As he entered his master’s rooms he was conscious of a strange faintness and an unpleasant burning of the tongue. He had found some difficulty in ascending the staircase, and had scarcely lighted the lamp, when he crept into the second apartment, and threw himself on a couch, feeling as if utterly exhausted. “I don’t know what is the matter with me,” he muttered, passing his hand over his forehead. “I have taken nothing that could hurt me. I suppose it’s a reaction. That was a painful meeting with--with my wife. May Heaven forgive her all her wickedness toward me, though--though----Strange, this weakness seems to increase, and my thoughts are wandering.” The faintness grew worse, so did the burning in his mouth and throat. The unhappy man rose, and endeavored to drink some water, but the effort to swallow was too painful. “May Heaven forgive _me_ all my sins!” he murmured. “I believe I am dying. Dying!” he wildly repeated, raising himself suddenly, and looking about distractedly, then glancing down at his hand. “Dying! She has destroyed me. Oh, Lucia--Lucia--Lucia!” Burning tears forced their way as he sank back. By degrees he floated into a kind of sleep, and then he forgot everything. And as he lay dead in the silence of that lonely room, the woman who had so remorselessly slain him was hastening back to the great city, there to still further shape out the path that was to conduct her---- Whither--whither? To the almost regal chambers of her princely lover, or to the condemned cell of the manslayer? CHAPTER XXVII. FRANK AMBERLEY’S MISSION. The next morning Mr. Amberley went to his office as usual. As he passed the door on which appeared the name of Mr. Willis Joyner--the back room on the first floor--the dapper figure and pleasant face of that gentleman appeared on the threshold. In spite of his age and his gray whiskers, Mr. Willis Joyner was preferred by many moneyed spinsters and richly jointured widows even before the grave, handsome Mr. Amberley, who never paid any compliments, and apparently regarded business as business, and never sweetened the sourness and dryness of the law with the acceptable honey of soft words and smiling glances. “Ah! thought ’twas you, Amberley,” said Mr. Willis. “Thought I knew your step. Want to see you when you’ve looked over your letters.” “All right,” was Mr. Amberley’s very simple rejoinder, as he pursued his upward course. In ten minutes or a quarter of an hour he came back. Mr. Willis Joyner wanted to see him about “that affair of Frampton’s,” Frampton being a wealthy commoner who was going to marry a rich baron’s sister, and the “affair” being one of very complicated marriage-settlements.