CONSTANCE RETURNS HOME.

Rhoda had done her work well, and Mr. Hudson's old apartments were in perfect order when he reached them the second day after his visit, but he entered them with a sort of shudder, for all the associations of the place were painful to him, and he looked dismally about the room as a prisoner may be supposed to investigate the dungeon in which he has suffered. He flung the sash open, for the air within was close, and Hudson felt suffocated by it. Directly a carriage drove slowly up to the door, a key turned in the latch, and then a rustle of silks, and rapid footsteps came up the stairs.

Hudson drew a white blind over the window, and hurried toward the door, his arms extended, his eyes full of yearning affection.

"Father!"

"My own, own child!"

She was lighter, more delicate, and altogether a different person from the girl he had parted with a year before at the railroad station. He held her at arms-length, and saw that at a glance her eyes were larger, and the lashes shadowed them more darkly. The rich bloom in her cheeks had softened and almost faded away. She breathed quickly, and with an unequal heave of the chest, arising from the simple exertion of mounting those stairs. Hudson remembered when she would bound up them like a fawn, and never draw a quicker breath.

"Constance, are you ill?"

"Ill? No, indeed! What makes you think so?"

"You are so changed, my child."

"Changed? Of course I am, but not ill—not seriously so, at any rate."

She coughed a little, but threw it off with a laugh.

"Is Church with you?"

"In the city? Yes, but not here—I came alone. Oh, father! I did so long to see you; besides, I must—I must——"

She flung off the black-lace shawl that half-covered her silk dress, threw the pretty cobweb of white lace and rosebuds, that answered as a bonnet, from her head, and flung her gloves after it with one of her old impatient gestures; then she pushed back her hair with both hands and sat down, breathing deeply.

"Father——"

"My child?"

"That man is a fiend!"

"Has he treated you ill? Has he dared——?"

"Hush, hush! don't get into a temper! Nothing of that! I wish he would—oh! I wish he would! Hate, blows—anything would be so much better than his love!"

Hudson glanced at her dress, and the diamonds which flashed on her hands.

"He seems generous, Constance."

"Generous? You mean these?" she cried, glancing at her hands. "Oh, yes! he pelts me with his diamonds and his money—he would make me wear them that you might see how he had kept his promise."

"You used to like such things."

"Did I? Yes, I suppose so; but they might as well be pebbles, now."

"But you have an elegant house; the papers speak of it as something superb."

"So it is—a palace; but I like this stuffy little room better."

"Would you come back here?"

"Would I? No, unless _he_ were here, and I as—as I was then."

Her voice faltered, her face grew white to the lips. She looked around as if expecting to see young Sterling's ghost among the shadows.

Hudson took her hands in his.

"Did you love him so, Constance?"

"Love him so? Great heavens, father! you will never guess, never dream how—how——"

"How much you loved him—is that it, Constance?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"And this man Church is your husband?"

"Why do you say that? It stings me, it taunts me to death. Shut me up in the cage of a rattlesnake, and tell me it is forever—as if I didn't know it!"

"I did not intend to wound you, Constance."

"I know that; but I am so fractious. Don't mind it, poor, dear old father."

"And you married him for my sake," said Hudson, mournfully. "I hoped he would make you like him; he has pleasant ways with women generally, and I hoped—"

"So did I hope; but no matter, we do not quarrel."

"That is one comfort," muttered Hudson.

"Is it? I fancy he don't think so."

"But he loves you."

"Desperately!" she answered.

"Then there is some hope."

Constance started up and began to pace the floor. Then she paused before her father, and answered him in a low, hoarse voice, that made his heart sink.

"Father, you know what it is to be that man's slave."

"It was you who delivered me, Constance."

"Father, what would you do if I were threatened with a like fate?"

"Constance, you frighten me."

"Do I? I am frightened myself—wild with terror. Father, William Sterling is alive."

"Alive, and you loved him so. My poor girl!"

"Loved him so?" she repeated, with sharp impatience. "Father, I was married to that man."

"Married!"

She did not heed the word or his appalled face.

