she asked, with a queer little laugh, and she nestled her face on the stalwart shoulder next to her.

'Will it make me happy, love? Let me look right into your eyes while I answer that.'

He took her fair face in his hands and lifted it up towards him. It was a sweet face, all smiles and dimples and blushes, and his artistic eye was charmed with its beauty and freshness. He caught her to him in a close embrace, kissed her on her rosebud pouting lips, her snow-white forehead, her child-like innocent eyes.

'Ethel,' he said, 'put your arms round my neck.'

She obeyed; obedience to the mandate was far from distasteful to her.

'Now, then, say after me-"I, Ethel, take thee, Bernard, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward."'

'But that is the marriage ceremony,' the girl interrupted. It is unlucky to say those words before the time.'

'Nonsense, child! Go on: "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth."

She repeated the words after him.

'Now, Ethel, kiss me of your own accord and seal your troth.' She raised herself on tip-toe and kissed him.

'Nothing can separate us now, my own,' he said exultingly and confidently, drawing her arm through

his.

'Nothing, she answered, in a low voice, her heart beating very fast, her face beaming with happy smiles.

It was but three days to the 20th of March, the date fixed for the wedding. Bernard-his work

over-went to the log cabin to see Mr. Seymour on railroad business. This gone through, he was on the point of seeking Ethel when his father-in-law elect called him back.

'I forgot to show you this, Bernard. I don't know if it is intended for you, but it's not probable there should be two "Bernard Keanes" about.'

He handed him a newspaper as he spoke. It was a New York Herald.

'Look down the "Personal" column.'

Bernard grasped the paper tighter. Somehow the printing seemed dim, or else his own eyes were at fault. Then he drew himself together, as it were, and read.

'If Bernard Keane should see this, let him call, without delay, at 970 East Seventy-eighth Street, Third Avenue. Ask for parlour floor.'

A queer advertisement, isn't it?' Mr. Seymour said, with a laugh. 'Very strange,' muttered Bernard.

And again a peculiar giddiness crept over him, and he clutched the back of a chair to steady himself.

'You had better go at once; it may be a fortune,' suggested the elder man.

'Or a misfortune,' Bernard half whispered to himself, with a sinking at the heart he could not understand. 'I'll go at once,' he went on, in a higher key. And you'll tell Ethel I shall come back as soon as ever I can.'

'Yes, do, or my little girl will be crying and spoiling her eyes. I believe she'd break her heart if you weren't back by the 20th!'

'Nothing can prevent that if I am alive!' he cried.

But something did.

No. 970 East Seventy-eighth Street was a dreary-looking house enough, situated at the corner of

Bernard surveyed the building from top to bottom with a doubt in his mind as to whether that advertisement had not been a trap to do him some bodily mischief. But he was not of a nervous temperament, and, striding up the small flight of steps, he gave a hard pull at the bell.

The summons was answered by a repulsive-looking negress, stout and tall, and possessing, to an inordinate degree, the coarse protruding lips of Africa's sons and daughters.

'I wish to see the person in the parlour floor.'

'Yes, saar,' she replied, in the peculiar tone of her kind, displaying her sole attraction, two magnificent rows of teeth, large but wellshaped, and white as ivory.

Bernard followed her down the passage to its farthest extremity. She flung open a door, and, making a gesture for him to enter, disappeared down a staircase dark as night.

A woman sat facing the entrance of the room. Bernard looked at her. He did not speak, he did not move, but stood like a statue in the doorway, with all warmth and life apparently stricken out of him.

As for the woman, she attempted to rise, struggled with herself wildly for a moment, half screamed, and fell back insensible.

A tall spare man, with silvery hair and lean haggard face, ran into the room, pushing Bernard on one side in his anxiety and dis

tress.

'Is she dead ?'

The voice that asked this question was so cold and hollow that it startled Ralph Pierce.

'No, she is not dead. It is that we wanted to tell you.'

Bernard stared wildly from the old man to that face which ap

'O my God, what does it all mean?'

Hush whispered Ursula's father; she is reviving. Have mercy; find some pity for her in your heart! If she has sinned, the God in heaven alone knows how deeply she has suffered !'

At this moment the woman came to.

When she saw her husband before her, a faint smile flitted across her face, and she lifted her arms wearily towards him.

Bernard shrank back involuntarily, and the feeble arms dropped heavily, while a sob, hard and dry, broke from her. She was fully conscious now, stung into life by mental pain.

'Forgive me!' she whispered humbly. 'I forgot the gulf, the awful black gulf, that lies between you and me. Yet if you could have kissed me without knowingonly once without knowing!'

