He found himself at the gate of the cottage while still these thoughts were in his mind, and his soul was struggling to lift itself in brief petition for help in this hour of weakness and of need.

Then he lifted the latch and entered the garden:

The cottage was all dark and silent, and he scarcely dared knock for admission. Perhaps she might be asleep. Yet even as the hope crossed his mind, the door was suddenly flung back, and he found himself confronted by a stranger.

The apparition was so unexpected that he drew back a step, unable to frame any enquiry. A stately figure; a proud, calm face; eyes that seemed to leap into sudden life and hold his own, and yet, while so holding them, recall a swift and breathless memory. This was what he saw as his stammering lips at last broke their chain of silence and faltered out the name which was in itself a mockery.

The face before him grew paler than before; but all the suppressed passion and fear of the proud heart spoke out in the beautiful eyes, and in the broken whisper of the quivering lips. "She is not here. She has fled away in the night. Are you a friend? Have you brought any news?" She was close to him, trembling with eagerness and almost it seemed with terror; close to him, and again that swift strange thought flashed through his brain, and left him startled and confused.

"I am a friend-yes- -" he said, looking, wondering at that agitated face. "Surely you cannot mean she is not here. Where could she go? She knows no one." The woman drew back a step. "Come into the house," she said briefly, and Adrian Lyle followed her.

The beating of his heart was so swift and violent, that it was almost pain. Involuntarily he laid his hand upon it and so stood there in the grey dull light, waiting to hear what was to follow.

"You are her friend," went on the voice hurriedly and brokenly. "Thank Heaven she had one. Can you give me any clue as to where she has gone? I-I am her only relative now. I learnt she was here. I came over from Vienna last night. I was prepared to take her home to her old childish home once more. I told her $0. This morning, she was not in the house."

that she was going back to you to her old home at Dornbach, and you were sure to receive her. Why should she have gone away?"

The proud cold, face grew strangely agitated. "I-I fear we were too severe," she faltered.

"We—!" echoed Adrian Lyle, looking round doubtfully.

"I, and the Sister of the Convent at Dornbach. She wished to receive the child back as of old had been determined." "And she would not go?" questioned Adrian Lyle eagerly.

"No; she said so last night. But she was ill, fevered, and distraught, and scarce knew of what she spoke. I left her calmly asleep. Half-an-hour ago I went to her room: she was not there; her cloak and hat were gone; everything was in disorder, as if she had prepared for flight. That is all I know."

"And the Sister, where is she?"

"In her room, asleep. She does not know yet."

Adrian Lyle felt sick with sudden horror. Fevered, distraught, knowing her own disgrace, seeing her last hope of love and shelter failing, what desperate deed might the girl not have committed?

The foreboding of evil was too strong to be resisted. White and shaking, he leant against the table for support, and vainly tried to frame some rational excuse for this unaccountable action. "" "May I see her room?" he faltered at last. Without a word, his companion rose and led the way.

His eyes seemed to take in everything. The bed where she had slept; the open press; the little slippers thrown carelessly beside a chair; the window from which, on that memorable June night, she had leaned to speak to him.

"Yes, she must have gone away," he said slowly; and his voice sounded strange to himself, and there was that in his face which called Anna von Waldstein's attention to it, and held it fixed and wondering for many moments.

During those moments Adrian Lyle was living over again every detail of his love for Gretchen-its folly, its impossibility, its despair. What his face betrayed, he never imagined; but the eyes that watched it grew strangely soft, and the calm voice shook as she said: "You cared for her, too. Did you know her story?

"

brokenly, "that man deceived her all this time."

"

"He deceived me also," said Adrian Lyle. "He swore that she was his wife." "Then . . . . it was not her fault"Her fault!" he cried passionately; "you, to ask that! You, who know all the purity and innocence of that lovely nature! You, to whose cruelty and coldness she owes her present sufferings! You, who would have condemned her to that death in life which only a bigoted faith calls holy her fault!'

His voice broke his self-command had all forsaken him. The catastrophe that had now happened was the one thing he had not expected, and was utterly unprepared for. These harsh and bigoted guardians had terrified the poor distraught girl into an act, whose result he dared not contemplate. He could not reason calmly any longer. The restraint, which he had put upon himself for her sake, was but a feeble reed against the torrent of passionate dread and longing and despair which now swept over his heart.

He turned away from the little chamber; it was filled with haunting voices, and memories more terrible still.

At the door a figure barred his progress .. the figure of the Sister whose description he had heard long ago from Gretchen's laughing lips.

That sight those stern, forbidding features, and passionless cruel eyes seemed to set the seal of certainty upon his suspicions.

For a moment he paused and looked back at the questioning face, and from that to the bowed and shuddering figure which cowered in dumb agony on the chair which had once held Gretchen's form.

"You have done your Christian work very effectually," he said. "Think well of what your answer will be, when the God whom you profess to serve demands at your hands the young and suffering soul you have this day sent out to its destruction!" Then he passed from the room and from the house, scarce knowing what he did, or whither he went.

Left alone the two women looked at each other. The one face amazed and indignant; the other shaken from all its proud calm and composure, agonised, humiliated, despairing, as one who looks on a lost hope.

"We were too hard on her," she cried brokenly" too hard. She was so young.'

"What has happened? cried the Sister. "Who was that man? He looked like an English priest. What does he know of Gretchen ?"

