owledge of
his sin, murmured in overwhelming shame and contrition:

"You know me for the wretch I am. I have the ring; it fell from your hand
into mine one day while you lay asleep. I do not ask for forgiveness,
but this I promise you, Ermentrude:--if the little clock comes back, I
will make a place in it for this ring, and neither clock nor ring shall
leave me again while I live."

Instinctively her hands went out to him, then they fell back on her
breast.

"God will hold you to that promise," she said; and melted away from his
sight in the mist which had been gradually enveloping them without being
seen by either.

Thus the struggle ended for him, which for her had simply begun.

Not till she found herself in the South with her girl friend, Antoinette
Duclos, did she discover that the closest bond which can unite man and
woman held her in spite of her late compact with Carleton Roberts. Should
she reassert her rights and demand that the father should recognize his
child? Her generous heart said No. The old arguments held good. She
appealed to Antoinette for advice.

The result we know. When Antoinette's own child died at birth, she took
Ermentrude's to her heart and brought it up as her own. There was little
difficulty in this, as the Professor had already yielded to a Southern
fever and lay at rest in a New Orleans cemetery.

And this brings us to another episode.

* * * * *

The widow in fact and the widow in heart stood face to face above a
sleeping infant. They were both dressed for traveling and so was the
babe. The dismantled rooms showed why. Young still, for the years of
either's romance had been few, each face, as the other contemplated it,
told the story of sorrow which Time, for all its kindliness, would
never efface. But the charm of either remained--perceptible at this hour
as perhaps it would never be again to the same extent. Antoinette basked
in the light of Ermentrude's beauty ennobled by renunciation, and
Ermentrude in that wonderful look in her friend's plain face which came
at great crises and made her for the moment the equal of the best.

They had said little; and they said little now, as is the way of the
strong amongst us when an act is to be performed which wrings the heart
but satisfies the conscience.

The child was legitimate. It must not grow up under a shadow. To insure
its welfare and raise no doubt in its own mind as it grew in knowledge
and