"Extra copies of _The Globe_--all about the murder of the handsome actor, Ralph Chainey, by his jealous wife!" Their startled ears caught the sound--the name. Starting apart, the two beautiful young girls gazed with blanched faces into each other's eyes. The words were repeated clearly just beneath the window--blasting words, that coldly drove the shuddering blood back from Kathleen's lips to her heart. With a moan, she slipped down to the floor, winding her arms about Helen's knees, leaning her head against her while she wailed: "Dead! Murdered! Oh, my love, Ralph!" Then consciousness fled, she slipped inertly to the floor, and Helen, with a pallid face and trembling limbs, ran out to purchase a copy of _The Globe_. Ere Kathleen had recovered from her swoon, Helen had hastily run over the startling news--the attempted murder of Ralph Chainey by Fedora, the woman whom he was suing in the courts for divorce. "But for the opportune entrance of his brother, Mr. Earl Chainey," ran the paragraph, "the fiend would have succeeded in her fell design. The deadly blade was descending a second time to sheath itself in the victim's breast, when she was caught and violently hurled aside by Earl Chainey. She proved to be Fedora, the wife whom he was suing for divorce. She now lies in a prison cell, awaiting her punishment, which will probably be a capital one, as Ralph Chainey has never regained consciousness, owing to the loss of blood, and his death is momentarily expected." It was to bear this terrible shock to her heart that Kathleen recovered consciousness. Was it not a wonder she did not go mad with the horror of it all? Parting from her only yesterday in despair and anger--lying dead, perhaps, this moment--dying at least, and dying before he had forgiven her for her coldness and hardness. Oh, God, the pity of it all! Weeping, she lay upon Helen's breast. Pride all gone, she laid her heart bare to her sympathetic friend. "Oh, Helen, it will kill me unless I go to him--unless he speaks my forgiveness before he dies!" "You _shall_ go my darling," was the answer; and in less than an hour the carriage was at the door. The two girls stepped into it, and they were rapidly driven to Mrs. Chainey's suburban home. All the way Kathleen lay upon her friend's breast, weeping, always weeping. In all her long after-life she could never forget that long hour of misery and suspense, in which she could not tell whether she should find him dead or alive. Would he pronounce her forgiveness, or would his lips be stiff in death, and the memory of his anger remain forever a thorn in her heart? How the cold March rain swirled through the leafless shrubbery about the great stone house, with its closed doors and windows, suggesting so vividly the presence of death. Thank God! there was one thing lacking--the funereal crape upon the door. At the worst, he was still alive. "Alive, alive! oh, thank God!" murmured Kathleen through her raining tears.