gave in; but those intimate enemies who saw her before she left London with her husband declared Lady Muriel to be "quite broken" and a "thorough wreck." And Chudleigh Wilmot? He lived, of course; lived, and ate and drank, and pursued very much his usual course of life. Well, no; not quite his usual course of life. The effect of the death of the one woman whom in his lifetime he had loved was to him much as are the gunshot wounds of which we sometimes hear officers and army surgeons tell; wounds where the hit man feels a slight concussion at the moment, and does not know until a short time afterwards that he is stunned, paralysed for ever. While Wilmot had been watching the insidious progress of Madeleine's disease, his mental misery at times was most acute; every variation in her was apparent to his practised eye; and day by day he saw the destroyer creeping stealthily onward in his attack, without the smallest power to resist him. When the bitter tidings of her death were brought by Ronald's servant, the words fell upon Chudleigh Wilmot's ear and smote him as if a sharp cut from a whip had fallen upon him. She whom he had loved so devotedly, so hopelessly, so selflessly, was dead--he realised that. He knew that he should never see the light in her blue eyes, never hear the sweet soft tones of her voice again. He was thankful that, under the impulse of his grief, he had spoken to her out of his overcharged heart and told her how he loved her. He dared not have done it before, he dared not under any other circumstances have confessed the passion for her that had so long been the motive-power of his life; but then--"Happy, _quand même!_" Her last words--she never had spoken after that--her last words were addressed to him, and told him of her happiness.