cked bank, will be henceforward my highest aim in life."

She placed her hand on his lips and prayed him for Heaven's sake to be
silent. He only laughed.

"Nature never intended me to work--she did not indeed, Maggie. My
fellow-men must keep me; they keep others far less deserving."

From that moment she knew no peace or rest. He would keep his word; he
would look upon crime as a source of profit; he would watch his
opportunity of wrong-doing, and seize it When it came.

In the anguish of her heart she cried aloud that it must not be at Ash
wood; anywhere else, in any other spot, but not there, where she had
been known in the pride of her fair young life--not there, where people
had warned her not to marry the handsome reckless, ne'er-do-well, and
had prophesied such terrible evil for her if she did marry him--not
there, where earth was so fair, where all nature told of innocence and
purity. If he must sin, let it be far away in large cities where the
ways of men were evil.

She decided on leaving Ashwood. Another and perhaps even stronger motive
that influenced her was her passionate love for the child; that was her
one hope in life, her one sheet-anchor, the one thing that preserved her
from the utter madness of desolation.

The three years had almost elapsed; the doctor was dead, and had left
nothing behind him that could give any clew to Madaline's identity, and
in a short time--she trembled to think how short--the father would come
to claim his child, and she would lose her. When she thought of that,
Margaret Dornham clung to the little one in a passion of despair. She
would go away and take Madaline with her--keep her where she could love
her--where she could bring her up as her own child, and lavish all the
warmth and devotion of her nature upon her. She never once thought that
in acting thus she was doing a selfish, a cruel deed--that she was
taking the child from her father, who of all people living had the
greatest claim upon her.

"He may have more money than I have," thought poor, mistaken Margaret,
"but he cannot love her so much; and after all love is better than
money."

It was easy to manage her husband. She had said but little to him at the
time she undertook the charge of little Madaline, and he had been too
indifferent to make inquiries. She told him now, what was in some
measure quite true, that with the doctor's death her income had ceased,
and that she herself not only was perfectly ignora