looked so badly with him. He had
bought his partnership and had a little money in hand, and Olivia had
had sufficient for her modest trousseau. How could either of them have
suspected that the partnership was a deceit and a fraud--that old Dr.
Slade had let Marcus in for a rotten concern--that no paying patients
would crowd the small dining-room--and that two years of professional
profits would be represented in shillings? Now and then when he was
tired and discouraged Dr. Luttrell would accuse himself of rashness and
folly in no measured terms.

"Your Aunt Madge is right, Olive," he would say, "we have been a couple
of fools; but I was the biggest. What business had I to tempt
Providence in this way? I do believe when a man is in love he loses
his judgment; look at the life to which my selfishness has condemned
you. You will be an old woman before your time, with the effort to
make a sixpence go as far as a shilling! And there is Dot----" And
here the young doctor sighed and frowned, but Olivia, who had plenty of
spirit, refused to be depressed.

"You took me from such a luxurious home, did you not, Marcus?" she
would say, with a genial laugh. "A hard-working daily governess leads
such an enjoyable life, and it was so exhilarating and refreshing to
sit in one's lodgings of an evening, with no one to care if one were
tired and dull. Yes, dear old boy, of course I was ever so much
happier without you and Dot to worry me----" And, somehow, at these
cheering words the harassed frown on Marcus's brow relaxed.

Had he been so wrong after all. How could he know that old Slade would
prove a rogue and a humbug; it would have been wiser to wait a little,
but then human nature is liable to make mistakes, and in spite of it
all, they had been so happy. Olive was such a splendid companion, she
had brains as well as heart. Yes, he had been a fool, but he knew that
under like circumstances many a man would have done the same.

He remembered the events that had led to their hasty marriage. Olivia
had not long lost her mother, the widow's annuity had died with her,
and Olivia, who had only her salary as a daily governess in a large
family, had just moved into humbler lodgings.

He had gone round with some flowers and a book that he thought would
interest her, and as she came forward to greet him, he could see her
eyes were red and swollen.

"What is it, dear?" he had asked, kindly, and then the poor girl had
utter