"Unless she is dead."
"She is not dead," affirmed Lady Helena; "of that I am sure. You didn't know her, Inez, or you wouldn't think it; the most superb specimen of youth and strength and handsome health I ever saw in my life. She told me once she never remembered a sick day since she was born—you had but to look into her bright eyes and clear complexion to be sure of it. She is not dead, in the natural course of things, and she isn't one of the kind that ever take their lives in their own hands. She had too much courage and too much common-sense."
"Perhaps so, and yet suffering tells—look at poor Victor."
"Ah, poor Victor indeed! But the case is different—it was only her pride, not her heart, that bled. He loved her—he loves her with a blind, unreasoning passion that it is a misfortune for any human creature to feel for another. And she never cared for him—not as much as you do for the sewing in your hand. That is what breaks my heart—to see him dying before my eyes for love of a girl who has no feeling for him but hatred and contempt."
Inez sighed.
"It is natural," she said. "Think how she was left—in her very bridal hour, without one word of explanation. Who could forgive it?"
"No one, perhaps; it is not for that I feel indignant with her. It is for her ever accepting him at all. She loved her cousin—he would have married her; and for title and wealth she threw him over and accepted Victor. In that way she deserved her fate. She acted heartlessly; and yet, one can't help pitying her too. I believe she would have done her best to make him a good wife, after all. I wish—I wish he could find her."
"She might be found readily enough," Inez answered, "if Victor would but employ the usual means—I allude, of course, to the detective police. But he won't set a detective on her track if she is never found—he persists in looking for her himself. He is wearing his life out in the search. If ever I saw death pictured on any face, I saw it in his when he was here last. If he would but consult that German doctor who is now in London, and who is so skilful in all diseases of the heart—hark!" she broke off suddenly, "here he is at last."
Far off a gate had opened and shut—no one had a key to that ever-locked outer gate but Sir Victor, and the next moment the roll of his night-cab up the drive was heard. The house door opened, his familiar step ascended the stairs, not heavy and dragging as usual, but swift and light, almost as it used to be. Something had happened! They saw it in his face at the first glance. There was but one thing that could happen. Lady Helena dropped her book, Inez started to her feet; neither spoke, both waited breathless.
"Aunt! cousin!" the young man cried, breathless and hoarse, "she is found!"