Her young husband was sitting at the window in an easy-chair, with a velvet dressing-gown wrapped about him, and at the sound of her entrance, he turned his face around, and looked at the intruder blankly. Blankly!--that was the only word that described it. If Dainty had been the greatest stranger in the world, her young husband could not have turned upon her lovely, agitated face a more calm, unrecognizing stare. For a moment she stopped, and regarded him pitifully, sobbing: "Oh, Love! am I so changed you do not know your own little Dainty, your wife? Oh, look at me closely! I have been ill, and lost my beauty for a little while. They had to cut my hair, but, dearest, it will soon grow again as pretty as ever!" She moved closer, and timidly clasped her arms about his neck. "Oh, my darling! do not look at me as if I were a stranger! Oh, do not! That cold, stony stare almost breaks my heart! Oh, Love! it is your own little Dainty! I was stolen away from you, and oh! I have passed through such a terrible experience! You have been ill, too, have you not, my dearest one? Oh, how thin and pale you are, but just as handsome as ever!" and she clasped him close in a warm embrace, and showered fond, wifely kisses on his cold, unresponsive lips. The door opened suddenly, and an intelligent-looking mulatto man came in very softly, as if into a sick room. Dainty knew him at once as Love's valued personal attendant Franklin. Her arms dropped from Love's neck, and she blushed as he exclaimed: "So it's really you, Miss Chase?" "Why, Franklin, you knew me at once, but your master looks on me as a stranger!" she answered, in surprise that grew boundless as the man returned, sadly: "Alas! Miss Chase, you and all the world must ever remain strangers to my poor master now!" The mulatto was a clever, well-educated person, and his words, strange as they sounded, carried the ring of truth. "What can you mean?" she faltered. "Miss Chase, where have you been? Have you heard nothing of Mr. Ellsworth's sad condition?" he asked, respectfully. Still keeping her arm around Love's neck, the young girl answered, gently: "I was kidnapped the night before my wedding, Franklin, and the next day I was told Mr. Ellsworth had been shot and was dying. Then I was taken very ill, and knew nothing more till I returned here to-day, when I was overjoyed to learn that he was still alive!" The man looked at her with genuine sadness. "Ah, Miss Chase! I do not know whether you should be glad or not. Is not this more cruel than death?" "I do not understand," she faltered, uncomprehendingly; and he answered, with intense sympathy: