Meanwhile, matters were quite different in New York from what either he or Jessie could have supposed. Laurier, after his accident, had remained for several days in a serious condition, recovering consciousness so slightly as not to be able to recognize the friends who were permitted to visit him. Having no relatives in the city, his dearest friend, Ernest Noel, was often by his bedside, and it was quite a week before the latter dared answer the half-dazed questions put to him by the sick man. Then full consciousness dawned, and all the cruel truth came upon him. The funeral, the accident, the interrupted wedding, all dawned on his mind, and a hollow groan burst from him as he turned his eyes on Noel. “Cora----” Noel read the pained questioning in the one word. The stricken bridegroom was thinking of Cora and the cruel ordeal she had been called on to bear, the interrupted wedding, the gossip, the nine days’ wonder. “She is well,” Noel said encouragingly. “Tell me all about that day,” Laurier pleaded faintly, and his friend obeyed with some evasions. Not for worlds would he have betrayed the whispers he had heard of the proud bride’s fury at her lover on that cruel wedding day when she had turned away from the altar, a bride without a bridegroom, a stricken creature who in her wrath hated the whole world, and felt revengeful enough to have plunged a knife into the heart of the man who had disappointed her and made her the sensation of an hour. He glossed that fact over very lightly by saying: “Miss Ellyson was naturally cruelly wounded, believing herself a jilted bride.” “My proud, beautiful Cora, it was indeed a most cruel ordeal, and I would have died to spare her such pain. Are you quite sure she understands everything now, Noel?” “Yes; I went and told her myself how everything fell out, and it was fully explained in the newspapers of the next day--so every one knows now that it was an untoward accident that prevented the wedding, and that it will take place as soon as you are recovered.” “And Cora exonerates me from blame?” “Ye-es,” hesitatingly. “You are keeping back something, Noel? Speak out.” “Well, then, she was rather vexed over your attending Miss Dalrymple’s funeral. You see, Laurier, it was that which really caused our deuced hurry, that upset everything.” “I never intended Cora should know I went to that funeral.” “You may be sure I did not tell her, for I thought strange of your doing it myself, but some dunce saw you there, blurted it out to Van Dorn, and he told Miss Ellyson. See?” “Oh, yes,” and for a few moments Laurier remained silent, his thoughts divided between the dead girl and the living one--the one he had wounded unto death, the one who was to be his bride. He gave a long, long sigh to Jessie’s memory, then a chivalrous thought to Cora.