A7 LLAGLES GORGLE.

have been made mad. You have beenfooled, tricked, duped, trapped, made the subject of experiment. But now 1 am sane I am going to cure you. Volmer hypnotised you for his own devilish ends, and made you believe that I was beautiful. Ttis a lic! It has all been alict Go!lgo!”

“Do you send me from vou, Nasha? 1 loved you, and I love you—Dbut, alas! T am not only a blind man now, [ am poor, help- less, ruined !

“Ruined ? work, too?”

“He is dead, Nasha!”

“Dead! He deserved thicf, gambler, sorcerer!”

“Dearest, for my sake, forgive him. 1 forgave.”

“ He did not deserve your forgiveness ! 1 do not deserve 1itt T am his sister.”

“You are my wife, Nasha, my beloved, my

“You do not belicve what I have told you. You think me raving ! DBut it 1s truc.”

“T must believe because yox say it. But if it be true, what matter? I loved you for a beauty which you tcll me 15 an illusion of my senses, but [ also loved you for the soul within. I cannot cease to love you till you persuade me that you have ceased to be what I have proved you—pure,

By whom? Ts that Volmer's

death ! Forger,

noble, gencrous, and brave. You

are nonc the less the Nasha of my heart for this strange story——my Nasha, whom I yearned anew for when this dark- ness came upon me. How 1 craved for you! How I longed for .

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the sound of your voice, the touch of your hand ! All my life T had been seeking you, until the happy day when Volmer brought me here. And now—oh, my darling, T will not fetter you—you shall be freced! I am a poor, helpless creature, not the man you married. You do not deserve to have such a burden thrust upon you 7

“Ivo, Ivo, you are more precious to me than anything in the world but this!” cried Nasha, raising herself and pressing the baby’s waxen fingers to his face; “and this is only so precious because it 1s yours, too.”

“But a helpless beggar, Nasha! Think of the shadow on vour life, and how it will spotl 1t.”

' Not so, dear love, not so. sun, my world, my all. Thank God, you have no home but this! Now, indeed, 1 truly feel that you arc mine, my own twin soul, and nought can come between us.”

She drew the blind man down until his brown head rested on her bosom beside therr child’s, and both were encircled in her passionate em- brace. Instead of taking up a load, she was conscious in that moment of losing a heavy weight of care and trouble. What Ivo called a burden was indeed a bur- den of joy. Love, satisfied, content, senta nzw strength coursing through her pulses, and Duty, wearing the aspect of an angel, whispered the words retribution, expiation, which fell like music on her ear. Joyfully her glad soul re- cchoed the soft accents,and never, since the world began, did pen- ance prove so casy, nor expia- tion so sweet.

You arc my

TSHE DREW CTHE BLIND MAN DOWN.'