Very soon our letters were brought us, and my hostess, excusing herself, retired to her room to read hers. Two hours later she sent for me to come to her. I found her lying with a wet handkerchief folded over her forehead and eyes. A large and thick letter laid half open upon a table beside the bed. "Read that," she said, without uncovering her eyes. When I had read the letter, "My dear friend," I said, "what _are_ you going to do? I hope, after all, this may be good news." "What _can_ I do? What a strange situation!" "You will wish to see him, I suppose? 'Arthur Greyfield.' You never told me his name was Arthur," I remarked, thinking to weaken the intensity of her feelings by referring to a trifling circumstance. "Why have I not died before this time?" she exclaimed, unheeding my attempt at diversion. "This is too much, too much!" "Perhaps there is still happiness in store for you, my dear Mrs. Greyfield," I said. "Strange as is this new dispensation, may there not be a blessing in it?" She remained silent a long time, as if thinking deeply. "He has a daughter," she at length remarked; "and Benton says she is very sweet and loveable." "And motherless," I added, not without design. I had meant only to arouse a feeling of compassion for a young girl half-orphaned; but something more than was in my mind had been suggested to hers. She quickly raised herself from a reclining posture, threw off the concealing handkerchief, and gazed intently in my face, while saying slowly, as if to herself: "Not only motherless, but according to law, fatherless." "Precisely," I answered. "Her mother was in the same relation to Mr. Greyfield, that you were in to Mr. Seabrook; but happily she did not know it in her lifetime." "Nor he--nor he! Arthur Greyfield is not to be spoken of in the same breath with Mr. Seabrook." The spirit with which this vindication of her former husband was made, caused me to smile, in spite of the dramatic interest of the situation. The smile did not escape her notice. "You think I am blown about by every contending breath of feeling," she said, wearily; "when the truth is, I am trying to make out the right of a case in which there is so much wrong; and it is no easy thing to do." "But you will find the right of it at last," I answered. "You are not called upon to decide in a moment upon a matter of such weight as this. Take time, take rest, take counsel." "Will you read the letter over to me?" she asked, lying down again, and preparing to listen by shielding her face with her hands. The letter of Arthur Greyfield ran as follows: "My Dear Anna: How strange it seems to me to be writing to you again! It is like conversing with one returned from another world, to you, too, no doubt. There is so much to explain, and some things that perhaps will not ever be explained satisfactorily to you, that I know not where to begin or what to say. Still Benton insists on my writing before seeing you, and perhaps this is best.