Stephen Walker made a gesture of assent, and Mrs. Holl went upstairs to Carry's room. She knocked at first gently, and then more loudly. There was no answer. Mrs. Holl was not a nervous woman, but she felt frightened—she did not know of what. The fear of Stephen Walker had infected her, and this strange silence made her as timid as he had been. She tried the handle to see if the door was locked. It was not; the door yielded to her touch, but it was with a nervous trembling that Mrs. Holl pushed the door open, and entered. What she had expected to see—what she was afraid of—she knew not, but no sight could have affected her so much, not even the sight of the girl dead in her bed, as did that deserted room, that unused bed, that letter lying upon the table. Mrs. Holl saw the truth at once, and as she thought of Carry, thought of the old man downstairs, she sat down, and began to cry. Presently she heard a step on the stairs. What should she say? how should she break it to him? She hurried out and met him outside the door. “Don't go in, don't go in; come downstairs, and I will tell you all about it.” “Is she——?” He did not finish the question—indeed he had scarcely uttered the words, but Mrs. Holl guessed them by the movement of his lips. “No, she's not dead; she's not, indeed. Please, go down——” But Stephen Walker pushed past her, and stood in the empty room. A low cry broke from him, then his eye caught the letter on the table; it was addressed to himself. He could not stand to read it; he sank down in a chair. He opened the letter with trembling hands, but the trembling ceased, and his figure seemed to stiffen into stone as he read on— “Father, father, what can I say to you—how can I write it? He has married another; I saw it in the paper this evening; yet he promised, promised over and over again to marry me. Only this morning I had a letter from him saying he would marry me in three weeks, and when he was writing it he must have been married already. I leave his letter that you may see that I spoke truly when I said he promised to marry me, and oh, father, I believed him so; I thought him true and honourable, and oh, father, forgive me, forgive me, for I have disgraced you. I cannot live, father, I cannot live with this shame. When you receive this, Carry and her sins will be over. Oh, father, forgive me. I know you will, and then God will forgive, too. I have suffered so much, surely He will have pity on me. Father, do not think of me as I have been for the last month. Try and think that I died young; think of me as the little Carry who loved you so, so much, and never remember the miserable girl who has brought shame upon herself and you.” Mrs. Holl was frightened at the ghastly pallor and the set rigid expression which grew upon the old man's face as he read on. There he sat still and immovable. When he had finished, his lips were livid, and his eyes fixed.