Dolores courtesied and went away. Bonnibel relapsed into thought again. She was glad that Colonel Carlyle was going away, yet she felt a faint curiosity as to the imperative business which necessitated his return to his native land. She had never heard him allude to business before. He had been known to her only as a gentleman of elegant leisure. "Some of the banks in which his wealth is invested have failed, perhaps," she thought, vaguely, and dismissed the subject from her mind without a single suspicion of the fatal truth--that the jealous old man was going to America to be present at the trial of Leslie Dane, and to prosecute him to the death. Ah! but too truly is it declared in Holy Writ that "jealousy is strong as death, and as cruel as the grave." Colonel Carlyle was filled with a raging hatred against the man who had loved Bonnibel Vere before he had ever looked upon her alluring beauty. He had received an anonymous letter filled with exaggerated descriptions of Bonnibel's love for the artist, and his wild passion for her. The writer insinuated that the lovely girl had sold herself for the old man's gold, believing that he would soon die, and leave her free to wed the poor artist, and endow him with the wealth thus obtained. Now, said the unknown writer, since the lovers had met again their passion would fain overleap every barrier, and they had determined to fly with each other to liberty and love. Colonel Carlyle was reading the letter for the hundredth time when Dolores returned from delivering his letter to Bonnibel with the cold message that there was "no reply." That bitter refusal to the yearning cry of his heart for one kind farewell word only inflamed him the more against the man whom he believed held his wife's heart. It seemed to him that that in itself was a crime for which Leslie Dane merited nothing less than death. "She read my letter?" he said to the maid who stood waiting before him. "_Oui, Monsieur_," answered Dolores, with her unfailing courtesy. "That is well," he said, briefly; "now, go." Dolores went away and left him wrestling with the bitterest emotions the heart of man can feel. He was old, and the conflicting passions of the last few years had aged him in appearance more than a score of years could have done. He looked haggard, and worn, and weary. But his heart had not kept pace with his years. It was still capable of feeling the bitter pangs that a younger man might have felt in his place. Felise Herbert had done a fearful work in making this man the victim of her malevolent revenge. Left to himself he had the nobility of a good and true manhood within him. But the hand of a demon had played upon the strings of the viler passions that lay dormant within him, and transformed him into a fiend.