Lady Atherton laid them down carelessly; there was nothing, she thought, that could possibly interest her.
Presently she took up the letters, and then all her indifference vanished, the love light died from her eyes, the smile from her lips.
She knew the handwriting.

One of those notes was from Allan Lyster.
She hastily opened it, and, as she read, all the color faded from her sweet face.

The folly and sin of her ignorant girlhood were finding her out.
"I have but just returned from abroad," he wrote, "where I have been for more than two years, and I am completely overwhelmed by the intelligence that awaited me.

You are married, Marion! You, who promised so faithfully to be my wife.

You, whose letters to me contain that promise given over and over again.