Somewhat ostentatiously she flattened out a letter on the table, but carefully kept her hands thereon, as if in fear that it might be snatched away by Maude; and impelled by an impressible but hideous emotion of curiosity the latter drew near, and the woman with a slender forefinger traced out the lines she wished her to read--lines that seemed to seal the fate of Maude, whose dull eyes wandered over them like one in a dreadful dream--for the letter, if a forgery, was certainly to all appearance in the handwriting of Jack Elliot, and some of its peculiarities in the formation of capitals and certain other letters seemed to her too terribly familiar and indisputable. They seemed to sear the girl's brain--the words she read--but summoning all her self-control, and seeming scarcely to breathe, she permitted as yet no expression of sorrow, of passion, or emotion of any kind to escape her. 'DEAREST LITTLE WIFE, 'I write you, Maggie, as I promised, as I cannot see you before leaving for Egypt, and fear the sorrow of such another parting as our last may kill me, for you know that all the love of my heart is yours, though I have been entrapped into a marriage with Maude Lindsay--a mad entanglement, for which I ask your forgiveness and pity, that you may not bring me to punishment and shame. I will buy your silence at any price; let me have back the marriage certificate and all letters, and I herewith enclose a blank cheque for you to fill up at your pleasure. This I do, dear little one, for the sake of our old----' Here Maude reeled, for the room seemed to revolve round her. 'There!' said this odious woman exultingly, as she hastened to refold the letter and replace it in her breast, 'will you deny it longer?' The speaker showed neither the certificate nor the blank cheque; but poor Maude had seen enough. She fainted, and when she recovered her obnoxious visitor was gone--gone, but had left a dreadful sting behind. Had her presence and her story been all a dream? No! There was the chair in which she had been seated; there was the little Chippendale table on which she had spread the terrible letter that told of Jack's perfidy; and there on the floor, just where she had thrown or thrust them, lay the scattered books--his presents in the past time. She cast herself on the sofa--she could neither think nor weep; her heart beat painfully--every pulsation was a pang! What was she to do--whither turn for advice before madness came upon her?