MRS. KARNEGIE was a woman of feeble intelligence and violenttemper; prompt to take offense, and not, for the most part, easyto appease. But Mrs. Karnegie being--as we all are in our variousdegrees--a compound of many opposite qualities, possessed acharacter with more than one side to it, and had her human meritsas well as her human faults. Seeds of sound good feeling werescattered away in the remoter corners of her nature, and onlywaited for the fertilizing occasion that was to help them tospring up. The occasion exerted that benign influence when thecab brought Mr. Crum's client back to the hotel. The face of theweary, heart-sick woman, as she slowly crossed the hall, rousedall that was heartiest and best in Mrs. Karnegie's nature, andsaid to her, as if in words, "Jealous of this broken creature?Oh, wife and mother is there no appeal to your common womanhood_here?_"

"I am afraid you have overtired yourself, ma'am. Let me send yousomething up stairs?"

"Send me pen, ink, and paper," was the answer. "I must write aletter. I must do it at once."

It was useless to remonstrate with her. She was ready to acceptany thing proposed, provided the writing materials were suppliedfirst. Mrs. Karnegie sent them up, and then compounded a certainmixture of eggs and hot wine. for which The Sheep's Head wasfamous, with her own hands. In five minutes or so it wasready--and Miss Karnegie was dispatched by her mother (who hadother business on hand at the time) to take it up stairs.

After the lapse of a few moments a cry of alarm was heard fromthe upper landing. Mrs. Karnegie recognized her daughter's voice,and hastened to the bedroom floor.

"Oh, mamma! Look at her! look at her!"

The letter was on the table with the first lines written. Thewoman was on the sofa with her handkerchief twisted between herset teeth, and her tortured face terrible to look at. Mrs.Karnegie raised her a little, examined her closely--then suddenlychanged color, and sent her daughter out of the room withdirections to dispatch a messenger instantly for medical help.

Left alone with the sufferer, Mrs. Karnegie carried her to herbed. As she was laid down her left hand fell helpless over theside of the bed. Mrs. Karnegie suddenly checked the word ofsympathy as it rose to her lips--suddenly lifted the hand, andlooked, with a momentary sternness of scrutiny, at the thirdfinger. There was a ring on it. Mrs. Karnegie's face softened onthe instant: the word of pity that had been suspended the momentbefore passed her lips freely now. "Poor soul!" said therespectable landlady, taking appearances for granted. "Where'syour husband, dear? Try and tell me."

The doctor made his appearance, and went up to the patient.

Time passed, and Mr. Karnegie and his daughter, carrying on thebusiness of the hotel, received a message from up stairs whichwas ominous of something out of the common. The message gave thename and address of an experienced nurse--with the doctor'scompliments, and would Mr. Karnegie have the kindness to send forher immediately.

The nurse was found and sent up stairs.

Time went on, and the business of the hotel went on, and it wasgetting to be late in the evening, when Mrs. Karnegie appeared atlast in the parlor behind the bar. The landlady's face was grave,the landlady's manner was subdued. "Very, very ill," was the onlyreply she made to her daughter's inquiries. When she and herhusband were together, a little later, she told the news from upstairs in greater detail. "A child born dead," said Mrs.Karnegie, in gentler tones than were customary with her. "And themother dying, poor thing, so far as _I_ can see."

A little later the doctor came down. Dead? No.--Likely to live?Impossible to say. The doctor returned twice in the course of thenight. Both times he had but one answer. "Wait till to-morrow."

The next day came. She rallied a little. Toward the afternoon shebegan to speak. She expressed no surprise at seeing strangers byher bedside: her mind wandered. She passed again intoinsensibility. Then back to delirium once more. The doctor said,"This may last for weeks. Or it may end suddenly in death. It'stime you did something toward finding her friends."

(Her friends! She had left the one friend she had forever!)

Mr. Camp was summoned to give his advice. The first thing heasked for was the unfinished letter.

It was blotted, it was illegible in more places than one. Withpains and care they made out the address at the beginning, andhere and there some fragments of the lines that followed. Itbegan: "Dear Mr. Brinkworth." Then the writing got, little bylittle, worse and worse. To the eyes of the strangers who lookedat it, it ran thus: "I should ill re quite * * * Blanche'sinterests * * * For God's sake! * * * don't think of _me_ * * *"There was a little more, but not so much as one word, in thoselast lines, was legible

The names mentioned in the letter were reported by the doctor andthe nurse to be also the names on her lips when she spoke in herwanderings. "Mr. Brinkworth" and "Blanche"--her mind ranincessantly on those two persons. The one intelligible thing thatshe mentioned in connection with them was the letter. She wasperpetually trying, trying, trying to take that unfinished letterto the post; and she could never get there. Sometimes the postwas across the sea. Sometimes it was at the top of aninaccessible mountain. Sometimes it was built in by prodigiouswalls all round it. Sometimes a man stopped her cruelly at themoment when she was close at the post, and forced her backthousands of miles away from it. She once or twice mentioned thisvisionary man by his name. They made it out to be "Geoffrey."

Finding no clew to her identity either in the letter that she hadtried to write or in the wild words that escaped her from time totime, it was decided to search her luggage, and to look at theclothes which she had worn when she arrived at the hotel.

Her black box sufficiently proclaimed itself as recentlypurchased. On opening it the address of a Glasgow trunk-maker wasdiscovered inside. The linen was also new, and unmarked. Thereceipted shop-bill was found with it. The tradesmen, sent for ineach case and questioned, referred to their books. It was provedthat the box and the linen had both been purchased on the daywhen she appeared at the hotel.

Her black bag was opened next. A sum of between eighty and ninetypounds in Bank of England notes; a few simple articles belongingto the toilet; materials for needle-work; and a photographicportrait of a young lady, inscribed, "To Anne, from Blanche,"were found in the bag--but no letters, and nothing whatever thatcould afford the slightest clew by which the owner could betraced. The pocket in her dress was searched next. It contained apurse, an empty card-case, and a new handkerchief unmarked.

Mr. Camp shook his head.

"A woman's luggage without any letters in it," he said, "suggeststo my mind a woman who has a motive of her own for keeping hermovements a secret. I suspect she has destroyed her letters, andemptied her card-case, with that view." Mrs. Karnegie's report,after examining the linen which the so-called "Mrs. Graham" hadworn when she arrived at the inn, proved the soundness of thelawyer's opinion. In every case the marks had been cut out. Mrs.Karnegie began to doubt whether the ring which she had seen onthe third finger of the lady's left hand had been placed therewith the sanction of the law.

There was but one chance left of discovering--or rather ofattempting to discover--her friends. Mr. Camp drew out anadvertisement to be inserted in the Glasgow newspapers. If thosenewspapers happened to be seen by any member of her family, shewould, in all probability, be claimed. In the contrary eventthere would be nothing for it but to wait for her recovery or herdeath--with the money belonging to her sealed up, and depositedin the landlord's strongbox.

The advertisement appeared. They waited for three days afterward,and nothing came of it. No change of importance occurred, duringthe same period, in the condition of the suffering woman. Mr.Camp looked in, toward evening, and said, "We have done our best.There is no help for it but to wait."

Far away in Perthshire that third evening was marked as a joyfuloccasion at Windygates House. Blanche had consented at last tolisten to Arnold's entreaties, and had sanctioned the writing ofa letter to London to order her wedding-dress.