wretched lodging in Beacon Street had given her rest from absolute persecution; but only for a little time. Then came hints that deepened into demands and threats of ejectment; and Mrs. Keane shrank from these as from physical blows, and cowered beneath the bitter humiliation of knowing herself to be a helpless and hopeless pauper.

Shipwrecked in fortune, she was also shipwrecked in heart. Of the two evils, the latter seemed to preponderate a thousandfold; for Mrs. Keane loved her husband, and his bold beauty and coarse nature, with that intense concentration of feeling that so often makes the love of advanced age so much more absorbing than the first passion of youth. Often and often, when ambition and pleasure, the desire for admiration, the yearning for distraction, fall away from the life of a woman, love still holds its citadel, firmer and deeper rooted in the heart than ever.

Omnia vincit amor. Love is the one passion, the one single grain of earthliness that a woman's soul

carries away purified maybe through suffering and through death-into that supreme eternal heaven where all is love.

The deserted woman positively worshipped the husband who had deserted her. The strongest and deepest feeling of her lifetime had come in its autumn, after every other source of enjoyment and happiness had turned to Dead-Sea fruit at her feet. In the arrogant hours of her youth, love had been but a plaything-a toy to be taken up and cast aside at will. Now love was everything; and the man who had evoked the torrents of passion in her breast had left her— perhaps purposely and for ever.

It was in the weary night-watches that this thought had first flashed across her brain,-at that hour when pain seems to be sharper

than steel, and thought concentrates itself so terribly in the mind. Oh, could, could it be possibleshe asked herself, while an awesome numbness gathered in her heart, her breath came hard and flurried, and her hands grasped one another in a cold deathlike vice, -could it be possible that Steven Keane, tired out by the sight of her continual misery, had sought voluntarily, and with deliberation, the means of arriving at a new life, in which he never meant her to bear a part? Was it, after all, a silent but complete abandonment of the wife whose presence was a clog on enjoyment, whose very existence was a curse rather than a blessing?

'Ah! The exclamation burst from her in a thrill of positive agony. She started up in her bed, and wrung her fragile fingers in the darkness, while the thought that had come to her went through and through her soul like the point of a dagger.

Had she grown so old-so old, so unlovely! Had all the erewhile beauty and fascination that she had possessed in an unusual degree for the world so shrunk away from her that she had failed-wholly, miserably failed-in holding even one man to her oft-sworn faith?

The bed on which she sat moaning out her sorrow grew insupportable; and leaving it, she began to pace feverishly up and down the bare carpetless floor, moving to and fro in the darkness, that seemed to grow blacker by her movements; for there was no single glint of light by which the shimmer of her garments could be seen. Her footfall was completely noiseless; for her small bare feet made no sound on the boards, and it could only be told where she was by the low but piteous murmur of mental pain that broke out every now and then from her white lips.

Sometimes she stood motionless and rigid as an image of marble in the trailing shadows, straining her hands again in a close hard grasp, while she cried to herself, 'He has left me! he has left me!'

The gray dawn glimmering glimmering through the mantle of night found her still wandering about the miserable chamber, her feet blue with cold, her slight form trembling all over-wan weary lines tracing their length round her mouth and under her large sorrowful eyes.

But when the room grew full of yellow light-the light of glorious day-she turned towards the window hopefully, and, creeping into bed, began to cry like a child.

In the night no tears had come to her they had seemed as though frozen up by sheer despair; but hope, that the poet calls 'beggar's wealth,' had come hand in hand with day; and tears, strangely enough, are oftener more akin to hope than to positive despair. Then Mrs. Keane feel asleep, and dreamt dreams that were not halcyon; for they made her poor haggard face look doubly gray as it lay on the pillow.

And as the time went by, not a word reached her from her husband; and horrible fear and suspicion, born in the night-watches, haunted her every hour of the twenty-four, until suspense became a harrowing and insupportable torture, and she resolved to follow him, to track him out, and, finding him, never to lose sight of him

more.

But how?

Where could she discover the funds that would carry out her longing and her resolve? Bernard her son had told her honestly of the difficulty with which he had yielded to her last earnest solicitation for assistance; and she was persuaded that, for some reason, he had no power to aid her further.

But yet the money she required must be found, or she felt she should go mad.

The intense unutterable yearning to look once more on Steven Keane's handsome face-to die, if it might be, within sight and call of the man she adored-waxed fiercer and fiercer each day.

