They had entered the house. Miss Pembroke paused a moment at the foot of the stairs, then led the way up to her chamber. Evidently she knew that there were tidings for her, and suspected that they were not good. “I shall not dine at home to-day,” she said, catching sight of the servant.

But she did not, apparently, mean to go out, for she deliberately removed her wrappings, and put them away; then seated herself beside her friend, and looked at her with an expression that bade her speak out her errand, whatever it might be.

“It has gone as badly as it could,” Annette said quickly.

“He is, then, found guilty?” Miss Pembroke asked, without the slightest sign of emotion.

Annette nodded. “He is convicted on circumstantial evidence. It is as plain as such evidence can be, but not plain enough to shake my hope, at least, of his innocence. Lawrence is utterly disgusted and indignant with the whole affair. He says he would at any time head a party to rescue Mr. Schöninger. He felt so angry that he wouldn't stay at home after coming up to tell us, but started off again somewhere.”

“Is he sentenced?” Miss Pembroke asked, speaking with some difficulty.

“Yes!” And since the eyes fixed on her still waited for more, Mrs. Gerald added: “There is a year solitary.”

Honora's eyes opened a little wider. “A year solitary?” she repeated.

“Why, yes, dear. You know it is the custom to give a year of solitary imprisonment before....”

Miss Pembroke put her hand up, and seemed to clear some mist from before her eyes. “Before what?” she asked in a confused way.

“Dear Honora!” exclaimed her friend, “need I say what?” And then started up with a little cry; for Miss Pembroke, without a word or sign of warning, had slipped out of her chair, and fallen heavily to the floor.

It is not necessary to make an outcry because a lady has fainted, unless there is no person of sense present. Annette Gerald did what was needful without calling for help, and her efforts were soon rewarded. The cold hand she held suddenly became warm and moist as the recoiling wave of life rushed back, and in a few minutes Miss Pembroke was able to rise from the floor, and go to the sofa. Annette sat by her in silence, now and then touching her hand or her hair with caressing fingers, and waited for her to speak.

After a while, she sat up, and began calmly to put her hair and dress in order.

“It is very terrible, Annette, and we may as well try to put it quite out of our minds,” she said. “We can do nothing, that I see, but pray for his conversion. I thank you for coming alone to tell me of this, for I would not have had any other person see me so much affected by the news. People imagine things and tell them as facts, and there are many who are capable of believing that I had loved Mr. Schöninger. I never did.”

There were times when Honora Pembroke's soft eyes could give a look that was almost dazzling in its firm and open clearness; and as she pronounced these last words, she looked into her companion's face with such a glance.

Mrs. Gerald rose and walked somewhat impatiently to the window. She had hoped and expected to startle Honora into some generous expression of interest in Mr. Schöninger, and to win from her some word of pity and kindness which, repeated to him, would be like a drop of cooling water in his fiery trial.

“I am sure I should never imagine you capable of having an affection for any one whom the whole world does not approve,” she said rather pointedly, having snatched the curtain up and looked out, then dropped it again. “If you can put the subject out of your mind, and remember Mr. Schöninger only when you are praying for the heathen, so much the better for your tranquillity. I am not so happily constituted. I cannot dismiss the thought of friends because it troubles me, nor because some person, or many persons, may believe something against them.”

“What would you have me do?” Miss Pembroke asked rather loftily, yet with signs of trouble in her face.

“Nothing, my dear, except that you put on your bonnet and come home to dinner with me,” Annette replied, assuming a careless tone.

The door closed, and she looked from the window and saw her visitor walk briskly away without glancing back.

“I wish I had some one,” she murmured, dropping the curtain from her hand, and looking about the room as if to find some suggestion of help. “I am certainly very much alone in the world. Mother Chevreuse is gone; I cannot go to F. Chevreuse about this; and the others jar a little with me.”

