What her ultimate purpose had been, how she had expected to live and where, after she had gained a little rest and strength, no one could tell, for the inmates of the house had seen very little of her, as she had kept very closely in her own room; but one thing was sure, if her object had been to effectually cut herself off from her husband and his family, she had succeeded but too well in doing so. Madam felt faint and sick when she had learned all that the lodging-house keepers could tell her, and she lay back weak and trembling in her carriage all the way home. Yet, in spite of her guilt and remorse over her sin, there was in the depths of her worldly heart a sense of relief, a feeling of triumph over the fact that her son was free. The mortifying _mésalliance_ had been severed; there would no longer be any fears of meeting the sneers or smiles of ridicule of their aristocratic acquaintances on account of it. Dr. Winthrop’s brilliant career would no longer be clogged by a wife whose history was enveloped in a mystery; he could now seek the coveted hand and fortune of Miss Sadie Rochester if he chose, and madam secretly vowed that it should be no fault of hers if he did not in the near future so choose. * * * * * Ill-tidings fly fast, and Dr. Winthrop was not long in learning by cable of the terrible calamity that had overtaken his beautiful young wife. Shocked, amazed, perplexed by the dreadful message which Madame Winthrop felt compelled to wire him, heart-broken and utterly unnerved by his loss, he left his father, who had slowly begun to improve, with his brother and a skilful physician and took the first steamer home. Who can portray the agony of suspense which he endured during those eight days of enforced idleness upon the ocean? They seemed an interminable age to him, and he was fearfully worn out and haggard with grief and anxiety when he finally presented himself before his mother and sister in their home in Thirty-fourth Street. Madame Winthrop hardly knew him, he was so changed, and her heart quaked with guilt and fear when he came into her presence. She saw at once that he had some suspicion of the truth, for he questioned both her and Evelyn with a sternness and relentlessness that actually frightened them into admitting much that they would have been glad to conceal. “I believe that I have you two women to thank for the life-long wretchedness that is to be my portion,” he said with exceeding bitterness when he had learned all that he could force from them. “Why could you not let my wife alone? I believe you persecuted her until you drove her to desperation.”