The Wife of the Candidate
not even receive my letter. But I was cut to the very heart by what I thought her cruel indifference at the time—and I, too, tried to forget. I have heard nothing of her since until to-day. You have brought me the end of the story. She is dead to me now indeed, and I have never realized until this moment how strong my hope has been that we should some day come together again—my sister Dolores and I."
Her face was buried in her hands as the nun Ethelbert's had been in the convent chapel. Tears trickled through her fingers, and lent a heartless brilliance to the rings that sparkled upon them.
There was a wild cheer from the street. The candidate had appeared in the balcony below, and now, in the silence that followed his greeting, he began to make a speech. A few of the sonorous, grandiloquent periods floated through the half-opened window. Mrs. Eddington did not hear them. The wife of the candidate was never less interested in politics than at that moment.
"If I could only feel that she is happy," she cried; "but I cannot think she is. Our
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