"Thank you," he answered, gently. "Ah! this indeed is a house of mourning. Is Ada any better to-day, Mrs. Vance?" "I am sorry to say she is not," answered the lady, making a pretence of drying her eyes, which, however, had not been wet by a single tear. "She has a low, intermittent fever, which does not as yet yield at all to the physician's treatment. God grant we are not to lose our lovely Ada, too. Ah! that would indeed be a sad consequence of poor Lily's rash suicide." He shuddered through all his strong young frame at that concluding word. "Oh, God!" he groaned, "the mystery of it! Suicide! Suicide! If God had taken her from us, I could learn to say, 'It is well'--but that she should weary of us all, that she should rush out of this life that I thought to make so fair and beautiful to her in our united future! I cannot understand it--it is horrible, maddening!" Musingly she murmured over a few lines from Tom Hood's mournful poem, "The Bridge of Sighs:" "Mad from Life's history, Swift to Death's mystery, Glad to be hurled Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world!" The words seemed to madden him. Impatiently he strode up and down the floor. "She never loved me as I loved her!" he broke out, passionately. "I could not have done aught to grieve her so. If earth had been a desert, it must still have been Paradise to me while she walked upon it. Oh! Lily, Lily, you were very cruel!" "Do not grieve so, I beseech you," said the widow's gentle voice. Timidly she took his hand and led him to a seat. "You will make yourself ill. We cannot afford to lose you, too. You were so near becoming one of the family that you seem almost to take the place of our dear one who has left us." "You think me almost a madman," said he, remorsefully. "I startle you with my wild words. I should not have come here." "Yes, you should," she answered, kindly. "You should come oftener than you do and let me sympathize with you in your trouble. Who can grieve with you so well as I who knew and loved your dear one? Promise to come every day, dear Lance, and let us share our trouble together." "I will try," he answered, moved by her gentle friendliness, and thinking as he looked up that she was a very handsome woman. Not with the beauty of his lost Lily. _Her_ angelic, blonde fairness typified the highest beauty to him. But handsome with a certain queenliness that was very winning. How dark and soft her eyes were--how beautiful the sweep of the long, dark lashes. And her cheeks--how rich and soft was the color that glowed upon them and deepened to crimson tints upon her full lips. And when that dark, bright face glowed with tenderness and feeling how very fascinating it became. When she took on herself the _role_ of comforter how softly she could pour the oil of healing on the troubled waves of feeling. She had Lance soothed and quieted before Mr. Lawrence came down, with a pale and troubled face, from Ada's sick room.