eryone, but now his task being ended, he
collected all the closely-written sheets together, placed them in a
drawer of his escritoire, which he locked, and then opened the door.

"Dear papa," cried Madge, as she entered rapidly, and threw her arms
around his neck, "what have you been doing here all day by yourself?"

"Writing," returned her father laconically, as he gently removed her
arms.

"Why, I thought you were ill," she answered, looking at him
apprehensively.

"No, dear," he replied, quietly. "Not ill, but worried."

"I knew that dreadful man who came last night had told you something to
worry you. Who is he?"

"Oh! a friend of mine," answered Frettlby, with hesitation.

"What--Roger Moreland?"

Her father started.

"How do you know it was Roger Moreland?"

"Oh! Brian recognised him as he went out."

Mark Frettlby hesitated for a few moments, and then busied himself with
the papers on his desk, as he replied in a low voice--

"You are right--it was Roger Moreland--he is very hard up, and as he
was a friend of poor Whyte's, he asked me to assist him, which I did."

He hated to hear himself telling such a deliberate falsehood, but there
was no help for it--Madge must never know the truth so long as he could
conceal it.

"Just like you," said Madge, kissing him lightly with filial pride.
"The best and kindest of men."

He shivered slightly as he felt her caress, and thought how she would
recoil from him did she know all. "After all," says some cynical
writer, "the illusions of youth are mostly due to the want of
experience." Madge, ignorant in a great measure of the world, cherished
her pleasant illusions, though many of them had been destroyed by the
trials of the past year, and her father longed to keep her in this
frame of mind.

"Now go down to dinner, my dear," he said, leading her to the door. "I
will follow soon."

"Don't be long," replied his daughter, "or I shall come up again," and
she ran down the stairs, her heart feeling strangely light.

Her father looked after her until she vanished, then heaving a
regretful sigh returned to his study, and taking out the scattered
papers fastened them together, and endorsed them.

"My Confession." He then placed them in an envelope, sealed it, and put
it back in the desk. "If all that is in that packet were known," he
said aloud, as he left the room, "what would the world say?"

That night he was singularly brilliant at the dinner table. Gene