"There's something troubling the boy," thought Brown, who still considered himself in the light of mentor to the

young man. Hastings was certainly ill at ease; his manner was restless; his eyes shifted uncomfortably before Brown's kind look.

John laid his hand gently on his arm. "Something's wrong, Harry, my lad-what is it?"

Harry started, and stirred uneasily under the other's touch. His brown cheeks turned crimson-he hung his head shamefacedly. "Yes, something's wrong," he said, looking down confusedly at the Persian carpet. "I'm in a mess-when is a fellow ever out of a mess, I should like to know! I came a cropper over the Derby last month-always was fond of betting, you know, Brown -and-I'm down on my luck—all to pieces, don't you know."

He plunged his hands deeper into his trousers pockets. His halfsmoked cheroot lay smouldering on the floor. Brown picked it up. "You are trying to put me off, and making a mess of it, Harry," he said quietly. "You've got something on your mind, something more than a cropper over the Derby. I'm a man of the world, and you can't deceive me. Who's the woman?"

The young man started. "What the devil's that to you?" he growled, then, recovering himself, "There is no woman-I wish you wouldn't startle a fellow with such deuced awkward questions. What woman should there be? I don't know why you should catechize me like this. Upon my word, Brown, if it were any one but you I should call it d-d impertinent."

Harry paced up and down the room like an angry young lion. Brown moved towards the door.

"I am sorry to have offended you, Harry. I-I wanted to be your friend, but as you take it in this spirit--" He paused and came back a few steps. "I can't leave you like this, Harry, dear lad; you want a friend-let me help you."

Harry looked up into John Brown's kind, gentle face, and his anger melted. He took the other's extended hand and pressed it warmly.

"Sorry I was angry, old chap. You are right; your worldly wisdom surprises me. There is a woman. I'm in a devil of a mess, and heaven knows how I shall get out of it. I-I can't tell you about it now-no time-I promised to meet Dicky Jones at the club. Come in next week, old fellow, and look me up."

II.

HARRY HASTINGS looked up from his letters with a bright smile of welcome.

"Here you are at last, Brown; awfully glad to see you." He put away his unfinished letter with a curious look of confusion on his handsome face.

you know."

"I-I was just writing to-to her,

"And who is she? Who is the woman ? "

"I

"Ah! that's my secret-and hers," said the young man. have some sense of honour, you know, though I don't suppose you will think I can have much of that about me when I tell you I'm in love with a married woman. You are so much better than most fellows, you know, that I don't expect much pity from you, old man."

John Brown sighed.

"I am sorry for you, my lad, and for her. Does she love you?" "She tells me so."

"How long has this been going on?"

Harry shifted restlessly in his chair.

"Oh, for years! I'll tell you all about it from the beginning. I met her out in India ages ago, when she was a lovely girl of seventeen, and I tumbled head over ears in love with her, and she with me; she tells me now she has always loved me. If I had proposed to her at once it would have been all right, but-but it does seem a plunge for a fellow to bind himself for life when he's only one-and-twenty, and-and I funked it. I was a whole week making up my mind to propose, and before I had quite decided I got knocked out of time by a tiger and landed for six months in a hospital. When I got on my feet again she had gone back to England, and I didn't follow her. Well, I never saw her again until a month or two ago, then, as ill luck would have it, I went down to see some friends in the country, and she was staying at a neighbouring house. I met her out walking one day-of course I knew her at once; she was lovelier than ever-ripened, matured, and all that sort of thing, you know-and I felt I loved her as much as ever. I told her so, too, never guessing but that she was as single as I am, and then she blushed and sighed and cried a little, and told me she was married. Of course I ought to have gone away at once, never seen her again, but she looked at me so sweetly, Brown, and admitted with so many tears that

she didn't love her husband, that she wasn't happy, that-that deuce take me if I could tear myself away."

"Of course you couldn't," said Brown grimly. "I suppose you expected her to be brave for you both and point out your duty to you. Well, is she in London now?"

"Yes."

"And you see her often?"

"Nearly every day."

"And her husband-what does he think of this?"

"I have never seen him. She won't even tell me who or what he is and I don't care-it's all the better.

Brown, and I wish to God I was out of it."

It's a bad business,

"Then get out of it, Harry; it's in your own hands. Leave England at once; it is your only chance."

The young man bent his head on his hands and groaned.

"I can't I can't-I love her. happy! It would be brutal to husband of hers."

