LROFLESSOR JORGAN'S ROIANCLE.

The Professor said no more. He sat silent, looking out with dim cyes across the sunny land. Hce did not sce the ficlds stretching hot and parched down to the village 5 he did not see the grand mountaims fading away right and left of him mmto mist. He saw neither the calim sea shimmering out there beyond the village, nor the ex- quisite sky of tur-

(quoise blue smiling like cmbodied joy

above it. He saw a el named Phyllis whom 1n the past he had loved with the intensity of areserved and yet passionate naturc. She had seemed to return his love, and to under- stand him as few un- derstood the senst- tive, reticent student. Assured of her love, convinced by many a token that he was the clect out of many suttors, he had left her one year to join an exploration party in Palestine.

Thither, after a few months” absence, he was followed by news which turned him out- wardly to stone, and made his mner hife an agony of bitterness and gricf. "The news was conveyed i a cutting from the London 7 7mes, sent to him anonymously. It contamed the announcement of Phylhis Wynne's marriage with a Colonel Llewellyn, who had st one time appeared to be a favoured rival for her love, but who had long since ceased to press his suit. A letter in Phyllis’'s handwriting followed the announcement, but Hugh Mor- gan tore it to atoms, unrcad. 2\ sccond and a third lctter shared the same fate. Then the letters ceased, Hugh Morgan remained abroad for a year or two, and on his returmn

buriecd himself 1 the obscure corner of Wales i which he had now hved for ten years.

The unmistakable likeness o the faces

of these two children, and the fact of one of

them bearing the name of his faithless love, sct both memory and imagination at work 1n the mind of the Professor. These were withotit doubt Phyllis’s children. And Phylhis was dead ! It was a strange chancee that had brought him and Phyllis’'s children together @ strange and sad that from the lips

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of Phyllis’s child he should hear of Phyllis’s death.

So out there i the August sunshine, at the foot of the old ruin, the Professor read, as he thought, the last page of the romance of his Ife. But he was mistaken. There was yet another page to be turned.

Unnoticed by the . drcaming Professor or by the children, who, sceing thoer companion’s abstrac- tion, had quictly busicd themselves plucking the yellow poppics which grew among the grass, there had come along the road from the willage a lady in o black dress. She was close upon them before the children percerved her. With out- stretehed arms and affcetionate outeries they flew to mect her. She caught them to her, and hending down kissed the Tittle up- lifted faces with great tenderness. “ My hule Kitty and Phyllic !? she erted, how vou have frightened us! Why did you leave Gwennie 2 Why did you come all this distance alone? ”

The Professor, hearing the voice, rosc suddenly to his feet. How strangely he was haunted to-day ! Surely that was the voice of Phylhis Wynne! And yet Phyllis was dead b His o wondering, startled eves devourcd the face of the new-comer, and he held his breath, He saw a woman past her first youth, a woman with blue, sweet cves, and with brown hair touched too early with grey. in ospite of the difference the vears had made, moospite of the paleness which had taken the place of the peach- bloom of old, and the smoothness of the hair which once had curled so softly about the brow, Ilugh Morgan could not but recognise her. This was certainly Phylls. And yet the children had said she was dead !

“ Phyllis 17 he erted aloud, unable to con- tain himself, and his voice broke as he spoke the name which had not passed his lips for more than ten years.

At the sound of that name, spoken by that volce, the lady started as the Professor had

Vol v —32,

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