People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1896 — THE NEXT HEIR. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE NEXT HEIR.

A Thrilling Recital of Advent* ture and Love.

fc- Founded on Actual Occur* > rence tn American Life.

Back numbers of the Pilot containing this story will be kept on hand at this office. New subscribers can begin their time with the first chapter of story and receive all back copies. Ten cents pays for the Pilot thirteen weeks, from April 30 to July 23 inclusive, to new subscribers only. Cyril considered for a moment. This sudden and most unlooked-for intelligence had quite changed the aspect of affairs. The imperative necessity for concealing his marriage had actually ceased to exist. His first impulse was* to go to Mr. Lisle, claim his young wife and take her to town with him. But a calmer second thought gave him pause. Dolly,s love for her father and unwillingness to brave his displeasure were powerful obstacles to this design, and how could he make his own cause good to Mr. Lisle until the reading of his uncle’s will should make his prospects secure. “Better to wait awhile, ”he decided. “Hard and cruel as it is to tear myself away from my little love so soon, it will be best; and it need be only for a day or two.” So he said to Hastings: “The next move is to go back to the hotel and pack my things After that I shall bid adieu to some Intimate friends and be ready for the night train. I shall be glad of your company.” The last sentence was added for civility’s sake, but afterward he was glad that Fred accepted. “I shall have to speak before her father, of course,” he thought, “and the presence of a stranger will help her to self control.” It did not help her much. The glow, the thrill of love and Joy that lit up her lovely face at her husband’s coming, faded to the hue of death itself as she heard the news.

She had seated herself at the piano, to conceal the tell-tale happiness of her eyes, and was playing very softly while he spoke: as she listened her fingers fell powerless from the keys, and she sat silent trembling. “The death of a relative? You must go at once, of course, but we may hope to see you again, perhaps? You have not quite exhausted the charms of Greendale scenery, I fancy. ” Thus Mr. Lisle. Cyril had noted the' white hands when they dropped and the soft music ceased; he had risen and now stood beside her at the piano, as he replied to her father. Her eyes were on his face, wistful, adoring, desparing, eager, all at once, and unseen by all but him. “To me Greendale seems the Paradise of the World, possessing charms that no other place can boast of. I tear myself away from it with regret, and shall lose no time till I come back again. I shall return in two or three weeks at the farthest,” with emphasis; “and the time will seem tedious until then!” He was so earnest, so warm, that a ray of comfort crept into poor Dolly’s heart; but Mr. Lisle stared at his enthusiasm, and Fred Hastings smiled 'to himself significantly. Poor Cyril! It was difficult to be, at one and the same time, warm enough to satisfy and comfort Dolly, and cool and selfpossessed enough to avoid astonishing the other two. It would have been so different if he could have seen her alone, even for a few moments—kisses and long, long, close embraces speak so much more eloquently than words!

As it was, a warm hand-pressure was all they could contrive tp steal; but he managed to slip a note into the little hand, and saw it hidden away in her fair bosom. And then he arose to go, for the evening waned, and trains, like tides, are not much given to waiting, even for parting lovers. Dolly rose too; poor Dolly! this was the bitterest hour of her smooth life, and went further than years to make woman of her. The dream of the day had ended in a sorrowful awakening. She stood quiet and pale, striving for selfcontrol as she had never had cause to strive before. She received Fred Hastings’ adieu with a dignity that surprised him, and clung to her husband’s hand for one brief instant with silent, desperate hold. Nexf moment she had released -him, no one had seen anything unusual in that brief handclasp, only Dolly felt as if her heart had broken; a mist came over her eyes, her senses; she heard the garden-gate go “clang!”— they were parted; it was true he had left her. In the anguish of that moment she forgot her father’s presence, uttered one piercing cry, sprang forward as if to follow Cyril, and in the effort fell senseless to the floor.

