“I am not.  I wish I may die if the man is not as well as I am!”

Her eyes were never off his face, and at this moment she read for certain that it was true.

She uttered a cry of joy so keen it was painful to hear, and then she laughed and cried and sank into a chair laughing and crying in strong hysterics, that lasted till the poor girl almost fainted from exhaustion.  Her joy was more violent and even terrible than her grief had been.

The female servants were called to assist her, and old Merton and Meadows left her in their hands, feeble, but calm and thankful.  She even smiled her adieu to Meadows.

The next day Meadows called upon Griffin.  “Let me look at that letter?” said he.  “I want to copy a part of it.”

“There has been one here before you,” said Griffin.

“Who?”

“She did not give her name, but I think it must have been Miss Merton.  She begged me hard to let her see the letter.  I told her she might take it home with her.  Poor thing! she gave me a look as if she could have eaten me.”

“What else?” asked Meadows anxiously—­his success had run ahead of his plot.

“She put it in her bosom.”

“In her bosom?”

“Ay! and pressed her little white hands upon it as if she had got a treasure.  I doubt it will be more like the asp in the Bible story, eh! sir?”

“There!  I don’t want your reflections,” said Meadows, fiercely, but his voice quavered.  The myrmidon was silenced.

Susan made her escape into a field called the Kynecroft, belonging to the citizens, and there she read the letter.  It was a long, tiresome one, all about matters of business which she did not understand; it was only at the last page that she caught sight of the name she longed to see.  She hurried down to it, and when she got to it with beating heart it was the fate of this innocent, loving woman to read these words: 

“What luck some have.  There is George Fielding, of the ‘Grove Farm,’ has made his fortune at the gold, and married yesterday to one of the prettiest girls in Sydney.  I met them walking in the street to-day.  She would not have looked at him but for the gold.”

Susan uttered a faint moan, and sank down slowly on her knees, like some tender tree felled by a rude stroke; her eyes seemed to swim in a mist, she tried to read the cruel words again but could not; she put her hands before her eyes.

“He is alive,” she said, “thank God, he is alive.”  And at last tears forced their way through her fingers.  She took her handkerchief and dried her eyes.  “Why do I cry for another woman’s husband?” and the hot color of shame and of wounded pride burst even through her tears.

“I will not cry,” said she, proudly, “he is alive—­I will not cry—­he has forgotten me; from this moment I will never shed another tear for one that is alive and unworthy of a tear.  I will go home.”