He looked profoundly disappointed and troubled. But soon mastering his despondency, he said hopefully: “Well, dearest Stella, although you reject me without apparent reason, and refuse to give me the slightest promise or the most distant hope, yet, _I repeat_, should you, in the long future, change your purpose, and write to me one word—‘Come’—I will hasten to lay at your feet an unchanged heart. Good-bye. God be with you!” and raising her hand, he bowed over it, pressed it to his lips, turned and left the room. Some moments after, Lady Morelle, who came to seek and congratulate her daughter upon what she imagined to be the only possible result of the interview, found Estelle lying in a swoon upon the floor. It was followed by a long and terrible illness, terminating in a tediously protracted convalescence. The town season was at hand before Estelle was able to re-enter society. They went up to London, and once more the “star of beauty” arose upon its world. And though the cloud upon her life settled darker and heavier, day by day—though she grew still more reserved, gloomy, and isolated—she was more followed, flattered, and courted than before. Thus three years had passed away, when one morning, while the family, then occupying their town house in Berkely square, were seated at a late breakfast, and Sir Parke was engaged in reading aloud from the London Times an account of the saving of the French ship—Le Duc D’Anjou—wrecked off the coast of Algiers—Estelle uttered a low cry and sank fainting from her seat. This attack was not, as the other had been, followed by illness; on the contrary, from that day, the cloud seemed lifted from her head, and even those who had most admired her face in its shadow, were enchanted to see how brilliant was her beauty in its sunshine! Her health and spirits daily improved, yet in the midst of all this flowing tide of new life Estelle astonished her friends by suddenly, in the height of the London season, retiring to her father’s country seat, where she remained in strict seclusion from the world for eighteen months. At the end of this period, Lord Montressor, who had never left England, or lost trace of his beloved Stella, and who was now staying at his castle in Dorsetshire, was one day seated at breakfast when the morning mail was brought him. Among a score of letters the first that attracted his attention was a dainty white envelope superscribed in a delicate handwriting. He took that up first and opened it—it contained but one word—“COME.” The light of an ineffable joy broke over his face! Oh! he had waited, patiently, hopefully, years, for that word, and at last he had received it! Thanks to Heaven in the first instance! and then pushing all the other letters unopened aside he sprung up, rang for his valet, and ordered his valise packed and horses put to the carriage.