At last the sound of her own voice fell back upon her like a mockery. She hushed her weeping and grew still, but the yearning affections, which are the perfume of womanhood, struggled out of passion into thought. She pondered over her whole life, not yet a long one, not really eventful, for the most terrible suffering more frequently springs from commonplace circumstances than from startling romance. It was a life of feeling, of endurance and doubt, rather than action—so far destiny had been wrought out for her. She had neither chosen nor rejected it, gloomy as it had always been. Save the few months in which love had filled her dreary lot with sunshine, so glorious that her heart ached to think of it, existence to her had been a dreary thing. But the very absence of earthly friends had unconsciously lifted her thoughts to a higher and holier power, and there she had learned to look trustingly. She was young, too, and healthy; thus life was not altogether a desert, though some of it had been spent in an insane asylum, and the rest marked by orphanage and desertion. Desertion, ah! there was the doubt, which had never yet been entirely put to rest. Now, with that bright, honest face looking down upon her from the wall, her whole nature rose up against the conviction. He had died suddenly, or something would yet arise to clear him from the evil suspicions that she—wretch that she was—had dared to harbor against him. These thoughts became a conviction. Her face, still wet with tears, was bathed with smiles. A holy faith in him she had loved so truly filled her soul, and the happiness therefrom rose and sparkled like starlight all around her. Her hands were softly clasped; her lips murmured a prayer for the forgiveness she would not grant to herself. She began to love the old library and everything in it, for was it not the scene of this sweet revelation? She had found her husband again. CHAPTER XL. THE BIRD-CAGE. As Catharine sat pondering over these thoughts, full of happiness and thanksgiving, the door was softly opened, and Elsie Ford stole in cautiously, like a timid child that had gone wilfully astray. Catharine sat buried in the easy-chair with her back to the light, which lay full upon the two pictures. Languid from the emotions through which she had just passed, and held in thrall by the very quiet with which Elsie had entered, she sat motionless, watching the poor creature as she glided through the room. The crimson drapery had been drawn over the arch of the window, falling a little apart in the centre, through which came a column of light upon the portraits, leaving the remainder of the library bathed, as it were, in the gloom of a warm twilight.