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280 “Oh, very well,” she said, just as if these thoughts were not passing rapidly through her mind. “Let me be called at seven to-morrow morning, and let me have a cab at the door to Hyde Park Gardens at eight.”

And so she went to bed; but scarcely to sleep. All night long she had the scenes of those old times, the happy, happy days of her youth, the one terrible night that cut all happiness short, present before her. She could almost have fancied that she heard the long-silent sounds of her father’s step, her father’s way of breathing, the rustle of his newspaper as he hastily turned it over, coming through the lapse of years; the silence of the night. She knew that she had the little writing-case of her girlhood with her, in her box. The treasures of the dead that it contained, the morsel of dainty sewing, the little sister’s golden curl, the half-finished letter to Mr. Corbet, were all there. She took them out, and looked at each separately; looked at them long—long and wistfully. “Will it be of any use to me?” she questioned of herself, as she was about to put her father’s letter back into its receptacle. She read the last words over again, once more: “From my death-bed I adjure you to stand her friend; I will beg pardon on my knees for anything.”

“I will take it,” thought she. “I need not bring