world for father and son from
darkness to light. They seemed also to possess wonderful curative powers
for heart trouble, for within three minutes they snatched my Lady
Jeffreys from the jaws of death and placed her upright in the bed.
Within another minute she was on her feet, well and hearty as ever,
busily engaged evolving a plan for immediate action.

"Write to Williams at once," she said to Rita, "asking him to call this
evening. Tell him you want to talk to him about your father's affairs."

Rita again hesitated, but she had given her word, and accordingly
wrote:--

"MR. WILLIAMS: If not otherwise engaged, will you please call this
evening. I am in great trouble about my father and Tom, and wish to
talk to you concerning their affairs.

"RITA."

Tom delivered the note, which threw Williams into a state of ecstasy
bordering on intoxication.

I beg you to pause and consider this girl's piteous condition. Never in
all the eighteen years of her life had she unnecessarily given pain to a
human heart. A tender, gentle strength, love for all who were near her,
fidelity to truth, and purity without the blemish of even an impure
thought, had gone to make up the sum of her existence. As a reward for
all these virtues she was now called upon to bear the burden of an
unspeakable anguish. What keener joy could she know than that which had
come to her through her love for Dic? What agony more poignant could she
suffer than the loss of him? But, putting Dic aside, what calamity
could so blacken the future for her, or for any pure girl, as marriage
with a man she loathed? We often speak of these tragedies regretfully
and carelessly; but imagine yourself in her position, and you will pity
this poor girl of mine, who was about to be sold to the man whom she
despised--and who, worst of all, loved her. Madame Pompadour says in her
memoirs, "I was married to one whom I did not love, and a misfortune
still greater was that he loved me." That condition must be the acme of
a woman's suffering.

Williams knocked at Rita's door early in the evening, and was admitted
to the front parlor by the girl herself. She took a chair and asked him
to be seated. Then a long, awkward silence ensued, which was broken by
Williams:--

"You said you wished to see me. Is there any way in which I can serve
you?"

"Yes," she murmured, speaking with difficulty. "My fa