story?" A solution of the problem might, perhaps, have been easy enough, but at present Claudia did not wait to seek it.

"As I told you, however, this situation, that he hoped so much from, was lost in a miserable way," she recommenced. “Some money -a hundred dollars in notes-was missed one morning from a private office, where one of the partners had laid it down. Mr. Stephens, it was proved, had been in that office, and he was suspected of having stolen the money. They did not know him, you see, and he could give no references as to character, or, at least, he would not do. All the other clerks and employés had been in the place some time. He was the only stranger. And so (though they would not prosecute, because they had nothing but suspicion to go upon) the partners turned him off ignominiously. After that, he went down, down, down," continued the girl, with a gesture of irritation and repulsion. "He could get nothing to do, nothing suitable. At last, I believe he gave up all hope of success in life, and he died a fortnight ago in a settlement of French peasants, away up in the backwoods. One of the settlers came, at his wish, to tell me about his death. But before that I had heard nothing of him for nearly a year. And now, now, at length, I am free!"

"And that is all?"

Miss Estcourt nodded an affirmative.

"Claudia, I must, I must ask you a question. Do you mean to tell me that you have considered yourself bound to that man through all these four years, simply because as a school-girl not seventeen you had given him a promise-a promise, I suppose, of marriage?" "Yes," faltered Ciaudia; "yes, I have always considered myself bound to him."

"Is it possible! And yet you have detested this imaginary tie, you say, almost from the beginning? You have learned, also, to love some one else to love me?"

"Yes," she assented again.

Suddenly Captain Awdry sank on his knees, and took the girl's hands reverently. "I am amazed!" he exclaimed. "I have heard it said that a woman's sense of honour and loyalty was not equal to that of a man. But here is a contradiction, indeed, of such an aspersion! What man could have showed more punctilious fidelity to his word, and against such temptations to a breach of it! Dear Claudia, your notions of constancy-pardon me saying it—are absurdly high-strung, and they have led you into a great mistake. They have been the cause of unhappiness to yourself, and of terrible suffering to me. Also-pardon me again-they have warped your judgment in

reference to the duty which you owed to your father, in that you allowed yourself to be persuaded to keep your supposed engagement a secret from him. You have been very, very foolish, dearest; but it has all happened through your ignorance of the world, your unsophisticated innocence. That I see clearly. And I thank you for your candour in telling me all this at last, Claudia, though, oh, oh, that you told it me earlier!" He stooped as he spoke and pressed his lips to her hand.

Claudia burst into tears, half of relief, and half of troubled surprise at this turn of affairs. "Then you are not very dreadfully shocked with me?" she faltered.

"You still love me?"

In an instant Awdry was by her side on the sofa, and she was in his arms. "Still love you!" he murmured. "My darling, did you think my love could be slain so easily as that? Do you believe that true love ever dies? I do not. As the old lines run, you know—

Pray, how comes love?

It comes unsought, unsent.
Pray, how goes love?

That was not love that went.

No, that was not love of yours, Claudia, for my unknown rival, because it went.' And, dearest, I have a little secret of my own to tell you. Shall I tell it you now, or will you first promise to be my wife? Ah! I don't need the promise, do I? You have confessed that you love me. We understand each other, at last!"

Whether they did, in truth, understand each other or not, it is certain that for a brief half-hour the lovers became supremely happy. In the interchange of mutual assurances of undying affection they almost forgot the revelation just made and listened to. Not entirely, however; the undercurrent of recollection was there all the time. This afternoon's conversation had been too exciting and too momentous -though in a different way to each-to be easily erased from their memories.

"Claudia, dear," remarked Awdry, recurring presently to the subject of it (although not before he had related a certain episode in his own history, to which we may have occasion to refer hereafter),— "Claudia, dear, I am afraid the thought of that fellow may often be a torture to me. Not that I shall ever allow myself to blame you more than I have already done-that is, for keeping silence about the childish scrape you had got into, that preposterous promise which your scrupulous sense of honour made you look upon as binding. No, it is not you I blame, but that miscreant, that impostor, that adventurer ! Darling, it is no use protesting that he was not what I call him. All VOL. CCLVIII. NO. 1850.

K

you have told me about him goes to prove it—his being a man of some attainments, and of respectable appearance and manners, yet in poverty, and with no settled abode or employment, and again, his silence about his relatives and past history. Believe me, it is only your ignorance of the world and its wickedness that prevents your taking my view of the fellow. He was a bad lot, and in my own mind I have not the slightest doubt that he really did take that money from the warehouse."

"Oh, Douglas, please do not say any more!" entreated Claudia. "Think what you like, I will not contradict your opinion. Only let us try to forget the whole affair. Let us agree never, never, to speak of it again."

Captain Awdry reflected an instant. "Very well," he assented; "we will make a compact of silence after to-day. But you must just satisfy my curiosity on one other point, Claudia-I have a right to ask questions now, have I not? When did you see this Stephens last, dear, and how has your connection with him been kept up?"

