"Her name was Lena--Helena Maxon. She lived in a pretty place called Elm Hill. I suppose she is married and the mother of a family ere this. She was just the kind of girl to marry young, and she was abnormally fond of babies, I remember. She actually brought her doll to school with her, when she was seventeen years old." Dolores talked on volubly, glad to forget the torturing scene of a few moments before. She fancied that he felt the same, and that he was asking these questions simply to bridge over their quarrel. Percy thought the room was whirling around him. He sat down in a neighboring chair. "I wonder you never spoke of her to me before!" he said. "She has an interesting face. I did not know you had such a friend in America. Why have you never looked her up?" She gazed at him in questioning surprise, his voice, his manner were so strange. "I think I mentioned her to you when I told you the story of my Uncle's death," she answered, pleasantly, eager to win him to good humor again. "While abroad, our lives drifted so far apart, I seldom recalled the old intimacy. Since my return--I have hardly felt situated to seek a renewal of our acquaintance. It might have been embarrassing for both of us, Percy, and you know I have not felt the need of any friend or companion but you." He laid down the picture and covered his eyes as if to shut out the sight of it. "My God!" he cried, suddenly, "it cannot be true--it is too terrible." Dolores' jealous suspicions concerning the letter took definite shape and form. "Why are you talking so strangely?" she asked, facing him suddenly. "Do you know Helena Maxon, Percy? Have you ever met her?" "Yes," he answered, "I know her--I have met her. Oh, Dolores, I wish to God I were dead." "I wish we both were!" she cried passionately. "I wish God had sent death to us there in that Andean valley, when something told me, that we were never to be so happy again." Then, growing excited, she clenched her slender hands and stood before him, speaking in a low suppressed voice. "You shall never marry her, never!" she cried. "I can hinder it. When we were in Santiago, you registered me as your wife, to avoid gossip. To Lorette, you have called me Madame Percy--your wife. These things, told in a court of justice, would prevent you from making another woman your wife. I will follow you to the ends of the earth to prevent it." Percy put his hands to his head in a dazed way. "Don't!" he protested wearily. "I am ill, suffering, Dolores. Let us end this miserable scene. I have no idea of making any woman my wife. It would be an insult to any good woman to ask her to take the remnant of my miserable existence. "I am going abroad at once--to-morrow; and I hope you will continue your preparations for your journey. And now, good by--I am too ill to endure another word to-day." He loosened the hold she had taken on his arm in her excitement, and almost staggered out of the room and down the stairs. CHAPTER XXI.