"There was some mistake," answered Bonnibel, drearily. "He is alive—I have seen him. And now, Lucy, I will tell you what I wish you to do."
The girl stood listening attentively.
"You will take this note, my good girl, and go down-stairs and put it in the hands of Mr. Dane, if you can find him. Try and deliver it to him unobserved, and bring me back his answer."
"I will find him if he is to be found anywhere," said Lucy, taking the note and departing on her secret mission.
Leslie Dane's first passionate impulse after his abrupt meeting with his lost wife was to leave the house which sheltered her false head.
But as he was about to put his resolve into execution he was accosted by a group of ladies and detained for half an hour listening to an idle hum of words, from which he longed to tear himself away in the frenzy of scorn and indignation which possessed him.
At length he excused himself, and was about passing through the deserted hall on his way out when he encountered Bonnibel's maid.
Lucy had, like many illiterate persons, a keen recollection of faces. She knew the artist immediately.
"You are Mr. Dane," she said, going up to him after a keen glance around to see if she were unobserved.