Lenore ran after her crying, "My dear, dear mamma, what is the matter?" and Esther followed with "Oh! my dear mistress, speak to me." "Mrs. Werner is in great trouble, and I must go to her. Do not ask me anything more," was the reply, and then Dolly leaned up against a great tree growing in the hedgerow, and shut her eyes, and felt as if the earth were going round and round. She understood, if no one else did,--she comprehended that of his own free will Henry Werner had gone on the longest and darkest journey the human mind can imagine--that his message to his wife would be given from one who sent it, knowing ere eight hours of the six months had elapsed he would have passed into eternity. This was why he had spoken so freely to her, and this was the reason he had extorted her forgiveness, and asked her to remember him in her prayers. Every other consideration in life was for the moment blotted out by the shadow of that man dead--dead by his own act--dead because the trouble was too great to be contended with, because the ruin was too utter to be endured. Dolly went upstairs. She had paused by the way and swallowed some wine and water, to enable her tongue to perform its office. "Archie," she said, as she nervously smoothed her husband's pillows, "I must go to London, and I want you to be quiet and satisfied while I am away. Leonora is in dreadful distress, and wants me. Mr. Werner is dangerously ill, not expected to recover, and she has great need of me. I do not like leaving you, dear, but--" "Go at once," he interrupted. "Kiss me and go, dear. I shall do very well indeed. Poor Werner! It is a curious thing I was dreaming about him yesterday. I dreamt he was here, and--" "I must go, love," she said, unable to bear the interview longer. "Good-bye." And she was gone. Now it so happened that Mrs. Mortomley chanced, without any reference to Mrs. Werner, to know Lord Darsham's then address, and consequently the moment she got into town she telegraphed this message to him. "Leonora's husband has committed suicide. Pray come to her at once." Mrs. Mortomley only sent this message because she considered that, by stating what she believed to be the literal truth, she would bring Leonora's cousin more rapidly to her assistance. In the then state of her nerves, sudden death by the Visitation of God seemed to her so slight a misfortune that she fancied pure death would appear a trifle to Lord Darsham. That any one could ever really have supposed Mr. Werner died through illness or misadventure, never occurred to Dolly, who felt quite positive he had fully made up his mind to destroy himself when with her on the preceding day, and it was therefore with a frightful shock she learned upon arriving at her friend's house that every soul in it believed Mr. Werner, who was suffering from a severe attack of neuralgia, had died accidentally while inhaling chloroform to lull the pain.