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to melt in January, and the first emissary to LEagle’s Gorge from the outside world was the postman with a telegram for Nasha

“ Volmer has died suddenly. T am ing back to you.—-Ivo.”

Coming back alonet Coming back to what? To a loving wifc whose face was hidcous, whose long figure was lean and ungainly, who lacked all the grace and attraction he had been bewitched mto attributing to her. He was coming back to shocking disenchantment-—perhaps to such disgust and loathing that he would make her bitter gricl more bitter by cursing and for- swearing her and her unborn child. Fven 0 : she loved him well enough to bear all in silence, to let him go, renounce, forget her, and to wear out her own heart in the solitary wilds of Iiagle’s Gorge, where none would intrude upon her desolation or remark her pain. Volmer was dead ! Doubtless his life had flashed out in some swift disaster of his own occasioning, and there had been no time to set things right for her, so that her peace, her joy, her dream of continued happiness had vanished with him. The sceond effect

com-

of Ivo’s message was to appal and stupely her - but she soon reawakened to the full

e A AN PP OO S PO s 2 200,

e omege . Tl Py e B A CACER FLLTNPIVIEY TPl 8

R .

“GETHA FOUND HER SENSI&I.KSS."

She under- the years to

significance of the fatal words. stood all they meant, and all

STRAND

MAGALLNT.

come would mean, and she was driven near to frenzy.

“Oh, God! let me keep him! lLet me he always beautiful i his eyes! Let him never know me other than what he believes me to be. et me die rather than he should know the truth. He must not know! He shall not know ! I would sooncr have him blind '= -bhind ! . i

Ah, God! what was she saying? was she praving for? Where was her terror driving her? 1t was her husband, the father ol her child, upon whom she was mmvoking calamity. T'he thought of the helpless being who was not wholly hers nor wholly his, but belonging to o both, seemed to stem the torrent of her remorseful passion, and to partly calm the storm in her heart. She instinctively turned towards the chapel, and throwing hersell at the foot of her bridal altar she silently sought help and guidance (rom the long-suffering God whose name 1s so often taken m vain,

There, several hours later, Getha found her senscless, Ivo’s telegram clutched 1 her hand. The old woman read it by the flickering light of the lamp she carried, and she thought she comprehended the situation. Her one fear was lest the long-absent husband might return too late,

When Nasha awoke to consciousness the year was two months old. She remembered cverything perfectly. She asked for a calendar, and counted the days since the fatal news had been brought her. Probably in the interval he had ] CO11C, scen her, and AR ARl o onc, but she dared ask no questions. She lay mute and white for awhile, feeling more than thinking ; then she bent over the baby face sleeping beside her, and carefully scrutinized 1ts tender lincaments. Thank GGod ! Some,at least, of her strenuous prayers had been answer- - ed: her infant did Z5not resemble her.

Love, the mys-

What

terious artificer, working — unseen, had moulded the

e little creature 1In the image of its father; the bud contained the promise of as rich a beauty ; 1t would