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ctt. _ "There have been days in my life--- in the years that are gone~aye, in the weeks that I have spent yonder at scarswood--when I have held the laudanum in my hand, to my lips, that would have ended it all. But I did not dare die-such wretches as I don't. It was not death I feared - but what comes after. Captain O'Don- nell," she lifted her haggard eyes and looked at him. and to the last day of his life the hopeless despair of that sfpee---the hopeless pathos of that voice haunted him, "what must you think of me? What a lost, degrad- ed creature I must be in your sight!" He took both her hands in his, a compassion such as he had never felt for any human being before stirring hisheart. "Was she? In your eyes, of course, Lady Cecil can do no evil. But what " "., old you she had done mo the wlhe deadliest wrong of all?" He looked at her in surprise. "I don't. understand," he said. it little coldly. “I believe Lady Cet?il to be incapable of wilfully wronging any one. And she always spoke gently of you." "You waged war with Lady Cecil Clive, in taking her lover from her, and she certainly never wronged you. She was your friend through all." "What a mockery, what a satire it all is-the world and the people in it! Weare all sinners, but I wonder what I have done that my life should be so accursed? Redmond O'Donnell, this morning I felt almost happy-a fierce, triumphal sort of happiness-l had fought a long, bitter battle, but the victory was with me at last. Now, if I could lie down here and die I Shauld ask no greater boon. My life has been from first to last a dreary, miserable failure. Oh, God! I want to do right. My life has been bitter, bitter, and I feel as though I were steeped in crime to the lips. If I could only die and end it all! But death passes the guilty and miserable by, and takes the happy and the good." base enough to marry him, even if he bad asked me. He had never wrong- ed me, and I only waged war with those who did." The hard look came over her face once more, a hard light in her large eyes. e She leaned her forehead on her hands, and pushed back her hair with a long, tired sigh. Her folded arms were lying on the table. her head fell forward on them as though she never cared to lift it again. From first to last she had been a creature of impulse, swayed by a passionate, undisciplined heart--- a, ship adrift on a dark sea, without rudder or compass. fTi,:iirt' am I that I should judge? And if I thought go, would I ask you .to be the companion, the sister of my sister? There is nothing but pity for you in my heart-nothing. Give up this dark and dangerous life, and be true/to yourself-to the noble nature Heiiven has given you, once more!" She rose up-her hand still in his, a sort of inspiration shining in her “I will!" she' answered. "You - whom I thought my enemy, shall save me. I renounce it-the plotting --the evil-the revenge, And tor your sake face --tor tTeHoVrs-ou bear her, I will spare her." V "You do hot understand. See here. Captain O'Donnel, I told you, did I 11%, my second object in returning to England was to discover my parent- age? Well, I have discovered it? “You have'." he cried breath1essly. “I have discovered it. My father lives, and the' daughter of my nurse occupies my place in his heart, the Tame I should bear. It is a very old 3story-changed at nurse-and that nurse has confessed all." l ' He looked at her in mute inquiry. She smiled, drew away her hands, and resumed her seat. , “You have done this! Then I con- gratulate you, indeed! You will go to your father at once, ot course! No one, believe me, can rejoice at this more sincerely than I." "You mistake. I will never go. This morning I had intended-but that is all past now. If I renounce my revenge and wrong-doing in one way, I renounce it in all. 5 never under- stood half-measures." "But there is wrong-dointrhere--- it is your duty to go." "ckptain O'Donnell, doh't you see another is in my place? My going would bring shame, and disgrace, and misery upon her. My father is a very proud maao---would it add to his pride or happiness to acknowledge such a daughter as I?" ‘ "All that has nothing to do with it," the chasseur answered. with his stub- born sense of right and wrong. "Your duty is to go to your father, and tell him the truth at any cost to his pride or yours." _ She smiled. "1 wonder if this would be your ad- vice it-it, for exumple---my father were the Earl of Ruysland? I name him, you understand, as the first I think of. Suppose I went to him and said: 'My lord, Katherine Danger- tie1d---Helen Herneastle--Gaston Dan- trees---any alias you please-am your daughter', she whom you call Lady Cecil Clive is but the daughter of your former servant, my nurse. She hated your dead wife, my mother, and when you came to claim your child she gave you hers. Suppose I said this - suppose I could prove it---what then? Would the earl clasp me to his bo- som in a gush of parental love? Would Lady Cecil get down from her pedes- tal of birth and rank and let me mount? Think ot the earl's shame and pain-her sutterirup---Sir Arthur Tregenna's humiliation; think how much happiness T, the usurper. enjoy. Bring the case home, and tell me still, if you can-to go." "I tell you still to go. Right is right. Though the Earl of Ruysland were your father, though Lady Cecil had usurped your place, I should still What it may." "You, who love Lady Cecil, give me tlniaitviee'? Captain