our new aquaintance. Douglas Awdry was neither fair nor dark. His eyes and hair were brown, the latter having something of a chestnut tinge, and he wore a military moustache of the same shade.

In age about twenty-eight, he could boast an upright, well-poised figure, broad shoulders, and powerful muscles. Altogether, from an athletic point of view, a fine specimen of English manhood; his speech and bearing proclaimed him to be also, both by nature and culture, a gentleman.

As for his features, though as far as possible from expressing sensuality, they belonged to a man of strong passions and feelings (even a glance was enough to convey some perception of this fact). In the set of the projecting chin there were indications of ability and determination, whilst in the curve of nostril and lip a practised physiognomist might have detected the existence both of great pride and great sensitiveness.

For four years now Captain Awdry had known Miss Estcourt, and for nearly as long he had been in love, and very deeply in love, with her. Twice during this time he had offered her his hand, and in spite of her refusal had continued, until very recently, to pay her assiduous court. But of late, beginning to despair of ultimate success, he had desisted from his attentions and had kept himself aloof from her society. On the previous evening, however, Claudia and he had met at the house of a mutual friend, and a marked alteration in the young lady's manner towards him had resulted in a sudden revival of Awdry's dead hopes and in this afternoon's visit by appointment. Now as it chanced that about this time there was also a very marked and unlooked-for alteration (for the better) in the Captain's prospects in life, he might, not unnaturally, have attributed the unexpected encouragement he had received to this cause. Not for one moment, however, had the young man harboured such a suspicion in his mind, and in this respect (however it might be with the general high estimation in which he held her) he did the girl no more than justice. Neither avarice nor ambition as regarded social status was Miss Estcourt's besetting sin. Whilst she now faced her lover, trembling and blushing, she was not thinking of the wealth and the high position which it had lately become in his power to offer her, but of something very different. She was studying his expression with a view to discover how he was likely to take that confession she had bound herself to make to him. And as she read in his face the intense admiration, affection, and delight wherewith he was regarding her, the fears she had entertained respecting the interview about to take place in a great measure vanished.

She drew herself more erect, and extended her hand with a smile. Awdry took the hand, and held it in both his own.

"How delightful this is, to be here once more!" he began. "Do you know, Miss Estcourt, that, despite my recent loss, I have been in the seventh heaven of felicity all day!"

"Have you?" returned Claudia, with a coquettish affectation of simplicity. "How is that?"

"Need you ask?" he demanded, pressing her hand and smiling down into her face. "Did you not say I might call this after

noon?"

"To be sure, I did. But I did not mean you to stand all the while, holding my hand," she answered, using a little effort to withdraw it. "Please take a seat."

Awdry drew one opposite to where she had placed herself upon the sofa.

“Claudia,” he resumed, bending forward to gaze at her with eyes full of love," dear Claudia, don't trifle with me! Have I not cause to be happy? Did you not give me reason last night to hope that at last, just as I had abandoned all expectation of it, my long devotion, my unchanging and unchangeable love for you was about to meet with some return?”

Again a warm flush mounted to the very roots of Claudia's hair, and her long lashes drooped over her glowing cheeks, but she made no verbal reply.

"Even yet," he went on, regarding her ecstatically, "I can hardly believe in this great happiness, it has come upon me so suddenly. As I told you then, I was intending last night to say good-bye to you for ever. I only accepted Mrs. Mainwaring's invitation because I knew you were to be her guest also. I wanted to spend just one more evening in your company."

"But you are not leaving Quebec so very soon," broke in Claudia. "I thought it was not to be for several weeks yet?"

"So I thought last night," he answered; "but I have had a letter this morning which makes it advisable that I should return to England with as little delay as possible. My sister-in-law, it appears, has already moved into Maylands, her own jointure-house, although I had begged her to remain at Clavermere as long as ever she chose. So I really ought now to go at once and look after my affairs." He paused for a second or two, and then added, "It will be very hard, however, to have to do so just now, if what I hope be true, though, in that case, the sea, you may be sure, shall not divide us long! Claudia, is it true ?"

Anxious to gain time, Claudia fenced with the question.

"Why did you mean to say good-bye to me last evening," she asked, "when you were not then intending to leave for some weeks? Would you really not have called to bid papa and me a proper adieu?"

"No; I had resolved not to do so, though of course I should have taken an opportunity of seeing Mr. Estcourt," he answered. "But you know the reason? You know why I have kept out of your way altogether of late? You know that you had made me feel that my suit was hopeless; therefore, loving you so ardently, dear Claudia, my only chance of bearing my pain manfully was, it seemed to me, by avoiding your sweet presence. I can't understand," he pursued, "how or why this change has come which makes me hope I was mistaken; but I am unspeakably thankful for it. And ah, if you knew how I felt yesterday in looking forward to what I thought would be my last hours with you! Do you remember this from Henry IV.? Against ill chances men are ever merry, but heaviness foreruns the good event.' I was 'heavy' enough yesterday, in all conscience! Darling, tell me, am I right to-day in anticipating the 'good event'?"

