aking but slow progress, when a heavy beam, floating
in the water, struck and rendered me unconscious. A boat that had
hurried to the scene of the disaster picked me up, with others; but I
never saw again the two little beings whom I left, with their childish
hands clasped, waiting for me to return and save them."

"Oh, heavens!" ejaculated Clemence, "not dead!--my two little pupils."

"Yes, dead," said Wilfred Vaughn, hoarsely; "buried beneath the waves,
and their only requiem the moaning of an angry sea." He paused for a
while, with his face buried in his hands, and then resumed:

"This awful visitation seemed to change Gracia. She had been a proud,
ambitious, selfish woman. I never wanted my only brother to marry her,
but he was infatuated with her splendid beauty, and when I saw that his
happiness was at stake I ceased to oppose him. After he died I hovered
near to watch over the children. But I never liked Gracia Vaughn,
because I could not respect her. Now, on what proved to be her
death-bed, I felt for the first time an affection for her, born of pity.
I think if my sister-in-law could have lived she would have been a
better woman. But the fiat had gone forth, and her days were numbered.
Naturally delicate, the intense excitement and exposure so lately
endured, set her into a low fever that at length terminated her life. As
she neared the 'valley of the shadow of death' her vision seemed
clearer. The scales fell from her eyes, and the repentant woman knew
that her life had been a failure.

"'It is better so, Wilfred,' she said to me, just before she died. 'I
have been only 'an encumberer of the ground.' I can be better spared
than others, for my life has benefited nobody. There will be few to miss
me.'

"'Oh, Gracia!' I exclaimed, shocked at the thought.

"'Nay,' she answered me, 'but it is true, and right. I have been selfish
and unlovable, and more than that, sinful. Do you think God will pardon
me!'

"'Can you doubt that He who sent His Only Son to die for us, and to save
not the righteous but _sinners_, will hearken unto our supplications?' I
said, earnestly. 'My dear sister, you have been weak and perhaps wicked,
but surely none of us are perfect.'

"'But you do not know all,' said Gracia, averting her face. 'I have so
longed to tell you, but have lacked courage. There remains but little
for me to do in this world, but I cannot die until I have retrieved, by
the humblest confession and fullest repar