O'Donnell. you don't love her," (Continued From Last Week) "'1"/' THE LAST LINK ieii Ihe truth,' be the cost u"! love her so well that I leave hers I love her so well that if the thing you speak of were possible, I would be the first to go and tell her. Once again-in the face of all that may follow--" repeat, go! Tell the truth, take the place and name that are yours, and let me help you if I can." But still she sat keeping that strange wistful, searching gaze on his face. "You love her so well that' you leave her," she repeated dreamily; "you leave her because she is an earl's daughter and you think above you.' If you knew her to be poor - poor and low-born--" . rev. ....l. .e - "I would still leave her. It would make no difference. Poor or rich, gentle or simple, who am I that I should marry a wife? My so1dier's life in camp and desert does well enough for me. How would I do, think you, for one brought up as Lady Cecil Clive has been? I can rough it well enough-the life suits me; but I shall never care to see my wife rough it, also. Let us pass all that - I don't care to talk of myself. Lady Cecil Clive is not for me---any more than one of her majesty's daughters. Let us speak only of you." She rose up with a strange, un- fathomable smile, crossed the room without a word, lit a, candle, and placed it on the table before him. He watched her in silent surprise. She drew from her pocket a folded paper, and handed it to him. "You have done greater service than you dream of in coming here," she said. “Do one last favor. I want this paper destroyed. I have a. whim- sical fancy to see you do it. Hold it to the candle and let it burn." He took it doubtfully. He read the superscription: "Confession of Harriet Harman," and hesitated. "I don't know-why should 1? IVhat is this?" "Nothing that concerns anyone on earth but myself. You will be doing a good deed , I believe, in destroying it. Let me see you burn it. I can do it, of course; but, as I said, I have a fancy that yours should be the hand to destroy it. Burn it, Captain O'Don- nell." Still wondering-still doubting-he obeyed. Held the paper in the flame of the candle unlil it dropped in a charred cloud on the table. Then she held out her hand to him with a brave bright smile. "Once more I thank you. You have done me a great service. You have saved me from myself. When do you and your sister leave '?" ' "To-day; but if I can aid you in any way-if I can take you to. your father---" . "You are r'eady to do it, I know," but I have not quite made-up my mind about that yet. It is not a thing to be done in a. hurry, Give me a few hours. Come back if you will before you depart, and if you have any influ- ence with the Earl of Ituyssland, don't' let him send that search-warrant to- day. Let us say good-by, and part for the present." He stood and looked at her doubt- fully. He felt vaguely that never had he been farther from understand- ing her than at this moment. _ “I will come," he said, "and I hope ---1 trust by that time you will have made up your mind to return to your father, and---if Rose wishes it-may I bring her to see him?" l "Certainly-she will not know her-- "Certainly-mein not know her-- poor fellow. He knows nobody. Fare- well.Redmond O'Donne1l--my friend." There was a lingering tenderness in her voice, in her eyes, that might have told him her secret. But men are to- tally blind sometimes. ‘He saw noth- ing. ire' grasped her hand. "Not fare well," he said. "Au revoirv" v, She “'le with him to the door. She watched him with wistful eyes out ot sight. ("‘HAPTER XVI. ' That Night. Three hours later, and Redmond and Bose O'Donnell had emitted Scars- wood Park forever. The last tare- wells had been said-to Lady Dan- gerfield, weeping feebly, not so much at their loss as over the general dis- tress and misery that was falling up- on the place, the dread of her own fortune. To Lady Cecil, cold and white and still, giving her parting handclasp and look to the brother. "Farewell forever, my love-my love ---who loved me once," that long, wist- ful, hopeless glance said. To Lord Ruysland, politely afable and full ot regrets to the last. "Farewell," s' well forever. I: to me what yo' had been saved "confound Mrs.,Everleigh and her masquerade ball, and doubly, trebly confound Miss Herncastle for pen suading Ginevra to go. The only con- solation is we’ll have her on the hip before night falls." h "And even that consolation) must ask your lordship to forego," O'Don- nell said, with a half..smile. "I have been to see Miss Herncastle And. there is no need of that search-warrant, my lord. I believe you are at liberty to enter and go through Bracken Hol. low as freely as you pleas'e--it you only wait until to-morrow." "My good felow. do you know what you are saying? Wait with such an arch-traitress as that! Wait! give her time to make her escape, and carry off her victim-her prisoner, whoever it may be, and start life luxuriously in London or Paris, under a new alias, and with poor_Sir Peter's money. My dear O'Donnell, you're a sensible tet- low enough in the main, but don't you think this last suggestion of yours be- trays slight symptoms ot softening of the brain l"' "My lord-mo. You see, I know Miss Herneasue's story and you don't -that makes the difference." "Gad!" his lordship responded. "1 am not sure that I care to know any more than I do. If her previous his- tory be in keeping with its sequel here, it must be an edifying automiography. Is her name Herncastle, or