He had ever been a proud man, proud of his integrity, his intellect, and if his prayers had not been exactly in the Pharisee's strain, they had been wanting in the spirit that won forgiveness for the publican. Now his pride was laid low, the idol of self-love shattered, and Clive Weston was in every sense of the word a better man.

A

CHAPTER X.

FTER their early breakfast Mr. Weston rose saying; "I must be off at once to the office, Virginia, and face my fate. Oh my darling!" and he drew her tenderly towards him, "what courage your example has imparted to me! Ruined, bankrupt, I yet go forth strong in hope and brave in heart. You will not give way to fretting, promise me, whilst I shall be away? I may not be able to get back till night."

"Fret, no indeed! I used to patronize that luxury when I had nothing else to do; now I have no time to indulge in it. Cranston and I will have a busy time of it overlooking and packing up my wardrobe."

Not daring to trust his voice, he pressed her to his heart and passed hurriedly out. Full of her new plans Virginia returned to her dressing-room, and began her day's work by carefully arranging her diamonds in their velvet lined cases. Whilst doing so she became aware for the first time that the diamond studded pendant of one of her eardrops was missing. More startled and grieved than she would have been by the loss of the whole set a day previous, she hastily examined her dressing bureau and the carpet, but it was not there. Remembering her visit to her husband's room the night before she bent her steps thither. Anxiously she examined floor, chairs, and table, | without success. Perhaps she had dropped it in Mrs. Markland's rooms, or on the garden balcony. A messenger must be sent off at

once to ascertain. Here her eye fell on the small drawer of the table, and she recollected with a gleam of hope that Mr. Weston, before leaving the apartment the night previous, had thrust some papers into it. Possibly the object of her search might have fallen among them. Hastily she drew the drawer out. No diamond met her gaze, but instead it fell on that small dark instrument of death, and on a paper containing a few lines addressed to herself in her husband's writing.

Instinctively she closed and locked the door, then, trembling in every limb, sank into the chair in which Clive had kept his terrible vigil, and read over, and re-read that almost illegible scrap of writing, unable for a time to fully comprehend its awful import. As it dawned at length fully npon her, she fell on her knees with a low agonized cry, incapable either of prayer or thought.

It was her turn now for utter selfabasement, for impassioned supplications to Heaven, for broken murmurs of gratitude.

Here in this very room, might Clive, her idolized husband have now been lying, cold, mute for ever, his memory a nameless horror, his ghastly corpse bearing traces of that terrible crime that would have closed for him all hope. And would it have been much better with her? Would she have deserved more mercy than himself? Made clear by that light which the near approach of death sheds on earthly actions, the course of her life stretched out before her: first, her pampered childhood and selfish girlhood, then the still more criminal page of her married life, with its heartless dissipation, its neglect of duties, and of the claims of the husband to whom she had vowed love.

Out of the agony of that first half hour arose, bright as the moon after a midnight storm, the thought that it was not yet too late. Blessed hopes that flooded her soul with gratitude, leaving in that heart which fashion had not yet perverted, seeds of future virtue and peace.

The voice of Cranston outside the locked door, informing her that the missing diamond had been found, failed to call Virginia from her self-communing, and it was long after that she at length, moved by her maid's pathetic entreaties that she would take some lunch, left the room, first putting the letter into her bosom.

Young Mrs. Weston's deathlike pallor, and the strong tokens of agitation so plainly visible on her face, though winning Cranston's unbounded pity, failed to excite her curiosity, for the household was now in full possession of the fact that their master was a bankrupt, the store-man having taken a private run up to the house for the express purpose of giving the information.

Regret was the general feeling that morning in business circles regarding Clive Weston's failure, and very few were found to cast a stone. One sour-visaged gentleman declared that Weston was an incomprehensible chap-looked as if he had gained a fortune instead of losing one-another opined that his ruin could not be as complete as was reported, or he would not look so calm all at once about it: the common feeling, however, was one of sympathy. The lamps were lit when he mounted the stone steps leading to his house, and met at the door his anxious young wife.

"What news, Clive dear ?"

"Good. Indeed better than I had expected. The creditors give me time, so that if fortune prove favourable we may soon be all right again. In the meantime we can occupy this house till we have looked up other quarters. The servants may be discharged as soon as you find convenient, keeping Cranston of course with us."

"What delightful news! Come now to dinner, poor Clive? You must stand in need of it."

