Her aunt sprang quickly to her side, and, seizing the fatal missive, flashed her eyes swiftly over it, for she felt she had a perfect right to know its contents. “Dastard! cowardly villain!” burst fiercely from her firmly compressed lips at its close. Then ringing a furious peal for her maid, she gathered the unconscious girl tenderly in her arms, and moaned, “My poor stricken lamb, it is cruel, cruel to crush your young heart thus.” The maid came in, and together they raised her and laid her gently upon a sofa, and applied restoratives. Could Ralph Moulton have seen her then, methinks even his cruel heart would have failed him at the sight of that white, rigid face, and he would have been glad to give the lovers back to each other to have seen those lovely eyes again unclose, and that breathless bosom heave again. His diabolical plan had worked well, for the note ran thus: “DORA:— “For I cannot say my dear Dora—I feel as if I have forfeited all right to name you thus—your note, so deftly concealed in your lovely tribute to-day, causes me more suffering than I like to own, for it shows me how fully and faithfully you have trusted in me all these years; when I——. Well, I thought when I last saw you, that I, too, should be true, and that nothing could ever change my affection for you. But how changeable is life! I will be frank with you, however, and trust to your kindness of heart to release me from all bonds that have united us in the past. I have recently met a young and lovely maiden, without whom life to me would be utterly wretched. Could you see her, you would not blame me that I wish to wed her. And now I have one request to make, and then I bid you farewell forever, and hope that you may yet attain earth’s highest happiness. Will you consent that the bonds which unite us be annulled? I feel that I have not the courage to meet you, and when you receive this I shall be far away. I have written to my father the cause of my absence, and if you will sign the paper which he will present you, you will render deeply grateful one who has done you great wrong, and who earnestly wishes to be forgiven. “Yours, with deep repentance, ROBERT ELLERTON.” For an hour Dora lay in a fearful swoon, and Madame Alroyd was nearly distracted with the fear that her darling would die. She showered the bitterest reproaches her heart could invent upon the author of all this sorrow and suffering. She blamed herself, again and again, for being overpersuaded to come to that “horrible place.” But Dora’s health was good, and her constitution firm and strong, and she finally opened her eyes and gazed wildly upon her aunt and maid, who hung so anxiously over her.