She muttered this in a broken voice.

Ursula,' he said, struggling for calmness, 'you are here and alive; I mourned for you, believing you were dead.'

'Did you? O Bernard, did you really grieve?'

Ursula started up, put back the still golden and glorious waves of hair from her temples, and searched eagerly in his features for some sign of the love and grief he spoke of. She saw only a hard-set face, cold as the marble that covers the dead. All the passion of youth seemed to have gone out of it for

ever.

Bernard turned away to Ralph Pierce, glad to be free of the searching imploring eyes.

'I ought to hear how Ursula is in America. I am cruelly in the dark.'

'Let me speak with him; let

me tell him,' Ursula interrupted eagerly, sitting upright with that sudden strength that springs from desperation. Go away, father; let me be alone with him once more. This once, Bernard, Bernard! I will never ask it again. Sit down here. Will you touch my hand? See how thin and wasted it is. Yours is strong and healthy, but how it trembles. It is my presence that has made it shake. Never fear; I am dying. Cannot you see, Bernard, that a very little while will end it all?'

He did not answer, but his clasp closed over the fragile fingers and held them firmly. After all she was his wife, and he had loved her.

'Bernard, they told me you were killed in a railway accident. I believed it, and I married another man.'

He dropped her hand, and stared at her in dumb horror. He could not comprehend the thing she told him.

'You cannot believe it ; no wonder.

Still it is the solemn truth; but for that horrible lie my love for you would have saved me. I was going to you; we tried to get away from him.'

'Ursula, for God's sake, what do you mean?' cried Bernard, snatching her hand again and crushing it in his till she moaned with pain. 'Tell me clearly, and be brief.'

Ursula clung to him.

Let me be, let me be; touching you gives me strength. I want to tell you everything; it is for that I wished to see you before I died.'

He waited for her in silence to go on.

'Give me a glass of brandy,' she asked faintly.

He looked round, saw a flask near, and gave her what she wanted.

'Now listen,' she said, holding his arm, while a hot flush swept over her cheek, and her great black eyes shone like stars. 'I am as

strong as a lion now; and I will tell you everything.'

Ursula tried to tell him all, the whole of her sinful and miserable story from the hour she had parted with him at the railway station at Liverpool.

'You recollect when John Lock came-I can hardly go on; to think of that time kills me. He brought accusations against father. He seized upon me when we were going to you, made me believe that you were dead, and in the madness of my grief and terror made me his wife. Even from the very first I dreaded the man, Bernard. From the time he forced me to marry him I hated him; and when I had lived with him a year, hatred turned to absolute loathing. Just then I found your letter, and learned that in our hideous marriage John Lock had added falsehood to compulsion that you, my true husband, were alive! O Bernard, I cannot tell you what I suffered; how I detested myself, and went wild with a longing to go to you, to throw myself at your feet and beg you to have compassion; for I loved you, Bernard,-do not, for heaven's sake, shrink away from me!-I did, I did!'

Bernard covered his face with both his hands, and shook from head to foot.

'I broke down then. During the whole year I had been struggling for peace as drowning men beat the waters in a storm. It was all one wild whirling stream full of vanity, and yet unutterable desolation, the life I led. I broke down utterly; the disease that is killing me flourished apace, and I was glad of it.'

Bernard uncovered his eyes and looked at her. It was hard to be angry with a woman so faded and prostrate, a woman whose face was already shadowed by the death angel's wing.

Thank you, Bernard, for that

look,' she said, beginning to cry a little. 'Bear with me while I tell you the rest, and pity me just a little. I told that wretch how dearly I loved you, and how bitterly I hated him; how resolute I was never on this earth to be his wife again in anything but name. I was very brave, but he conquered me with threats against you. I believe he would have found you and killed you, if I had left his house. One thing I never told John Lock, and that was of my marriage with you; but I never forgot it, not for one moment. From the hour I knew of your being alive, I repelled him. His roof sheltered me, his wealth surrounded me with the luxury I had learnt to loathe, but he knew well how abhorrent his very presence had become. And at last I won my freedom out of his crimes. When he married me, I believed it was from all-absorbing love; for I was vain, arrogant, and ignorant. But I learnt later that it was as much avarice as love that prompted him. He wanted a safe tool in his wife, by which to grasp more evil wealth. One night I discovered that all the wealth which tempted me was obtained by fraud, and that he had craftily made me an accomplice. I had the proofs in my hand; I held him tight in my grasp. He threatened you, and I had him caged like a wild beast." For life," they said; and he knows that I put the shackles on his hands. When the whole world looks black before me, I think of that night's work, and rejoice!

