truth when I say that the gulf of ruin gapes for you, and that the branch by which you trust to save yourself from it, though green and pleasant to the eye, is rotten and worthless. Are you bewitched by this handsome scoundrel? Has he fascinated you, as the snake fascinates the poor innocent bird, merely with his bright eyes? If you were not my daughter, I should say that the father of such a girl must needs be ashamed of her."

Into her pale cheeks there stole a scarlet flush, as though one of the rose petals she was stripping from their stem and strewing on the ground had settled there; but her voice was very quiet as she replied: "Speak of me as you please, father, and whatever you speak of me, I will not even say that I have not deserved it. Perhaps I am bewitched. I have nothing to answer in Richard's defence, nor in my own, except three words: I love him!"

"You are easily satisfied, Maggie. If your mother had given the same reason for choosing me for a husband, she would at least have added: And he loves me.'"

"Richard does love me, father!" answered Maggie vehemently. "If you were to paint him ever so darkly, and then convince me that the portrait was a correct one, I should still be sure of that."

"Then love is not what love was in my time, lass!" sighed the old man, with the air of one who is weary of contention. "Why, the man never comes to see you; or, at least, I could count on my fingers the times that he has been here since his uncle left him his co-heir. He must be sure of you indeed, Maggie, since he takes such little pains to keep what he has so lightly won,"

Nothing more that night was spoken between the father and daughter upon the matter; for, indeed, each had said all they had to say; but, as sometimes happens in arguments, the arrow that had been shot with the least care had gone

nighest home. The Parthian shaft which the engraver had let fly at a venture when all seemed over, and he was indeed in full retreat, had almost turned the fortune of the battle. Maggie could have resisted anything in the way of depreciation of her lover, simply by entrenching herself behind the rampart of unbelief; but the suggestion that Richard was neglecting her was insupportable, since she had her own suspiIcions that it was true.

The very next morning, however, as it happened, Richard made his appearance at the engraver's house, not to excuse his conduct of the previous evening, nor even to extenuate it, he said, but to throw himself-as he confessed he had often done before-on his darling's mercy; a course of conduct which not only reinstated him in her good graces, but probably placed him higher therein than he would have been had he never fallen. He spent the whole morning in her company —not without stealing a furtive look or two at his watch, however—and seemed to take a greater interest in her occupations and pursuits than he had ever done before. As to the state of his affairs, concerning which she put some straightforward questions without, however, any tincture of reproach-he told her very frankly that they were far from flourishing, and that when the year was out he might again propose to her to share his fortunes across the Atlantic.

"You once spoke to me of a fresh start,' Maggie, in a new country," said he, with a penitent sigh, "and I have often wished that fortune-though it seemed to be a good fortunehad not interfered to prevent my trying it. I doubt we shall have to try it, after all."

"So much the better, darling," answered she resolutely. "Removed from these terrible temptations, which in your wiser moments you regret so much, you will then be a happier You smile, Richard, but it is not with your old smile! Oh surely, surely, you will not regret them!"

man.

E

"I was pot thinking of them at all, Maggie," whispered the young man; "I was only regretting the time lost which we might have spent together, since I might have called you mine six months ago."

Richard Milbank may have been dull at figures; but for skill in getting his somewhat cooked accounts passed by an auditress in the High Court of Love he had few superiors.

CHAPTER IX.

THE THREE MONTHS' BILL,

LATE one afternoon, when John Milbank was closing his desk at the office, the day's work being done, word was brought that a stranger wished to see him. "Show him up," said John mechanically. He was not so eager to do business as he had been; first, because his mind was engrossed with another matter (in two months, or less, Maggie would be lost to him for ever; for it was not likely that Richard would delay his marriage one day beyond the limit imposed by his uncle's will); secondly, because while his brother remained his partner, a continuous drain upon the resources of the firm, it was hopeless to push its interests.

There entered to him a man with a grey head and beard, but thickly built, and with no trace of age in his gait or bearing. His dark and piercing eyes had a furtive look, and in a tone which was not altogether unfamiliar to John, he asked to have a few words with him in private.

John was not suspicious, and fear was unknown to him ; still, it was a comfort to reflect that a large sum of money which had been in the office strong-box that morning was now lying safe at the banker's. It was not business gains-far from it he had just disposed of the proceeds of a certain property at a dead loss, and which his brother's expenditure had compelled him to realise.

"We are quite private here, sir, and you need not fear interruption," was his quiet reply.

"I am not a man of business," observed the stranger, "and therefore you must forgive me if I am out of order in what I am about to ask you. It may be an impertinence, in which case the personal interest I have in the question must plead my excuse."

Where was it that John had heard this specious yet unconvincing tongue before? a tongue that seemed to require schooling to be decent, and to have had infinite pains taken with it, in the way of butter, to smooth off its rough edge.

"I am not easily offended, sir," said John, eyeing his visitor very narrowly, "where, at least, no offence is meant." "Then may I ask you, whether you have a certain bill out -a bill for a thousand pounds at three months' date from yesterday?"

John was like a rock as to his limbs, but he felt his heart fail within him. He knew of no such bill, but it was possible that his reckless brother might have drawn it on the house without his knowledge. If it was so, and he should honour it, the sacrifice he had just made for the sake of ready-money, for the carrying on of his trade, would go for nothing. If he did not honour it, disgrace would befall Richard, and alas, on her who would then be one with him, before their honeymoon was over. Their honeymoon! Why had he not consented to Richard's proposal at first, and let them marry? The agony that he now endured would have then been over long ago, the wound in his heart might have even cicatrised, and he would have been spared these many months of meagre hope, that were now flickering out to leave him in black despair. Moreover, he would have escaped the material losses which Richard's conduct (and his own thankless leniency) had brought upon him, and which, if the man spoke truth, were now about to culminate in what was almost ruin.