"For my sake?" Lina cried, with white lips. "Oh, Violet, I do not understand."
"Read this," and Violet put a note into her hand. "Walter left it on his dressing-table this morning for me. I found it a little while ago."
Walter had written as follows:
"Dear Sister:—I have challenged Gerald Huntington, and am gone to fight him this morning. I saw him at the opera night before last, and yesterday I sent him a challenge. I have taken Ronald's quarrel on myself. It would not have been right for Ronald to fight him, because if he had killed Lina's husband it would have been wrong for him to marry Lina. So, without Ronald's knowledge, I have taken up Ronald's quarrel. I hope I shall kill the villain, and then Lina will be free to marry Valchester. I love Lina so dearly I cannot bear to see her unhappy. If I kill Huntington I shall fly to a foreign land. If he kills me I shall have done all I could to help my darling to happiness. In either case, Violet, you must tell her that I did it for her sake."
Lina's tears fell quick and fast on those brave, pathetic words.
"Oh, poor—poor Walter!" she exclaimed. "And he has asked for me, Violet?"
"Yes," Violet replied. "Will you go to him now, Lina?"
"Yes," with a slight shudder of dread at what she was about to see.
Violet led her up a richly-carpeted stairway into a darkened, luxurious chamber, where the wounded man lay among the snowy pillows, watched by a skillful surgeon and careful nurses.
Jaquelina went up to the bed. She did not see Ronald Valchester draw back quickly into the shadow of the bed-curtains in fear that it might pain her to see him there.