And Cyril, scarcely a few yards away, heard the cry. It struck upon his heart like a blow on

an arching wound. He turned, hesitated, was about to retrace his steps when Hastings stopped him. “You will miss the train. Think of the dead,” said he. “The dead I The living before the dead!” he answered; “I will go back and risk all,” But he did not; if he had Dollys sufferings would have ended then, and my story would have never told. “Yqu risk a fortune, the hopes of your whole life, perhaps,” cried his companion, eagerly, “if you commit any folly now; for Heaven’s sake, take time to think! Come* to town, give ‘yourself a fair chance; your whole life for a girl’s brtght eyes. She’d be the last to thank you for it probably. If you’re so hard hit as you think you are, you can come back again, only let us go now.” His persuasions had their effect, and Cyril yielded, only to repent as soou as he was on the train. “You don’t know what you’ve done,” he said, as they sped along; “I had no right to leave her. Evil will come of it—oh, that cry! How it rings still in my • ears and heart! Dolly! Dolly! Let us get off and go back. I must take her away with me.” Fred Hastings stared at him in astonishment. “Take her away with you!” he repeated, “why, what are you talking about? The girl’s respectable, I suppose ” A fierce oath interrupted him. “God’s mercy on the man that dares to question it.” “That man am not I! How could I? Why should I? Only a little country girl, of course, but undeniably charming. I don’t wonder at your infatuation, my dear fellow, not at all; but still be reasonable; consider the matter cooly; what can such a girl as this be to you?” Cyril’s dark eyes flashed with indignant fire. “What can she be?” he repeated, angrily. “Be careful how you speak of that young lady’ sir! She is what no other woman ever was or ever will be—my wife.” “What?”

Fred Hastings sprang suddenly to his feet, and stared at his companion with incredulity and rage. “It can’t be!” he cried. “Your wife! Impossible.” “It is the truth,” said Cyril, somewhat sullenly, for his friend’s agitation startled him. “I married her this morning!” “You did?” The other sat down again, quiet and pale. “Then it is in order to wish you joy. You had better have cut your throat this morning, however. You have destroyed yourself beyond all remedy; you are effectually ruined.”

CHAPTER HI. “WILL YOU FORSAKE US FOR HIM?” To say that Mr. Lisle was dismayed at the emotion his child displayed at parting from one whom he looked upon as a mere guest and pleasant acquaintance, is to give but a faint idea of the consternation that filled his mind nor was the recollection of Cyril’s earnest manner and enthusiastic speech calculated to reassure him. For the present, however he cohld do nothing but wait patiently, for Dolly was in no condition to be questioned or reproved; her fainting fit gave place to violent hysterics, in which the long pent up and unusual emotions of her soul found at least partial expression, and even some slight relief Having carried her to her room, and seen her under his own and their one servant’s care, some what recovered, he left her, anxiously enough, to procure a night’s repose, resolved to take her thoroughly to task in the morning. Scarcely had the door closed after him when, dismissing the girl, she sprang from > the bed, locked the door, and drew her husband’s letter from her bosom. Oh, the comfort of the loving words, even .on the senseless paper! She pressed them to her heart and lips a thousand times, covering them with caresses, and bedewing them with tears, and murmuring over them little incoherent sounds of love and pain. For a long time the passion of her grief prevented her comprehending rightly what the tender, little, hurried note contained. Only a few lines of fond fare well, and the promise of an explanation later. These, with a passionate cry of regret at parting from her, and an address in New York, to which he entreated her to write, composed her husband-lover’s first letter. But it called her “Darling Wife.” Oh, the sweet, sweet name! She kissed it again and again, wondering, meanwhile, how she ever dreamed of penpitting another man to call her so. “I was so young so ignorant, what did I know of love? Surely Frank has changed too —poor, dear Frank! oh, lam sorry if he cares for me

