“Nina, my beloved, my darling wife, on my knees I beg you to forgive me for the folly and madness of which I have been guilty. Oh, if you could know how remorseful, how shame-stricken, how penitent I feel, you could not help but pardon me. I am not worthy of you, my beautiful wife, but I love you with a deep and passionate love that sprung into full growth the first moment I saw you that night with the orange-blossoms on your hair and breast. In that very moment my mad penchant for a fair coquette died an instant death, slain by the glances of your innocent eyes. I know now that she was not worthy the foolish passion I wasted on her for years, and I beg your pardon for permitting her presence beneath your roof. Oh, my sweet and deeply injured wife, I can explain all if you will grant me an interview to-night, to-morrow, or at any time you may select. I shall not sleep to-night. I shall wait in my room, hoping that you will send me word that I may come to you and plead my cause. Oh, my bride, my wife, do not be hard upon me, do not judge me as I deserve. Only remember my love and my repentance that I place humbly at your feet, hoping prayerfully that you will accept them, and that you will give me a chance to win your forgiveness and then your love, my beautiful fate! Remember I am waiting for a single word from your lips, Nina, and be merciful to me although my past egregious folly merits no mercy at your pure hands. TALBOT STRANGEMORE.” It seemed like sacrilege to read that letter fresh from the heart of the repentant and shame-stricken husband, to that eager, gaping throng. Murmurs of pity, of sorrow, some few of derision, ran from lip to lip. Those who believed that Nina was guilty thought worse of her than before. Surely when she read that letter, when she learned that her husband’s heart had returned to her, she ought to have spared that poor, pretty butter-fly Sibyl St. Alban. It was enough to triumph over her without taking her life in revenge for the past. Through all the reading of that long letter Nina did not stir nor speak. She leaned slightly forward with her small hands loosely clasped in her lap, her lips parted just enough for one to catch the glitter of small, pearly white teeth, her eager eyes fixed upon the reader. A loose tress of golden hair had strayed over her shoulder and lay like a sunbeam against her black dress. There was an expression upon her face that puzzled the gazers, an expression so rapt, so intense, that they held their breath in wonder. “She looks positively radiant, like one in a happy dream,” they said, and it was true, for a soft flush had risen into the wan face, and the dark eyes beamed with light--the light of an overwhelming joy.