leep of
exhaustion feeling as if he were withered at his heart. He knew that
life had to be taken up again, and that in all its farces he must play
his part. At first the thought of Mostyn Hall presented itself as an
asylum. It stood amid thick woods, and there were miles of wind-blown
wolds and hills around it. He was lord and master there, no one could
intrude upon his sorrow; he could nurse it in those lonely rooms to
his heart's content. Every day, however, this gloomy resolution grew
fainter, and one morning he awoke and laughed it to scorn.

"Frederick's himself again," he quoted, "and he must have been very far
off himself when he thought of giving up or of running away. No, Fred
Mostyn, you will stay here. 'Tis a country where the impossible does not
exist, and the unlikely is sure to happen--a country where marriage is
not for life or death, and where the roads to divorce are manifold and
easy. There are a score of ways and means. I will stay and think them
over; 'twill be odd if I cannot force Fate to change her mind."

A week after Dora's marriage he found himself able to walk up the
avenue to the Rawdon house; but he arrived there weary and wan enough
to instantly win the sympathy of Ruth and Ethel, and he was immensely
strengthened by the sense of home and kindred, and of genuine kindness
to which he felt a sort of right. He asked Ruth if he might eat dinner
with them. He said he was hungry, and the hotel fare did not tempt him.
And when Judge Rawdon returned he welcomed him in the same generous
spirit, and the evening passed delightfully away. At its close, however,
as Mostyn stood gloved and hatted, and the carriage waited for him, he
said a few words to Judge Rawdon which changed the mental and social
atmosphere. "I wish to have a little talk with you, sir, on a business
matter of some importance. At what hour can I see you to-morrow?"

"I am engaged all day until three in the afternoon, Fred. Suppose I call
on you about four or half-past?"

"Very well, sir."

But both Ethel and Ruth wondered if it was "very well." A shadow,
fleeting as thought, had passed over Judge Rawdon's face when he
heard the request for a business interview, and after the young man's
departure he lost himself in a reverie which was evidently not a happy
one. But he said nothing to the girls, and they were not accustomed to
question him.

The next morning, instead of going direct to his office, he stopped at
Madam, his moth-