indulgence; this is given in return for the many hours she has sacrificed for him.

The next morning, about ten, Richard is lolling in his own especial sanctum, reading the sporting news of the past day, when, with a knock at the door, the footman announces " Mr. Summers."

(So this is to be his little game; I shall never be left alone for a minute; he will never allow me to forget that I am his son-in-law.) Aloud :

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Good morning, Mr. Summers; you are not looking at all well. Good gracious! man!' says Richard, for once in his life really concerned as he sees his father-in-law sink, shaking and white as death, into the nearest chair.

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'Richard," he gasps, "I did not mean to disturb you until your mother was better, but I could not wait. Dick, if you will not help me I am ruined; hopelessly, helplessly ruined."

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Really, Mr. Summers," answers Lord Elston, as unconcernedly as though his visitor had asked him how he felt, "really, Mr. Summers, I fail to see in what particular way I can help you.'

Oh, Dick! don't, don't say that. You know you promised to pay me back the sum of moncy I lent you. I am sure I gave you willingly all that I could, but do, please, give me back that which you borrowed from me."

"I cannot, sir; I might as well shut up the Castle, and both of us be openly disgraced."

"Oh! Dick! Dick! and this is what I sold Mable for a title and nothing to keep it up with."

"There is no need to prolong this interview," said Lord Elston quietly, at the same time rising and leaving the wretched man to stumble, nearly blinded with misery, down the steps from the window into the garden. On he wanders, until at the entrance of his own grounds someone takes his arm and gently leads him home. After he has sat quietly for some time, and taken the wine which loving fingers have brought, his wife comes to him-the wife whom he had wedded for the gold he thought she would bring him but which, contrary both to his and her expectations, had lapsed to a distant cousin, there being no nearer male representative-the wife whose vul

garity he had tolerated; who was, in reality, to him no more than one of his hired servants now that she had not the wherewithal to pay his speculative debts. It was she who came and knelt beside him, gently saying, "I know all, John, that you have to tell me; know that we are ruined; and know, also, what is far, far worse that you married me for the gold you thought was mine. But I, John," she continues, "married you for love, and that love shall win that it is a blessing yours yet, and prove to you far, far more priceless than gold, for I will work for you, oh! so willingly; and I prophesy that our small home will be happier than this."

Were his ears deceiving him? could it be that the woman he had treated as a nonentity since their marriage should come to him now with this message of peace and hope when all else

had forsaken him.

He forgets all his troubles for the moment, and feels nothing but a grateful love suffusing his very being. He draws the bright red head close to him, and kisses the vulgar face with a lover's passion. "God bless you, my darling!" he whispers, "and you have won me; I do love

you, indeed I do." She was rewarded. The man to whom she had given her true and womanly love returned it at last. This great

loss had brought her greater gain. She was recompensed for the miserable minutes and hours she had spent, longing for the love she knew was not hers; but she had not waited in vain; it had come, come at last, and her cup of happiness was full to the brim. And so it came about that Fernside was sold, and bought by Mr. Champneys, and with the money it fetched Mr. Summers was enabled to pay his debts, and had barely one hundred pounds a year left. So when Mable returned home she found that her father and his vulgar wife had gone to live in Manchester, and she was left to begin her new life unencumbered by relations.

CHAPTER XIII.

Two days after my husband's sudden departure I receive a telegram, telling me that Lady Elston is worse, and so we start for my future home.

We had talked over several plans for Walter Bray, and had at last decided that Freddy, after writing to his employer, and settling everything, would take him home for the present, and there he would remain with his mother at Fernley Park until it had been definitely decided what he should become.

Our journey was too hurried to be pleasant, and we felt tired and worn out as we arrived at the Elston Station. I always said that the inhabitants of this small village had but one idea, and that was to call every available thing after the Castle and its owner. Well it did not matter much, for a wayside station by any other name would be as dreary.