I gained nothing; the Opera gives me my best chance to see and be seen. I might as well have had my hour of triumph, the men in the box, the jealous glances of the women. I might as well have scanned with feverish expectation the big audience that turns to me more eagerly than to the singers, searching--oh, I'm mad to think that Ned might come there again to look upon me. I didn't even escape the Earl. Meg and her husband came home early, bringing him and Poultney; we had the supper, and, for my sins, I made myself so agreeable that Meg forgave me, almost. It was easy; I just let the poor boy talk to me about his mother and sisters, and watched his face light up as he spoke of them in a simple, hearty way that American boys don't often command. He is really very nice. One of his sisters is a beauty. "But not like you," he said. He's as boyishly honest as if he were sixteen; and as modest. To be Countess of Strathay would be a-- Of course Mrs. Henry and Peggy were here, smiling on Mr. Poultney, Strathay's cousin. Oh, I'm useful! I believe Mrs. Marmaduke is the only Van Dam who's kind to me without a motive; they're not Knickerbockers at all, as I supposed. Cadge is right; I gain nothing socially by remaining with Meg; and her guesses come too close to my heart's sorrow. She watches and worries, forever concerned lest some "folly" on my part interfere with her ambitions. Why, I'm frantic at times with imagining that even the maid she lends me--an English "person"--reports upon my every change of mood. Oh, I ought to be independent, independent in all ways. With a little money I could manage it. There's a Mrs. Whitney, a widowed aunt of Meg's husband, who lives alone in an apartment where a paying guest, if that guest were I, might be received. Meg would raise an outcry, of course, but I can't keep on visiting her indefinitely; and I should still be partly in her hands. But I have no money. My allowance is the merest nothing, spent before it comes. Why, I owe Meg's dressmaker, for the dress Cadge admired and for others--Mrs. Edgar was cheaper; I must go back to her. And in the Nicaragua, where Mrs. Whitney lives, the cost of--but it wouldn't be for long. If Ned doesn't-- I won't think about Strathay. I must wait. It's my fault that I haven't plenty of money. I've been so unhappy that I haven't explained to Father how my needs have increased, how my way of life has changed. But I'll write to-night; he refuses me nothing. He must send me a good sum at once; as much as he can raise. Mrs. Whitney's a harmless tabby--a thin, ex-handsome creature struggling to maintain appearances; but I can put up with her. I will go to the Nicaragua. I'll go at once. CHAPTER III. THE SUDDENNESS OF DEATH. The Nicaragua, March 29. How could I have known that he would die? I had never seen any one die. It was as if life were a precious wine rushing from an overturned glass that I could not put right again. I did not dream a man could be so fragile.