The seven years of her married life seemed to have faded out of her mind.
She raved of Montague Kingdon's baseness, of her own folly, her vain
regret, her yearning for pardon; but of the dying husband in the garret
at Rouen she uttered no word. And so, with her weary head upon her
sister's breast, she passed away, her story untold, no wedding-ring on
her wasted finger to bear witness that she died an honest man's wife; no
letters or papers in her poor little trunk to throw light on the fourteen
years in which she had been a castaway.
Mrs. Halliday stayed in London to see the wanderer laid in the quiet city
churchyard where her family rested, and where for her was chosen an
obscure corner in which she might repose forgotten and unknown.
But not quite nameless. Mrs. Halliday could not leave the grave unmarked
by any record of the sister she had loved. The stone above the grave of
Gustave's wife bore her maiden name, and the comforting familiar text
about the one sinner who repenteth.
CHAPTER II.
FORGIVEN TOO LATE.
For a week of long days and longer nights there was no step sounded on
the stair, no opening or shutting of a door in the old dilapidated house
where he lay languishing on the brink of an open grave, that did not move
Gustave Lenoble with a sudden emotion of hope. But the footsteps came and
went, the doors were opened and shut again and again, and the traveller
so waited, so hoped for did not return.
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