And then, like a ray of soft and tender light coming unexpectedly to show the path through a dark place, came the thought of Sister Cecilia and her gentle companions. They had asked her to come to them, if they could ever be of any use to her, and Sister Cecilia particularly had spoken to her with an affectionate earnestness which was now joyfully remembered. “I cannot hope to be to you what Mother Chevreuse was, but I would be glad if I could in a little, even, supply her loss to you. Come to me, if you ever wish to, quite freely. You will never find me wanting in sympathy or affection.”

And she had scarcely been to them at all!

She dressed herself hastily, and called a carriage. It was too late to walk there, for already the sun was down; and it was nearly two miles to the convent.

The sharp air and brisk motion were restorative. They brought a color to her face, and sent new life through her weakened frame. Besides, when one feels helpless and distressed, rapid motion gives a relieving impression that one is doing and accomplishing something, while, at the same time, it saves the necessity of effort.

Sister Cecilia was in her own room, writing letters, her little desk drawn close to the window for the light. She looked out when she heard the carriage, and beckoned Miss Pembroke to come up-stairs then hurried to meet her half way. She had guessed her visitor's motive in coming, and it needed but a glance into her face to confirm the thought.

“Come into my chamber, dear,” she said. “It is the pleasantest room in the house at this hour. See what a view I have of the city and the western sky. I sit here to write my letters, and every moment have to leave off to admire the beautiful world outside. It is a sort of dissipation with me, this hour of sunset. This arm-chair is for you. It is my visitor's chair. I should feel quite like a sybarite if I were to sit in it.”

She seated Honora by the window, drew up her own chair opposite her, and went on talking cheerfully.

A long, narrow cloud had stretched itself across the west, and, drawing to its bosom the light of the sun, now hidden behind the hills, reflected it in a crimson flood over the earth. Through this warm effulgence fell, delicately penetrating, the golden beams of the full moon, changing the crimson of the air to a deep-opal color, and putting faint splashes of gilding here and there beside the rosy reflections.

“How the earth draws it in!” said the nun dreamily. “It never wastes the beauties of the sky. It hoards them up, and gives them out long after in marbles and precious stones. Did it ever occur to you to wonder how those bright things could grow in the dark underground? I used to think of it in Italy, where I first saw what marbles can be. I remember my eyes and my mind wandering to that as I knelt before the Confession of S. Matthew the Evangelist, in Santa Maria Maggiore, where the walls of the atrium glow with marbles; and the lesson I learned from it was this: that even though pains and sorrows of every kind should intervene between us and the joy of life as thickly as the clay, and rock, and turf had intervened between the sunshine of heaven and the dark place where those marbles took form and color, we could yet, if we had real faith, be conscious of all the glory and joy taking place overhead, and reproduce them for ourselves down in the dark, and make that beauty more enduring because we were in the dark. At the sunny surface, the brightness slips off and shadows succeed; but that solid jewel in the depths is indestructible. My dear”—she turned to her companion with a soft suddenness which warmed but did not startle—“do you remember S. Paul's recommendation, ‘always rejoice’? It is possible. And now tell me why you do not.”

Her eyes, beaming with religious enthusiasm and tenderest human affection, searched frankly the pale face before her, and her hand was laid lightly on Miss Pembroke's arm. No reserve nor timidity could stand before her. They melted like snowflakes beneath the heavenly summer of her glances. Honora told freely and simply what had distressed her.

How sweet is the friendship of one true woman for another!—sweeter than love, for it is untroubled, and has something of the calmness of heaven; deeper than love, for it is the sympathy of true natures which reflect each the entire being of the other; less selfish than love, for it asks no merging of another into itself; nobler than love, for it allows its object to have other sources of happiness than those it can furnish; more enduring than love, for it is a life, and not a flame.

“People ought not to say such things!” exclaimed Miss Pembroke, blushing deeply.

“People ought not to have the chance to say such things, my dear girl,” replied the nun. “It was offering you an insult when he offered you his hand.”

