"My dear," the old physician cried out in alarm, and he went up to her involuntarily. The strange pallor on her beautiful young face frightened him. She lifted her heavy, dark eyes that seemed to have no light or beauty left in them any more, and looked up at him. "Doctor Leslie," she said, "will you let his mother go to him now? He is not excited. I think he is quite calm, but perhaps his mother may comfort him." She went out into the hall the next moment. No one thought of stopping her. Her strange appearance had almost frightened them. Doctor Leslie led Mrs. Valchester quietly into her son's room. Jaquelina went softly down-stairs and took her shawl and hat from the rack in the hall. She put them on mechanically and stole quietly out of the house into the chilly, rainy world that lay outside. She walked quietly along the wet and sodden path across the lawn, little dreaming that Walter Earle had observed her from an upper window and was hastening after her. She turned with a start at his light touch upon her arm. "Lina, what does this mean?" he cried. "I am going home," she said, with hard, dry lips. "Not in the rain," said Walter, "the walk is too far. I will drive you over in the phaeton after breakfast." "I must go now," she said, pushing on resolutely through the chilling autumn drizzle. "I do not mind the walk." "I do not understand you, Lina," he said, gravely. "Why did you not wait and see Valchester? He will be very disappointed at your going." "I have seen him," she replied, still walking on. "Doctor Leslie allowed me to go in a few minutes." Walter could not understand her strange gravity and quietude. It seemed as if years had suddenly fallen on the bright young head and made of her a mature and thoughtful woman. "You will come back and see Ronald again?" he said, interrogatively. She lifted her heavy eyes and gave him one swift look whose hopeless despair never passed from his memory. "I shall never see Mr. Valchester again," she said, mournfully. "Never--why not, Lina?" he cried, surprised. "He has given me up," she said. "Why?" Walter queried again in bewilderment. "It will be all right after your Uncle Charles obtains a divorce for you--will it not?" She looked at him again with those heavy, hopeless eyes. "No, never again," she said. "Mr. Valchester has told me that he does not believe that human law can repeal a union cemented by a priest of God. He does not believe in divorces. As long as Gerald Huntington lives, he believes I am bound to him." "Valchester is mad--delirious," Walter muttered, indignantly. "For myself, I hold that it was no marriage at all!" They were nearing the lawn gates, and in a moment she looked up at him. "Mr. Earle," she said, "we are almost at the lawn gates. Will you excuse me if I go on alone from here? You are very kind, but--it seems to me I cannot bear the sight of a human face." Walter bowed and turned back silently, leaving her to pursue her walk alone.