But, though he said it, he could not take the hard truth home to his heart; could not, in the force, and strength, and passionate craving of manhood, resign himself coldly to the self-abnegation which his words breathed.

How he could have loved her! nay, why deceive himself? how he did love her!-how happy he would have made her! And yet Fate had given her to a coward and a traitor, in whom she saw the ideal of her girlhood's dreams and the lover of her innocent youth.

Adrian Lyle had had many'dark hours in his life, but not one so dark as this; through deep and bitter waters did his soul pass, well-nigh overwhelmed by their depth and blackness. Was this life, this terrible strain on mental and physical forces Must it be all sacrifice, all struggle, and then the darkness and silence of eternal night?

At this juncture thought seemed to cease. A strange lull and calm came over him. His brain throbbed less painfully; the laboured beating of his heart grew slow and quiet; the strained and fevered look died out of his eyes.

He closed his eyes and lay there for some moments longer, thankful for the lull that had followed that storm of awakened feeling, considering whether the duties of life might not yet be powerful enough to claim his services, to enchain his attention, and to fill his heart, though actual and personal happiness were denied him.

Some half hour later a little note was brought to him. It contained a few lines in German, written by Anna von Waldstein.

"She knows me-she forgives me -we are happy. Oh, my friend, thank Heaven for us! I feel that I am not worthy to do so. Come to me this evening, and I will tell you our plans.

"ANNA VON WALDSTEIN." He read it, then folded it up, and slowly put it away.

"I must act now," he said; "there will be time enough presently for dreams."

Alexis Kenyon had kept long vigil by her father's side before, at last, he opened his eyes and saw her. It seemed to her that, in that first memory of recognition, there was something of terror and apprehension replacing the old idolised tenderness.

She bent over him, all her pride and languor gone now, only an infinite compassion for the present, an intense remorse for

the past, living in her heart and breathing in her soothing and pitiful words.

Yet her presence seemed to distress him; and, when at his imperative signs they placed paper and pencil before him once again, he wrote, "Bring Adrian Lyle."

When that message came, the young clergyman smiled bitterly.

"I am not even to have the luxury of solitude," he thought to himself; but even as he thought it, he felt ashamed of the momentary selfishness it embodied.

A few moments later he was in that dark and mournful room once more-that room where the flower-like beauty and indolence of Alexis Kenyon looked to him so strangely out of place.

Sir Roy's eyes brightened as they rested on Adrian Lyle.

He took the pencil once again, and traced on the sheet of paper before him one word, “Anna.”

Adrian Lyle looked at it in amazement. "Anna"? He thought of Anna von Waldstein, but it seemed impossible that Sir Roy should want to see her. He looked doubtfully at the sick man. There was no mistaking the almost frenzied eagerness of that beseeching look.

"Do you mean," he asked, "Madame von Waldstein ?"

Sir Roy's lips moved convulsively; then underneath the name he wrote, "alone." "You wish," asked Adrian Lyle, "to see her alone?"

"Yes, yes," muttered the trembling lips. More and more bewildered Adrian Lyle turned to Alexis.

"Your father," he said, "wishes to see a lady staying in this hotel, and to see her alone. That is what he has conveyed to me. Shall I bring her?"

"What is her name?" asked Alexis. "Do you know her?"

"Yes," he said gravely. "I know her, but I was not aware that your father did." "You are sure," she asked, "that you have not misunderstood him?"

Adrian Lyle looked again at the agitated face, the agonised entreaty of the watching eyes.

"I am sure," he said, "that I have not. And though we may not understand his motives, I think we must humour them."

"Very well," said the girl proudly. "He seems to have every confidence in you. I will go into the next room with the nurse, until this mysterious interview is over."

She withdrew at once, and Adrian Lyle went on his errand.

Anna von Waldstein was as much astonished as himself on receiving the message. The name was unknown to her, save through its relationship to Neale Kenyon; but feeling assured that it must concern Gretchen, she accompanied Adrian at once.

"The child is asleep," she said softly, as they passed along the carpeted corridor. "I persuaded her to go to bed again. She is so weak and frail, and all her strength seems gone. All that has happened is just like a dream to her; but her mind is as clear and sensible now as ever it was."

"Thank Heaven for that," said Adrian Lyle solemnly. "It is like a miracle."

He laid his hand upon her arm with a gesture of entreaty.

"If you are, indeed, a friend," he said brokenly," say no more. Let me keep my miserable secret to myself to my life's end."

Then he opened the door by which they stood, and the nurse passed out, and he led Anna von Waldstein to the side of that changed and shattered wreck of humanity whose summons had seemed so inexplicable a thing.

"Don't go," she said hoarsely, and a shudder of terror shook her frame.

