Agnes looked up in the beautiful, pitying face, with her heart in her eyes.

"Nothing," she said, tremulously, "but the old trouble, that never leaves me. I think sometimes I am the most unhappy creature in the whole wide world."

"Every heart knoweth its own bitterness," Miss Danton said, steadily.

"Trouble seems to be the lot of all. But yours--you have never told me what it is, and I think I would like to know."

They were walking together round the frozen pond, and the face of the seamstress was turned away from the dying light. Kate could not see it, but she could hear the agitation in her voice when she spoke.

"I am almost afraid to tell you. I am afraid, for oh, Miss Danton! I have deceived you."

"Deceived me, Agnes?"

"Yes; I came here in a false character. Oh, don't be angry, please; but I am not Miss Darling--I am a married woman."

"Married! You?"

She looked down in speechless astonishment at the tiny figure and childlike face of the little creature beside her.

"You married!" she repeated. "You small, childish-looking thing! And where in the wide world is your husband?"

Agnes Darling covered her face with her hands, and broke out into a hysterical pa.s.sion of tears.

"Don't cry, you poor little unfortunate. Tell me if this faithless husband is the friend I once heard you say you were in search of?"

"Yes, yes," Agnes answered, through her sobs. "Oh, Miss Danton! Please, please, don't be angry with me, for, indeed, I am very miserable."

"Angry with you, my poor child," Kate said, tenderly; "no, indeed! But tell me all about it. How did this cruel husband come to desert you? Did he not love you?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes."

"And you--did you love him?"

"With my whole heart."

The memory of her own dead love stung Kate to the very soul.

"Oh!" she said, bitterly, "it is only a very old story, after all. We are all alike; we give up our whole heart for a man's smile, and, verily, we get our reward. This husband of yours took a fancy, I suppose, to some new and fresher face, and threw you over for her sake?"

Agnes Darling looked up with wide black eyes.

"Oh, no, no! He loved me faithfully. He never was false, as you think.

It was not that; he thought I was false, and base, and wicked. Oh!" she cried, covering her lace with her hands again; "I can't tell you how base he thought me."

"I think I understand," Kate said, slowly. "But how was it? It was not true, of course."

Agnes lifted her face, raised her solemn, dark eyes mournfully to the gaze of the earnest blue ones.

"It was not true," she replied simply; "I loved him with all my heart, and him only. He was all the world to me, for I was alone, an orphan, sisterless and brotherless. I had only one relative in the wide world--a distant cousin, a young man, who boarded in the same house with me. I was only a poor working-girl of New York, and my husband was far above me--I thought so then, know it since. I knew very little of him. He boarded in the same house, and I only saw him at the table. How he ever came to love me--a little pale, quiet thing like me--I don't know; but he did love me--he did--it is very sweet to remember that now. He loved me, and he married me, but under an a.s.sumed name, under the name of Darling, which I know now was not his real one."

She paused a little, and Kate looked at her with sudden breathless interest. How like this story was to another, terribly familiar.

"We were married," Agnes went on, softly and sadly, "and I was happy.

Oh, Miss Danton, I can never tell you how unspeakably happy I was for a time. But it was not for long. Troubles began to gather thick and fast before many months. My husband was a gambler"--she paused a second or two at Miss Danton's violent start--"and got into his old habits of staying out very late at night, and often, when he had lost money, coming home moody and miserable. I had no influence over him to stop him. He had a friend, another gambler, and a very bad man, who drew him on. It was very dreary sitting alone night after night until twelve or one o'clock, and my only visitor was my cousin, the young man I told you of. He was in love, and clandestinely engaged to a young lady, whose family were wealthy and would not for a moment hear of the match. I was his only confidante, and he liked to come in evenings and talk to me of Helen. Sometimes, seeing me so lonely and low-spirited, he would stay with me within half an hour of Harry's return; but Heaven knows neither he nor I ever dreamed it could be wrong. No harm might ever have come of it, for my husband knew and liked him, but for that gambling companion, whose name was Furniss."

She paused again, trembling and agitated, for Miss Danton had uttered a sharp, involuntary exclamation.

"Go on! Go on!" she said breathlessly.

"This Furniss hated my cousin, for he was his successful rival with Helen Hamilton, and took his revenge in the cruelest and basest manner.

He discovered that my cousin was in the habit of visiting me occasionally in the evening, and he poisoned my husband's mind with the foulest insinuations.

"He told him that William Crosby, my cousin, was an old lover, and that--oh, I cannot tell you what he said! He drove my husband, who was violent and pa.s.sionate, half mad, and sent him home one night early, when he knew Will was sure to be with me. I remember that dreadful night so well--I have terrible reason to remember it. Will sat with me, talking of Helen, telling me he could wait no longer; that she had consented, and they were going to elope the very next night. While he was speaking the door was burst open, and Harry stood before us, livid with fury, a pistol in his hand. A second later, and there was a report--William Crosby sprang from his seat and fell forward, with a scream I shall never forget. I think I was screaming too; I can hardly recollect what I did, but the room was full in a moment, and my husband was gone--how, I don't know. That was two years ago, and I have never seen him since; but I think--"

She stopped short, for Kate Danton had caught her suddenly and violently by the arm, her eyes dilating.

"Agnes!" she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately; "what is it you have been telling me? Who are you?"

Agnes Darling held up her clasped hands.

"Oh, Miss Danton," she cried, "for our dear Lord's sake, have pity on me! I am your brother's wretched wife!"

CHAPTER XXI.

DOCTOR DANTON'S GOOD WORKS.

The two women stood in the bleak twilight looking at each other--Agnes with piteous, imploring eyes, Kate dazed and hopelessly bewildered.

"My brother's wife!" she repeated. "You! Agnes Darling!"

"Oh, dear Miss Danton, have pity on me! Let me see him. Let me tell him I am innocent, and that I love him with my whole heart. Don't cast me off! Don't despise me! Indeed, I am not the guilty creature he thinks me!"

"Agnes, wait," Kate said, holding out her hand. "I am so confounded by this revelation that I hardly know what to do or say. Tell me how you found out my brother was here? Did you know it when you came?"

"Oh, no. I came as seamstress, with a lady from New York to Canada, and when I left her I lived in the Pet.i.te Rue de St. Jacques. There you found me; and I came here, never dreaming that I was to live in the same house with my lost husband."

"And how did you make the discovery? Did you see him?"

"Yes, Miss Danton; the night you were all away at the party, you remember. I saw him on the stairs, returning to his room. I thought then it was a spirit, and I fainted, as you know, and Doctor Danton was sent for, and he told me it was no spirit, but Harry himself."

"Doctor Danton!" exclaimed Kate, in unbounded astonishment. "How did Doctor Danton come to know anything about it?"

"Why, it was he--oh, I haven't told you. I must go back to that dreadful night when my cousin was shot. As I told you, the room was filled with people, and among them there was a young man--a Doctor, he told us--who made them lift poor Will on the bed, and proceeded to examine his wound.

It was not fatal."