After a pause, during which Henry looked nervously from point to point
about the room, he said--

"Is he?"

"Yes, very, and so am I."

There was a long silence, and Laura took up her work-basket, and bent her
face over it, and seemed to have a good deal of trouble in finding some
article in it.

Suddenly he said, in a quick, spasmodic way--

"Is Madeline married?"

Good God! Would she never speak!

"No," she answered, with a falling inflection.

His heart, which had stopped beating, sent a flood of blood through every
artery. But she had spoken as if it were the worst of news, instead of
good. Ah! could it be? In all his thoughts, in all his dreams by night or
day, he had never thought, he had never dreamed of that.

"Is she dead?" he asked, slowly, with difficulty, his will stamping the
shuddering thought into words, as the steel die stamps coins from strips
of metal.

"No," she replied again, with the same ill-boding tone.