which was on the wane, looked down with a pale and hurried gleam through the rifts before the clouds closed speedily again over its mournful face. Their steps, slow before, slackened as they drew nearer to their old home, and stopped altogether as they stood opposite to it, looking up to its dark gables traced against the obscure sky. Of all who had ever gazed at the decayed and dingy dwelling, none had ever looked with such eyes as theirs. A shiver passed through them both, as if some deadly miasma had breathed upon them from the deserted and dishonoured house. Yet it was their home, the only home Hester had ever known; the home to which John Morley had brought her mother, and that second wife of his who had disgraced it by her sin. They stood opposite to it, two dark shadows in the gloom, scarcely daring to venture across the narrow street and invade the solemn solitude, if solitude indeed were there, of the empty house.

"Come," said Hester at last, grasping her father's hand again, and leading him like a child across the street. The door by which Lawson entered his workroom was gained by

an outer staircase, like that leading to the nursery, and it brought them on to the second floor of the building. Hester unlocked it and threw it open, a damp, cold, earthy air greeting them. The darkness was unbroken blackness within; but there was no danger that they should stumble upon the floor their feet had trodden so often. Yet John Morley stood within the closed door, rooted and immoveable, while Hester found Lawson's match-box and kindled a light. She came back to him and looked into his face. It had quite lost its newborn air of resolve and strength; and he stood with his head drooping once more, and his shoulders bowed, an old and decrepit man. She put both her arms fondly about his neck, and forced him to look at her.

"Have we done wrong in returning here?” she asked. "Do you feel sorry we came back?"

"No, no," he answered; "we have done well. It is but a passing paroxysm, a dread which is almost over. In a minute or two I shall be myself again. I will go to my own room, Hester."

He put his arm through hers, and leaned heavily upon it as she led him across the empty

VOL. III.

workrooms. They found the door into the house unfastened, though a bolt was upon it which had never been there in their time. It opened at one end of the long, dark passage which ran in a straight line through the middle of the house. At the other end was the door of Rose's drawing-room, standing wide open, and sending a broad, bright stream of light into the darkness. Almost involuntarily Hester extinguished her candle, and drew her father's arm more closely through her own, thinking to gain his room unseen. But John Morley did not stir, and she could catch, in the glimmer which reached them, the flashing of his eyes as he gazed steadily into the lighted room. There was the sound of a footfall passing to and fro on the carpeted floor, but no one came into sight; and after a minute or two John Morley whispered into his daughter's ear.

"I must see her," he said; "let us go forward softly. Even if she discovers me here, I must see her this night."

With stealthy footsteps, as if they had no right to be in their own home, they crept along the passage until they could command the view of half the room within. It was many years

since Hester had looked into it, and she had grown from childhood to womanhood since; but to her eye there was but little change. Yet at one corner stood a little bed-she recollected it as her own-but it was not occupied. The child who had been sleeping in it was now being carried to and fro about the room, in the arms of her father, Robert Waldron.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE LAST MOMENT.

WHEN Carl told him that little Hester was gone to her mother, Robert believed that his child was lost to him altogether. He could

not meet Rose in her husband's house; he could not even visit his child there. Mr. Waldron went every day to spend an hour or two with the little grand-daughter, whom he could not acknowledge, but who fastened the more closely about his heart. He spoke very gently to Rose, and with a reverence he had not accorded to her in the days when she had been a favourite with him, in spite of her girlish frivolity. consecration of a great sin, purified by a great sorrow, was upon her. Now and then he addressed to her the few hearty words of fellowship and encouragement by which a true man, who is also a Christian, can bind up the broken in spirit; but they did not converse much. The thoughts of both were centred upon the child whose life was swiftly running

The