“Yours, forever,

“MARY.”

Mrs. Leland clasped her hands together, and leaned forward upon the bureau near which she had been standing, scarcely able to sustain her own weight.  It was many minutes before she could think clearly.  After much reflection, she thought it best not to say anything to Jane about the note.  This course was approved by Mr. Leland, who believed with his wife, that it was better that Jane should be kept in ignorance of its contents, at least until the time mentioned for her joining Clement had passed.  Both the parents were deeply troubled; and bitterly did Mrs. Leland repent her folly in making the acquaintance of their new neighbor, simply because she was a neighbor according to proximity.

It was after seven o’clock when the tea bell rang that evening.  Mr. and Mrs. Leland descended to the dining-room, and took their places at the table.

“Where is Jane?” asked Mrs. Leland, after they had been seated a few moments.

“She went out five or ten minutes ago,” replied the waiter.

Both the mother and father started, with exclamations of surprise and alarm, from the table.  Mr. Leland seized his hat and cane, and rushing from the house, ran at full speed toward the place which Clement had appointed for a meeting with his daughter.  He arrived in time to see a lady hastily enter a carriage, followed by a man.  The carriage drove off rapidly.  A cab was passing near him at the time, to the driver of which he called in an excited voice.

“Do you see that carriage?” Mr. Leland said eagerly, as the man reined up his horse.  “Keep within sight of it until it stops, and I will give you ten dollars.”

“Jump in,” returned the driver.  “I’ll keep in sight.”

For nearly a quarter of an hour the wheels of the cab rattled in the ears of Mr. Leland.  It then stopped, and the anxious father sprang out upon the pavement.  The carriage had drawn up a little in advance, and a lady was descending from it, assisted by a man.  Mr. Leland knew the form of his daughter.  Ere the young lady and her attendant could cross the pavement, he had confronted them.  Angry beyond the power of control, he seized the arm of Jane with one hand, and, as he drew away from her companion, knocked him down with a tremendous blow from the cane which he held in the other.  Then dragging, or rather carrying, his frightened daughter to the cab, thrust her in, and, as he followed after, gave the driver the direction of his house, and ordered him to go there at the quickest speed.  Jane either was, or affected to be, unconscious, when she arrived at home.

Two days after, this paragraph appeared in one of the daily papers.