“O dear Sister! is not that too severe?” expostulated Honora. “Setting aside what has happened since, should I not recollect, when a man makes me such an offer, what his intention is, and how the subject looks to him? And cannot I refuse him, and see that it is impossible for me to do otherwise, yet feel kindly toward him, and wish him well, and believe that he has meant to show me both affection and respect?”

“Honora,” said the Sister, “if any man had struck your mother, then turned to offer you his hand, would you not have recoiled from him in disgust and indignation?”

“Surely I would!”

“And is your God and Saviour less dear and sacred to you than your mother?” the other pursued. “Can you allow your thoughts to dwell with kindness and complacency on one who blasphemes the crucified Redeemer, and calls him an impostor? Because you have not heard this man talk against your faith, you forget what he must think of it. I tell you they mock at him, these Jews, and they call us idolaters. And what could he think of you, when, knowing that you adore Christ as God, he asked you to be the wife of one who would laugh, if he did not rave, when he saw you making the sign of the cross? He must have thought your faith so weak that he could in time make you renounce it. And the reason why he thought so was because he saw you receiving him in a friendly way, as if friendship were possible between you. I speak of what he was. What he is, we have nothing to do with.”

Miss Pembroke's eyes were down-cast. “When you place the subject in that light, I am forced to think myself all in the wrong,” she said. “But most people do not think in that clear, positive way. They act on an inherited motive, and their beliefs are moss grown, as it were.”

“They have no faith,” was the quick reply.

Honora was silent a moment, then said, with some hesitation: “I am always afraid of being uncharitable and illiberal, and perhaps I err the other way.”

“I wish I could shut myself up with God, and get into the right path again. I am all wrong.”

“Why not come here and make a retreat?” the Sister asked.

It was so precisely and unexpectedly what she needed that Honora clasped her hands, with an exclamation of delight. “The very thing! Yet I had not thought of it. When may I come? Very soon? It was surely an inspiration, my coming here to-night.”

Immediately her troubles began to lift themselves away, as fogs begin to rise from the earth even before the sun is above the horizon. The certainty of approaching peace conferred a peace in the present. She was going to place herself in the hands of Him who can perform the impossible.

Sister Cecilia had supplied her need perfectly. Hers was not one of those impassioned natures which need to be, soothed and caressed into quiet. A certain vein of gentle self-sufficiency, and a habit of contentment with life as she found it, prevented this. She wanted light more than warmth.

It was already dark when they went down-stairs, and since, from economy, the nuns did not have their entries lighted, the two had to go hand-in-hand, groping their way carefully, till they came to a turn in the lower passage; and there, from the open door of the chapel at the further end, a soft ray of light shone out from the single lamp that burned before the altar. By daylight both chapel and altar showed poor enough; but in the evening, and seen alone by this small golden flame, the imperfections were either transformed or hidden. Dimly seen, the long folds of drapery all about gave a sense of seclusion and tenderness; one seemed to be hiding under the mantle of the Lord; and the beautiful mystery of the burning lamp made wonders seem possible. Kneeling there alone, one could fancy all the beautiful legends being acted over again.

Sister Cecilia and Honora, still hand-in-hand, knelt in the entry the moment they saw that light.

“You remember the chalice of the bees?” whispered the nun.

“I never come here in the evening, and see that bright little place in the darkness, but I think of that sweetest of stories. And I would not be surprised to hear a buzzing of bees all about the sanctuary, and see the busy little creatures building up a chalice of fine wax, as clear as an alabaster vase with a light inside.”

They walked slowly and noiselessly by the door, and, as they passed it, saw beside the altar what looked almost like another lamp, or like that illuminated vase the Sister had fancied. It was the face of Anita, which reflected the light, her dark dress rendering her form almost invisible. That face and the two folded hands shone softly, with a fixed lustre, out of the shadows. No breath nor motion seemed to stir them. The eyes fixed on the tabernacle, the lips slightly parted where the last vocal prayer had escaped, she knelt there in a trance of adoration. But one could see, even through that brightening halo and sustaining peace, that a great change had taken place in the girl during the last few weeks. Her face was worn quite thin; and the large eyes, that had been like dewy violets bending ever toward the earth, burned now with a lustre that never comes from aught but pain.

