h
encouraging and hopeful words; and when the beautiful Alice came back,
within a year, a widow, far more lovely than ever, he remembered how
all bis love was rekindled. Nor was it the less entrancing that it was
mingled with a degree of deference for her station, and an amount of
distance which her new position exacted.

He had intended to have passed his last evening with Dora in talking
over these things; and how had he spent it? In a wild and disgraceful
debauch, and in a company of which he felt himself well ashamed.

It was, however, no part of Tony's nature to spend time in vain regrets;
he lived ever more in the present than the past. There were a number of
things to be done, and done at once. The first was to acquit his debt
for that unlucky dinner; and, in a tremor of doubt, he opened his little
store to see what remained to him. Of the eleven pounds ten shillings
his mother gave him he had spent less than two pounds; he had
travelled third-class to London, and while in town denied himself every
extravagance. He rang for his hotel bill, and was shocked to see that it
came to three pounds seven-and-sixpence. He fancied he had half-starved
himself, and he saw a catalogue of steaks and luncheons to his share
that smacked of very gluttony. He paid it without a word, gave an
apology to the waiter that he had run himself short of money, and could
only offer him a crown. The dignified official accepted the excuse
and the coin with a smile of bland sorrow. It was a pity that cut both
ways,--for himself and for Tony too.

There now remained but a few shillings above five pounds, and he sat
down and wrote this note:--

"My dear Skeffington,--Some one of your friends, last
night, was kind enough to pay my share of the reckoning for
me. Will you do me the favor to thank and repay him? I am
off to Ireland hurriedly, or I 'd call and see you. I have
not even time to wait for those examination papers, which
were to be delivered to me either to-day or to-morrow. Would
you send them by post, addressed T. Butler, Burnside,
Coleraine? My head is not very clear to-day, but it should
be more stupid if I could forget all your kindness since we
met.

"Believe me, very sincerely, &c.,

"Tony Butler."

The next was to his mother:--

"Dearest Mother,--Don't expect me on Saturday; it may be
two or three days later ere I reach home. I am all right,