taken such an interest in her photographs! And all the architectural photos of the places they had seen together must come out of the album, and one by one she took them out: how clumsy and trembling her fingers were! how full they were of memories !-she wished they wouldn't rush on her so, it made her feel so sick. But still-no, she wouldn't give in, with that "whatever inconvenience and annoyance" ringing in her ears. And the photos of himself-she would fetch those from downstairs, and the songs he had given her; she should feel better for moving about. How handsome he was!-how critically she seemed to look at them, as though half of herself being dead, the remaining half was doubly alive! Then she unlocked the writing-table drawer where she kept all his letters: she wouldn't look at one of them, nor take one of them out of its envelope, for fear it should affect her throat. Surely it must be nearly morning-twenty minutes past five! She would have time to write that note-by that time her father would be up; she knew he would be early, because he was going to make her wreath and arrange her bouquet for her himself, and the conservatory was a hobby that generally woke him early. How should she begin it?" Dear Mr. Macquoid "—no, she couldn't, after all that had been! "My dear Mortimer "-no, she wouldn't! But a terrible feeling was coming over her. "I won't write at all-father shall write for me, to send back these things. If I wrote I should be sure to let him see how it hurt. I had better put on a frock and finish dressing."

She re-coiled her hair, and wondered at the sight of her own face in the glass. Then she went downstairs, stopping at her father's door on the way; but he had gone down before her.

He had gone out to the conservatory to see about the flowers, said Harris, as she looked into the library for him.

"Then if he comes in the other way, tell him I have gone out to look for him," she said, turning to the door.

“But, Miss Ida, it's very cold for you, and not properly daylight yet! You had better have your cloak and shoes, miss."

She smiled a queer rainbow sort of smile, as she waited and let the old family servant wrap her up as if she were a little child again. There was a mute, hurt look in her face (when she turned to him to try to say "Thank you," and no sound came) that startled him, and made him wonder what had come to Miss Ida. He wondered, too, where her pretty queenly way had gone, as he opened the big doors for her, and let her out into the thick fog of a winter morning at seven. For a moment she stood still on the steps, then she suddenly faced round on the old man, and, holding her throat for an instant, said quite steadily, but in a far-away, dead-sounding voice, "There will be no wedding to-day, Harris,-stop everything till my father comes to tell you," and went on.

Her father and Oakley, the head-gardener, were absorbed with the lovely blooms when she reached the greenhouse, and she stood vacantly watching them for some minutes before a dull pulseless-sounding "Father" made him look up. The sight of her white worn face, huddled in the big, hooded, fur cloak Harris had wrapped her in, was so weird and startling, that he dropped the flowers to come quickly to her.

She went on in the same tone: "Tell Oakley not to go on, for there will be no wedding to-day; and come indoors with me, father."

Had Mortimer had some terrible accident?-had she been dreaming of some awful evil, or what?

Hush, Ida! Come back to the house,-it's too cold for you to be out so early, dear." And he put his arm across her shoulder in the happy confidential

way they so often walked. upset you."

"I'm not upset, father. You must stop everything. and I wouldn't waken you."

"You have had some terrible dream, child, that has

It's quite true. There will be no wedding to-day!
I came to tell you in the night, but you were asleep

He let her talk on until they reached the house, and then he took her into the library, where they had stood together only a few hours before, looking at her mother's portrait and wishing she were with them. And now, as he looked at the girl's white, fixed face, sitting in the big chair where he had put her, and threw back her big cloak, he longed for her still more.

Harris brought in two cups of coffee, and glad enough he was to see them; but the man's troubled, anxious face confirmed his fears that it was no mere dream that was the trouble. He wheeled her chair nearer the blaze, and made her drink the hot coffee before, at last, he said again, quietly, "Now, child, tell me what this means. Has anything happened to Mortimer?"

"He left me a note last night, to read the last thing, to say that he didn't wish to marry me that's all!"

