pity. Then Lord
Atherton broke his whip in two and flung it on the floor.

"I should not like to touch even a dog with it," he said, "after it has
touched you."

He stood still for some moments to see if the coward would make any
effort to rise and revenge himself; but the man who had been content to
live on a woman's misery thought the safest plan was to lie still on the
floor.

"I shall be happy to repeat my lesson," said his lordship, calmly, "if
you require it again."

Allan Lyster made no reply, and Lord Atherton walked away. When he was
quite gone, and the last sound of his footsteps died away, he rose--he
shook his fist in impotent wrath:

"Curse him!" he cried. "It shall go hard with me but I will be equal
with him yet!"

He had played his last card and lost; henceforward there was nothing for
him but hard work and dishonor. He knew that what Lord Atherton had said
was true; if any one knew what he had done, nothing but hatred and
disgust would be his portion.

Lord Atherton went at once to Scotland Yard and asked for a detective.
He showed him the portrait of his wife, told him she had left home under
a false impression, and that he would give him fifty pounds if he could
trace her.

For a week all effort was in vain, they could hear nothing of her; then
one morning Lord Atherton saw an advertisement in the "Times," and he
said to himself that the lost was found.

CHAPTER XV.

ADVERTISEMENT.--On Thursday evening last a lady arrived at the little
village of Redcliffe, and took lodgings there. The same evening she fell
ill of brain fever, and now is in danger of death. She is a stranger to
all in the village, and no clue as to her name or friends can be found.
Any one who has a missing relative or friend is requested to attend to
this advertisement.

Then followed a description of the lady and of the dress she wore. Lord
Atherton felt sure that it was his lost wife.

Without saying one word, he went at once to Redcliffe; he went to the
address given and was referred to Mrs. Hirste's.

He went there, and said he had every reason to believe the lady
mentioned in the advertisement was his wife. "She left home," he said,
"unknown to us, delirious, without doubt, at the time, and quite unable
to account for her own action."

They took him into the room where she lay; he looked at the flushed face
and shining eyes.

"It is my wife," he said, quietly. "Thank God, I have found her."

But M