“I expected to find such a lady here. She may, however, have changed her plans. If she does not arrive by to-morrow, and any letters come addressed to Mrs. Truman Winthrop, or Mrs. Salome Winthrop, will you kindly have them remailed to the care of Mrs. Alexander Winthrop, No. — Thirty-fourth Street?” The polite clerk readily promised to do as she requested, and madam, after courteously thanking him, took her leave. There was a strange glitter of triumph in her eyes as she swept out of the office and entered her carriage. “It is as I hoped,” she muttered. “Everything works well, and I think we may congratulate ourselves that we have seen the last of her.” Alas! she little thought how soon her triumph was to be turned into remorse. She waited, with some anxiety and impatience, until the arrival of the next steamer, and when, a day or two after, she received two European letters addressed to Salome, which had been remailed from the —— Hotel, she knew that her plot had been successful. Salome had, without doubt, done just as she desired: she had, stung to desperation by Dr. Winthrop’s supposed unjust judgment and sentence, fled from her home and husband. Such a step, she knew, would be the one of all others most likely to anger and embitter her son, and she hoped, by exerting the proper influence, to induce him to repudiate the wife she so despised, and obtain a divorce from her upon the ground of desertion. Then, she believed, he would eventually turn to Sadie Rochester, and thus secure the whole of the fortune which his uncle had willed him upon certain conditions, and the Rochester wealth as well. She would spare no pains to bring this about, and if she succeeded, she would feel well repaid for all her sinful scheming against the innocent young wife. She felt no compunctions about opening the letters she had received, and read, without a quiver of remorse, all the outpouring of her son’s fond affection for his wife. He expressed great anxiety because he had not heard from her during the last two weeks, and begged her to send him word by cable if she were ill, and he would leave his father in the care of another physician and hasten back to her. “My first duty is, of course, to my wife,” he wrote, “and nothing shall keep me here if you need me. Why, why have you not written? Why, if you are ill, has not my mother or Evelyn written about you?” Madam also received a letter begging her to write just how Salome was. She felt that the proper moment had now come to acquaint Dr. Winthrop with the fact of his wife’s sudden disappearance; and she at once wrote a garbled account of what had occurred.