of that man's treating you with unkindness,
no matter how great the distance, as sure as I
am alive, if I have strength to crawl, I'll come
over and punish that man."

"Hush!" said she, looking round in alarm;
"this is the old insanity; but I have hope and
confidence, and can forgive these wild bursts."

"Ah, that's what you call them," he said,
bitterly; " that's your name and your work too.
Whatever I turn out, and if I end badly and
violently, which I know I shall, you were the
beginning and are the end of it. You deceived
and betrayed me."

"I?" she said, trembling.

"Yes, you," he said. " I might have been
one of your steady model decent citizens, but
for you. You were mine, and pledged to me from
the beginning. I looked on you as mine; but
you sold yourself, as many a woman has done
before—-was bought with his banking money;
and a man that has left me this" (pointing to
his scar), " before God, I'll come back and
reckon with him. O Ada, how I have loved
you all this time! and I tell you this one thing,
you shall be mine yet, one of these days."

"No, no," she said, in the same mournful
voice; " we have each our lot, and must go
through it. All that is over now; it has come
too late."

"As the tree falls, eh? Nothing of the kind.
You were not born to be miserable, to be chained
to that man—-a wretch," he continued, with
growing excitement, "that if his history were
once known, the common police would enter the
house and drag him away to a jail. It's true,
by Heaven!"

Trembling again, and with a faltering voice,
she said, " I do not want to know these things.
He is my husband. Only because you are going
away do I dare listen to you."

"What prevents me?" continued the other,
pacing up and down furiously. " Better men
than he have been dragged from a fever to a
prison. Only you, and you alone, Ada, have
kept me from this. I was thinking over it
nights and nights ago. Nothing kept me but
you, my poor sweet sacrificed Ada. O, you will
never know how I have loved you. Under all
my rudeness and roughness, which you could
not understand, I did, indeed, love you; only
my wretched pride would not let me show it.
But what is that to you now? And how can you
so patiently put up with this miserable man,
whom you should learn to despise? who is beneath
you morally, whom it is not fit you should
stay with——" He paused.

"It is my lot—-it is my duty," she answered,
calmly. "This is the last time we meet, so you
can speak as you will; but you know me well
enough by this time to be aware that I am not
moved by such things. We must part now;
and if I am responsible (as I believe I am,
through a fatal mistake) for these troubles, you
will forgive me, and I shall pray for you, and
we shall look forward to happier days."

At that moment the servant came in with a
lamp, and a letter to Mr. Tillotson, which he set
down before her. She opened it mechanically,
as she had latterly done his letters—-saw that
it was headed "Foncier Bank," like a hundred
such circulars and notices of board
meetings, as had come regularly within the
last fortnight or three weeks. She threw it
from her. " Good-bye, dearest Ross," she said,
with infinite tenderness; " I have reason, indeed,
to ask your forgiveness. Cease to think of me;
look forward to a new and bright future, and I
shall pray every day for your happiness."

Ross looked at her a moment, and then
caught her in his arms. He held her there long.
She was powerless to free herself. " I cannot
go," he said; "I shall not go. I cannot leave
you here; or, if I do, I shall end miserably;
do something desperate. It is you who have
brought me to this."

She gave him one sad look, freed herself, and
had fled from the room.

"Wait! Stay!" he called after her, in an
agony, " a moment;" but she was gone. He was
pacing up and down in a fury. " Come back!
come back!" he cried; " I can't lose you. Curse
on him that has done all this cruel work! I
shall be even with him yet for all this, and before
I go, too, if I could find any way." And he looked
round and round the room as if for a victim.

The cheery voice of Mr. Tilney was now
heard at the door. " Ross here?" he cried.
"Well, well; it seems we are doing well
upstairs—-right well. I am very glad of it. It
should be a lesson to you, my boy. When you
have once anchored your hope up there in a sure
and certain immortality, you are—-you are,"
added Mr. Tilney, embarrassed by forgetting
what followed, " you are—-all right."

Ross scarcely heard him. " I shall be even
with him yet," he was muttering.

"What's this?" said Mr. Tilney, taking up
the Foncier Secretary's letter, " something from
my old bank. Dear me, the days when I was
a director, and signing cheques like wildfire.
I come and help her in all these business
matters. What can girls know?" Mr. Tilney
got out his spectacles and prepared to read.

Sitting down in the arm-chair, and reading
this document, with Ross pacing round fhe
room, Mr. Tilney broke out suddenly in agitation:
"My goodness! Heaven above us! What
is all this?—-'involved in the most helpless manner!
Salvation depends on not a whisper escaping.
Burn this——' " And Mr. Tilney, with his
glasses dropping helplessly from his nose, could
only turn the letter upside down, and say
incoherently the words, " Providence," " Shape
our ends," " Sparrow falls."

Ross had caught the words; in a second had
twitched the letter from him; in a second
more had read it with gleaming eyes through to
the end; and while Mr. Tilney was gasping and
muttering his devout common-places, had, with
a stamp and a cry of triumph, rushed away.

CHAPTER XXIX. THE FONCIER TOTTERS.

IN the full rush and flush of its prosperity,
with its shares at eight or ten per cent premium,
the Foncier seemed to deserve the envy
with which its happy course was followed.