room, he cautiously shut the door, ere Edith reached the first
landing. "If she loved him, I would not care. More unsuitable
matches than this have ended happily--but she don't. Her whole
life is bound with that of another, and she shrinks from Mr.
Harrington as she was not wont to do. I saw it in her face, as she
turned away from him. There'll be another grave in the Collingwood
grounds--another name on the tall monument, 'Edith, wife of
Richard Harrington, aged 20.'"

Victor wrote the words upon a slip of paper, reading them over
until tears dimmed his vision, for, in fancy, the imaginative
Frenchman assisted at Edith's obsequies, and even heard the
grinding of the hearse wheels, once foretold by Nina. Several
times he peered out into the silent hall, seeing the lamplight
shining from the ventilator over Edith's door, and knowing by that
token that she had not retired. What was she doing there so long?
Victor fain would know, and as half-hour after half-hour went by,
until it was almost four, he stepped boldly to the door and
knocked. Long association with Victor had led Edith to treat him
more as an equal than a servant; consequently he took liberties
both with her and Richard, which no other of the household would
dare to do, and now, as there came no response, he cautiously
turned the knob and walked into the room where, in her crimson
dressing-gown, her hair unbound and falling over her shoulders,
Edith sat, her arms crossed upon the table, and her face upon her
arms. She was not sleeping, for as the door creaked on its hinges,
she looked up, half-pleased to meet only the good-humored face of
Victor where she had feared to see that of Richard.

"Miss Edith, this is madness--this is folly," and Victor sat down