"Why was I ever such a dupe?" he said in his heart. "Fettered--fettered
for life!"

But suddenly realizing that except in his professional capacity he had
no right thus to intrude upon her slumbers, the young physician turned
from the enchanting picture.

"How is she now, sir?" respectfully inquired the housekeeper.

"Fairly well," he replied cheerfully; "I do not think she is hurt,
except a few bruises, which we must look after. She was thrown pretty
hard against that tree. To-morrow she will be able to give an account of
herself. We can do nothing toward finding her friends before that time.
Call, if she should become restless," and the young man retired to his
own apartment, there to ponder deeply, as he had never before pondered
in his life.

Some days later the following letter was posted by Weldon Gardner:

NEW YORK, September 20, 1879.

"My Dear Aunt:--

"Your kind letter reminds me that never, in all these years of boyhood
grown ripe, has duty come to me in as repulsive a form as now, I tell
you, shocked as you may feel when you read the words, that I would
rather put a bullet through my head than meet Evelyn Howard at this
time! Why couldn't she stay in England? And what cursed folly induced
my parents to thus bind me for life to one I had never seen? True, I