"I knew it! I knew it!" she exclaimed, trembling violently.
"Mary, can you bear to hear it now?—how do you feel?"
"Oh, now—now!" she cried vehemently. "Tell it to me now, at once, before I go away again. Oh! Harry—you don't understand—sometimes the whole world seems to slip away from me. I feel as if my soul was being carried right away into some dark place—and I leave memory and love and everything but sensation behind me—I cannot think then, Harry. Tell me quick, for I can understand now. Tell me at once, or the darkness will come again, and it will be too late!"
"My darling! my darling! The darkness will never come to you again. Mary, dear, listen to me. I know your secret, and your enemies can never trouble you more."
She passed her hand across her brow several times, then said in a feeble puzzled voice, "You cannot know all, or you would hate me."
"I do know all, and I love you more than ever!" he exclaimed passionately as he put his arms about her and kissed her.
She hid her head on his breast and sobbed in the fulness of her great joy.
"Mary," he continued, "you need no longer fear Susan Riley's plots. She will never molest you again. And who do you think is the friend who has saved us? It is Mrs. King—she is coming to see you to-morrow."
Gradually he told her all that Catherine King had revealed to him. At first she could not bring herself to believe that this was more than a very happy dream; she feared she would awake again soon and find herself in the presence of the shadow. But before he left her, she had realized all that had happened on that day; and with tears and inarticulate prayers of gratitude to the God who had not deserted her, she relieved her o'er-wrought spirit, until a sweet sleep closed her weary eyes.