what?" “Her name is not Herncasue. I do not know what it is. I believe she does not know herself. My lord, she is greatly to be pitied; she has gone wrong, but circumstances have driven , she said softly; "fare. If Henry Otis had been you are, six years ago I so; and to lean too greatly to the side of pity for the erring is not my weak- ness. Gaston Dantree is the ghost and prisoner of Bracken Hollow. She has confessed; but I believe he is well and kindly treated; and if, instead of car- ing for him there, she had left him to die like a dog in a ditch, she would only have given him his deserts. She had talum-fairly or unfairly, as you will; I don't Know-a large sum of money from Sir Peter Dangerfield; but I say there, too, she has served him right. In her place I would have taken every farthing it I could. She had done wrong in the matter of the ball, but even then, treated as Lady Dangerfield daily treated her, I don't say I would not have done the same. From first to last I maintain Miss Herncastie has been more sinned against than sinning, and so your lordship would acknowledge if you knew all." her wrong .The bitter cynic who de- fines vivtup as only the absence of temptation was right, as cynics very generally are. In her place, I believe I would have done as she has done---- aye, worse. Lite has dealt hardly with her-hardly-hardly. I tell you His eyes were flashing, his dark face flushed with an earnestness that rarely broke through the indolent calm of long habit and training. His lordship stood and stared at him aghast. "Good Heaven!" he said, "what rhodomontade isathis? Is the woman a witch? and have you fallen under her spells at last? And I would ack- nowledge all this if I knew all. Then, my dear fellow, in the name of com- mon sense tell me all, for I'll be hanged if I can make top or tail of this. Who, in Heaven's name. is this greatly wronged-much to-be-pit' Miss Herncastle?" "Egad! I know that beforehand; everything connected with this extra- ordinary young woman is marvelous. Whatever it is, it cannot be much more marvelous than what has gone before.” , "My lord," O‘Qonnell said hastily, “I see my sister Waiting, and I have no time to spare. Here is a proposal: don't go near Bracken Hollow until -"itelhaps I ought to tell you-and yet it is such a marvelous story---" to-morrow, untiryou have heard from me. Before I leave Castleford I will find time to write you the whole thing; I really don't care to tell it, and when you have read her story, I believe I only do you justice in saying you will let Miss Herncastle alone. I have reason to think she will leave Castle- ford to-day with my sister and me--- than she will share Rose's asylum in France and that all her civil doings are at an end. Tonight you shall have my letter-to-morrow do as you please. Once more, my lord, fare- well." He lifted his hat and sprang down the steps to where Rose sat in the basket-carriage awaiting him. Once he glanced back---he half-smiled to see his lordship standing petrified where he had left him. He glanced up at a particular window. A face, that dead and in its coffin would never look whiter, watched him there. He waved his hand-the ponies flung up their heads and dashed down the ave- nue; in a momen.t Scarswood lay be- hind them like a place in a dream. Therp was not o-ne'word spoken all the Way; Once Rose, about to speak, had glanced at her brother's face, and the words died on her lips. Did he love Lady Cecil, after all--had he lov- ed her vainly for year's? They went to the Silver Rose. Miss O'Donnell had her former room, and there, wrenching himself from the bit- terness and pain of his own loss, he told her the story of Gaston Dantree. "If vou would like to see him, now She listened in pale amaze, shrink- ing and trembling as she heard. An idiot, tor life! At the horror of that fate all her wrongs paled into insig- niticanee---what awful retribution was here? She rose up ashen gray with pity land horror, but tearless and "It you wquld like to see him, now is your time," he said. l " am going to Bracken Hollow. You can come if you like." He procured a fly, and they started l at once. Again it was a very silent drive. Redmond O'Donnell forced his; thoughts from his own _troubles--- brooding on hopeless loss of any kind was not his nature-and thought of Katherine. He almost wondered at himself at the pityrhe felt for Jaer----at the sort of admiration and affection she had inspired him with. How brave she was, how resolute, how patient; what wonderful self command was hers. What elements for a noble and beautiful life warped and gone wrong. But it was not yet too late; the cour- age, the generosity. the nobility within her would work for good from hence- forth. He would take her to France. her, better nature would assert itself. She would one day become one of these exceptionally great women whom the world delights to honor. She --he paused. They had drawn up at the gate, and standing there with folded arms, with rigidly compressed lips, with eyes that looked like gleam- ing steel, stood Henry Otis. The Algerian soldier knew him at once, and knew the instant he saw him something had gone wrong. As he advanced with his sister. Mr. Otis flung open the gate, took off his hat to the sister, and abruptly addressed the brother. quiet "I'have the honor of speaking to Captain Redmond O'Donnell?" "I am Captain O’Donnell, Mr, Otis," was the calm answer. 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