The mother of Rita had passed away, and so had the young woman's husband. Rita had but recently returned to Ilexhurst, when one night she came into his presence drenched with rain and terrorized by the fierceness of an electrical storm then raging. Speechless from exhaustion and excitement she could only beckon him to follow. Upon the bed in her room, out in the broad back yard, now sharing with its occupant the mud and water of the highway, her face white and her disordered hair clinging about her neck and shoulders, lay the insensible form of the only girl he had ever loved--Marion Evan, as he still thought of her. He approached the bed and lifted her cold hands and called her by endearing names, but she did not answer him. Rita, the struggle over had sunk into semi-consciousness upon the floor. When the family physician had arrived John Morgan had placed Rita upon the bed and had borne the other woman in his arms to the mother's room upstairs, and stood waiting at the door. While the genial old practitioner was working to restore consciousness to the young woman there, a summons several times repeated was heard at the front door. Morgan went in person and admitted a stranger, who presented a card that bore the stamp of a foreign detective bureau. Speaking in French the lawyer gravely welcomed him and led the way to the library. The detective opened the interview: "Have you received my report of the 14th inst., M. Morgan?" "Yes. What have you additional?" "This. Mme. Levigne is with her husband and now in this city." Morgan nodded his head. "So I have been informed." He went to the desk and wrote out a check. "When do you purpose returning?" "As soon as possible, monsieur; to-morrow, if it pleases you." "I will call upon you in the morning; to-night I have company that demands my whole time and attention. If I fail, here is your check. You have been very successful." "Monsieur is very kind. I have not lost sight of Mme. Levigne in nearly a year until to-night. Both she and her husband have left their hotel; temporarily only I presume." The two men shook hands and parted. Upstairs the physician met Morgan returning. "The lady will soon be all right; she has rallied and as soon as she gets under the influence of the opiate I have given and into dry clothes, will be out of danger. But the woman in the servant's house is, I am afraid, in a critical condition." "Go to her, please," said Morgan quickly. Then entering the room he took a seat by the side of the young woman--her hand in his. Marion looked upon his grave face in wonder and confusion. Neither spoke. Her eyes closed at last in slumber. Then came Mamie Hester, the old woman who had nursed him, one of those family servants of the old South, whose lips never learned how to betray secrets. * * * * *