“His hands!” she said. She seemed to shrink visibly. She shuddered. “_The blood!_ I was unconscious then, I think--and it is only now--now---- But his hands! and his face! Great Heavens, how he _held_ him. He choked him! It was as if he was over there now,” staring wildly at the far part of the room. “His fingers closed round his throat, and there was such a sound--_a gurgle_--Heaven, what a sound! and then he stabbed, and stabbed, and _stabbed_--he was mad. Oh!” with a long-drawn, piercing sigh, “_I_ shall go mad if I think of it!” “Then don’t think,” said Jacynth. He caught hold of her arm and shook her sharply. “Whenever I see him I see blood,” said she, still trembling. “Never mind him, think of your child,” said he, with a desire to rouse her. “Am I to start now? and when I find him, what message am I to give him from his mother?” He had roused her indeed. “A message!” she said. The old, sad, dreadful fear in her face died away. Hope lit it into a lovely life. “A message to Ronny!” she cried. She fell on her knees before Jacynth and took his hand and laid her cold cheek upon it, a cheek wet with tears. “Tell him his mother loves him,” said she. “Tell him, too, that his mother will forever love the one who will restore him to her.” CHAPTER XVI. BY ARTHUR A’BECKETT. IN NEW YORK. Mrs. Clutterbuck, the newly-married wife of Colonel Clutterbuck, of New York, was not “at home” to visitors. She had given orders to that effect, but the command was superfluous as there were no callers. To tell the truth, Mme. de Vigny had not been a great social success in the country of her adoption. The Senator, her husband, had married her to preside over his establishment, and to gracefully adorn his dinner table, and although she had accepted both duties, the result had been disappointment. Mrs. Clutterbuck’s notion of looking after a house was to take the minimum amount of trouble, and order the maximum amount of goods. She had run up bills in all directions, giving a special preference to the stores of jewelers, dressmakers, and venders of lace. Her idea of dispensing hospitality was scarcely in accord with the colonel’s notions on the same matter. The Senator, who was a power in Wall Street, firmly believed that more could be done over the viands and iced water than in the place of custom, and was in the habit of filling his dining room with people who could be useful. His desire was, of course, to conciliate those he invited by adopting a tone of business-like geniality, but he received no assistance from his wife, whose solitary aim seemed to be the unprovoked and contemptuous snubbing of her husband’s guests. “Loo-cill,” said he one day after a banquet had ended in disaster, “I guess you are not particular to company. Guess, madame, you prefer solitude to some of the best-known persons in the United States.”