Once more the shawl-gay in rich gleaming tints, soft and fleecy in texture was drawn from its hiding-place in the shabby old wooden box-not lingeringly as before. It was taken out in doublequick haste; for Mrs. Keane felt no hesitation in parting with it now. A costly gift from an Eastern potentate to her father-a regal item in her marriage trousseaushe had clung to it purely from association. She had hidden it away, and had refused to deliver it up even to the clamorous demands of hunger and a pinching poverty that had beset her full many a time.

But the lingering desire to retain the relic of earlier and happier hours was gone. She loved Steven Keane, and that love lived and flourished to the expulsion of every other feeling. In her intense wish. to start in quest of the man who had left her, the shawl was of no more value to her than a handful of worthless shavings-save and except for its power to aid in reaching him.

Wrapping herself in it, she smiled as she noted how completely its rich ample folds concealed the lustreless black gown that was the best she owned. For a moment, as she stood in the middle of her room-her tall figure drawn up to its full height, the rainbow colours, so bright and yet so harmonious, shining up around her-she almost fancied she had crossed the dark gulf that separated her from her 'past,' and that once more Fortune was lavishing its best gifts on

her. But the smile was ephemeral enough. In a trice a shadow took its place, and she remembered but too well what was.

As she crept humbly down the stairs, the lodging-house keeper stood in the passage. A look of excessive injury swept over her hard face as she marked the raiment of her lodger; and giving her head a toss, she was on the point of commencing an attack. But the pale careworn woman glided past her with a gentle inclination.

The daylight had waned and dusk was falling when Mrs. Keane returned to the bare walls she called her home. She was shivering a little from the cold; her eyes were full of unshed tears, and her lips were slightly compressed, as though she wanted to control herself. But no one saw her, for she had let herself in. And the irate and indignant harpy that owned the house was unconscious that the many-hued costly shawl would never come back to that wretched attic again—that it and its owner had parted company for ever.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A HAUNTING FACE.

THE rainbow-hued shawl had attracted more people than Mrs. Wilcox, proprietress of 15 Beacon Street, Liverpool. One little creature was so deeply interested in it, in fact, that she could not sleep a wink through the night after having gazed in astonishment on the gleaming reds and yellows and blues, fashioned into such wonderful and hideous designs.

Nell Weston had reached home after a hard morning's work, and was busily preparing a meal for her father and Lennard, who had gone for a long-promised tramp into the country among the boy's beloved

wild flowers, when a timid tap came at the door. There stood Mrs. Keane with anxiety, and even pain written legibly on her features. She could not speak for a minute or two, but gasped for breath, for the exertion of mounting so many flights of stairs had been too much for her fragile frame.

'O ma'am, is it you? I am so very, very glad to see you! Please to walk in and sit down, and rest a long, long while. Father and Lennard are out, and they'll grieve so at missing you.'

The child hastily but carefully dusted a chair, and placed it almost humbly for the visitor.

Mrs. Keane looked round the room with a faint smile on her lips. Spite of the worry and anxiety which had brought her there, she could not but recognise with a sensation of surprise the excessive neatness of her surroundings. The deal table had not yet been drawn from the wall, and Nell, on a kneading-board scoured as milkwhite as wood can be scoured, was kneading a small mound of dough into a loaf for supper. There was flour on her tiny hands when she lifted them up in surprise at seeing the comer, and a great ridge of whiteness went across the brownlinen apron that almost covered her diminutive person. But she began to rub the flour from her hands, and to untie her apron the moment the visitor was seated, and was preparing to stand in humble respect during the remainder of Mrs. Keane's visit, when the lady bade her go on with her work, and not heed her in the least. The child hesitated an instant, then she rolled up her sleeves again, revealing two plump white baby-arms up to the shoulder, and plunged into her bread-making with fresh vigour.

'Is it not pleasant, sitting there at the window with the sky so very close to you, ma'am?' she asked, in

a gentle little voice. nard's favourite seat.

'That is Len

He loves it better, I believe, than he would the queen's throne, especially when the lovely sunset is coming on, as it is now. See, ma'am, how grand it is, all red and purple and orange! Lennard calls those clouds his lakes and castles; and it makes him quite sad when the sky grows gray and all his belongings melt away in mist as it were.'

Mrs. Keane listened, but did not answer. So Nell glanced up, then she cried anxiously,

'Why, ma'am, it seems as if you were in trouble, or something! Wait till I just get the little loaf into the oven, and then maybe you will not mind telling me a little about it.'

She took the dough, thrust it with haste into the oven, shut the door, then crept up to the window and lifted her large loving eyes to the pale sad face that looked down at her.

Tell me, ma'am. I hope it isn't anything to do with that-with paying back

Mrs. Keane winced visibly. Strange to say, she had forgotten that obligation in her many troubles.

