He expected his wife. Should he come forward and confront her? His stern face grew red with shame--for her, for himself. Then, with a sudden leap of the heart, with a sensation of relief which was absolutely painful in its intensity, he saw Nell enter the room and go straight to the pedestal. Her face was pale and troubled, and she looked round with what seemed to him a guilty expression in the gray eyes. Then she opened the book as he had done, but, as if she expected to find something, took out the note, and after a moment of hesitation read it. He saw her face flush hotly, then grow white, and her hand go out to the pedestal as if for support. For a moment she stood as motionless as he had done, then she thrust the note into her pocket, dropped the book from her hand--it fell on the floor unregarded by her--and slowly left the room. Wolfer passed his hand over his brow with a bewildered air, then, as if obeying an irresistible impulse, he followed her up the stairs. Quietly but slowly. He knew that she had not seen him, did not know that he was following her, and he waited at the end of the corridor, watching her with a heart throbbing with an agony of anxiety. Was she going to carry the note to his wife? But she did not even hesitate at the door of Lady Wolfer's room, but went straight to her own, and he heard the key turn as she locked it. The sweat was standing in great drops upon his forehead, and he put up a trembling hand and wiped them away as he looked toward his wife's door. Should he go in and question her? Should he ask her straightly whether the note was intended for her or Nell? It seemed too horrible to suspect the girl who had seemed innocence and purity itself, and yet had he not seen her go straight for the book, as if she had known that it was there waiting for her? Like a man in a dream he went down to the library, and, locking the door, flung himself into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. What was he to think? CHAPTER XXIII. Nell stood in the middle of the room with the note which she had found in the book in her hand. She had read it half mechanically and unsuspectingly, as one reads a scrap of paper found in a volume, or in some unexpected place; and, trembling a little, she went to the electric light and read the note again. It ran thus--and with every word Nell's face grew pale: