The woman held out her clasped hands, and her face was wet with a rain of tears. For the first time, a look of almost yearning tenderness filled the sad eyes bent upon her, and a touch of compassion quivered in the man’s voice. “Sit down, Elizabeth. I have a few questions to ask, and for once you and I must have truth between us.” Mrs. Lambert dropped to the sofa, near which she stood, and Ross drew his chair in front of it. The curtains hung low, and the light fell dimly around them, so dimly that they seemed like ghosts questioning each other. “Elizabeth, when we first met, and I found you Lambert’s widow, there was too much of passion and reproach in our interview for a clear understanding of events, which seem to me vague and unsatisfactory. Quiet yourself, now; be calm, if that is possible, and let us thoroughly understand each other.” The woman made a strong effort, and hushed her sobs. “When we married, I was a wild, passionate youth, penniless, almost friendless; but I loved you, God only knows how dearly!” “And, oh heavens! how I loved you!” “Had I been older or wiser in this world’s wisdom, it would have been an act of treachery when I won you to that private marriage; but I was an enthusiast, possessed of some genius, and more wild hopes. Perhaps in the arrogance of these untried feelings, I held your father’s wealth in too much scorn. Certain it is, I never craved it, never wished for it.” “I know that, Herman; yet it was this very wealth that drove us apart.” “I asked you to go away, and share my fate——” “I could not; remember how young I was. An only child, loving my father, whose forgiveness you refused to ask—loving you better than my own life, but afraid to follow the hopeless path you were resolved to tread. Why did you leave me then? Was I angry—was I unreasonable in that struggle, so hard upon a young girl, pampered, as I had been; did I say things which were altogether beyond forgiveness?” “If I left you in anger, bitter and keen as it was, my great love conquered it, before I was half across the ocean,” said Ross. “But what came after? My letters were unanswered.” “I never received them. Some one, my father, I think, kept them back. Oh, Herman! you will never know how I waited, how I longed for one line!” “Elizabeth, give me your hands. On your life, on your honor—as you hope for salvation, did you never hear from me, never see a line of my writing after I left you?” “As God shall be merciful to me, I never did!” The woman felt the two strong hands that clasped hers shake like reeds. “And you thought me dead?” “I did! I did!” “Then, and not till then you married this other man?” “Oh, Herman! It was only my hand and wealth that I gave him. When love perished in my heart I had only ambition left.” “Then all love for me had perished?” “Herman! There never has been a time when the very memory of our love has not been dearer to me than the adoration of any living man.”