despite his frenzy, he stopped. For a moment. he was conscious of the cruelty he was perpetrating in making such an announcement so abruptly. The golden visions of the future they had so often conjured up together flashed through his mind, and he was dazed with pain like her own.

For Madge, she had covered her face with trembling hands, as if in that way she could shut out the thoughts his words suggested. "Free to choose some one else," was what he had been going to say, she knew. Free! Could love be ever freed when once given? He might die before her; then she would live on his memory. He might go away from her and never return; what difference could that make? Men change; women change; but the being once realized in the idealism of love never changes to the lover. Else how could love survive, when the mortal form grows fat and ugly, old and petulant?

Her thoughts did not run precisely in this form, but they were to the same purport. She could never care for any man but Philip;

and to suggest the possibility of it would have been hard to bear if made by any one, but hardest of all when made by Philip. Then a little spring of mingled indignation and pride started, and the hands dropped from her face.

"And can you think that any one at Willowmere would turn from you at a time of trouble?"

"No, no; I do not mean that," he answered, and his voice had become feeble, whilst his body swayed slightly, as if he were struggling with diverse emotions. "But if it was fair that you should not be bound down to a man who was only going away for a year, it cannot be fair to bind you to one who may have to contend with poverty all his life.'

"Mr. Shield-your father, will see that it is not so."

These names roused him, and his thoughts became collected again. He spoke almost calmly.

66

My father has distributed his fortune

amongst his other children. Mr. Shield has given me a fortune which I, by my careless folly, have squandered or allowed myself to be cheated out of, as a fool in a betting-ring might have done. I must pay the penalty of my folly alone. Therefore I say you are

free."

She took the lamp and held it up so that the full light fell on his face. There was a wildness in his eyes, but his lips were compressed, as if he had come to an unalterable resolution.

"Do you wish me to think myself free?"— the voice steady, although the lips trembled. "I wish it!"

A pause; and presently through the silence came the low, sad words:

“Then we must say good-by."

"Good-by," was the husky response; and that was all.

CHAPTER XLV.

HIGH PRESSURE.

MADGE reached home in the darkness, and opened the outer door so quietly that she got up to her own room without being observed by any of the inmates. Hat and cloak were off in a minute, and flung carelessly anywhere--thus marking how completely her mind was distracted from ordinary affairs; for, as a rule, she was careful in putting things away.

Then!—she did not fling herself on the bed, and give way to an overwhelming sense of despair, in the manner of heroines of romance. She sat down; clasped hands lying on her lap, and stared into the darkness of the room, which was luminous to her hot, dry eyes, and wondered what it was all about.

Her engagement with Philip was broken off, and he wished it to be so! Now, how could that be? Was it not all some disagreeable fantastic dream, from which she would presently awaken, and find him by her side? They would laugh at the folly of it all, and be sorry that such ideas could occur to them even in dreams. And that horrible, silent drive to the station; the silent clasp of hands as the train started; no word spoken by either since, in her pain and confusion, she had said "Good-by," and he had echoed it-all that was a nightmare. She would shake it off, rouse up, and see the bright day dawning.

But she could not shake it off so easily. He had said that she was to consider herself free from all bond to him. He wished itthere was the sting-and they had parted. It was a different kind of parting from the one she had prepared herself to pass through with composure. Was it a distorted shadow of her mother's fate that had fallen upon her?