"You will all come and pass a day with us before long, I hope," Mr. Rhodes said, with exuberant hospitality, when the time came at last to order the carriage for his departure. Elizabeth only answered with a wan smile. She could hardly stand. Mellen accompanied his visitor through the hall, and the instant they disappeared Elizabeth started for the door. "Where are you going?" asked Elsie. "To my room; I can't bear this." "I'll go--" "No, no, not yet; stay awhile, for heaven's sake let me rest alone one moment." She staggered through the dining-room and was gone; when Mellen entered the library again, Elsie sat alone by the fire, teasing the cat, looking cheerfully pretty and childlike. CHAPTER LX. WAITING FOR THE HOUR. The clock in Elizabeth's dressing-room had struck eleven, but there she sat desolately looking into the fire, just as she had sunk into her chair on first entering the chamber. She heard her husband and Elsie ascend the stairs a full hour before, but Mr. Mellen went straight on towards his own apartments. He had not entered hers since the day the bracelet was found; she knew well that he would not intrude upon her then. For two long hours she had been alone with her dismal thoughts, no sound broke the stillness, save the monotonous ticking of the clock or an occasional sob and moan from the half spent wind without. There was too much anxiety and agony in her mind for any of the nervous terrors which had haunted her during the day. Then, as she thought what the coming of the night would bring her, the heart in her bosom shuddered. Now it stood still and seemed hardening into iron. If some spirit had appeared with an articulate warning, she could not have been more convinced that exposure and ruin were approaching her with rapid strides. She would do her best, but that, she knew in her innermost soul, would lead to destruction. She looked back on the past weeks, and tried to remember if her plans had failed through her own weakness. Before Mellen's return it had seemed possible to carry them out, to bury the past utterly, and build a new palace of hope on its grave, but they had all failed. It was not her fault, she had borne up as bravely as any woman could have done under the circumstances, had been as circumspect and guarded as it was possible to be, but from the moment of his inopportune arrival, some untoward event had occurred to thwart every project she had endeavered to carry out for her own salvation. "It is fate," she muttered, in a cold whisper; "it is fate! Oh, my God, help me, help me, for I have yet a right to pray!" No, even the consolations of prayer were denied this most wretched woman; the words seemed to freeze upon her lips; she could only moan in that broken whisper: "My God, help me, help me!"