DEAD-SEA FRUIT A Novel BY THE AUTHOR OF “LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” ETC., ETC., ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON WARD, LOCK, AND TYLER WARWICK HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW 1868. [_All rights reserved_] LONDON: PRINTED BY J. OGDEN AND CO., 172, ST. JOHN STREET, E.C. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. VALE 1 II. “STILL FROM ONE SORROW TO ANOTHER THROWN” 25 III. LEFT ALONE 36 IV. THE MORLAND COUGH 46 V. LUCY’S FAREWELL TO THE STAGE 63 VI. “COULD LOVE PART THUS?” 88 VII. A SUMMER STORM 112 VIII. A FINAL INTERVIEW 143 IX. TIMELY BANISHMENT 158 X. SIT TIBI TERRA LEVIS 169 XI. HIDDEN HOPES 182 XII. NORTHWARD 204 XIII. HALKO’S HEAD 216 XIV. HOPELESS 233 XV. STRONGER THAN DEATH 298 XVI. RECONCILED 322 DEAD-SEA FRUIT. CHAPTER I. VALE. “AT my own quarters trouble unutterable awaited me. While I had amused myself with the more piquant society of Gulnare, my sad sweet love--my Medora--had fled from her solitary bower. I found my household gods shattered; and standing among their ruins, I was fain to confess that I had deserved the stroke. She was gone. The poor child had borne my absence so uncomplainingly that I had been almost inclined to resent a patience that seemed like coldness. Had she been more demonstrative--had her affection or her jealousy assumed a more dramatic and soul-stirring form--it might have been better for both of us. But the poor child locked all her feelings so closely in her breast, that she had of late seemed to me the tamest and dullest of womankind--an automaton with a woe-begone face.