still, but what could I do? I love Cyril so, and he is my husband now—it’s too late for regret.” Innocent Dolly. Little she knew of life; alas! while that lasts there is always time for regret, and generally only too-much bitter cause for it. She put the letter carefully away in a little cabinet.' Another paper lay there already, folded away with jealous, loving care—it was the certificate of her marriage, and folded inside it was a plain gold ring. * She took it out and' slipped it on her finger. She did this and with burning blushes and many a swift, uneasy glance around —then she kissed it fondly. “All to-dby I wore you,” she whispered over it softly; “but I must hide you away in the day for awhile and only wear you in the night-time. Oh, the happiness of those wives who. can wear their wedding-rings openly and proudly all the time and never even dream of being afraid.” Door child! and only a few moments earlier she had said it was “too late for regret.” Not that she regretted her marriage—oh, no, no. To be Cyril’s wife—ay, upon any terms—was to be the happiest woman in the world, but if it could have been without deceiving her father—without wronging Frank—oh, how much happier then! The ring remained on her finger all night, but in the morning she tied it to a ribbon and hid it away in her breast. “It will give me strength and resolution,” she thought, “to feel it lying there when I meet papa, for he will question me—oh, if I only dared to tell him all.” She stood for a moment pondering. “Cyril would net object to my telling him,” she mused; “he said—‘l will speak whenever you give me leave. How if I speak to-day! It would be best, perhaps.” Oh, if she could but have known how much the best, how much of pain and misery had been spared; but she shrank from the bitter humiliation of confessing her own fault—she trembled In anticipation of her father’s anger. “He loves Frank so, his heart so set upon our marriage, he will not easily forgive; no, no, I dare not tell him!” And so the chance of escaping misery and securing happiness was lost. Her father welcomed her with the accustomed kjss, but with grave, inquiring glances, "too, that probed her soul. No word was said between them, however, upon the subject nearest both their hearts, until the morning meal was over. And then Mr. Lisle told her to follow him to the library;

She obeyed tremblingly. She dreaded the ordeal through which she was about to pass—worse, a thousand times, than any physical pain. In that moment the unuttered wish of her heart was: “Oh, that Cyril had taken me with him!” But that wish was worse than vain, it only made her present trial appear the harder by suggesting how it might have been escaped. “You are better to day, though you look pale.” said Mr. Lisle, quietly, after he had given her a chair and seated himself. “I have some pleasant news for you; here is a letter from Frank.” If she had been pale before she was ghastly now, her very lips turning white. She gasped, but said no word, and her eyes grew large and dark, and roved uneasily about her. Mr. Lisle noted all, while affecting to see nothing. ■ . He had decided on his course. She was Frank Osborne’s betrothed bride and must abide by her engagement. It was true he suspected her affection for another. but be resolved that that should make no difference. “A young girl’s ficklp fancy!” he argued within himself. “What does that amount to? When Frank was here she loved him, and when he went away, forgot him. It will be the same way now. She thinks herself in love with Vernon; perhaps is so; but he has gone, thank Heaven! Frank will return, and Verndb will be forgotten! Vernon, too; what do I know of him? Shall I risk my one child’s welfare with a stranger? No! She shall be the wife of the good, true man to whom she is promised, and who has loved her, little as the fickle child deserves it, all his life.” So he determined to say nothing about last night, but ignore the idea of Vernon as her lover or beloved, entirely He would take it for granted that she looked forward to marrying Frank. “And let us see” he thought shrewdly, “if she will have the courage, of her own accord, to tell me otherwise.” She had. Though, if he had known it, it was not so much courage, as sheer despair! “He writes that we may expect .him home in

