re.

This, then, was the woman whom he had forgiven and loved and honoured
for all these years. This was the end and this the reward of all his
devotion and of all his hopes. And he smiled in bitterness of his pain
and self-contempt.

What was he to do? Go back to South Africa? He had not the heart for it.
Live here? He could not. His existence had been wasted. He had lost his
delusion--the beautiful delusion of his life--and he felt as though it
would drive him mad, as the man whose shadow left him went mad.

He rose from the chair, opened the window, and looked out. It was a
clear frosty night, and the stars shone brightly. For some while he
stood looking at them; then he undressed himself. Generally, for he was
different to most men, he said his prayers. For years, indeed, he had
not missed doing so, any more than he had missed praying Providence in
them to watch over and bless his beloved Madeline. But to-night he said
no prayers. He could not pray. The three angels, Faith, Hope, and Love,
whose whisperings heretofore had been ever in his ears, had taken wing,
and left him as he played the eavesdropper behind those blue velvet
curtains.

So he swallowed his sleeping-draught and laid himself down to rest.

* * * * *

When Madeline Croston heard the news at a dinner-party on the following
evening she was much shocked, and made up her mind to go home early. To
this day she tells the story as a frightful warning against the careless
use of chloral.

LITTLE FLOWER

I

The Rev. Thomas Bull was a man of rock-like character with no more
imagination than a rock. Of good birth, good abilities, good principles
and good repute, really he ought to have been named not Thomas but John
Bull, being as he was a typical representative of the British middle
class. By nature a really religious man and, owing to the balance of his
mind, not subject to most of the weaknesses which often afflict others,
very early in his career he determined that things spiritual were of far
greater importance than things temporal, and that as Eternity is much
longer than Time, it was wise to devote himself to the spiritual and
leave the temporal to look after itself. There are quite a number
of good people, earnest believers in the doctrine of rewards and
punishments, who take that practical view. With such

"Repaid a thousand-fold shall be,"

is a favourite line of a favourite hymn.

It is true that his idea of the spiritual w