"I was too sick at first to notice the absence of my husband. I learned later that he saw me fall in trying to reach the house, caught me in his arms, and laid me on the couch. He summoned my own maid, who saw him seize a few papers from the drawer and go out into the darkness. From that day to this I have never seen him. All these years, if he has lived through them, he has believed me to be a guilty thing, not worthy even of his contempt. All these years his child has never heard her father's name, and he whose heart was always touched with the sorrows of a child has never heard the sacred name of father from his child's lips. Too late I learned to love him with an intense affection, which, if it had been cherished earlier, would have led me to overlook faults of manner and roughness of speech which, perhaps, after all, were put on to disguise deep feeling. "Only once in all these long, weary years have I heard from him. Our beautiful babe was two months old when my father received a letter, stating that a sum of money had been placed in the hands of trustees, who were named, for the benefit of my child, if living. He said that he considered the marriage tie broken, and that he should never trouble me again. "He was right: believing of me what he did, he could not do otherwise. I honor him for it,—but I must hurry to a close. "Henreich did not succeed in escaping the vigilance of persons who were in search of him. He had hoped to secure enough from me to reach a foreign land and chide justice. When his arrest was made public, the servant who had been with me on my first meeting Henreich confessed, with bitter tears, that she had told my husband that which caused him to watch me on that dreadful night. She said his agony of grief at what he called the certainty of my unfaithfulness frightened her, and she ran away, repenting that she had told him. "Henreich's arrest and death, though under an assumed name, threw my mother into a fever, from which she never recovered. Two years later, father married a Spanish widow, with several sons and daughters. The eldest son was ten years older than Juliette, and was being educated in France and Germany. He returned to his home when she was only a few months over fourteen, became enamoured of her beauty, and a secret engagement took place. When I learned of it I refused my consent; but the infatuated child followed the example of her mother, and would not yield her own wishes. His mother agreed with me; but my father said there was no blood relation between them, and if they would wait till she was of proper age there was no objection. "This half-consent was enough for Arthur Cheriton. He took Juliette out for a drive one day. When they returned they were man and wife. After living together a year, he found her unformed in mind and wilful in temper. He went to England on the plea that after obtaining a situation he would send for her.