"I had been his wife some months when he went away."

"Constance! Constance! Have mercy!"

"That was the cry I sent up to God when his letter convinced me of the awful fraud which separated us. It is true, father; William Sterling was my husband. This moment he is working like a slave to prepare a home for us both in the far west; it may not be long before he will be here inquiring for me."

"Oh, my God! my God! have compassion on us! He will demand his wife."

"What will you say to him?" she asked, sharply.

"What can I say?"

"This. The girl you married was unworthy of you,—a coarse, uneducated, selfish creature, who loved you after her kind, but hankered for other things—excitement, homage, fine clothes, jewels for her hands, gold powder for her hair; everything that goes to debase a woman whose heart can be so satisfied. Tell him that a man came here, a wicked, low man, who craved her beauty, and loved her more because she did not love him, than for any other reason. He had all the trumpery objects of her desire at command, and tempted her with them. She played with the fire, not meaning to burn herself, not meaning to wrong him; but she tasted of this man's gold, and tangled herself in a web of costly gifts, which drew her to the tempter in spite of her struggles; but love, respect, anything which ennobles a woman's heart, was wanting in this. The woman was coarse, and vain, selfish and grasping—but she was true to her love."

"My poor child, I cannot speak of you thus; he must know that you thought him dead."

"No, father, better not say that. He must never know that I thought him dead; that I did it in my desperation to save my father. He must never hear that, because it would spare me some portion of his contempt, and that would bring on a struggle—for he loved me, father, with a deep, beautiful love, which might have made a good woman of me if this man had not come between us."

"My poor, poor child!"

"Don't pity me, father; but tell me what can be done to escape poor, poor—to escape my husband; for he is my husband, and he loves me. He will come here and ask for me. If I could escape—oh, father! if he could only think me dead and in my grave."

Hudson shrank within himself.

"Do not speak of death in this way, Constance, it may be nearer us than you think."

"Father, it would kill me to see him."

Hudson aroused himself from the stunning effects of this strange confession. He knew that in her marriage Constance had become more the slave of Church than he had ever been; that in attempting to save him she had put the gyves on her own hands.

"Constance, have you told Church? Does he know?"

"Told him of my husband, my honorable, noble, young husband? No, I would die first."

"From fear?"

"No. Still he is a terrible man, father. This crime is not mine or yours. I believed the story he told us."

Hudson groaned.

"But the legal effect; the law is on his side. Guard your secret, Constance, or he will slay you with it. Where are your proofs?"

"Here, father."

She took a card-case of purple velvet from her pocket, and, tearing out the lining, showed him her certificate of marriage carefully concealed underneath.

"Who knows of this, Constance?"

"Ourselves."

"But the clergyman—the witnesses?"

The girl laughed. Even in her greatest distress she would sometimes break into fits of merriment, like a child.

"Oh! I met the clergyman in Washington face to face, only last week, and he did not know me from Adam. No wonder, for I was married in that rattling old brown silk dress, with my hair combed straight back like a Chinese; and when he saw me there was not a better-dressed lady in the rooms—sweeping train, lace flounces, low neck, and crimped hair besides," she added, with a sudden pathos in her voice. "I have grown so thin since then, and my color is all gone. I sometimes think William himself would not know me."

Constance broke off with a sob, lifted her hands, and strove to conceal the tears that followed so quickly on her outburst of laughter. All at once she dropped her hands and looked at her father.

"What have you done with it?"

"The certificate?"

"Yes, yes! I want it."

"But you had better leave it with me, Constance. It is dangerous paper."

"It is all I have—give it to me."

"But you are so thoughtless."

"Am I?"

She spoke bitterly, and held out her hand for the certificate.

"Better destroy it," said the old man, resolutely, going toward the lamp.

She sprang upon him like a tigress, snatched the certificate, and pressed it to her lips with both hands, as if it had been a child rescued from the flames. Then she sat down and began to cry, rocking herself to and fro, entangling the lace shawl around the back of her chair with every movement, and giving herself up to a passion of grief such as Hudson had never witnessed in her before.