iage much
as a man who watches for a dreaded door to open moves with restored
confidence about his affairs, when at last convinced that the door is
padlocked and the key lost.

One precaution and one only he was wise enough to take. He told his story
to Lucie's brother, and left it to him to say whether or not he should
marry his sister. And the answer was yes; that if trouble came he would
see him through it. A marriage which could not be proved was no marriage,
and as for anything else, Lucie's happiness must not be sacrificed to a
boy's peccadillos. What were a few wild oats sown by a man of his
promise?

And was this the end? Did Ermentrude accept her doom without a struggle?

Let us see.

* * * * *

One afternoon in June, there entered the parlor of the old-fashioned
mansion of the Roberts family a lady who had asked to see Mrs. Roberts on
business of an important nature. Though plainly clad, her appearance
possessed an elegance which insured respect; but when alone and seated in
the darkest corner of the great drawing room she put up a trembling hand
to thrust back her veil, the countenance thus revealed betrayed an
emotion hardly in keeping with the quiet bearing with which she had
advanced under the servant's eye.

His home! and these the surroundings amid which he had grown to manhood!
Why should the sight of all this rouse emotions she believed eliminated
by a treachery most cruel in face of promises most sacred? Why, as she
looked about, and noted object after object which must have been there
previous to his birth, did she see him as a child and boy and not as the
man who had first won and then deserted her? She would not have had it so
at this hour when strength was needed rather than tenderness. But she
could not help her nature, or still the wild surging of her rebellious
heart, as his portrait seen upon the wall challenged her constancy and
whispered of the hour when his "forever" echoed her "forever" and the
compact for eternity was sealed.

He had broken this compact--broken it soon--broken it before the
honeymoon had passed. But she! Was she to show no firmer spirit whose
love was of the soul and took no note of time? She was his wife, and
acknowledged or unacknowledged, must yet prove to be his blessing though
he--he----

But this would not do. The interview before her called for calmness. She
would not add to the turbulence of her spirits by another glance at