“Colonel Schuyler bade us do whatever we thought you would like to have done, and he ordered the casket from New York, and was down stairs during the services,” Gertie said, and then Edith’s heart seemed bursting with a storm of sobs and piteous cries, which Gertie could not understand. “Oh, my husband, my noble husband, what will he say? what will he say?” she murmured to herself, while Gertie stood looking at her. At last she grew quiet, and turning to Gertie, said: “Now tell me how mother died, and who was with her, and what she said.” And Gertie told her what had passed in the chamber of death, of the terrible remorse for something which was evidently weighing on Mrs. Barrett’s mind, the bitter repentance, the peace which came at last, and the message left for Mrs. Schuyler. “She was very particular about that,” Gertie said; “for she thought you might be unhappy, perhaps, if you did not know it, and she said you would forgive her some time.” “I may, I’ll try. I hope I do, but it is very hard,” Edith replied, and then for an hour or more she lay with her eyes closed, though she was not asleep, and when at last she opened them she asked where her husband was, and expressed a wish to see him. Gertie told her that as she was so much better and did not need him constantly, he had gone to New York for two or three days, she believed. “His going was very sudden,” she said, “and I knew nothing of it till just before he went, when he came to me and said it was necessary, and if you asked for him I was to tell you he would be back soon. I should not be surprised if he came to-night.” Instead of manifesting any disappointment Edith seemed relieved at her husband’s absence, as if it gave her a longer respite; but she little dreamed why he had gone, or of the fearful storm of anguish through which he had passed, and which left its marks upon him so plainly, that when at the close of the third day he came back, Gertie, who met him first in the hall, started in surprise, and asked what was the matter. “Nothing, only tired; how is Mrs. Schuyler?” he said, and his voice sounded husky and unnatural, while it seemed to Gertie as if he stooped and tottered like an old man as he went slowly up the stairs, holding to the banisters and pausing once as if to rest. He did not go straight to Edith’s room, but into his library, and Gertie took him some biscuits and a glass of wine, for she was frightened at his weakness and exhaustion. He thanked her for her thoughtfulness, and said, with a sickly kind of smile: “I think I do need something. I have scarcely tasted food since I left home. How many days ago is that, Gertie?” His manner was strange, and Gertie stayed with him and made him drink the wine, and eat a cracker, and then watched him curiously as he went down the hall to Edith’s room, which he entered and shut the door. CHAPTER LIII. COLONEL SCHUYLER AND THE SECRET.