Shortly before the hour appointed, Richard Hobson’s card was handed her with the information that he must see her without delay.  She understood the nature of his errand; she knew his coming was inevitable; her only desire was to postpone the meeting with him until after the interview with Harold Mainwaring, but on no account would she have him know of her appointment with the latter.  She tore the bit of pasteboard in two.

“Tell him to call to-morrow,” she said to the messenger; but he soon returned, with another card on which was written,-

“Important! must see you to-day.”

It was nearly five.  Quickly, with fingers trembling from her anxiety lest he delay too long, she wrote,-

“Call at eight o’clock this evening; I can see no one earlier.”

As she gave the card to the messenger, she glanced again at the little French clock on the mantel.

“Three hours,” she murmured; “three hours in which to decide my fate!  If I succeed, I can bid defiance to that craven when he shall come to-night; if not — " she shuddered and walked over to the window, where she watched eagerly till she saw the cringing figure going hastily down the street.

He had but just disappeared around the corner of the block when a closed carriage was driven rapidly to the hotel, and a moment later Harold Scott Mainwaring was announced.

Her heart throbbed wildly as she turned to meet him, then suddenly stopped, seeming a dead weight in her breast, as her eyes met his.

For a moment neither spoke; once her lips moved, but no sound came from them.  Before that face, hard and impassive as granite, and as cold, the impulse which she had felt to throw herself at his feet and plead for mercy and for love died within her; her tongue seemed paralyzed, powerless to utter a word, and the words she would have spoken fled from her brain.

With swift observation he noted the terrible change which the last weeks, and especially the last few hours, had wrought in the wretched woman before him, and the suffering, evidenced by her deathly pallor, her trembling agitation, and the look of dumb, almost hopeless pleading in her eyes, appealed to him far more than any words could have done.

He was the first to speak, and though there was no softening of the stern features, yet his tones were gentle, almost pitying, as he said,-

“I have come as you requested.  Why did you send for me?  What have you to say?”

At the sound of his voice she seemed somewhat reassured, and advancing a few steps towards him, she repeated his words,-

“Why did I send for you?  Why should I not send for you?  Think you a mother would have no desire to see her own son after long years of cruel separation from him?”

“There is no need to call up the past,” he said, more coldly; “the separation to which you refer was, under existing circumstances, the best for all concerned.  It undoubtedly caused suffering, but you were not the sufferer; there could be no great depth of maternal love where there was neither love nor loyalty as a wife.”