"He was her friend," answered that broken voice. "But she has filed even from him." "Do you

"Fled?" faltered the Sister. mean that she is not here?" "No."

"But where has she gone? Why should she have fled from us?

The proud face raised itself and looked back at its questioner. "Why? Can you not guess? What did we offer her that should in any way tempt her to such a home? such a home! Oh, Heaven!" she murmured, falling on her knees and hiding her face in her shuddering hands, "why did I not let my heart speak as it would? I might have saved her. . . . . I might have held her safe in my empty arms this hour!"

"Your heart!" dropped in cold scorn from the frigid lips of the Sister. "Do you forget its secret? . . . . its vows.. its penance self-entailed from the hour its guilt was known?"

....

"No!" she cried amidst her broken sobs. "I have never been allowed to forget them for one moment of my miserable life."

"It is your penance."

so need

"A penance more bitter than death, more cruel than human injustice." "Your sin was great be your atonement. This girl brought forth in shame, the child of sin.... has but obeyed her natural instincts. You at least have done your duty

that should ease your heart and satisfy your conscience. Vile, wilful, contumacious, she has chosen her own path. Let her go. From this hour the Church she has wantonly forsaken closes its doors upon her. We have done all we could do. Again I say, 'Let her go !'"

There was a moment's silence. Thencalm, resolute, with the intensity of a fixed resolve, beautiful with the softness of human love, that at last had found power to overthrow the cruelty and oppression of long restraint-that white, proud face of Anna von Waldstein raised itself and looked back at the woman who had been to her the representative of conscience and Heaven for long and bitter years.

What it was that had come to her in this moment; that gave her so strange a strength, so calm a resolution; she neither knew nor

stayed to question. It was there, within her, flashing the light of truth on long darkness; breaking with its new and vivid force the chains of long bondage.

"I have listened to you," she said tranquilly. "You say that through you the Church you obey so blindly has spoken. It is for you then to attend to its behests. But another voice speaks to me-the one voice to which I have been condemned to turn deaf ears for so long and weary a time. It is the voice of human life. I will seek this poor child through the length and breadth of the world, but I will find her and comfort her, and tell her that one heart loves her despite sin, and folly, and weakness. Together we will live our lives as we have never been permitted to live them yet; together we have suffered, together shall love and pity bind our broken hearts. What comfort bas your cold creed ever given me What did it do for her? Only turned her yearning heart to the deceitful promises of human love; only leaves her now outcast, helpless, and betrayed! If she has fled, ours were the hands which drove her forth; if she has sought the last refuge that the desolate and broken-hearted seek, then on our heads is the guilt of human blood, and Heaven will seek her life at our hands."

As the passionate words rang out the Sister grew white and rigid with mingled terror and wrath.

"This is blasphemous," she faltered. "I must not listen to such words. The Spirit of Evil must surely have entered into your soul before you could speak thus of holy things."

"I care not," answered Anna von Waldstein vehemently. "I have borne; I have struggled; I have suffered. I can do so no more. Go your way; let me go mine. The worst is over. I have naught to fear and little to hope. I cannot suffer more than I have suffered, and I can bear no more than what I have borne."

"You may have to bear more, O rash and headstrong fool," hissed the fierce, low voice of the amazed and wrathful Sister. "I have your secret-do you forget?"

There was no fear in the proud eyes, only defiance-haughty, fierce, stormy with the passion of a heart too long controlled, and yet uncrushed and undisciplined still, taking vengeance at last for years of silence and repression.

"You-have-my-secret," she said slowly and distinctly. "What need to tell

me that? I do not fear its betrayal any longer. You may use it as you please.'

Sister Maria drew back, pale with anger and amazement. Was this weapon to be powerless now? What had come to the woman whose law she had been, whose conscience she had scourged?

"I will take you at your word," she said vindictively. "To-morrow I shall be at Dornbach. The good people there will be glad to know at last the true history of the proud and virtuous Anna von Waldstein."

Then the door closed. Anna von Waldstein stood there erect and disdainful; listening to the echo of retreating steps; feeling as if the whole fabric of her life were falling in ruins around her.

A strange look came into her eyes. Was it fear or defiance? It might have been both, though the proud heart beat so steadily, though the calm face neither paled, nor flushed with emotion.

Slowly she dropped on her knees once. more, her clasped hands raised to Heaven.

The uplifted eyes grew dim with blinding tears; the quivering lips were rent with agonised sighs; the proud breast throbbed with sobs that nothing could control or restrain. Never in all the hours of agony through which she had passed, had Anna von Waldstein touched the supreme point of agony and despair as she touched it now.

Yet the iron force of will and selfcontrol came to her aid even in this terrible hour. The storm died away, the tears ceased to flow, the passionate sobs no longer racked the tortured breast. White, calm, resolute, she rose at last and faced the duty upon which she had resolved.

With her own hands she arranged the disordered room, smoothing the bed, replacing the articles of clothing thrown so carelessly about. Then she closed the press and locked it; drew down the blind; went downstairs and called the old serving woman to her.

Your mistress has gone away for a time," she said quietly. "But she is coming back again with me. You will take care of the house and keep it as it is, ready for her at any time. Do you understand?"

"Ay, I understand," grumbled the old woman. "Strange enough goings on there be here, that I'm fain to say. But I know my duty, and I'll do it when I'm bid. -have no fear of that, mistress."

"That is well," was the answer; and Anna von Waldstein turned away, and