MY BELOVED HUSBAND: A holy duty calls me from you for a few days, but it is with a bleeding heart and foreboding mind that I go. Well do I know, Philip, all that I dare in thus leaving without your sanction. But equally well am I aware, from what has already passed, that that sanction never could have been obtained. I pray you to forgive the manner of my going, an extremity to which your former inflexibility has driven me; and I even venture further to pray that, even now, you will extend the shield of your authority over my absence, as your own excellent judgment must convince you will be best. Philip, dearest, you will make no stir, cause no talk--you will not even pursue me, for, though you might follow me to New York, yet in that great thoroughfare you would lose trace of me. But you will, as I earnestly pray you to do, await, at home, the coming of your most unhappy but devoted MARGUERITE. It would be impossible to describe the storm of outraged love and pride, of rage, grief, and jealousy that warred in Philip Helmstedt’s bosom. “Yes! by the eternal that hears me, I will wait her coming--and then! then!” he muttered within himself as he cast the letter into the fire. All night long, like a chafed lion in his cell, he paced the narrow limits of his lonely apartments, giving ill vent to the fierceness of his passions in half-muttered threats and curses, the deeper for suppression. But when morning broke, and the world was astir, he realized that he had to meet it, and his course was taken. His emotions were repressed and his brow was cleared; he rang for his servant, made a careful toilet, and at his usual hour, and with his usual appearance and manner, descended to the breakfast table. “I hope Mrs. Helmstedt is not indisposed this morning,” said a lady opposite, when she observed the vacant chair at his side. “Thank you, madam; Mrs. Helmstedt is perfectly well. She left for New York last evening,” replied Mr. Helmstedt, with his habitual, dignified courtesy. And this story went the rounds of the table, then of the hotel, and then of the city, and though it excited surprise, proved in the end satisfactory. Later in the day he took leave of his friends. And by the next morning’s packet he sailed for the island, which he reached at the end of the week. And once in his own little, isolated kingdom, he said: “Yes, I will await you here, and then, Marguerite! then!” CHAPTER VI. THE WIFE’S RETURN. “She had moved to the echoing sounds of fame-- Silently, silently died her name; Silently melted her life away As ye have seen a rich flower decay, Or a lamp that hath swiftly burned expire, Or a bright stream shrink from a summer fire.”