“I told Mark to stay if he wanted to, and I don’t expect him till to-morrow. Mabby they’ll come together. I b’lieve he was goin’ to call on her,” Uncle Zach said to her on Friday afternoon, when she suggested telegraphing to Helen, and questioned him with regard to the safe, which troubled him so to open that she had not been near it since Wednesday, when her diamonds were there as usual. She was getting accustomed to finding them all right, and did not worry about them now as at first. Still they were on her mind and she said to Mr. Taylor, “If Mr. Hilton does not come back to-morrow, you must open the safe somehow.” “I will, I will; yes marm, I will; yes marm,” Uncle Zach replied. He was in the habit of “yes-marm-ing” Mrs. Tracy, when talking with her, and he was quite profuse with his “yes-marms” as he assured her that Mark would be back and the safe opened by the next day at the farthest. She had tossed her head proudly when he spoke of Mark’s calling at her house and of Helen coming back with him. Mark was _scum_ in her estimation, as were all the people outside her set, and thus she was poorly prepared for the shock which awaited her Saturday morning, when the New York mail was in. Mark did not come, nor Helen, but there was a letter from the latter, which Mrs. Tracy opened eagerly and read with her eyes staring wildly at what the letter contained. It was as follows: “New York, Friday afternoon. “Dear Mother: “I was married to Mark Hilton yesterday morning, and to-night we start for Chicago. Don’t faint and make a scene. It will help nothing. I love my husband and he loves me, and we shall be happy together. As to his position that don’t count. He is my husband, and whoever receives me will receive him. “I am sorry about Mr. Mason. It was a mean thing to do, and he is too good a man to be served such a trick. Still it is better for him to be rid of me. We are not at all alike, and it would hurt him more to be deceived in his wife than in his _fiancée_. “When I know where we are to live I will write you again. Perhaps you will cut me off entirely, but that won’t pay; and if you do you know I have quite a fortune of my own. Mark says, tell Mr. Taylor the business he was to transact for him in New York is satisfactorily arranged for 200 dollars more than he expected. The ledger and papers of the hotel are perfectly straight. Mark saw to that.