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hand over his face; and Edith, seeing his distress, became white as a sheet.

“You have deceived me—ruined me!” he murmured,

“Oh, don’t say it!” she cried:in her angaish, jumping up and putting her hand on his shonlder. “I can’t dear that !”

“Delighting me deceptively. Why did you do it—why did you ?”

“I began doing it in kindness to her. How could I do otherwise than try to save such a simple girl from misery? But I admit that I continued it for pleasure to myself.”

Raye locked up. “ Why did it give you pleasure ?” he asked.

“I must not tell,” said she,

He continued to regard her, and saw that her lips suddenly began to quiver under his scrutiny, and her eyes to fill and droop. She atarted aside, and said that she must go to the station to catch the return train ; could a cab be called immediately ?

But Raye went up to her, and took her unresisting hand. * Well, to think of such a thing as this! he said. “ Why, you and I are friends-—lovers—devoted lovers—by correspondence!”

"Yea; I auppose.”

"More”

“ More ?”

Plainly more. It is no use blinking that. Legally I have married her—God help us both !—in sont and spirit I have married you, and no other woman in the world !”

“ Hush !”

“ But I will not hash! Why should you try to disguise the full truth, when you have already owned half of it? Yes, it is between you and me that the bond