“How the innocent have to suffer for the sins of the guilty!” sighed the nun, as she led her visitor away. “That child has received a blow from which I am afraid she will never recover. She is like a broken flower that lives a little while when it is put in water. Her conscience is at rest; she does not say now that she is sorry for having had anything to do with that trial; she does not complain in any way. She seems simply broken. And here she comes now! She has heard our steps, and is afraid she has stayed too long in the chapel.”

The young girl came swiftly along the passage, and held out her hands to Miss Pembroke. “I knew you were here,” she said, “and I was waiting to hear you come down. Mother told me I might come and say good-by to you.”

“But you have not yet said a word of welcome,” Miss Pembroke replied, trying to speak cheerfully.

“Oh! yes, when I saw you come, I welcomed you in my own mind,” she replied, without smiling.

Honora waited an instant, but Anita seemed to have nothing to say except the good-by she had come for. “Our whispering did not disturb your prayers?” she asked, wishing to detain her a little longer.

“Oh! no.” She glanced up at Sister Cecilia, as a child, when doubtful and lost, looks into its mother's face, then dropped her eyes dreamily. “I do not say any prayer but ‘amen.’ Nothing else comes. I kneel down, thinking to repeat, perhaps, the rosary, and I am only silent a while, and then I say amen. It is as well, I suppose.”

Honora kissed the child's thin cheek tenderly. “Good-by, dear,” she whispered softly. “Say one amen for me to-night.”

She went out into the still and sparkling night, and was driven rapidly homeward. On her way, she passed the prison, and, looking up, saw over the high wall a light shining redly through the long row of grated windows. It was a painful sight, but no longer unendurable. “No prayer but amen,” she repeated. “What does it matter by what road we go, so long as we reach heaven at last; whether it be in peaceful ways, or through sin and suffering?”

Another carriage drew up at the gate as she reached home, and Mrs. Gerald descended from it, having just returned from Mrs. Ferrier's.

“Upon my word, young woman!” Annette's voice called out from a pile of furs in the carriage. “We have been saying our good-nights in whispers, and hushing the very sleigh-bells, so as not to disturb your slumbers; and here you are out driving.”

Her bright and cheerful voice broke strangely into Honora's mood. Was there, then, anything in the world to laugh about, anything that could possibly excite a jest?

“Good-night, Mother Gerald!” the young woman added. “Don't stand there taking cold. And if you do not see Honora in the house to-night, make up your mind that I have carried her off with me, as I shall try to. Come here, my dear, and give an account of yourself. Where have you been?”

As Honora reached the carriage door, young Mrs. Gerald leaned out and caught both her hands. “Come with me to find Lawrence,” she whispered hurriedly. “He has not been home yet, but he will go for you.”

Though recoiling from the errand, Miss Pembroke would not refuse it. She stepped into the carriage, and suffered herself to be driven away. It was the first time such a service had ever been demanded of her. “Where is he? Do you know?” she asked.

“Oh! yes. He is only playing billiards,” the young wife answered, and a sharp sigh seemed to cut the sentences apart. “It is the first time for a long while, and I want to break it up in the beginning. John went down and told him that his mother was dining with us, but Lawrence paid no attention.”

She leaned back a little while without saying a word as they sped over the smooth snow. “It seems a shame to drag you into such an affair, Honora,” she said presently; “and I had not thought of it till I saw you, and then it came like a flash that you could help me. What I want of you is to write on a card that you and I are waiting for him. John will carry it in to him, and he will recognize your writing.”

The horses were drawn up before a large marble hotel, lighted from basement to attic. The shops underneath were all closed; but from three broad lower windows a bright light shone around the heavy lowered curtains, and in the stillness they could hear the faint click of billiard-balls. There was no sound of voices from inside, and it was impossible to know if the players were few or many.