Soon Weston began to perceive that despite the strenuous efforts made by his wife to appear as cheerful as she had been in the morning, a change had come over

her during his absence. Her words and smiles were less frequent, and at times an indefinable look clouded the brilliancy of her dark eyes.

"I fear, my darling," he said, as they sat before the fire in her dressing-room, Virginia on her favourite low seat near his feet, "I fear," and he tenderly stroked the glossy head resting on his arm, "that you are only beginning to realize all that you have lost."

Vainly Virginia protested that it was not so, that her hopes and courage were as high,

as ever.

"You cannot deceive me, my wife. I love you too well for that. Ah, there is a shadow in those eyes that was not there this morning."

There was a long pause, and then with pallid cheek and quivering lip she answered: "Clive, my love, my husband! I had not at first intended telling you, but perhaps it is better I should, so that henceforth there may be no misunderstanding or secret between us. With no intention of prying into your private affairs, but seeking for a missing jewel, I opened your table drawer and found this. She displayed his short letter to herself, and then, for the first time since he had known her, gave way in his presence to a passionate burst of tears.

"Once again, Clive, say you forgive me," she sobbed, "fcr the unwifely heartlessness that helped to drive you to such despair?"

"Rather ask God to forgive me, Virginia, an error that a life-time will not be long enough to deplore. Ah, sweet wife!" and he gently folded her to his heart, "Seek not in your regrets over your own childish faults to make me lose sight of the burden of guilt that weighs so heavily on me. I do not regret that you have discovered it. Sooner or later I should probably have confided it to you. And now we have neither estrangement nor secret between us. May it be ever so !"

The following day the servants at Weston

Villa were paid off, with the exception of the faithful Cranston, whose services were retained. With her assistance Virginia entered on the task of packing her wardrobe, ornaments and jewels.

Callers were numerous, prompted chiefly by curiosity, but the young wife, who now felt that she had broken entirely with that gay world in which she had till lately played so conspicuous a part, returned answer through Cranston that she did not receive, and was soon left in peace.

According to Virginia's predictions, Miss Ponton on her arrival in Montreal hastened

without delay to Weston Villa, and begged the happiness of carrying off her niece and husband at once to her own quiet home. No poignant regrets over Virginia's recent loss of position and fortune; no allusions to the feminine obstinacy that had placed her young relative's wealth entirely in another's hands; no doleful lamentations over Mr. Weston's misfortune or mismanagement disturbed the harmony of the meeting.

"Now for another subject, my love! Are you sure," and she laid her hand timidly and appealingly on her companion's arm, "that you and Mr. Weston are on good terms with

old-fashioned but comfortable residence some distance out of the city.

The falsehoods alluded to by Miss Ponton at her first interview with her niece, and refuted after a time by the evident attachment of young Mr. and Mrs. Weston, were traced directly to Miss Maberly, but neither Clive nor his wife took any notice of them beyond treating that young lady, when they met her, with distant civility. After a few more years of flirtation and husbandhunting, interspersed with bitter disappointments such as Captain Dacre had inflicted on her, she married a suitor whom she had

already twice refused, and passed her existence in a struggle to keep up appearances.

Captain Dacre, wearying suddenly of Canadian life and climate, and more deeply wounded by the repulse he had received from Virginia than either she or any one else suspected, soon exchanged into another regiment, and left Canada without his departure exciting any serious regret, except in the bosom of Letty Maberly.

each other?"

"Oh what joyful news for me, my darling! Such unkind reports have been circulating that you and your husband were living in open discord-never seen together-that you and some Captain Dacre were flirting, and that you would end by running away with him altogether. I thought my old heart would break when all this was told me by an acquaintance in the cars. I hastened here to find in your affectionate mention of Clive the first refutation of the calumnies I had not courage to repeat to you till I was certain that they were false."

Before twenty-four hours had elapsed the young couple were installed in Miss Ponton's

I could place you in a comfortable home of your own, but I will not urge it if you prefer remaining here with good Aunt Ponton."

"Thank you, dear Clive, it would break her heart if we were to leave her, now especially, that she has this little love to pet and fondle. See he is waking! What lovely eyes! Clive, is not the measure of our happiness full ?"

"Yes, even to overflowing, thanks to that Heavenly Father who hath been merciful to us beyond our deserts!" And Clive Weston and his young wife bowed their heads in mute gratitude to the Giver of all good.

THE END.