about a month; and he hopes that you willpot think it necessary to delay until then,; the preparations for your wedding. Heijp is the letter J,’ She took it mechanically. Not that she wished to read It—oh, no! no! what could the tender, joving, trusting words be to her now? What could they bring her but remorse and pain? But all the same she took it, to gain time. i Slowly she read it through. So joyful, so hopeful, so unsuspicious of any wrong, so loving to her; it pierced her to the heart. She laid it down with a little groan of remorse and raised her eyes to find her father’s fixed upon her. In an instant she read in them that a portion of her secret was known, and, on the impulse of the moment, she spoke out: “Papa, it is impossible! You will forgive me; I did not know my Own heart. I was but a child; I cannot marry Frank!” She had dared it—ah© had taken the plunge. Mr. Lisle drew a long, deep breath. “She has more spirit than I supposed/’ he thought; “I shall have to recognize a rival to Frank, after all.” .Aloud, he said, coldly, and with a stern displeasure, beneath which she shrank and trembled visibly: “And this explains the scene of last night, I suppose, to which I would have spared you any allusion, when you fainted away, unable to control your unmaidenly affection for a stranger, even in your father’s presence; you, a betrothed bride! For shame, Dorothy, for shame! What is this man to you? Tell me the truth!” The truth! It trembled on her very lips: “He is my husband.” Had the tone of the questioner been less harsh she would have spoken, but now her tongue seemed tied. Receiving no answer Mr. Lisle went on impatiently: “You think you are in love with him of course. Pray, has has he said anything of love or marriage to you? If he has, without my consent, he is a scoundrel!” But she fired at that. “You wrong him, papa, you wrong him- Yes, he does love me and has told me so. What was there wrong in that? You were not angry, I remember, when Frank spoke of his love, although then I was little better than a baby!” The flushed cheek, the panting bosom, the flashing, fiery eyes showed him that she was terribly in earnest. “This is something different to her love for Frank,” he thought, and so he condescended to reason with her. “If you were but a baby, you were free,” he said, severly; “please to remember that.” “But Cyrl was not to know but I was so still,” she answered quickly, and with unabated fire and spirit in her absent lover’s defence. “What did he know of Frank? I look younger than I realy am, he thought me a mere child; and who would expect to find a child engaged in marriage before she was old or wise enough to understand herself? I tell you, papa.” she went on with increasing excitement, “that, though Frank never meant it, he did me a wrong, in taking advantage of my ignorance to win from me a promise which my heart does not indorse, and I can never, never fulfill.” She stood before him now pale and half-defiant, evidently ready to fight to the last grasp. Her spirit and determination astonished him; he had no key to the mystery of that desperation from which, together with her love, they sprang. But he did not for a moment yield. Her newborn passion was more, real than he had dreamed, but he was none the less resolved for that to strangle it in its birth. What was this girlish fancy of a day, compared to the bond that duty, calm affection, honor, even time itself had so long sanctified? He was shrewd enough to guess, however, that she would be less warm in her own defense than in lier lover’s, and he changed his tactics accordingly.

“Sit down again,” he said, quietly, ‘ ‘andcontrol yourself. The time has come for a serious question between you and me.” • She obeyed, awed and chilled by his calmnessand wondering timidly what she was about to hear. Before either could utter another word, however, the door-bell rang violently, and next minute a messenger entered with a telegram. Mr. Lisle took it hurriedly, his life was quiet and uneventful, and a little thing disturbed it. Dolly sat gazing with beating heart. “Could it be from Cyril?” No. Her father read it through and dismissed the messenger, then burned to her with a stern, impressive air. “This comes from Frank,” he said. “From Frank!” The blood surged up from her heart to her face, and made a roaring in her ears that deafened her. “Frank near enough home to telegraph, and Cyril away! What was to become of her? Suddenly she became aware of her father’s voice again. “He will be here in a week, instead of a month, and he comes full of love and trust, little dreaming of your treachery. He is in Boston, but as sooh as the necessary business,of the ship is dispatched he will be here. Say, Dorothy, shall he find-an honorable woman, faithful and true, like 'himself, to her given word, or a false, and immodest girl, who throws away the love of a tried

