“What is it that you are saying, Joyce?” he asked, in a low tone.  “I do not understand.”

“I have longed to say it to you many a hundred times, sir; but it is right that you should hear it, now things have come to this dreadful ending.  Since the very night Lady Isabel came home here, your wife, she had been taunted with the cost she has brought to East Lynne and to you.  If she wanted but the simplest thing, she was forbidden to have it, and told that she was bringing her husband to poverty.  For this very dinner party that she went to to-night she wished for a new dress, and your cruel words, ma’am, forbade her having it.  She ordered a new frock for Miss Isabel, and you countermanded it.  You have told her that master worked like a dog to support her extravagances, when you know that she never was extravagant; that none were less inclined to go beyond proper limits than she.  I have seen her, ma’am, come away from your reproaches with the tears in her eyes, and her hands meekly clasped upon her bosom, as though life was heavy to bear.  A gentle-spirited, high-born lady, as I know she was, could not fail to be driven to desperation; and I know that she has been.”

Mr. Carlyle turned to his sister.  “Can this be true?” he inquired, in a tone of deep agitation.

She did not answer.  Whether it was the shade cast by the nightcap, or the reflection of the wax taper, her face looked of a green cast, and, for the first time probably in Miss Carlyle’s life, her words failed her.

“May God forgive you, Cornelia!” he muttered, as he went out of the chamber.

He descended to his own.  That his wife had laid violent hands upon herself, his reason utterly repudiated, she was one of the least likely to commit so great a sin.  He believed that, in her unhappiness, she might have wandered out in the grounds, and was lingering there.  By this time the house was aroused, and the servants were astir.  Joyce—­surely a supernatural strength was given her, for though she had been able to put her foot to the ground, she had not yet walked upon it—­crept downstairs, and went into Lady Isabel’s dressing-room.  Mr. Carlyle was hastily assuming the articles of attire he had not yet put on, to go out and search the grounds, when Joyce limped in, holding out a note.  Joyce did not stand on ceremony that night.

“I found this in the dressing-glass drawer, sir.  It is my lady’s writing.”

He took it in his hand and looked at the address—­“Archibald Carlyle.”  Though a calm man, one who had his emotions under his own control, he was no stoic, and his fingers shook as he broke the seal.

“When years go on, and my children ask where their mother is, and why she left them, tell them that you, their father, goaded her to it.  If they inquire what she is, tell them, also, if you so will; but tell them, at the same time, that you outraged and betrayed her, driving her to the very depth of desperation ere she quitted them in her despair.”