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398 his way back; but in case he has been detained in Rome, I shall set out at once-or at least as soon as I can get off."

"You will go?" I ask, taking his hand between both mine. "Oh! George, but you will be too late. Something tells me that it is all over now. If you do find him, and he asks who did it all, tell him 'Silvia.

"Impossible!" exclaims George, starting. "Can she be such a wretch as that?"

"She loves him. Women will do a great deal to get a man they love, will they not?"

"Of a very different sort to you, dear. Will you give me Vasher's address?"

I write it down for him—yes, I can actually write—and in no hour of my life have I known the breathless agony that I know in this one.

"If he arrives here within the next three days you will telegraph to me, Nell?"

"Yes. And if you come back—if you both come back, I mean—when will it be?"

"I cannot be quite sure, but I should think about Christmas morning."

"Do not come back without him," I say, in my selfish misery; "only if he is dead you cannot bring him"

"Only he is nothing of the kind," says George, cheerfully. "Keep up your spirits, dear, and put all these fancies out of your head. As to that Silvia, he's no more likely to fall in love with her than I am."

In another minute he is gone, and I am standing at the window looking after him as he strides over the snow. This is his departure: I wonder what will his return be?

As in a dream, I go and tell mother, hear her exclamations of horror and anger, read the letter she writes to the editor of the