if only because it would seem to belie that breaking with Christopher upon which she was determined.

So with tutored content and hopefulness she awaited the coming of her husband, though as Lieutenant D. Norlaw, a coroner's jury had pronounced him murdered by some person or persons unknown and he was buried at Tamerhill,

On consecutive mornings two letters arrived and nullified all the things she had been schooling herself to accept and endure.

The earlier was from Charity and gave the news of Reginald's death-though its words spoke only of a fresh charge added to Luke's indictment, consequent upon the dead lieutenant's identification by two brother officers, through a mole on the forehead and his signet ring. Then the girl told of the coroner's verdict and the burial.

The second letter was from her father at Welton Priory. It covered an unsigned epistle addressed to herself and found on the person of a shabby old man of small stature, apparently a clergyman, as the Earl had been informed, who lay dying at the Blakistonbury Arms, having been found on the high road near the mill. There were no markings on his underclothing, the coarseness and repairs of which told at once of poverty and a careful wife. Lord Blakistonbury, on receipt of the news, with which, because of the letter, the landlord had come straight to him, had sent for further particulars, as he was himself too unwell to stir out of doors. It had occurred to him that the unfortunate gentleman might be their little Cornish friend, Mr. Trevenna. Yet it seemed most improbable that that gentleman should be in Derbyshire; and the landlord assured him that his guest was fully sixty or seventy years. The handwriting, too, was an old man's. The letter to Lady Evangeline would, the Earl hoped, explain the incident; and he concluded with an assurance that the poor gentleman was guaran

teed every attention from the apothecary, and would be well entreated at the inn-which, since the village had grown into a prosperous town, was become an important hostelry.

Her husband, then, was dead, and Mr. Trevenna was dying beyond reach of any who loved him! The rival claims upon her were instantly decided. She must have her family's advice upon the course to be adopted as regards Major Walrond. Her father was ailing and his judgment was not what it had been. So she wrote at once and at length to her uncle, the Archdeacon, advising him of the whole story; of the boys' discovery of their father, corroborated by Mr. Trevenna's letter received later; of the sufferings and death of the lieutenant Norlaw, whose name her uncle might remember in connection with the committal of a smuggler at Bodmin; and how only now was it come to light that the lieutenant and her husband were the same man. The dear lads never suspected the identity, she wrote, and she hoped somehow it could be concealed from them. She feared from her husband's confessions to Mr. Trevenna that Reginald had been greatly to blame in this wretched affair: yet at the same time he had told their friend the whole story of his disappearance and of certain incidents necessitating it which would proclaim him to the Archdeacon as they had done to herself, the very noblest among men. Her heart was greatly affected towards him, and it would be a life-long grief to her that she had so ill understood how great was the virtue his faults concealed. Would her uncle advise her as to what legal steps must be taken to put everything in order? She was satisfied that it might be impossible to conceal the truth. For her own part, if at Court Reginald's conduct over the Kellinack case should become subject to the King's animadversions, she was not greatly concerned; for she would then publish everywhere the story of his self-denial-following his Redeemer from afar, yet in

the face of his fashionable friends, as Mr. Trevenna had described his conduct.

("Tut! tut!" here the reader exclaimed.)

Then she was wholly persuaded the King, with his known disapprobation of duelling, would honour and forgive him.

Having written this, she gave immediate orders for departure to Welton. Her straightened lips and white face through all this imperative activity, held in check the conflicting feelings of her heart; and only when her maid was dismissed, did her passion overwhelm her. Then the fear for her dear friend's plight— in the events leading to which she found herself not in any way concerned-was swamped by torrential reproaches for her husband's death. The pathos of his dying friendless, hopeless, and only a few minutes. perhaps after meeting his adored boys! the inevitable shame incident to their seeing him beggar and outcast!— and then, immediately following, his eagerly expressed desire for her presence, when, if but she could have reached him, he would surely have told his whole story to her, and she would have held the poor prodigal to her heart! Why, oh why, had God blinded her when Reginald turned his dying eyes upon her? Was it her own conceit and delicacy that hid the possibility of that abject, wounded man, being her boys' father? God forgive her! And nothing, nothing she might do in all her life could undo this act of hers! She should have known that the love he offered, the love she could not take because of its coarse and soiled and ugly trappings, was of greater worth than her proud heart deserved or could understand! . . . She even cried out the one impossible prayer: "Give him back to me! Give him back, that I may amend the wrong I have done! Or undo my sin, my contempt. . . my, yes, hatings... and my holding of my skirts from his contamination!"

She beat her head against the post of her bed, and

beat it again and again, as if herself could answer her prayers, even if God would not.

The flood of her misery was at last checked by that other duty, whose prerogative was unquestioned. In those tragic hours of night she read again Mr. Trevenna's unsigned letter-and many times, before she could decipher its strange penmanship. Ultimately she construed it thus:

"Dear My Lady Evangeline: that of which I must write belongs to no language of man-unless Holy Writ has fathomed the depths of all needs: Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? In thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found by secret search, but upon all these.'

"I have followed the red trail of London's new wealth to its sources. We picked up the scent of it at the door of your own mansion, Beloved Lady, and we know whence and how it runs. This ever swelling stream brings comfort to those who do not work, luxury to those who rule, with books and fine pictures. It makes even philanthropy easy-for the seats of the mighty at last grow irksome. This river of wealth I have tracked to its own beginnings in the blood of the souls of the poor innocents, who are tortured-little motherless children, my Lady-tortured and slain, then buried like vermin, within the precincts of your land. They are but skin and bone and sores, these my flock of lambs: yet right well have they made fertile the barren heath, till it runs with milk and honey for Dives! Come, my Lady, and I will show you the abominations that are wrought, and by which you have so wonderfully profited. Come! Let nothing delay you. Bring your brave boys; they shall say if I speak truth. Forgive my discourtesy. I am frenzied with grief.

.

WHI

CHAPTER XXXII

SOPHY SPEAKS

HILE Lord Blakistonbury was charmed at his daughter's arrival, and had not opposed her hare-brained wish to carry Mr. Trevenna from the Blakistonbury Arms to the Dower House-which was regarded as Lady Evangeline's property and always held in readiness by her old nurse and a small staff of servants-he had rather she entertained some worthier clergyman than this eccentric friend of his brother, the Archdeacon. And when, four days after her arrival, his daughter read him part of Mr. Trevenna's ill-penned letter, the annoyance became ominous and his snuff-box in constant demand.

"I fear," she added, "he has found out something dreadful about our mill.”

"And I fear," said the Earl, sniffing, as was his wont at any suspicion of taint in the political or religious atmosphere," the poor gentleman must be well .. that he has a tile loose in his attics."

Yet the letter made him uncomfortable, and before Lady Evangeline could reply, he was promising to see Mr. Upshotter, the manager of the mill, who would know all about the children employed, although he had nothing to do with the hiring of them, as they were usually the spinners' own families. If only his friend, Sir Thomas Arkwright, were still alive, he would feel quite sure Trevenna's amazing letter was all frenzy. The Earl was growing irritable, and his daughter knew