"Nell," he says, quickly, "this is a very serious matter. Can you guess at all who is at the bottom of it?"
"Serious!" I echo. "Pray how can it be that? Some one has taken a most insolent liberty with our names; but serious———"
"Vasher will probably see it," says George, uneasily. "and———"
"I thought," I say, indignantly, "that you said he was sure to be on his way home—that he might walk in any minute. He may come this morning, even, and probably he won't see the paper until I show it to him!"
"I did think he was on his way back; I think so still," says George; "but supposing that he has been delayed, and he does see this announcement, of course he will believe it."
"You mean to say, George, that he would really suppose you and I had got married the minute his back was turned?"
"I don't know. Tell me, Nell, was Vasher ever in the least jealous of me? God knows he need not have been!" he adds, half to himself.
"Yes, he was," I say promptly; "and I always laughed at the idea!"
"Did you?"
There is a pause, in which my short, blessed span of one day's content slips away from me, and the old presentiments, doubts, and fears, creep upon me like living cruel shapes, grown rational by the sustenance of fact—for he has been gone nearly ten days, he has sent me no word of tidings, good or bad, since he set out; if he were alive and well and my own true lover, he would never have left me to watch and wait like this. God only knows what treachery has been worked between us. . . . Yes, I see it all now; it is Silvia's doing.
"Do you remember my telling you that he would never come back?" I say, trembling violently. "He never will!"
"Nonsense," says George, hastily. "In all probability he is on
