"Ah, Phyllis, I know it now. He was the man who had all my
love--all--all! Ah, if God would only give me another chance--one more
chance!"

Mr. Ayrton had heard that passionate appeal for another chance upon more
than one previous occasion. He had heard the husband who had tortured
his wife to death make a passionate appeal to God to give him another
chance. He knew that God had never given him another chance with the
same wife; but God had given him another wife in the course of time--a
wife who was not made on the spiritual lines of those who die by
torture; a wife who was able to formulate a list of her own rights, and
the rights of her sisters, and who possessed a Will.

The man who wanted another chance had no chance with such a woman.

He had heard the wife, who had deserted her husband in favor of the
teetotal platform, cry out for another chance, when her husband had died
away from her. But God had compassion upon the husband. She did not get
him back.

He pitied with all his heart the poor woman who would be one of the
richest women in England in the course of a day or two, and he said so
to Mr. Courtland when he called early in the morning. Mr. Courtland did
not remain for long in the house. It might have been assumed that
so intimate a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Linton's would be an acceptable
visitor to the widow; but Mr. Courtland knew better. He hurried away to
town without even asking to see her. He only begged of Mr. Ayrton to let
him know if he could be of any use in town--there were details--ghastly;
but he would take care that there was no inquest.

Phyllis went up to town with poor Ella, and remained by her side in that
darkened house through all the terrible days that followed. Mr. Linton's
death had an appreciable influence upon the quarter's revenue of the
country. The probate duty paid by the executors was a large fortune in
itself, and Ella was, as Mr. Ayrton had predicted she would be, one of
the richest women in England. The hundred thousand pounds bequeathed to
some unostentatious charities--charities that existed for the cause of
charity, not for the benefit of the official staff--made no difference
worth speaking of in the position of Mrs. Linton as one of the richest
women in England.

But the codicil to the will which surprised most people was that which
placed in the hands of Mrs. Linton and the Rev. George Holland as
joint trustees the sum of sixty thousand pounds, for the building