Adrian Lyle looked at the sick man. "Shall I leave you?" he asked. There was an imperative sign in the

came to his ear from time to time. Then a rustling of paper, a sudden death-like silence, and, following it, a low cry of horror so intense that instinctively Adrian Lyle turned towards the bed, and his startled eyes beheld the woman sway suddenly forwards, the paper crushed to her heart; her voice moaning out in piteous accents that it could not be true; anything, anything but that. Had Heaven not punished her enough?

He sprang forwards, then paused, arrested by the change in the sick man's face, by the terrible convulsive workings of the features; the hoarse and almost unintelligible sounds issuing from the white and quivering lips.

"Our child!" that was what they cried; our child! And I the instrument in God's dread hand to bring her young head to the dust of shame. Anna-say you forgive-say-"

There was no time for further entreaty. No time, and in very truth no need, for the poor changed face was hidden on a woman's breast, and the clasp of tender and forgiving arms were round that shattered wreck of manhood, and, amidst the passion of her sobs, a broken voice wailed out that the past was all forgotten, and every bitter memory washed away in pity; that the heart on which he leaned had never ceased to love him, and never would; that the dark road so long trodden by those proud and haughty feet was fairer than any path of peace, since it had brought her to his side again; and, so with tears, and sighs, and broken words those two hearts made their peace, and all their history grew plain; and, if sorrow and remorse closed in that closing life, it yet left it hushed, and calmed, and soothed by the tenderest forgiveness for which man had ever sued, and ever suffering womanhood had granted.

ing; but he was little likely to betray it to any living creature, least of all to the sorrow-stricken girl, who found herself alone and unprotected in this first trial of her life.

It struck him as somewhat strange that he should have three women dependent on him at the same time, and that all were individually linked to the dead man's memory by just one act of folly and guilt in his past life.

When, at Anna von Waldestein's request he went to her rooms that evening, he learnt more fully and completely the circumstances of that past which had had such brief existence-foreshadowed such terrible consequences.

Woman-like, she now had naught but excuse and extenuation for the selfishness which had wrecked her own young life. She had forgiven him-she, who alone held the right to blame or accuse! She had loved him blindly and passionately-she had forsaken all others for him; but she had not made him happy. She was proud, wilful, exacting. The dream had been too wild and sweet not to have a sudden and bitter awakening. They drifted apart in spirit long before the actual rupture came. Duty called him to his own home and his own land; she deemed herself deserted and became unreasonable. Hard and cruel words were spoken, words hard to forget, and bearing bitter fruit. Then came the illness that brought her well-nigh to the gates of death, and then that desperate resolve which gave her back her place in the world at a cost she little thought of then. All this she poured out to Adrian Lyle's ear in an agony of remorse and humiliation; all this he heard in that character of priest which made such confession sacred, in that sympathy of manhood which was strong enough and brave enough to counsel and help, even though his own heart was wrung with suffering and despair.

"I must go away from here," she said at last, when her pitiful tale was ended, and her tears had ceased to flow, "I and my child. She will never leave me now; we will live for each other in some place where our history is unknown, where peace and rest may yet be found. could not bear to look upon his child and know that mine is an outcast, and must never know her father's name.

Adrian Lyle started.

I

"Gretchen is scarcely seventeer, is she?" he asked. "If so, the other daughter"

"I know," she said, and turned her face aside: "I know it to-day for the first time. He was not free; he could not have married me even had the laws of my country been less hard. But he was so unhappy, and I loved him as well as any wife could have done. Only I could not content him. I think that I tried him too much for content. Well, I have had my punishment."

Ay, that she had. If ever sin might be expiated by suffering, surely there was hope in Heaven for this poor sinner, who repented-repented in very dust and ashes of humiliation. And Adrian Lyle, listening to her story, and looking on her face, could say not one harsh word.

Let who will blame him-a Christian priest, lending ear of compassion and not of condemnation, to such guilt as this; thinking it no wrong to give hand and trust and fellowship to this sorely-tried and erring sister, saying only, "Neither do I condemn thee-go and sin no more.'

The march of events was still rapid for Adrian Lyle. All the melancholy arrangements for the removal of Sir Roy's remains to the Abbey had to be performed, as Alexis wished the funeral to take place there. Lawyers had to be written to, friends and relations informed, and the one woman who had loved him best of all was the only one who dared not approach, or give any signs of remembrance, save the cross of white lilies which was placed upon his breast by Adrian Lyle's hands.

Gretchen was still so weak and helpless that removal was out of the question. Her mother watched her in an agony of dread in no way lessened by the grave looks and evasive answers of the medical man whom Adrian Lyle had called in.

It was with a very heavy heart that he accompanied Alexis Kenyon on that melancholy journey homewards. The task in itself was distasteful, leaving out of the question the circumstances under which he had left. But the girl could not travel alone with that melancholy burden, and he felt that he must carry still further his principles of self-denial.

He left Alexis at the Abbey, where Lady Breresford was already installed, and with a sigh of relief took his way to his old lodging near the church.

The dusk was drawing rapidly on as he walked swiftly down the avenue, and, branching off, took a short cut that led through the park to the village. His feet