Captain Awdry had gone on speaking longer than he might have done but for Claudia's very evident embarrassment. Now, however, he paused for a reply. When it did not come, he leaned forward, and, laying his hand on hers, repeated the question in a different form.

“Claudia, do you mean to refuse me again?”

It was no longer possible to put off the crucial moment. “I don't know," she stammered, lifting her eyes for a moment, but letting them fall again beneath his ardent gaze. "I mean, that depends—I don't know yet whether you" she stopped short.

"But surely," he persisted, paying more heed to her manner than her words, "surely there is some change in your feelings towards me?"

"No, there is not," the girl burst forth with sudden energy. "There is no change in my feelings, Douglas"-she looked him. straight in the face now, and pronounced his Christian name with that desperate, spasmodic kind of courage to which naturally timorous people are sometimes prone. "Douglas, whatever happens, whatever is the result of this interview, I must tell you this now. I love you! I love you as much as you love me! I have loved you almost ever since I first saw you.”

"Claudia!" Captain Awdry's exultant joy at this acknowledgment was quite equalled by his astonishment. "But why, why, then, would

you never listen to me? Why have you driven me to actual despair ?"

"Because I was obliged to do it."

"Obliged!" he echoed. "How?"

"I am going to tell you," she answered, faltering again, as her courage began to ooze away. "But it will be very hard to explain.

It-it was a secret."

Unconsciously Awdry loosened his grasp of her hand. For a woman to have a secret, to be concerned in a mystery, was an abomination to him. Strictly virtuous and straightforward himself, he held most fastidious and exalted notions as to the purity, the truth, the moral guilelessness of the other sex. A few moments' study, however, of the sweet youthful face opposite to him, covered with those modest-seeming blushes, restored the young man's equa. nimity.

"Dear Claudia," he said, speaking very softly, "whatever your secret may be, it is, I am convinced, a very innocent one; but please let me hear it."

"You won't think it innocent, I am afraid, when you have heard it," rejoined Claudia. "I was obliged to refuse you before, becausebecause I could not listen honourably-because there was an obstacle in the way."

"I don't understand," he observed. "Your father, Mr. Estcourt, did not object; in fact, I know he was willing to encourage my proposal, and you have acknowledged now that you loved me. What, then, could the obstacle be?"

"It was not of my father's making, it was of my own. I-I had another tie."

"Another tie!" Again he repeated her words in his surprise. "You do not mean that you have been engaged?"

"No, it is something worse than that," she blurted out desperately. Captain Awdry left loose of her hand entirely now, and sat straight up in his chair.

"Wait a moment," he exclaimed, "wait a moment."

Startled by the change in his voice, Claudia looked up, to be still more startled by the change in her lover's face. With that strange, hard, almost repellent expression, she scarcely knew it. Obeying his request, however, she waited a moment, several moments, and that pause proved fatal to her resolution of telling the exact truth.

"I mean," she interposed at length, "that it was worse than being engaged in an ordinary way, because it was without my father's sanction."

"Oh!" Awdry uttered the interjection in the manner of a groan, but there was something of relief in his air. "Mr. Estcourt knew of

it, though, I suppose?"

"No," she returned. "No one knew of it excepting Ella Thorne."

"I am dreadfully puzzled," protested Awdry after a brief silence, which had followed this statement. "I have known you ever since you returned home from school, from Montreal. I have watched you with eyes sharpened by love, but I have never seen you give the slightest encouragement to any fellow."

"I never have encouraged any one," she affirmed.

"But how am I to comprehend, then, what you have told me?" he demanded. "I know, of course, that every man who sees you must admire you how could he help it? But I know also that Carter and Freemantle have tried their fates with no more success than myself. Indeed it was the conviction that, at any rate, you preferred me to them that, so far as I could judge, you did not prefer any one else— that kept me resolute through all these years to win you if I could. Claudia, will you tell me this man's name?"

"He is no one whom you have ever seen, nor whom my father has ever seen," rejoined Claudia in a shaking voice. "He does not live in Quebec."

There was another pause. Captain Awdry's face had grown ashen pale, and his hands grasped each other with a force that made the muscles of his wrists rise like cords.

"Do you know that I am suffering agonies?" he asked presently. "For God's sake, Miss Estcourt, tell me all, now that you have told me so much!"

"Yes, I will," she assented; "I will tell you everything—all the story. But, please don't ask me any questions. I-I hate the thought of the whole thing. I want to tell it as quickly as possible, in a few words."

Awdry bowed.

"I shall not interrupt you," he said.

BUT even yet Miss

coming to the point.

CHAPTER VII.

MISS ESTCOURT'S STORY.

Estcourt seemed to find some difficulty in After giving his promise not to interrupt, Captain Awdry had leaned back in his chair, and, with his arms folded across his chest, he was now regarding her in stern and anxious