He clenched his teeth very firmly, lest he should add to her pain if he gave Cutterance to his feelings, and merely said, "Why? What reason does he offer? I shall insist upon his marrying you!"

"No, you won't! Neither you nor I would allow any one to marry me who didn't want to tremendously! Neither should I feel at all at home in a law court suing him for breach of promise of marriage.'

"Thank Heaven, you're not that kind of woman, child! But what is the explanation of this?"

He says he can't," she

"I can't tell you! He gives no explanation. answered wearily; adding bitterly, after a moment, "You can see the note! It's no love-letter, that I need feel shy about."

as

After a few minutes he said again, quite quietly: "Now, child, I want you to go up to your own room. Lie down, and try to sleep! I shall come to you soon as there is anything to tell you. Harris shall take a note over to 'The Angel,' to ask for an explanation; and there will be plenty of time for him to get back before anybody comes down to breakfast, to hear about it."

He took her upstairs to her room. The fire had gone out, but he went to fetch her old Nannie. "Make her go to bed, Nannie; but don't talk to her, and don't let any one else go to her. Perhaps you won't lose her to-day after all; and she may want her Nannie to nurse her for a long while, before she comes downstairs again," he said, as he hurried away to write the note to Macquoid.

Harris only brought back word that Macquoid had not returned to "The Angel" the night before. He had come in the afternoon, engaged the rooms he always occupied when staying, arranging for his brother's accommodation too, dressed for dinner, and drove from there to the Manor. Not returning, they had supposed he was staying at the Rectory for the night. His brother had arrived by the mail train, expecting to be his best man. He could in no way account for it, but was coming over at once to the Manor.

He went to the Rectory next, and the Rector came back with him, but they knew nothing of Macquoid.

Nine o'clock brought everybody down to breakfast. And when Ida's father said quietly that there would be no wedding, and that no one could imagine why, as Macquoid could not be found to give the explanation, feeling ran strong. Of course, every one wished to rush off to comfort and condole with Ida; but her

father took refuge in saying that the doctor had been sent for, as she seemed a good deal unstrung, and that it would be better not to see her until he had been. The Rector played host for him until the house was empty again, for the carriages that came to carry every one to church, divested of wedding etceteras, carried them to the railway station instead. Hector Macquoid was overwhelmed with perplexity, anxiety, and humiliation, and, with Ida's father, telegraphed in every direction for his brother. But every telegram was replied to, "Being married from Rhylsham Manor." The telegram, however, to the bank of which he was sub-manager, startled the manager not a little. What in the name of wonder could it mean? Could it possibly be that his arrangements to be away to be married were merely a blind to give him the opportunity of getting clear of the country before suspicion was aroused?—such an open-hearted, high-principled man too-and he trusted him so implicitly! But he began investigating, and soon set every clerk in the department investigating; and before three o'clock Scotland Yard was looking for a sub-manager who had absconded with twenty thousand pounds; and the little Echo boys in every large town made the evening hideous shrieking, "Bank manager wantedRomantic details!"

But the Manor was beyond the reach of little Echo boys; and Ida lay still for a long while, not crying, not thinking, scarcely even feeling, her eyes wide open, staring at those never-fading roses on the wall-paper, counting them over and over again, up and down in columns, across and across in lines, making squares and diamonds and chains of them, till her head ached and thumped and throbbed. But still she couldn't stop; if she tried to shut her eyes, the roses got inside, and stared at her as though they were painted on the back of her eyelids, and insisted on being counted just the same. Every now and then she started up with some quick, clear instruction about some trivial detail: "Nannie, please find the sealingwax, and seal the knot of that parcel,"—" Nannie, please tell father I want the coachmen to have their luncheon all the same," and then dropped back again to counting those mocking, pitiless roses.

Every time her father came into the room, she turned big, pleading eyes to him, but never put into words the question he dreaded every moment having to At last he told her all he knew, to stay the suspense he saw was too intense. Her lip took a scornful curl, and she said, "They'll never make me believe that, father. Tell them I don't believe it, and I won't!”

answer.