"I have scarcely seen him at all since I left school," answered Claudia; "I only stayed six months with Mrs. Campion after those holidays, then I returned home; but I went away again shortly afterwards on a visit-a visit to Ella Thorne. I saw him then once or twice."

"Ah, I remember! You left home almost immediately after I had first been introduced to you, and you were away nearly three months! I recollect thinking you would never come back."

Claudia reddened unaccountably. "Yes, I-I did stay a long time, I know. But Ella and I have always been such good friends."

"And she helped you to meet that fellow again? Well, I don't thank her for that, Claudia, at any rate. So he was at Kingston then ?"

"No-yes, I mean. But-but that was not quite the last time I saw him," pursued Claudia, hurriedly. "He came here to Quebec once. I happened to be looking out of the window one moonlight night, and I saw him standing before the house. I was awfully angry, and I went out to speak to him, and let him know pretty plainly what I felt. He said, however, that he had not meant to compromise me in any way by coming there-that he had only wanted to catch one glimpse of me without being seen himself. I don't know where he was living at the time, or what he was doing, but he declared he had walked nearly a hundred miles just for that. But when he saw how annoyed I was, he promised not to

obtrude upon me again, unless he could do so under very different circumstances. I don't know what he expected could make things very different, but his saying that always kept me a little nervous lest he should appear again. But my fears proved groundless. I have never seen him since. We have written to each other, however, though not often."

“And in his letters, I suppose, he kept up that fiction of an engagement? Really, in many ways, the man's conduct, as you describe it, appears inexplicable. But you may rest assured that he has been actuated throughout by some sinister motive. Probably he was hoping for your father's death——intending then to force his pretended claims upon you, though not daring, with your friends around you, to bring them forward. Gracious heaven! who can tell what the fellow meant? But, my darling, you have had a fortunate escape. Things might have been infinitely worse. Supposing that, instead of playing upon your gratitude, taking advantage of your youth and innocence, as he did, by drawing you into a secret engagement, he had persuaded you into a secret marriage. What a frightful thing that would have been! Then, indeed, the purity and sweetness of my lily would have been lost for ever. Then-oh, Claudia, Claudia, you are fainting?"

"No, no, I am not," she gasped. all this has been too much for me.

"I am not going to faint, but I-I should like to be alone. Please leave me, Douglas-leave me now!"

"My darling, I have been cruel to press the subject so much, and to make such dreadful and impossible suggestions," he exclaimed tenderly. "Forgive me, Claudia. Yes, I will go-I will leave you for the present. But, remember, we have buried the hatchet. This wretched topic shall never be revived again to cause disturbance between us, or to mar our happiness. One kiss, dear, in token of pardon, and I am gone. But only until this evening. I shall return in the evening, Claudia, to see your father."

CHAPTER VIII.

"YOU WILL NOT BETRAY ME?"

AFTER her lover's departure Claudia Estcourt went straight to her own room, and, when there, straight to her mirror. In front of the glass she stood and surveyed herself. How pale she looked, but how beautiful!—even despite those dark circles which mental pain

and exhaustion had drawn around her eyes. How youthful, too, and how-yes, how innocent!

That was the term which he had used-he, the man to whom she had just affianced herself. In that one pleasant interlude in their late conference-those delightful moments after she had promised to be his wife he had broken out into lover's rhapsodies about her "sweet fragility of appearance." He had declared that she ought to have a name less stately, less regal than Claudia. And then he had gone on, somewhat inconsistently, to protest that he would not have her name altered if he could, because it was her name-the one he had always known her by-that he would not have "that, or anything else about her, changed!"

Would he not? Ah! if he could see beneath the fair surface— into the heart that palpitated under that transparent, delicately tinted skin-into the mind that worked behind those liquid eyes-was there nothing that Douglas Awdry would wish changed?

Claudia shuddered. Questions of conduct or principle were not familiar with this young lady. A spoiled darling of fortune, the cardinal rule of her life, so far, had been to seek her own happiness.

She had not always been successful in that search-far from it! But for all miscarriage of her projects or failure of her hopes she had been wont to condemn others rather than herself. She was not conceited (at least, no one had ever accused her of being so, for she displayed none of the petty affectations of the vain), but she had a vast respect for her own personality. To think well of herself she had found to be an important factor of happiness, and she had encouraged herself at all times to think the very best she could of herself. In this agreeable task, also, she had been aided by others. As was natural, with her beauty, her prospective wealth, and her general amiability of disposition, Miss Estcourt's ears had been fed pretty liberally with the honeydew of flattery.

Now, however, as she stood gazing at her reflection in the glass, the girl was being forced into a painful self-disclosure. Rightly or wrongly, it struck home to her conviction that there was little beauty within to correspond with that of her outward aspect. If she could be turned inside out for the inspection of the world-for the inspection of her lover-what then? Where were those virtues that he credited her with-that strict fidelity, that high sense of honour, that resplendent purity? Figments of his own imagination! What was the truth? What like was the real Claudia with her superficial attractions scraped off?

Compelled against her will into this moral revision, the girl