He is waiting for her there in the soft, semi-twilight of the luxurious room, tall, and dark, and handsome, with eager admiration in his eyes as they fall upon the lovely, queenly girl crowned with the dusky gold of her luxuriant tresses. She comes into the room, and he bows low and courteously before the fair girl, who, but a few nights ago claimed him as her husband, but she does not even bend that haughty head. "Why are you here?" she asks, with scant courtesy and freezing contempt. "To claim my wife," is the answer that rises impetuously to his lips, but he restrains himself, feeling that so abrupt an avowal would be poor policy in the face of her raging scorn. "Lady Fairvale, surely you expected me to call after all that passed _that_ night," he answers, in a low, smooth, deprecating voice, fixing his soft, dark eyes pleadingly on her proud face. "No, I did _not_ expect you to call," she flashes back scornfully. "What can you possibly want of me? Did you not hear me say that night that I scorned and hated you? Why, then, do you presume to intrude yourself upon me?" "I bring you news, my fair lady," he answers, still calmly and gently, as if not resenting her scorn. "I have cabled to Washington, and yesterday I received a reply." "A reply," she echoes, faintly, and for a moment there is silence, while he regards her with eager admiration, noting every graceful, womanly charm so becomingly enhanced by the beautiful, white morning-dress. After that interval he speaks. "Yes, I have received my reply," he answers; "you were right, Lady Fairvale, though God knows what strange mystery lies around your supposed death and your rescue from the grave. But they have opened the coffin in which I swear I beheld Vera Campbell Noble buried, and--_it is empty_. I can no longer doubt that you are, indeed, my wife." She stares at him with whitened lips, and a shudder of horror chills her heart. Such truth is stamped upon his face that it seems impossible to doubt. Yet she asks herself, with little, awsome chills creeping over all her frame, is it possible that she, Vera, has actually lain in the gloom and darkness of the grave? Has that warm, throbbing flesh, instinct with life and vitality, been closed around with the blackness of the coffin? Has the black earth been heaped upon her living form? What fearful mystery is this? "Tell me," she says, almost piteously, "is it true that Vera Campbell died and was buried? Will you answer it?" His face expresses the most honest surprise. "Are you Vera Campbell, and pretend to doubt it?" he answers. "This is a mystery I cannot fathom. The girl, Vera, whom I made my wife by her mother's wish, committed suicide, and was buried in Glenwood. This I swear by this holy book," lifting a Bible lying on the table beside him, and pressing his lips upon it. "If you would go to America, Lady Fairvale, you would see the monument I erected in Glenwood to the memory of my wife!"