It took a long while for the shaken balances of life to steady themselves again; for fresh news, of his arrest, and then of his trial, brought their natural intense suspense and feverish excitement-days when those roses on the wall would be counted at such a giddy, maddening, whirling pace, and then the proportionate spells of weakness and nervous prostration always followed.

allowed to "Tell him,

When she heard of his arrest, she begged so piteously to be go and see him, that at last her father promised to go for her. father, that Ida will never believe it of him, and that she knows he'll prove it isn't true."

But when he came back after the trial was over, it was late in the afternoon ; he found her sitting up in the big armchair, with the firelight playing still on the living chrysanthemums and the dead roses. After a while she asked him, “What did he say, father?”

"He said, 'You must tell her that it is all quite true. Tell her it was a mad passion for gambling led me to it. Tell her it was finding out how irresistible a passion it had grown that made me say she "could never be happy with me."

Tell her it was seeing this disgrace coming that decided me to break my troth

rather than break her heart. Tell her to forget the man who is unworthy of her trust and love.""

Presently she said quietly, "And his sentence?"

"Ten years."

Father, I want you to write to him for me, and tell him I love him just the same. Tell him the white silk dress is put away, with the myrtle blossoms beside it. The blossoms will have crumbled away, but the dress will be all ready, and he shall get it out for me, ten years to-morrow, if he care to. And, daddy dear,

I shall never go away from you again, so I think he'll have to come here too. You don't want me to go away, do you?"

"Do you happen to remember, Ida, that you are talking about a convicted criminal, disgraced, and confessedly dishonourable? You can't be asking me to allow you to marry such a man!

For a few seconds Ida sat silent, absorbedly pulling a flower to pieces. At last she said softly, "But, daddy dear, do you happen to remember that you are talking to a woman? Unfortunately I am only a commonplace sort of woman, just like every other woman, and you know somehow we all have a stupid knack of always loving all the same; we don't try to, but we can't help ourselves. We all always do that sort of thing, so I shall be quite sure to marry him all the same.” Manlike, he registered a vow in heaven that she shouldn't! Womanlike, she registered a vow in heaven that she would!

But the longest and slowest of long, slow years roll by, eventually; and at last there came a morning when a white-haired gentleman stood waiting beside a closed carriage for the great gates of Holloway Gaol to swing back for the discharged prisoners to pass out. Presently they came, that oft-repeated procession of prodigal sons: every degree of criminal there, from the shamefaced young fellow from a first short sentence, afraid to hope for the welcome of the prodigal father-prodigal as ever in welcome and forgiveness-to the confirmed "old hand," too used to it to feel anything save a vague wonder where his next meal will come from now that he has to find it for himself once more.

Among the last was a tall well-dressed man, with culture and rigid selfgovernment in his face. The set lips betrayed no lack of immediate purpose, though the twitch of his face told the strain of that first moment of return to freedom, as he started at the sound of his long unheard Christian name, when the old man touched his arm saying, "This way, Mortimer: the carriage is waiting," in a tone as natural as though welcoming a guest at a railway station.

"Why did you come?" asked Mortimer a few seconds later, as they rolled away together.

"Because I wanted to take you back to my Ida," replied the other quietly. "Mortimer, it can't be long now before I go-before I leave her altogether. Will you take care of her, then, for me, and let me go without a single anxious thought for her? Will you let me give her to you in trust, Mortimer?"

"How

"After all this?" Mortimer responded, with an effort to speak calmly. dare I. I meant to slip away at once to the colonies and win back everything, and prove that I could be honourable, before I saw her again.”

"She takes the honour on trust, Mortimer, and life is too short to waste years in trying to retrace wrong steps. It's a weary life too. Take God's forgiveness and Ida's love, and bury all the past, save enough of memory to sanctify the future. Will you do this for an old man's sake, Mortimer?"

A few hours later Mortimer took an unworn white, silk gown from a rarely