hejirt, to gratify a shameful for a s|ranger? I promised you to Frank; will y<?u make false al®? y° u #° y° u are nc|Uq||ger. Choose then between your father and betrothed husband, and this stranger whom you scarcely know. Will you abandon those who have loved you all your life long? Will you forsake us for Cyril Vernon?” CHAPTER IV. MR. LISLE’S VICTORY. “Will you forsake us for Cyril Vernon?” This was the startling question that fell upon poor Dolly’s ears and heart, and made her wring her hands in bewildered agony. “How can you speak to me so, papa?” she cried reproachfully. “Why will you make it a question of forsaking you. Could I forsake my owh dear father for any one? Oh, surely, you are harder upon me than Frank himself would be! 1 believe that if I tell him the truth and implore him to release me he will do so, he was always kind and generous, except when he took advantage of my childish ignorance to bind me by a promise which ought never to have been made?” Now Mr. Lisle knew perfectly well that Dolly judged Frank rightly; once let his generous heart suspect that the girl he had loved so long and truly was unhappy in the prospect of fulfilling her engagement with him, and not for worlds would he have held her bound; an appeal to Frank would have secured her freedom at once, therefore her father was resolved she should not make one. Her marriage with his favorate had been the dream of his later years-in it he saw her happiness secured. Frank would never separate her long or far from her home, while-if this stranger took her-who could forsee her fate.

“For shame!” he said sternly. “To appeal to Frank as you say, would be to play upon his kind heart, and force him to set you free. And then what do you care bow he may suffer! I forbid you to take such an ungenerous course with him-no, you must choose between us!” The girl’s eyes flashed through their tears. “It seems you think all of Frank’s happiness, and nothing of mine,” she said. “What right had he to bind a child by a promise that she could not comprehend? That was ungenerous, I think.”

Mr. Lisle grew angry. “Surely reproach to Frank comes with bad grace from you,” he said, sternly. “All that he asked of you he gave-fidelity and faith! If you were in reality incapable of these virtues, and he, thinking better of you than you deserved, judge otherwise, it is rather his misfortune than his fault, I think, and he merits rather sympathy than blame. He has been shamefully deceived! Did it take you three years to understand your own heart? Do you understand itnow? Is it after leading him on by a false hope for three long years, that you ruin his prospects and blast his life for the sake of a capricious fancy? By Heaven!” he went on, warming into genuine indignation, “if you do you are no child of mine! Is honor nothing then? Does not a solemn promise bind? Are the hopes of his young manhood to be laid at your feet, only that you may scatter them like so much worthless chaff, as you selfishly grasp at gratification of your own wishes, that shall secure your welfare, perhaps, at the cost of destroying his? I say you shall not commit this crime! My honor is concerned as well as yours, and you shall disgrace neither of us. Frank is coming home, his heart, his hopes, his very life bound tip in you. Will you destroy him? No! I will save you from such infamy! Ibrder you to put all thought of Vernon from your mind. Think of yourself only as Frank Osborn’s promised bride; for I swear Dorothy, that if you play him false, I will disown you—you shall be no longer a child of mine!” Dolly had listened io her father’s vehement speech like one whom some great, sudden shock deprives of sense and motion. She made no answer—no word of self-justificat-ion or defense.

Mr. Lislfe had judged her rightly—she could defend her lover, but not herself. For what defense had she, poor child, to make? It was all true, she thought; she had done all her father said; she was in very deed the wretch he painted! Honor had been no check upon her; her solemn vows to Frank had all deen broken; in her selfishness she had grasped at her own happiness, without one thought of his, and now,, perhaps, his life was ruined utterly, She had never realized what her own act involved before —never comprehended its full significance to others as well as to herself. Carried away on the flood-tide of passion to an ideal world, she had found there—Cyril, and love for him had made her blind to all the rest. And now the flood tide had ebbed and left her stranded—where? An unacknowledged wife, who dared not claim her name; a false coquette, who had betrayed a faithful lover; a daughter, repudiated and prejudged, and outcast from her father’s heart. A great despair came over her, all her spirit failed, she stood condemned before the double tribunal of her own conscience and her father’s indignation.