Honora wrote hastily, by the moonlight, as she was bid, “Annette and I are waiting for you,” and John took the card.

“Why doesn't he go to this door?” she asked, seeing the man disappear around a corner of the house.

“You child!” said her friend compassionately; “are you so innocent as to suppose that any one can walk into one of those places when he pleases? These charming réunions are held with locked doors, and one has to have the password to go in.”

Honora was silent with indignation. To her mind, Lawrence could not do his wife a greater injury than in allowing her to become acquainted with such places, and she was half disposed to be vexed with Annette for not leaving him to himself, and refusing to be drawn into any objectionable scenes and associations.

Annette divined the last thought, and replied to it.

“It is impossible for a wife to be scrupulous as to the means by which she shall withdraw her husband from danger,” she said with quiet coldness. “They are one. If he is soiled, she cannot be quite clean, except in intention, unless she is very selfish; and then her intention is not good, which is worse yet. Of course she should be careful not to draw others into her affairs.”

“You must know far better than I, Annette,” her friend said quickly, feeling as though she must have spoken her thought. “At all events, you cannot be called selfish. And, indeed, if the angels of heaven were over-scrupulous with regard to their associations, we should lack their guardianship.”

Here John appeared, walking briskly round the corner of the hotel, and immediately after Lawrence Gerald came to the carriage-door.

“You here, Honora!” he exclaimed. “What could have induced you?”

“We had better not ask each other questions,” she replied coldly. “It is late. Will you come home with us?”

She drew back into a corner, and made room for him, with an air almost of disgust; for the moonlight showed his face flushed with drinking, and, as he spoke, a strong odor of brandy had been wafted into her face.

He was too much confused for anything but simple obedience, and in rather a stumbling way took the seat assigned him.

“Honora has been driving this evening, and is sleepy and chilly,” his wife made haste to say in explanation, inwardly resenting her friend's hauteur, and regretting having brought her. “She is going home to stay all night with us. I am sure you did not know how late it is.”

She furtively picked up his hat, that had fallen off, went on talking lightly, to cover his silence or prevent his saying anything senseless, and tried in every way to screen him from the scorn that she had exposed him to. He leaned back in the carriage, and took no notice of her. The presence of Honora Pembroke had confounded him, and he had just sense enough left to know that he could not keep too quiet. What had stirred her to interfere in his affairs he could not guess, for Annette had always so screened him that it never occurred to him she could have asked her friend to come. Had he known, it would have fared hard with his wife. He had, however, prudence and temper enough to keep him from making any disagreeable demonstration. John was at hand when they reached home, and, as the ladies went hastily up the steps and into the house, they were not supposed to be aware that it was his arm which enabled Mr. Gerald to go in without falling. Then Mrs. Ferrier stood in the open drawing-room door, and, under cover of her welcome to Honora, he managed to get up stairs unnoticed, fortunately for all.

“You ought to recollect her good intention, Lawrence, and try to overlook her manner,” she said. “I know well she does not show very good taste always; but you cannot criticise a woman in her own house.”

“I am seldom allowed to forget that it is her house,” returned the son rather sulkily.

“At least, my dear, do not provoke her into reminding you of that,” Mrs. Gerald urged.

