He was a splendidly handsome and imposing gentleman, but his elegant dress was disordered, his face was pale, almost to the verge of ghastliness, his large, brilliant dark eyes were so wild in their expression of grief that they almost seemed to glare upon the lady who advanced toward him with extended hands. "Mr. Darling," she murmured in a low tone of surprise and pleasure. "You are better, you are able to be out." He pressed her hand speechlessly, and tottered to a sofa, falling heavily upon it while his eyes closed for a minute. In a fright at the look of exhaustion on his white face, Mrs. Vance darted from the room, soon returning with a glass of cordial. She lifted his head on her arm and pressed the goblet to his lips, trembling excessively the while. In a moment he revived, and rising on his elbow looked up while a faint flush mounted to his white forehead. "Pardon me," he said, in a broken voice. "This is unmanly, I know, but I have been very ill, Mrs. Vance, and I am weak still--and it is hard, oh! so hard to come here like this!" He sat up, pushing the dark locks back from his brow, while a shudder ran through his strong frame. "Believe me, I sympathize with you, I grieve with you," murmured the lady in silvery tones. "Our poor, lost Lily!" and her face was hidden in her handkerchief while a sob seemed to shake her graceful form. "They say she died by her own hand," he cried, excitedly. "My God! what mystery is here, Mrs. Vance? What hidden cause drove the girl who was almost my wife to that fearful deed?" "Did you suspect no cause?" asked she, looking at him sadly. "None--there could be none. Young, beautiful, loving and beloved, she had no cause for sorrow." "So it seemed to _you_," she answered, in low, soft tones, looking down as if she could not bear the anguish written on his features; "but strange as it may seem, Lily had some trouble unknown to us all, but which I suspected months ago. She had strange moods of deep depression and abstraction, followed by a feverish, unnatural gaiety. My suspicion of some mysterious trouble weighing on her heart was only confirmed by her sad and tragic death." "Of what nature did you suspect her mysterious trouble to be?" asked the young man, looking at her in surprise and anxiety. "I had nothing but conjecture to build on," said she, reluctantly. "It would be cruelty to harrow your soul with suspicions that may be baseless." "But I insist on your telling me," said he, with unconscious imperiousness of tone and look. "I fancied--mind, I only _fancied_," said she, deprecatingly, "that Lily, though betrothed to you, had conceived an unrequited attachment for another, or that perhaps she was the victim of some boarding-school entanglement which threatened to mar her happiness."