"But you may suspect, John; and by your face I think you do." "My face;" cried he, rising suddenly, and going to the looking-glass. "What is the matter with my face?" "Nothing, John—to your eyes, perhaps; but I am your wife, and skilled to read in it what others miss. You may not know where Richard is, but you can make a shrewd guess at it. Did he never speak to you of going away before he wrote that letter?" "Well, yes, he did, but very vaguely. My impression is that he was thinking of going to America." "Indeed? Then it chimes with mine, John!" cried Maggie eagerly. "Once, long ago, just after your uncle's death, he spoke to me of emigrating to New York." "That's like enough," answered the other, returning to his own quiet tones: he had sat down again, and, teaspoon in hand, was making lines upon the table with a thoughtful air. "There would be no harm in writing to New York, Maggie;" and then he sighed, as though he would have added, "and no good." "At all events, John, in doing that I should feel I am doing something. I think we owe that much to him, or at least that I do, and I am sure I owe it to you. I will write the letter this very night, and when it is finished, you shall tell me whether you approve of the contents. If he has any desire to hear from us at all, he would give himself the only chance there was, would he not, John, and inquire for letters at the Poste Restante?" "I suppose so," answered he mechanically. "And you really think that this is the best course we can adopt?" "I know of no other. But, in my opinion it will be labour in vain." "Not in vain, John, so far as I am concerned," answered Maggie quietly, "whether Richard writes or not." Her husband made no reply, and presently went up-stairs. where he remained for a considerable time. On his return, he cast a nervous look towards the table, at which she sat busily engaged. "Are you writing, Maggie?" "Yes, dear: this is some work I am doing for my father. It is an experiment in Terminable Ink. Exactly six weeks from this date, if his calculations are correct, this sheet of paper will be blank. It will not fade in the meantime, even up to the very day before—But I forgot; I am speaking to his partner in the patent. It seems to me an invention which, however ingenious, can never be made profitable." A smile flitted across his grave face, and left it graver. "It will not make our fortunes, dear." "How good and kind you are, John!" said Maggie softly. "I am so sorry to have pained you to-night. Here is the letter to Richard. I have thought over its contents for months, and had only to set them down. Will you not read it?" "No, Maggie;" he pushed the note away with his hand, not peevishly, but with a slow, determined motion. "Whatever you have thought it right to say, must needs be right." The generous delicacy that made him forbear to peruse her words-the first she had ever addressed to Richard since they two were sundered-touched her heart. "Husband," cried she, rising from her chair and approaching him, "I told you once that I could never love you: I was wrong. The love has come, and through him who seemed to be its obstacle." She was about to caress him, but into his wan, pale face there stole the vacant listening look that she had noticed twice before that evening, and it chilled her. CHAPTER XXII. THE LETTER. FOR weeks nothing more was said between wife and husband upon the subject of Richard; but every morning, so soon as time permitted of the arrival of an answer to her letter, Maggie listened with eagerness to the postman's ring, and felt sick at heart when no news came from beyond seas. Besides her desire to justify her husband in the world's eyes, she had a passionate wish that the two brothers should be reconciled, and Richard's silence seemed to portend that this would never be. Of course, he might not be at New York, but in the fact that he was there lay her only hope. It was almost certain that he would never communicate with home again of his own free will; but she had confidence in the effect of her appeal to him, should it ever reach his hands. John, on the other hand, evinced no sign of expectation, and appeared to have dismissed the subject from his mind. At last, one morning, as they sat at breakfast, Mrs Morden put a letter in her hand, with a cheerful-"From foreign parts, I think, ma'am ;" and Maggie saw that it had the New York postmark. Her heart beat violently, but she concealed her agitation, and left the letter on the table till the housekeeper had cleared away the things, a duty which she always performed herself. Then so soon as she had left the room"John, the letter has come," said Maggie gravely. John looked up from the newspaper, in which he was engaged with an air of enforced interest, and answered "What letter?" It seemed extraordinary to her that he should be so indifferent concerning a matter which had filled her own mind for so long, and she cast at him, for the first time in her life, a look of keen reproach. "Ten thousand pardons, Maggie!" cried he; "but for the moment I had forgotten." "O John! it is not from Richard himself; it is not his handwriting! Somebody else has written, perhaps to sayOh, I dare not open it !" "Why, Maggie, it is an official communication, that is all. See! it is stamped, 'From the Dead-letter Office.'" "The Dead-letter Office!" Maggie shuddered, and hid her face in her hands. "My darling, those words mean nothing, except that the person to whom the enclosure was addressed has not called for it within a certain time. This is simply your own letter come back again. For my part, I expected nothing else." "John, you are deceiving me!" exclaimed Maggie. "You do it for my sake, but it is cruel. You are affecting a calmness which you do not feel. Your hand is trembling, though your speech is firm. Be candid with me. I can bear to hear the truth. You know something that I don't know about Richard." "I? How should I know?" If he had been really affecting unconcern, her accusation had baffled him, and he had given up the deception altogether. His face had become deadly pale, and his voice, usually so calm and measured, quavered like that of an old man, as he went on complainingly : Richard left behind him? those were written ?" "Have you not read the words And what can I have heard since "I cannot tell, John, but it seems to me that you are in possession of some fact which, for my sake, as you imagine you keep from me. I think, too, that my father also knows more about Richard than he chooses to tell." "Indeed!" said John more briskly. "Then you had better tax him with it, for I do assure you his knowledge is not shared by me." Maggie remained silent and thoughtful for a full minute, during which her husband kept his eyes upon her, like one who fears a blow. "Dear John," said she at last, "this subject is a painful one to both of us, and I, for my part, do not wish to recur to it. If you can really put the matter at rest which troubles me, for Heaven's sake do so! I ask you, on your honour, has anything come to your knowledge, since Richard's departure, to make you conclude him dead?" "Dead?" repeated her husband, in a voice so low that it scarcely reached her ears-" dead? How came you to think Hush! Don't talk of it here; let us come out into of that? the garden." He stepped through the open window as he spoke, and Maggie followed him with trembling limbs. It seemed to her that she was on the verge of some terrible secret, which his lips would reveal only where none could overhear it. He led her to the extremity of the garden, where a rustic bower with its bench had been newly built. It was in structure very different from the arbour built upon the leads in Mitchell Street, yet, somehow, it reminded her of it, and of that interview with Richard wherein he had won her consent to their marriage. Behind this bower, instead of lines of rail, lay a gravel-pit, long unworked-though some of its contents had been used to make the garden-paths by old Matthew Thurle, and this was surrounded by a little wood, or, as the folk at Hilton called it, a spinney. It was a very lonely and secluded spot indeed. "Now, tell me, Maggie," said John, taking her hand in |