This done, I was ready for my departure. Once more I glanced round the room, taking a silent farewell of those trifles which loving associations had made intensely dear. And as my gaze rested on the guitar, I felt as sharp a thrill of anguish as if it had been a living thing which I must leave for ever. Going over to the corner where it stood, I stooped and kissed the strings as if they could have responded to my caress. As my lips touched the chords they seemed to give out a faint, sweet sound. I do not know how it was that this faintest hint of music recalled to mind that mysterious air, whose origin and meaning had baffled us so long. I only know that the melody began to ring softly in my ears; and it was not until I had fairly plunged into the noise of the streets that I lost its haunting sweetness. There was one more thing to do before I turned my back on London. My strength was already beginning to fail when I turned my steps towards that dim street in which my husband and I had begun our married life. Yet I would not go away without one farewell look at the house to which I had gone as a young bride. It was there that I had spent my first sweet days of perfect trust and love; and there, too, that the sharp battle had been fought betwixt life and death. Ah, if death had been the conqueror in that strife, I should not have been as utterly hopeless and heart-broken as I was to-day! Coming to the house, I paused before the window of our old sitting-room, which overlooked the street. And, standing there silently, I seemed to see the ghost of my old self drawing aside the lace curtains, and watching anxiously for the doctor's carriage. Hopes, fears, prayers, all came thronging back into my mind; and my misery grew so intolerable that I could fain have sat down, like some poor castaway, on the doorstep, and drawn my last breath there. Oh, love—life—time! Even in these tranquil days, I find myself wondering how human beings, weak as myself, can live under their burdens of sorrow. I had saved a life that was to blight mine; I had rescued him from death, and he had broken my heart. If I had lingered any longer in that spot, my strength, already so nearly spent, would have utterly failed. I roused myself, grasped my bag with a firmer hand, and turned, away from the house, as weary and forlorn a woman as could be found in the vast city that day. At the end of the street I called a hansom, and directed the driver to go to Euston Square. And at last, hardly certain whether I was awake or asleep, I found myself in a second-class railway carriage on my way to my old home.