emotion sprang entirely from pleasure.

Meantime the band was playing and the carriages were rolling up in
front. What he thought as the music filled the house and rose in
piercing melody to the very roof, I cannot say. _I_ thought how it was
a message of release to those weary and abused ones above; and, filled
with the sense of support which the presence of so many people in
the house gave me, I drew up my girlish figure in glad excitement and
prepared myself for the ordeal, visible and invisible, which awaited me.

The next two hours form a blank in my memory. Standing under
Mrs. Ransome's picture (I _would_ stand there), I received the
congratulations of the hundred or more people who were anxious to see
Mr. Allison's bride, and of the whole glittering pageant I remember only
the whispered words of Mrs. Vandyke as she passed with the rest: "My
dear, I take back what I said the other day about the effect of marriage
upon you. You are the most brilliant woman here, and Mr. Allison the
happiest of men." This was an indication that all was going well. But
what of the awful morning-hour that awaited us! Would that show him a
happy man?

At last our guests were assembled, and I had an instant to myself.
Murmuring a prayer for courage, I slid from the room and ran up-stairs.
Here all was bustle also--a bustle I delighted in, for, with so many
people moving about, Mrs. Ransome and her daughter could pass out
without attracting more than a momentary attention. Securing a bundle
I had myself prepared, I glided up the second staircase, and, after a
moment's delay, succeeded in unlocking the door and disappearing with my
bundle into the fourth story. When I came down, the key I had carried up
was left behind me. The way for Mrs. Ransome's escape lay open.

I do not think I had been gone ten minutes from the drawing-room. When
I returned there, it was to find the festivities at their height, and
my husband just on the point of missing me. The look which he directed
to-wards me pierced me to the heart; not that I was playing him false,
for I was risking life, love and the loss of everything I prized, to
save him from himself; but that his love for me should be so strong
he could forget the two tortured hearts above, in the admiration I had
awakened in the shallow people about us. But I smiled, as a woman on
the rack might smile if the safety of her loved ones depended on her
courage, and, nerving myself for the suspense of s