Lawrence wished to stand well with his mother, and had, indeed, improved in his behavior toward her in proportion as he had grown more impatient with Mrs. Ferrier. He seemed now to regret having answered her unpleasantly. “If you knew, mother, all the little annoyances I have to bear from her, you wouldn't blame me so much,” he said coaxingly. “With other frets, she has a habit of asking any of us who may be going out where we are going, and when we are coming back; and Annette has humored her in that till she thinks she has a right to know. Teddy always tells her, too; but then he tells lies. That makes no difference, though, to her. Well, I have broken her of asking me when I am alone; but if Annette is with me, she asks her. Can't you imagine, mother, that it would get to be irritating after a while? It makes me so nervous sometimes that I have really skulked out of the house slyly, as if I had no right to go. And then, when I come in, she will say, ‘Why, where have you been, Lawrence? I didn't hear you go out.’ If a door opens anywhere, she goes to see who is about. I believe if I should get up in the middle of the night, and try to creep out of the house without being heard, I should see her head poked out of the chamber-door before I'd got half-way down-stairs. Then she peers and finds out everything. Annette and I had a bottle of champagne the other night in our room, and the next morning she spied out the bottle, and spoke of it. I suppose she heard the cork pop when I drew it. You never looked after me half so closely when I was a little boy, always in mischief, as she does now I am a man. She knows what my clothes cost, every rag of them, and how many clean collars and handkerchiefs I have in the week.”

“I am sure she need not trouble herself about how much your clothes cost, since you pay for them yourself,” Mrs. Gerald said, her face very red. “And if she grudges you clean collars, send your linen home, and I will have it washed there.”

“Oh! she has no such thought,” Lawrence made haste to say. “She doesn't mean to be cross about any of these things, but only prying. She wants to overlook everybody and everything in the house, and it annoys me. I only tell you so that you may not wonder if I do speak out now and then about some small thing. Then what do you think she has proposed about my going into business?”

“Well?” Mrs. Gerald said uneasily.

“She has selected a partner for me.”

His mother waited for an explanation.

“And who should it be but John!”

“Why, I do not know that he has any other name. The big English fellow who lets you in here, and waits at dinner, and opens and shuts the carriage-door.”

“What! you do not mean the footman?” Mrs. Gerald cried.

Her son laughed bitterly. “I asked her if he was to open the shop-door, and carry parcels, and if he would have the same sort of cockade on his hat, and she got quite angry about it. She says he has saved a good deal of money, and means to go into business, and she thinks I couldn't have a better partner. What do you think of it, mother?”

Mrs. Gerald leaned back in her chair, and put her hand up to her face, half hiding a blush of vexation.

She was not willing to tell Lawrence all she thought of the matter. “What does Annette say?” she asked.

“Annette vetoed the proposal up and down. I've heard nothing of it for a week or more. I only told you because you seem to think me too difficult.”

Mrs. Gerald sighed. She had hoped to see her son busy and contented after his marriage, and she found him only more idle and dissatisfied than before. With the partiality of a mother, she tried still to find him unfortunate instead of blameworthy, and, rather than see any fault in him, looked only at his difficulties, refusing to recollect how easily he could now overcome them all. She fancied erroneously that to suggest to him that his trials had a good deal of brightness to relieve them, would be to show a lack of sympathy and tenderness, and that the best way to comfort him was to let him see that his annoyances showed in her eyes as misfortunes. It was a mistake which, in her over-sensitive affection, she had always made with him.

His wife acted otherwise. “There is no use in anticipating evil, Lawrence,” she said. “Perhaps that may be the means of bringing it about. Fortune loves a smiling countenance. As to mamma's plans and wishes with regard to John, the best way for us is to assume that it is impossible she should ever regard him as anything but a servant. And, indeed,” she concluded with dignity, “I think she never can do otherwise.”

But this assumption did not prevent young Mr. Gerald from going privately to F. Chevreuse, and begging him to interfere and try to bring her mother to reason; and perhaps Mrs. Ferrier was never so near being in open revolt against her pastor as when he undertook to show her that there were certain social distinctions which it was her duty to recognize and respect.

“I think, F. Chevreuse,” she said stiffly, “that a priest might do better than encourage pride and haughtiness.”

Mrs. Ferrier found herself unprepared to answer. Indeed, no lady could be more peremptory and exacting than she was with all her servants except John. She was not yet ready to explain that her generalities all had reference to one exceptional case.