"Is he unkind to her?"

And she is so lonely and unleave her all alone with that

Oh, she never says that-but, but she implies a good deal, don't you know. She never loved him, you see, though she has tried hard to do her duty. He is slow and dull and uninteresting and all that sort of thing; a regular old buffer, I suppose. Poor girl! she says her life would be miserable without me; how can I leave her?"

"Then where will this end? Oh, my boy, where are you drifting to ?"

"The Divorce Court, I suppose," said Harry recklessly. "Some day I imagine we shall make a bolt of it—and then

"And then you will realize what it is to ruin three lives. If you love this woman you will give her up."

"I do love her, but I won't give her up!" burst out Harry. "It's no use preaching, old man; I'm not good enough; I can't rise to the practice."

John Brown was silent a few moments, thinking. He pitied the young man; what could he do to save him? A sudden thought struck him; Harry had never had a happy home. During his wandering existence he could have seen but little of domestic life: what could he know of the sacredness of the tie between husband and wife-that tie that he was doing his best

to break? Who could tell but that a glimpse into a happy home might arouse some of the latent good in him

"Look here, Harry," said Brown abruptly. "I'm not going to preach-I see it's no use. Come home to dinner with me instead and see my wife-the very sight of a good woman and a happy wife is good for a man in your frame of mind. Come and talk to Alice-she is the best medicine I can recommend you."

Harry started.

"I didn't know you were married, Brown; 'pon my word I didn't. Happy man!"

John smiled, a smile of trust and happiness that lit up his rugged face into positive beauty.

“I am a happy man-thanks to Alice; when I think of my own good fortune in having such a wife it makes me very pitiful to you poor bachelors."

He took out his watch, a large gold timepiece as absolutely reliable as himself.

"Half-past six-we dine at seven. Come, Hastings, it doesn't take more than twenty minutes to get to Curzon Street-aristocratic neighbourhood, isn't it? I daresay you've often driven past our home-Bijou House, and a gem of a place it is! If there are two things I am proud of they are my wife and my home. You are not going to do any more writing, Harry? we shall only just be in time for dinner."

Harry Hastings was standing at his desk, busily arranging papers, and it was quite a perceptible time before he answered without turning his head.

"Very sorry, but I really can't come to-night; I—I've an engagement. Some other time I shall be delighted to make— your wife's-acquaintance."

Brown was quite distrait that evening; his thoughts wandered to his old pupil with tiresome persistency. He hardly noticed that Alice wore a new and bewitching tea-gown; he did not see that though her eyes were fixed on her book she never turned a page. Alice, too, was distrait, but presently she yawned and looked up at her husband with a slightly unamiable expression on her calm fair face.

"What on earth are you thinking of, John? Do you know that you are a very dull companion this evening?"

John started out of his reverie.

I was

"Am I, dearest ? I know I'm a dull old fellow. thinking of my old pupil, Harry Hastings. I've often talked to you about him, you know, and if you remember, I met him last week in the City-

"Yes, I remember," said Alice indifferently, picking up the book which had slipped from her hand. "Well, why 'poor' Harry Hastings? I thought he was a very rich young man."

"He is a very unhappy man just now; he's got into an unfortunate entanglement with a married woman

"Really? did he tell you so?"

"Yes-he told me; it appears he met her years ago in India.” "And who is the woman?".

"He refused to tell me—and he was right. Whoever she may be I pity her--and him."

He took his wife's pretty white hand in his and looked at her fondly.

Ah, Alice, if there were more women like you the world would be a very different place."

She drew her hand quickly away, a sudden flush of colour on her pale cheeks.

"Don't be foolish, John; you run my rings into me—we are not on our honeymoon."

Brown felt a trifle chilled.

III.

SOME weeks passed, and Brown saw nothing more of young Hastings. He called at his rooms several times, but never found him in. He wrote and repeated his invitation to dinner, but Harry was deep in engagements and could not spare his friend an evening for weeks to come.

"Poor Harry," said John to his wife, "I am anxious for him. He's going to the devil rapidly-he knows it and he's ashamed to see me---poor unhappy bɔy!"

"I don't know that he needs your pity, John," said Alice, without raising her eyes from the toy terrier on her lap; "I daresay he is happier going to the devil in his own way than he would be if he led an absolutely virtuous and uneventful life."

"For awhile, perhaps; but for how long?"

Alice shrugged her shoulders.