“Yes, Ned; it will be a great shock to you,—an infernal shock,—though of course you were all over any hankering after her; but it’s that Matthewson woman. She died last night, and there’s about forty yards of crape flying from the doors up there, and the doctor, they say, is actually taking on to kill, and blubbering like a calf; but we’ll fix him. You’ll see; he’s watched; there’s a po——oh, Lord! what have I said, or come near saying?” And in his disgust at himself for having nearly let out the secret before the time, the lawyer retreated into the adjoining room, leaving Everard alone to meet what _had_ been a terrible shock to him, for though he had heard at different times from Agnes of Josephine’s illness, he had never believed her dangerous; and now she was dead; the woman he once fancied that he loved. There were great drops of sweat about his mouth and under his hair, and his lips quivered nervously while, human as he was, there came over him with a rush the thought that now indeed he was free in a way which even Rossie would have recognized had she been alive. But Rossie, too, was dead; his freedom had come too late. “Everybody is dead,” he whispered, sadly, while hot tears sprang to his eyes and rolled down his cheeks,—tears, not for the woman at the Forrest House, for whom the bell kept steadily tolling, but for the dear little girl dead, as he believed, so far away, but who, in reality, was so very near, and even then asking when he would come. “Soon, darling, soon,” Beatrice said, for she had sent a note to Everard, and the messenger was at his office door and in the room before Everard was aware of his presence. “Mrs. Morton at home!” he exclaimed, as he took the note from the servant’s hand. “DEAR EVERARD,” Beatrice wrote, “we came home last night on the late train, and I am so anxious to see you, and have so much to tell. Don’t delay a minute, but come at once. Yours, BEE.” She had something to tell him of Rossie, of course, and in an instant he was in the street, speeding along toward Elm Park, and glancing but once in the direction of the Forrest House, where every blind was closed, and where, through the leafless trees, he could see the flapping of the yards of crape which Lawyer Russell had said were streaming from the doors. For an instant a cold shudder went over him as if he had seen a corpse, but that soon passed away, and when Elm Park was reached he was in such a fever of excitement that the sweat-drops stood like rain upon his face, which, nevertheless, was very pale, as he greeted Beatrice, and asked: “Did you hear anything of her? Did you find her grave, or see any one who was with her at the last?”