“But John is not at all a common servant,” she ventured to say. “He never lived out but once before, and then it was with a very grand family in England; and he wouldn't have come here with us, only that he wanted to look round a while before setting up business. I had to coax him to come, and give him the very highest wages. And Annette did all she could to persuade him.”

“John is an excellent man, I am sure,” F. Chevreuse replied. “I hope he will succeed in whatever good work he attempts. But we were speaking of your daughter's husband. My advice is that he return to the office where he was before, and remain there till something better presents itself. I do not approve of any large and showy enterprise for him. It would not suit him. In that office his salary would be enough to render him quite independent, and leave him a little to lay up.”

“Lay up!” repeated Mrs. Ferrier, with an incredulous circumflex.

“He will put one-half his income into his wife's hands, and she can do as she will with it,” F. Chevreuse replied. “Annette has spoken to me about it, and it is his own proposal. She will put the money in bank every month. What he keeps will be his own affair, and what she takes will be a small fund for the future, and will relieve a little that painful feeling he must have in living here without paying anything. It is decidedly the best that can be done at present. Besides,” he added, seeing objection gathering in her face, “it may save you something. The young man is not to blame that he is not rich, and he is quite ready to take his wife home to his own mother, and Annette is quite willing to go, if necessary. They might live there very happily and pleasantly; but as, in that case, Lawrence would be the one on whom all the expense would fall, I presume you would make your daughter an allowance which would place her on an equality with him.”

Mrs. Ferrier was forced to consent. Nothing was further from her wish than to be separated from her daughter, not only because she was more than usually solicitous for Annette's happiness, and wished to assure herself constantly that her husband did not neglect her, but because she had an almost insane desire to watch Lawrence in every way. Nothing so piques the curiosity of a meddlesome person as to see any manifestation of a desire to baffle their searching. The annoyance naturally felt and often shown by one who finds himself suspiciously observed is always taken by such persons as a proof that there is something wrong which he is desirous to conceal. Moreover, John had let fall a word of advice which she was not disposed to disregard.

She had been complaining of her son-in-law.

John had a quiet, laconic way which sometimes impressed others besides his mistress, and she did not venture to oppose him openly, nor even to insist on hearing what his mysterious plan might be.

It was, altogether, a miserable state of affairs, one of those situations almost more unbearable than circumstances of affliction, for the cares were mean, the annoyances and mortifications petty; and the mind, which is ennobled by great trials, was cramped and lowered by the constant presence of small troubles which it would fain disregard, but could not. For, after all, these small troubles were the signs of a great one threatening. It was plain that Lawrence Gerald, if not stopped, was going to kill himself with drinking. His frame was too delicately organized to bear the alternate fierce heats and wretched depressions to which he was subjecting it, and more than one sharp attack of illness had given warning that he was exhausting his vitality.

F. Chevreuse came upon him suddenly one day when he was suffering from one of these attacks. The priest had called at Mrs. Ferrier's, and, learning that Lawrence was in his room, too unwell to go out, went up-stairs to him somewhat against Annette's wish.

“I will take the responsibility,” he said laughingly. “The boy wants me to wake him up; you women are too gentle. You are petting him to death. No, my lady, I do not want your company. I can find my own way.”

And accordingly Lawrence opened his eyes a few minutes later to see F. Chevreuse standing by the sofa where he lay in all the misery of a complete physical and mental prostration.

The priest drew a chair close to him, taking no notice of the evident disinclination of the young man to his society. “Now, my boy,” he said, laying a hand on the invalid's shrinking arm, “are you dosing yourself up to go through the same bad business again? What has come over you? Come! come! Wake up, and be a man. You are too good to throw away in this fashion.”

The young man turned his face away with a faint moan of utter discouragement. “I am not worth bothering about. I've played my stake in life, and lost, and what is left is good for nothing. Besides, if I tried, I shouldn't succeed. Why do you trouble yourself about me? I tell you that what there is left of me isn't worth saving.”

He spoke with bitter impatience, and made a gesture as if he would have sent his visitor away.