'Tell me, Bernard, if I had crept to your feet would you have spurned me from them ?'

'It is useless to ask such questions,' he said. 'All the time you were deceiving me, I was working for you, waiting, longing for you. Then I thought you dead, so help me, Heaven! I saw you dead, or

believed so. Would to God it had been the truth!'

'Oh, if it had, if it only had,' she moaned, wringing her shadowy hands, I should have been spared the knowledge that you hate me !'

'Was that death-scene a fraud as well?' he questioned gloomily.

'No; the girl you saw was my sister, and we were exactly alike. Nell Weston was deceived by the likeness too.'

'And why was I not undeceived before ?'

'I did not wish it. I was afraid; and-'

'A cruel evil has sprung from the concealment,' cried Bernard, with a burst of sorrow at Ethel's misery when she should hear of all this. Nothing could separate them, he had said; and now!

'Bernard, I had but one hope, one longing on earth-to see you, to tell you the whole truth, and die. I felt that I must confess all, for the sake of my soul's salvation. I could not rest in my grave without your forgiveness. I shall soon be gone; let me go in peace.'

'I forgive you, Ursula: you have sinned against me, but you have suffered sorely, my poor girl. You are weary now. I will leave you, and come again to-morrow.'

Ursula leant back in her chair with a sickly smile on her lips; her eyes were closed. She was white and still, her features all sunken; only her hair shone up like a crown of gold, making, by the contrast of its radiance, the face more ghastly.

'Leave her to me,' whispered Ralph Pierce, who had stolen into the room. 'You have been kind and pitiful, Mr. Keane; and the great God will bless you for it.'

Bernard wrung the old man's hand; and giving one more look at the woman whom he had loved and married, he went out of that house like a man in a horrible dream.

'Ethel, I said nothing could part

us, fool that I was! Something has risen up to part us for ever! My wife lives, and is here. Forgive me for having loved you, Ethel, and— and-good-bye!'

Then Bernard wrote all to his mother. Life and death were in God's hands. What was he to do with this phantom, who had risen up from the dead? Could he take to his home the woman who had been John Lock's wife? These were the questions he asked himself again and again, as he wandered aimlessly all night through the New York streets.

CHAPTER LIII.

L'HOMME PROPOSE ET DIEU
DISPOSE.

THE girl Ethel knelt beside Mrs. Keane's chair, and great passionate sobs of sorrow filled the little

room.

'What shall I do?' she cried. 'Oh, tell me how to bear all this!'

Mrs. Keane, poor woman, who had tasted so largely of the bitter cup of suffering, knew that efforts of consolation were futile in such moments. She passed her hand caressingly over the girl's fair hair, and murmured softly,

'Have patience, child; just a little patience. Bernard suffers as well as you.'

Ethel lifted up her face, all stained and wet with tears.

'Mrs. Keane, does he love that woman? Will he ever love her again?' she questioned almost fiercely.

'Child, she is dying.'

'Dying! God, forgive me for hating her so! Where is Bernard? -with-with his wife?'

She could barely articulate the words; a hot colour rushed over her cheeks; her blue eyes scintillated with pain and anger mingled together.

He

'Bernard is in New York. has no courage to come here, where he was so happy.'

'Tell him, please, how sorry I am. No, don't say that. Tell him only that I will be sure to bear itwell.'

She rose up, trembling and white -all the pink bloom had gone.

'Must I tell any one?' she asked. 'Not yet. Bernard will do that when it's needful.'

'Oh, I am so glad; it would have been so hard for me! You will not forget to tell him how strong I am, and how bravely I— O Mrs. Keane, I believe my heart is breaking!'

Mrs. Keane took the unhappy girl in her arms and tried to soothe her by caresses; and at last Ethel, all the buoyancy of her tread flown, crept away to her home, fearful lest some inquisitive eye might notice her and guess at her sorrow.

It was the 20th of March, the very day that she was to have married Bernard Keane. She remembered how she had told him that those words from the marriage service were unlucky.

'Nothing can separate us now, my own!' he had answered; and she had believed him.

At noon, on the following day, Bernard went again to the brown stone house in East Seventy-eighth Street. He hesitated a moment on the steps; then with nervous haste rang a trembling peal.

The stout negress, with an orange shawl wound fantastically around her woolly hair, opened the door, and with another demonstration of teeth that reminded Bernard of a dentist's show case, thrust a note into his hand.

Then she banged the door to again unceremoniously, and Bernard and the missive, addressed in cramped writing, were left alone together.

He unfastened the envelope