of his friendship and generosity.

And so the weeks and months went by; and then, one day, there came a letter in the well-known handwriting.  But it was Mrs. Crawford who opened it and read that Harold Hastings was dead:  that Amy was free, and that Arthur Tracy, who through all had loved her just as well as when he first asked her to be his wife, now put the question again, offering to make her the mistress of Tracy Park and surround her with every possible comfort.