"Oh! you could have given me time--time to recover from my mental illness, since I had done no evil willingly. Since I had kept my troth as well as I could. Since I had vowed to love and serve you all the days of my life. You should have given me time, Rule, to recover my senses and keep my vow." "Yes; I should have done so! But, you see, I did not know. How could I know? Oh, my dear Cora! It cost me little to lay down all the honors I had won, for they were worthless to me if not shared by you, for whom they were won. But it cost my life almost to resign you. Mine was 'not the flight of a felon' or a coward, but the retirement of one sick, sick unto death of the world and of all the glory of the world. Some men in my case might have sought relief in death, but I--I knew I must live until the Lord of life should himself relieve me of duty. So I left the city on the night of my wedding day, the night also before my inauguration day." "Oh, Rule! and as if it required that supreme act of renunciation to tear the veil from my eyes and let me see you as you were, and see my own heart as it was--from that hour I knew how much, how deeply, how eternally I loved you!" said Corona. Rothsay raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he resumed: "I wrote two letters--one to you, explaining my motives for leaving, and advising you not to repeat to any one the subject or substance of our last interview, lest it should be misunderstood or misrepresented, and should do you unmerited injury with an evil-thinking world--" "Yes, Rule. See! See! I have that letter yet!" exclaimed Corona, hastily unbuttoning the front of her bodice and pulling up the little black silk bag which she wore next her heart, suspended from the silken cord around her neck, and taking from it the old, yellow, broken paper which contained the last lines he had written to her. "You kept that all this time, dear?" he inquired, gently taking the paper and looking at it. "Yes. Why not? It was the last relic I possessed of you. And it has never left me. I never showed it to a human being, because you did not wish me to do so. But you said you had written two letters. To whom was the other? We never heard of it." Rothsay looked at her in surprise for a moment and answered: "The other letter? Why, of course it was my letter of resignation." "Then it was never found! Never! If it had been, it would have saved much trouble. No one knew what had become of you, Rule. Not even I, except that you had left me on account of that last conversation between us, which you adjured me never to divulge. And oh! what amazement your disappearance caused! and what conjectures as to your fate! Many thought that you had been assassinated and your body sunk in the river. Oh, Rule! Many others thought that you had been abducted by some political enemy--as if any force could have carried you off, Rule!" Rothsay laughed for the first time during the interview. Corona continued: