She reached out for a bowl of beef-tea which stood upon the table, and drank a generous portion of it to brace herself for the effort she was contemplating; then rising, she began to move about the room, and was surprised to find herself stronger than she had supposed. The door was open between the room she occupied and the one beyond, so she prolonged her walk into this, going very slowly, and taking hold of various objects to steady her steps. She traversed the whole length of both rooms thus; then her strength gave out, and she sank panting into a low rocker to rest. The door leading into Mrs. Rochester’s parlor was directly behind her, and partly open. Salome had believed it to be empty until she was seated, when, to her consternation, she heard a strangely familiar voice, intense with passion, exclaim: “Sadie, you do not answer me; tell me that you do love me in spite of this unnatural contract, which would have consigned you to a man whether you could love him or not? why couldn’t they have left people free to choose for themselves? Tell me, Sadie, I must have the truth.” “Yes, then, if you will have the confession. I have loved you from the first hour of our meeting,” was the reply which came to Salome’s ears in Miss Rochester’s tones, while she experienced a feeling as of suffocation, and seemed turning to stone. Then, powerless to move or fly from the terrible ordeal, she heard that other voice cry out triumphantly: “My darling! my heart’s idol! I knew it; you could not hide it from me, even though you have tried to be so proper and demure at times. My love, my love, we were made for each other, and I would not exchange the bliss of this moment for a hundred Rochester-Hamilton fortunes.” “But——” began Miss Rochester. “We will have no ‘buts,’ my heart’s queen,” interrupted her companion, “I will not permit a worldly word or thought to mar this hallowed hour; you are mine, heart and soul, as I am yours——” Salome could endure no more. The sound of that voice, uttering such passionate declarations of love, smote her with agony that was worse than death, and, nerved by despair, she sprang softly to her feet, turned one wild, anguished look toward the room behind her, and saw a picture that nearly drove her mad. Standing with their backs toward the door were two figures, one—as she supposed—the man whom she had once fondly believed to be her husband, the other the girl who, for years, had been her worst enemy, locked in a lovers’ embrace. Covering her eyes as if the sight had suddenly smitten her blind, the suffering young wife noiselessly groped her way back to her own room, where she threw herself prone upon her face on her bed.