in his
pacifying Miss Hoighty, by kissing her hand, and leading her (as
he might have led a duchess) out of the room.

"I  that foolish girl has not annoyed you--at such a time as
this," he said, very earnestly, when he returned to the sofa. "I
can't tell you how grieved I am at what has happened. I was
careful to warn you, as you may remember. Still, if I could only
have foreseen--"

I let him proceed no further. No human forethought could have
provided against what had happened. Besides, dreadful as the
discovery had been, I would rather have made it, and suffered
under it, as I was  now, than have been kept in the
dark. I told him this. And then I turned to the one subject that
was now of any interest to me--the subject of my unhappy husband.

"How did he come to this house?" I asked.

He came here with Mr. Benjamin shortly after I returned," the
Major replied.

"Long after I was taken ill?"

"No. I had just sent for the doctor--feeling seriously alarmed
about you."

"What brought him here? Did he return to the