en." He looks at her, speechless with amazement.
Her eyes do not flinch from his. "If," she continues, with that terrible
calmness,--"if you wanted to marry Miss Constance Devereux; if I wished
to marry--let us say, Lord Harford--there is nothing to prevent it
except," slowly, "the unwritten law of a faithful heart."

Philip Vansittart leans his face between his hands. He cannot find a
word to say. He is smitten with remorse, for he knows well enough that
she is faithful. But why that allusion to Lord Harford?

"What do you mean about Harford?" he asks presently.

"He wants me to marry him," replied Virginia quietly. "He asked me four
years ago; he asked me again the day before yesterday."

She draws a letter from her pocket, and scans Philip's face as he reads
it. When he has finished, he looks at her. She understands his glance
but too well. There is an only half-suppressed eagerness--a
half-suppressed hope in it.

"What shall I do?" she says, so quietly that it deceives him.

"There is no better fellow living than Harford," he says cordially. "If
you thought you could be happy with him; if--"

He stops abruptly. There is a look of such terrible agony in Virginia's
face that he starts up and takes her hand.

"No, no," he cries. "Let it be as I said. Let us marry each other. It is
the only thing to be done."

Virginia's ears, sharpened by suffering, catch the dreary tone of the
concluding words.

* * * * *

Next morning, when Philip, according to custom, went to Virginia's room,
he found her asleep. From that sleep she never woke. One more of those
unfortunate cases of an overdose of chloral. The deceased lady had
suffered much from sleeplessness, and always kept the fatal drug by her
bedside.

The church gave its blessing, and society smiled when that heretic and
sceptic Mr. Vansittart led his charming girl-bride to the altar a few
months later. It was whispered that there had been an--entanglement, but
that was all hushed up now, and he had become a respectable member of
society.

MR. JOSIAH SMITH'S BALLOON JOURNEY.

It would be an injustice to Josiah to suppose that he limited his quest
in the field of knowledge to that particular portion indicated by his
honoured association with a distinguished society. He was proud in his
modest way, if the paradox be permitted, when he produced his card, on
which was engraved "Josiah Smith, F.R.S.A." Also it was known amo