the last hours of the woman who had so
hated and injured her—then, indeed, he owned
himself fairly puzzled. "The exception, which
proves the rule," he said at last, evading the
difficulty.

With regard to our friend's worldly affairs,
it must be acknowledged that they are still
involved in great uncertainty. The recent
improvement in the aspect of American affairs has
not yet led to the complete settlement of all
the commercial difficulties which existed during
the war. Whether that firm of Lethwaite and
Goodrich will ever flourish in the city of London,
remains to be seen, and the uncertainty by which
that question is surrounded it is not at present
in the power of the author to set at rest.
Meanwhile, the senior partner in that, at present,
mythical firm, continues to drum his way to
musical fame night after night, and has already
attained to such perfection in his peculiar
branch of art, that the occasions are now rare
indeed on which his leader is obliged to check
his ardour with even so much as a reproachful
glance.

CONCLUSION.

THE last words which are to bring this story
to a close alone remain to be spoken. Then
we arrive at the end. If this tale, instead of
being written, had been told vivâ voce to a
circle of listeners, there would, now that the
crisis is past, be a sort of buzz of talk about
the circumstances of the narrative, and certain
questions would infallibly be asked by some of
those who had heard the tale narrated. We
must be ready now with answers to any such
possible questions, though, in truth, there
remains not much more to be said.

There is a very old device of a fabulous and
heraldic nature with which the reader is perhaps
acquainted. It represents a bird, something
of the eagle type, its head thrown back, and
looking upward, its wings flung out in violent
action, and the lower part of its body enveloped
in the fire from which it is rising. This is the
Phoenix, and the motto attached to the device is
a very fine one. As you look upon the radiant
creature, more glorious for the fiery trial through
which it has passed, and rising magnificent out
of the furnace, that motto, "Ex flammis clarior,"
seems to ring in your ears, wonderful in its
appropriateness and beauty. "Brighter out of the
flames." More splendid because of that fierce
ordeal, you say to yourself, and then you think
of trouble and its ennobling influence, of some
such case as this with which we have been all
this time occupying ourselves.

For brighter, beyond a doubt, and more
glorious, have those two—that husband and
wife whose fortunes we have followed so closely
—emerged from the flame which has passed
over them. That trouble is over now, and a
season of great happiness follows it.

Not that either Gilbert Penmore or his wife
were swift to recover from the after-effects of the
suffering which they underwent. They have
come out of the fire, no doubt, and are safe, but
the flames have hurt them, nevertheless. The
flames have burnt them not a little, and they
carry scars about them which tell of bitter sufferings
endured in the furnace. It was long before
either of them could bear even to think of what
had been; but in due time there came to her
who had chiefly suffered, a source of consolation
so great that it seemed to obliterate the very
memory of the past, and caused it to appear at
last like some half-forgotten dream. In ministering
to a creature wholly helpless, wholly dependent
on her, Gabrielle, the mother, absorbed in
this new and wholesome interest, almost ceased
to remember what she had suffered in the old
time—as it soon seemed—when her child was
not yet born to her.

But before that event took place, many things
happened to distract Gabrielle's attention from
the memory of what she had gone through.
Friends sprang up on every side for this new
martyr. Comparative strangers who could allege
some such excuse as having once known her
father or mother, came to call upon her, and
some even who had no such excuse, and could
only plead their anxiety to show some attention
to one who had suffered in so uncommon a way.
Immediately after the trial, the wife of that old
judge in whom Gabrielle had felt such trust,
came to her, and asked leave to be her friend.
She proved so always.

It has been mentioned in a previous chapter,
that when Governor Descartes and his wife
heard of their daughter's terrible position, and
of the peril that hung over her, they lost no
time in making the necessary arrangements for a
journey to England. The inevitable preparations
and the journey itself, however, took some
weeks, and, happily for them, the trial had come
to a good end before they arrived. To see her
parents again after so long a separation, was in
itself no small delight to Gabrielle. And she
saw them under happy circumstances. Between
her and her mother there had till this time been
an estrangement ever since Gabrielle's marriage.
All such estrangement was now over, and the
reconciliation between mother and daughter was
complete. Trouble draws people wonderfully
together, and we are not disposed to think
severely of one who has newly escaped from a
deadly peril. With her father, Gabrielle had
always been a favourite, and the old gentleman's
delight at seeing his daughter again, and that
under such circumstances, was very affecting to
see. The old governor talked very big about
compensation, and actions for false imprisonment,
and other legal proceedings in connexion
with the late trial. But Gabrielle shook her
head, and taking her father's hand in hers,
besought him that the memory of that past horror
might not be stirred again.

And now the time came when Gilbert, too,
was to be rewarded for all his patient endurance
and unrequited toil. That interview between
him and the old judge, which took place
immediately after the great trial was over, was not
without its results. It was talked about in law
circles. The old judge and the young barrister
were not alone at that time; all sorts of official
and other persons having occasion to be in the