He walked gently at once to the bed, in his straightforward manner.

“I am grieved, Madame Vine——­”

The words faltered on his tongue.  He was a man as little given to show emotion as man can well be.  Did he think, as Joyce had once done, that it was a ghost he saw?  Certain it is that his face and lips turned the hue of death, and he backed a few steps from the bed.  The falling hair, the sweet, mournful eyes, the hectic which his presence brought to her cheeks, told too plainly of the Lady Isabel.

“Archibald!”

She put out her trembling hand.  She caught him ere he had drawn quite beyond her reach.  He looked at her, he looked round the room, as does one awaking from a dream.

“I could not die without your forgiveness,” she murmured, her eyes falling before him as she thought of her past.  “Do you turn from me?  Bear with me a little minute!  Only say you forgive me, and I shall die in peace!”

“Isabel?” he spoke, not knowing in the least what he said.  “Are you—­are you—­were you Madame Vine?”

“Oh, forgive—­forgive me!  I did not die.  I got well from the accident, but it changed me dreadfully.  Nobody knew me, and I came here as Madame Vine.  I could not stay away, Archibald, forgive me!”

His mind was in a whirl, his ideas had gone wool-gathering.  The first clear thought that came thumping through his brain was, that he must be a man of two wives.  She noticed his perplexed silence.

“I could not stay away from you and my children.  The longing for you was killing me,” she reiterated, wildly, like one talking in a fever.  “I never knew a moment’s peace after the mad act I was guilty of, in quitting you.  Not an hour had I departed when my repentance set in; and even then I would have retraced and come back, but I did not know how.  See what it has done for me!” tossing up her gray hair, holding out her attenuated wrists.  “Oh, forgive—­forgive me!  My sin was great, but my punishment was greater.  It has been as one long scene of mortal agony.”

“Why did you go?” asked Mr. Carlyle.

“Did you not know?”

“No.  It has always been a mystery to me.”

“I went out of love for you.”

A shade of disdain crossed his lips.  She was equivocating to him on her death-bed.

“Do not look in that way,” she panted.  “My strength is nearly gone—­you must perceive that it is—­and I do not, perhaps, express myself clearly.  I loved you dearly, and I grew suspicious of you.  I thought you were false and deceitful to me; that your love was all given to another; and in my sore jealousy, I listened to the temptings of that bad man, who whispered to me of revenge.  It was not so, was it?”

Mr. Carlyle had regained his calmness, outwardly, at any rate.  He stood by the side of the bed, looking down upon her, his arms crossed upon his chest, and his noble form raised to its full height.