She flung up-.her hands to her white face in shams and anguish. “Ilßveleservejtii.afiJ IhAve deserved stall!”] she cried, and fled, sobbing wildly, to her room. While Mr. Lisle, somewhat pale and ruffled still by his own vehemence, but growing calmer with the conviction that the victory was won, gradually broke into a slow, grave smile, well pleased. “I thought I should bring her to her senses. A little witch—fickle and light as a butterfly, but good at heart, after all; And Frank wifi have her. In a month from now site’ll be in love with him again, and Cy ril Vernon forgotten; it is the way. with wdmen.” Which shows how much he knew about the sex in general, and his daughter Dolly in particular. CHAPTER V. “HE CHANGES WITH MY POISON.” No further allusion was made to the subject of that morning’s conversation by either Dolly, or her father, except that when she came downstairs to tea —having £ept her room all day on pretext or reality of a headache—he took her into his arms and kissed her tenderly, and she returned the unexpected caress with almost convulsive intensity. “There, there,” he said, kindly, patting her golden head, “all will be well, and we will say no more about it.” And so the subject dropped. She said nothing about it in her letters to her husband—brief, shy little letters as they were, written in secret, and posted surreptitiously. “I’ll wait till he returns: he has enough to annoy him now, no doubt,” she thought, “and he will soon be here.” So the letters only told him, how she longed for him, and implored him to hasten back. To do him justice, he needed no urging just then; nothing but the most important business could have kept him away from her, and even that business, though it involved a splendid fortune, required all Fred Hastings’ influence to enforce its claims. “For your wife’s sake, remain,” he would say; “since you have been guilty of the astounding folly of marrying a mere country gin, without means or family, your duty to her requires that you should make your position secure. If you are to be the owner of the Hurtsford fortune, you can afford to snap your fingers at the world, and marry whom you please. But if you are to become an artist in earnest—a painter for bread—society will have something to say; and how can you make a name without society? If you would not drag this poor girl down to poverty, and ruin yourself forever, stay where you are. Keep this mad marriage secret, and wait for the course of of events.”

The advise appeared sound, and disinterested, too. “In fact,” said Cyril, candidly, “it’s wonderful what a disinterested fellow you really are, Fred. You couldn’t seem much more anxious foi* me to get the fortune if you believed that I should let you have the spending of it.” To which Mr. Hastings responded, with rather a sickly smile, that “perhaps he was not without hopes of getting a share;” and Cyril assured him of what he had never doubted, namely, that if it came into his(Cyril’s) hands, his hopes would be most generously fulfilled. “For you’re one of the best fellows I know, Fred, apart from your being my cousin. The worst fault you have is a lack of appreciation of my precious, charming little wife.” Fred laughed deprecatingly. “I am not wanting in appreciation and admiration of herself, dear boy, ” said he, “but I really can’t aporove of her as your wife. The dear little girl never dreamed, I suppose, of the awful sacrifice you made; if she had, her love—if it be true love —would have prevented her accepting it.” Cyril Vernon looked up somewhat impatiently. “1 fail to see the ‘awful sacrifice.’ ” said he, “and don’t you ever tell her any such stuff as that. It might upset her, for she knows no more about real life than a child. What is this awful sacrifice, Fred, as you see it?” Fred turned deliberately and looked at nis questioner, elevating his eyebrows, and shrugging his shoulders with an excellent imitation of surprise“I thought you were joking at first,” said he. “Mj dear fellow, you are the most careless, or the most generous, I don’t know -which. Now, with regard to the sacrifice, couldn’t any one see it but yourself? Why, even your pretty little, unsophisticated, country love ” “My,wife, if you please,” interrupted Cyril, coldly. •‘Oh, by all means, your wife. No sense in flying in the face of that Providence, since the fact is so. Even your wife, then, could see that much, I fancy, if 4 the matter were clearly laid before her. Now just hear me state the case. “Your Uncle Huntsford dies, and leaves you a splendid fortune, but upon certain conditions. First condition is that you marry May Ellis, his ward, a girl who possesses a fine fortune of her own, and who, as the testator fancies, loves you. Entre nous, cher Cyril, lam of the same opinion. Said May Ellis is a beautiful but deli-

