im? For more and more could he see that all
refinement is through sorrow, and that the life which does not refine is
the life without an aim.

Laura was alone in the sitting-room at Elmdene, for Robert had gone out
to make some final arrangements about his father. She sprang up as her
lover entered, and ran forward with a pretty girlish gesture to greet
him.

"Oh, Raffles!" she cried, "I knew that you would come. Is it not
dreadful about papa?"

"You must not fret, dearest," he answered gently. "It may not prove to
be so very grave after all."

"But it all happened before I was stirring. I knew nothing about it
until breakfast-time. They must have gone up to the Hall very early."

"Yes, they did come up rather early."

"What is the matter with you, Raffles?" cried Laura, looking up into his
face. "You look so sad and weary!"

"I have been a little in the blues. The fact is, Laura, that I have had
a long talk with Mr. Spurling this morning."

The girl started, and turned white to the lips. A long talk with Mr.
Spurling! Did that mean that he had learned her secret?

"Well?" she gasped.

"He tells me that my charity has done more harm than good, and in fact,
that I have had an evil influence upon every one whom I have come
near. He said it in the most delicate way, but that was really what it
amounted to."

"Oh, is that all?" said Laura, with a long sigh of relief. "You must not
think of minding what Mr. Spurling says. Why, it is absurd on the face
of it! Everybody knows that there are dozens of men all over the country
who would have been ruined and turned out of their houses if you had not
stood their friend. How could they be the worse for having known you? I
wonder that Mr. Spurling can talk such nonsense!"

"How is Robert's picture getting on?"

"Oh, he has a lazy fit on him. He has not touched it for ever so long.
But why do you ask that? You have that furrow on your brow again. Put it
away, sir!"

She smoothed it away with her little white hand.

"Well, at any rate, I don't think that quite everybody is the worse,"
said he, looking down at her. "There is one, at least, who is beyond
taint, one who is good, and pure, and true, and who would love me as
well if I were a poor clerk struggling for a livelihood. You would,
would you not, Laura?"

"You foolish boy! of course I would."

"And yet how strange it is that it should be so. That you, who are the
only woman whom I have ever loved, should be