F. Chevreuse was not so easily to be dismissed.

The young man put his arm up, and covered his face with it, as though to hide an emotion he was ashamed of; or, perhaps, because the light hurt his eyes. “If I could forget everything, and sleep for a month without waking, I don't know but I could begin again and try to do better,” he said faintly. “But there is no life in me now for anything.”

F. Chevreuse rose immediately. “Rest, then, if that is what you need,” he said kindly. “Rest, and forget everything painful. If any tormenting thought comes, say a little prayer, and tell it to begone. Don't drink any liquor to quiet your mind. Let Annette get you some gentle sedative. I'll tell her to keep everybody away from you, and let you lie here six months, if you want to. But when you are better, come to see me.”

He was standing, ready to go, but waited for an answer. There was none. He spoke more earnestly.

“You know well it is for the best, Lawrence; and I want you to promise to come to me when you are able to go out, before you go to see any one else.”

“Well, I will. I promise you.”

But the promise was given, apparently, only to get rid of the subject, and F. Chevreuse went away feeling that he had accomplished nothing.

Annette went directly to her husband, somewhat timid as to the reception she might meet with; but if he was displeased at having had a visitor, he did not seem to hold her responsible. He took the glass containing the opiate from her hand, and set it down beside him. “After a while,” he said. “And now I am going to lock every one out of the room, and try to go to sleep. If I want anything, I will ring.”

She began to make some little arrangements for his comfort, but, perceiving that they irritated him, desisted, and left him to himself. As she went along the passage, she heard the lock click behind her. Oddly enough, this little rudeness gave her a feeling of pleasure, for it showed that he felt at home there, and claimed a right to all that was hers.

“If only he will sleep!” she thought.

It was pitiable to see a young face so distorted by pain of mind and body, and to see also that the pain was stinging him into still more angry revolt.

He began pacing up and down the room, and, in his doubt and distress, seized upon one of those strange modes of solving the question in his mind which, trivial as they are, most persons have at some time in their lives had recourse to.

“If there is an odd number of squares in the carpet from corner to corner of the room, I will do it,” he said, and began to count them. The number was odd. But, apparently, he wished to make assurance doubly sure, for he next counted the stucco ornaments on the ceiling. “Odd again! Now for the third trial.” He glanced about in search of the object which was to decide his fate, and spied a large patriarchal fly that had crawled out of its winter hiding-place, and was clumsily trying its wings.

“If he can fly over that cord, I will go,” he said; and since this was the last trial, and the poor insect seemed to him something like himself at that moment, he watched with breathless interest its efforts to surmount the great obstacle of the curtain-cord that lay in its path. The little creature attempted to crawl over, but, losing its balance, tumbled off and lay helplessly on its back. The young man set it carefully and tenderly on its feet once more. “Now do your best,” he said. “You and I have made a failure, but we will try once again.”

Inspired, it would seem, by this encouragement, the fly put out its wings, gathered all its energies, and flew over the cord, tumbling ignominiously on its back again at the other side.

Lawrence Gerald did not give himself the trouble to assist again his fallen friend, but went promptly to pull the bell-tassel. He had thrown off all responsibility, and, choosing to see in these trivial chances the will and guidance of some intelligence wiser than his own, resolved instantly on following where they pointed.

“I dare say I shall stumble like that clumsy fly, but I shall succeed in the end. At all events, I will try. I can't and won't stay here any longer. It is torment for me, and I don't do any one else any good.” He seemed to be arguing with some invisible companion. “They will be better without me. Besides, it was not I who decided. I left it to chance. If it was....”

His wife entering interrupted the soliloquy. She found him lying down, as she had left him, but with a color in his face that would have looked like returning health, if it had not been a little too deep.

She consented promptly and quietly, asking no questions. If he should choose to tell her anything, it was well; if not, it was the same. She knew the meaning of this coaxing tenderness too well to presume upon it. It meant simply that she could be useful to him.