cate gis, coding of a family of consumptives. Nope of the females of her house have reached th&agftibf thfefcty, and she is now twenty-three. Once more entre nous, Cyril; pity that you hadn’t married hei to secure the fortune; first, while pretty Cousin Dolly could have proven her truth by waiting. Second condition requires that you marry May within a year. Third and' last condition takes the form of a request, and does not bind, andyis contained in a confidential/letter to yourself, of which I know nothing. On this head information must come from you. “If, however, you fail to comply with the two ■first named conditions, you forfeit all but a miserable thousand dollars a year, and—on the principle of unto him who hath, much more shall be given, I suppose—May Ellis takes the Huntsford revenues and estate. Unless, indeed, she refuses to marry you—a not very probable contingency. In that case you are the heir of Huntsford and may marry whomsoever you please. “Now! Cannot any ope see how your ridiculous marriage, pardon me, dear boy, truth will out, how your marriage ruins prospects? There has been no provision made for such a contingency; evidently the old man never thought of it. If your marriage becomes known the estate will go into litigation, and the lawyers will be the true heirs. , " “But keep your marriage secret, at least until May has refused you, if she does refuse, that is your only chance. “That’s one way in whicn I consider you a sacrifice, here’s another? “If you had married the richest, best born woman, it would have spoiled your hopes of the estate, very true. But a.rich wife would have made amends for that, apd an influential one would have helped you to mend it. This one can only drag you down. “And you might have had her, I suppose(no offense, dear boy, I judge by others, even the best of ‘country girls!’) you might have had the little, simple thing on such far more easy terms. I said just now that I didn’t know whether you were careless or generous—l take that back, what else, but the most unlimited, perfectly reckless generosity, could have induced you to marrv her?”

Cyril sprang up from his chair and confronted him, stern and pale. “Honor!” he cried. “And true love. Do you know what tfwse words mean? Fred Hastings, if you spoke in earrest just now, you are a scoundrel!” His features worked, his eyes blazed, his hands looked eager to be at the other’s throat! Hastings saw that he had gone too far. “Forgive me,” he said, frankly. “You are right, and I am wrong; I did not realize the full meaning of my words; forgive me.” Cyril’s anger began to die out. “If we are to continue friends there must be no disrespect to her, he said, sitting down again “She is my wife, and I adore her, whatever .she has cost me!” “Whatever she has cost me!” Fred Hastings looked up quickly and curiously at those words—his posion was beginning to work already.

“It was of you I thought ” he said, softly. “She is a stranger to me, charming as she is; it is natural that I should think of you!” “And natural that I should be grateful as I am believe me. Well, upon your showing, I have made more of a sacrifice than I realized at first, is true; but she is worthy of it all.” Fred Hastings sighea. “Heaven grant you may always thipk so!” said he, earnestly. “And in order that you may'dp so, take my advise, and keep your marriage secret for a year.” Cyril started. “A year! You are mad! Not see my treasure for a year? Impossible!” “Of course; and I never proposed such a thing. I only said keep the marriage still unknown;’ that need not prevent you living with your wife, youk now.” And as his soft vdice made the proposition, his eyes met Cyril’s startled gaze, calm and serene as a child’s. “Have a little place for her. It need not be expensive, she will not wish for that; you will be together, and both perfectly happy, and as for secrecy, my dear Cyril, she believes herself to be Mrs. Vernon, does she not ? While you are Mr. Huntsford in New York.” Cyril started and turned red. then pale. “I am Cyril Vernon Huntsford, of course,” he said, shamefacedly. “I always have meant to tell her that.” “But not yet.” said the other, taking no notice of hjs confusion. '‘Do let me advise you not to tell her yet. It will make it so much easier for her. As Mr. and Mrs. Vernon you might live theyeai out in New York until the Huntsford fortune is quite settled.” Cyril had risen from his chair and walked the room quickly, in deep thought. His cousin’s suggestion was full of charms for him. It would re-unite them so much earlier. He could have her all to himself just as soon as their marriage should be made known to Mr. Lisle. No need to say anything about Huntsford to him —his daughter had married Cyril Vprnon—he need know hothing more. To Be Continued.