“Miss Plympton!” cried Edith. “How could I have gone to her? She is away.” “That was one of my lies,” said Miss Fortescue. “Unfortunately, she is really ill, but she is still in the country, at her school. I myself went there to tell her about you only two days ago, but found that she had been ill for some time, and could not see any one.” Edith sighed heavily. For an instant hope had come, and then it had died out. “He made me go again to see you, but with what result you know. I was fairly driven away at last. This made him terribly enraged against you and against me, but I quieted him by reminding him that it was only his own fault. It brought about a change in his plans, however, and forced him to put me more prominently forward. Then it was that he devised that plan by which I was to go and win your confidence. I can not speak of it; you know it all. I wish merely to show you what the pressure was that he put on me. “'Dear wife,' said he to me one day, in his most affectionate tone--'my own Lucy, you know all about my affairs, and you know that I am utterly ruined. If I can not do something to save myself, I see no other resource but to blow my brains out. I will do it, I swear I will, if I can not get out of these scrapes. My father will not help me. He has paid all my debts twice, and won't do it again. Now I have a proposal to make. It's my only hope. You can help me. If you love me, you will do so. Help me in this, and then you will bind your husband to you by a tie that will be stronger than life. If you will not do this simple thing, you will doom me to death, for I swear I will kill myself, or at least, if not that, I will leave you forever, and go to some place where I can escape my creditors.' “This was the way that he forced his plan upon me. You know what it was. I was to see you, and do--what was done. “'You are my wife,' said he, earnestly. 'I can not marry her--I don't want to--but I do want to get money. Let me have the control of the Dalton estates long enough to get out of my scrapes. You can't be jealous of her. She hates me. I hate her, and love you--yes, better than life. When she finds out that I am married to her she will hate me still more. The marriage is only a form, only a means of getting money, so that I may live with my own true wife, my darling Lucy, in peace, and free from this intolerable despair.'