'No,' she said, in a low voice, with the red colour surging up in her pallid cheeks. 'I trust you are not in very great want of that yet, Nell ?'

'No, oh, no,' the child answered fervently.

'And I-I am in sore need of a little money, Nell. I would do anything to get some.'

Nell's eyes fell. She had nothing to speak of laid by now, and she did not know what to say.

'If I had it—if I only had it!' she wailed, in absolute distress.

'Not from you! It is not more money from you that I want, my poor little girl!' cried Mrs. Keane, much touched by the genuine sympathy of the little creature.

What

'Of course I will!' cried Nell, sparkling all over. 'Tell me what

it is, and I'll try at once.' Could you

sell the shawl I have on, Nell, without letting any one know it belongs to me?'

'Yes,' Nell replied slowly, eyeing the costly shawl with reverence. 'I'll do my best, but I am afraid they won't give more than twenty shillings for it. You see they could only wear it on a Sunday, or to the theatre if any one gives them orders now and then.'

"Twenty shillings! Why, child, it is worth double the number of pounds !'

Nell fell back a step in dumb amazement, her mouth open, her blue eyes widening.

'Please, ma'am, don't make fun of me!' she murmured deprecatingly, evidently hurt that a lady she held in such reverence should indulge in jokes at her expense. 'I know it cannot be worth forty pounds.'

'Yes, but it is, Nell; and more too.'

The child pursed her mouth into a rosebud and actually sent an unbelieving whistle slowly through it.

'You are laughing at me, ma'am. I know you are.'

'I am speaking the truth. Child, child! I am far from laughing,' moaned the poor woman. 'I have a load of misery which leaves no room for laughter in my heart. Come and look at the shawl. It is not woven in a loom, Nell, like the shawls you have seen.'

'Is it not, ma'am?' asked Nell, who was beginning to feel quite afraid of touching so expensive ar. article.

'No; it is worked by hand, you see. It must have taken ever so many persons for a whole year to make this one shawl.' 'Really, ma'am !

be paid, you know.' 'Yes, of course.'

'And it is the time and labour that made it so expensive.'

'Oh, yes, ma'am; a year's work is worth a good deal of money.' "This kind of work supports whole families.'

Nell put out her fingers slowly, and examined the texture and pat

tern.

'I should have thought all those people working together a whole year might have made something prettier, ma'am,' she ventured to remark in gentle protest. Accord'According to my notion, this pattern isn't anything very particular in the way of beauty.'

'Well, child, now I have told you the value of it, do you think you could sell it for me?'

'For forty pounds, ma'am?' 'We must take less if we cannot get that.'

'I am afraid so much less,' Nell remarked sadly. She hadn't much hope in the matter, and she wanted to serve Mrs. Keane with all her warm heart.

'If you could find a rich lady now. There is not a better shawl to be bought in England than this, I am sure. Do you know any one likely to care about it ?'

'I cannot think of any one just at this minute.'

'But you will try ?'

'Yes, ma'am; of course I will. It's a big thing, but I'll try and do it.'

'Then I will leave the shawl with you; take care of it, like a good child.'

Mrs. Keane unwound it from her shoulders, and laid it down in a gaudy gleaming heap on a rushbottomed chair. For a moment the weighty pressure of her necessity was forgotten; for a moment she did not recognise the presence of the child even; and casting a

of her past splendour, she turned away, sighing heavily.

'Don't, don't feel so bad about parting with it, ma'am,' whispered Nell, in a compassionate tone, huddling the gorgeous mass into her small arms and carrying it into the sort of cupboard that served her for a bedchamber. 'The money will be worth ever so much more to you, you know. You will be able to do anything with that.'

'Yes, oh, yes,' exclaimed the poor woman, recalled to herself; 'the money will be worth everything to me, so that it carries me to him!

A girl had met Mrs. Keane going up the long flight of rickety stairs, and had made way for her obsequiously, attracted by her rich covering. But when she went down in her black lustreless dress-the poverty of her garments fully revealed the same girl jostled against her roughly.

It was Ursula who stood directly in Mrs. Keane's way, making an imperious motion that the meanlydressed woman should move aside and let her pass.

Mrs. Keane looked at the beautiful bold face for an instant, then reached out her hand and put the girl aside; so gently and yet so firmly she did it, that Ursula's cheek flamed up with unconscious shame, and she shrank back against the wall, muttering a faint apology.

But a minute after Ursula's hot fierce nature rebelled against the insult she conceived to have been dealt her. She had been put down without really knowing how. What did it mean? Where had her proud insolent spirit gone? Who could be the woman, with a haggard face and gray hair, and far worse clad than herself, who, by a simple gesture, had managed to strike her so curiously and sud