And I'll be glad to pay you a fair salarynothing enormous, you understand, but more-more than I think you are likely to make here, my dear."

Mary had drawn back a step as he was speaking, raising her hands and clasping them upon her breast.

"Oh, you are kind, sir!" she answered, just above a whisper; you are very, very kind! But I think I couldn't do that; I couldn't do that just now, Mr. Hapgood. It would seem to me like deserting all this" -she made a little gesture to comprehend the room-"all this that he loved and was

so proud of. I think I ought to make the attempt. I ought at least to try. But thank you, just the same, sir-thank you!"

She turned away, battling with the tears that strove to come.

"As you will," said Mr. Hapgood, after a moment. "We'll leave the offer open. A letter to Colchester will reach me at any time, and if you find that you can'tthat it doesn't work, Miss Hartshorn, you'll write, won't you?"

Mary nodded. She could not trust herself to speak.

"And I'll take the tureen with me," he

added more briskly. "I don't like to lose sight of a treasure, once I've found it. I'm spending the night with a friend in town, so it's quite convenient. There's a hundred dollars-not a word, young lady! I know the value of this kind of thing better than you, I fancy. And now, good-by. A promise is a promise, remember. I shall fully expect to hear from you in case you change your mind."

He was gone before she found words answer him, carrying the signed tureen 1. his arms as tenderly as the shepherd bears the lamb. The girl was smiling through ⚫her tears as she went slowly up the stairs.

Outside, the short October day was already at an end. Darkness fell abruptly, and lighted windows multiplied along the narrow street. A stiff, crisp wind blew in from the sea, paused at the half-open window of the Hartshorn house, and entered, tentatively at first, and then more boldly. The stolid china and mahogany furniture received this intruder with rigid formality. Only two things stirred at his coming-the flighty dimity curtain, which went into ecstasies at his impetuous attentions, and the flame of the little lamp on the table, a foot away.

Ten minutes later, Jeremy Burns came out upon the steps of his house, locked the door carefully behind him, turned, paused for a moment, with his head thrust forward and his eyes protruding like green marbles, and then, with a roar, plunged madly across the street, and began to thunder with his fists upon the Hartshorn door. Mary was roused from the deep revery into which she had fallen, in her room above, by the stupendous clamor of his pounding and his cries-roused to a heart-startling sensation of calamity. The air was hot and pungent. As she lifted her head to listen, it suddenly stung her eyes, and when she flung open the door of her chamber it was to find the hall and stairway white with dense clouds of smoke. Reeling and choking, she fought her way downward and out, perceiving only, as she passed the ware

room door, that the heat became scorching, and that little tongues of red and yellow danced in the thick haze. Then her fingers closed on the knob of the street-door, and turned it. A great, cold inrush of pure air met her like the arms of a friend, and the next instant she was in the street.

The crowd had gathered in a breath. Her neighbors flocked about her, proffering sympathy, aid, and shelter. In the near distances swelled the bell of the chemical

., driven headlong, and the voices

1 clamoring to clear the way. But above these sounds rose another, something midway between a shout and a bark, and Jeremy Burns, gasping, smoke-blinded, groping before him, came lunging toward her.

"The whole room's ablaze!" he screamed, pummelling the air grotesquely with his blackened fists. "I can't get in-I tried four times. An' the t'reen-the t'reen! Oh, my God-my God!-the t'reen!"

"Never mind that, Mr. Burns," broke in Mary, uncertain whether to laugh or cry. "The tureen's not there. I sold it this afternoon."

For a moment Jeremy was stricken dumb by the words, and stood blinking at her out of his smoke-reddened eyes, his raised hands closing and unclosing like swimming starfish. Then he drew himself up stiffly.

"You sel' the t'reen?" he said slowly. "An' t' think I've jest saved your life!”

"It does beat all," said kindly Mrs. Tapley, as she led Mary home with her, when at last the house was a heap of ruins, "how he come t' think o' chany at sech a time—an' you losin' house an' home. The good Lord o'ny knows w'at you'll do now, Mary. W'ere's your hankcher, child? Ef y' ain't got the smoochiest nose!"

Groping in her pocket, Mary's fingers closed upon a card, and she drew it out and read it, as they passed a lighted window. Then she smiled.

"I'll write to-night," she whispered.

XXI

N saying to Constance that he had pondered the question of their marriage from her standpoint, Gordon Perry felt that he had given indeed the fullest weight to every legitimate scruple, and believed that, provided he was beloved, there was no substance in any one of them. He knew that Constance had shrunk from a divorce. What more natural so long as she was undisturbed by her deserting husband? But now that the element of a new, strong affection was introduced, the necessary legal proceedings seemed a paltry bar to her happiness. He had expected that she would demur to the step at first, but he had felt confident that her acute sense would shortly convince her that she was divorced to all intents and purposes already, and that the mere formal adjudication of the fact, however unpleasant sentimentally, was not a valid obstacle. He had also appreciated that this repugnance to a legal dissolution of the marriage tie for the purpose of becoming a second time a wife would be accompanied by with an instinctive feminine aversion to giving her person to another man while it was still possible to encounter the original husband in the flesh. He did not pride himself on his knowledge of women, but the attitude suggested itself to him as possible, even probable, in the case of one whose sensibilities were so delicate as hers, for the reason that there lingered in his mind the remembrance of shrinking words both in books and in real life by other women when the same topic had been broached in the

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past. Consequently it was a relief to him that Constance did not openly manifest this form of repugnance, and he radiantly jumped to the conclusion that her love for him was so reciprocal and mastering that false delicacy had been shrivelled up as in a furnace. Was not such a process in keeping with her sterling sanity and intelligence? For a moment he had jubilantly assumed that all was won, since, after conscientious if somewhat scornful analysis of the Church's claim, he had already decided that the pure religious objection would never in the end avail to keep them apart. Nor did the foreboding definiteness of her opposition discourage him appreciably. It merely cast a damper on his hopes for an immediate surrender, and indicated to him that he had been premature in supposing that she had been able to purge herself of superstitions and conventional prejudices forthwith. It could simply be a question of time when so human and discerning a bride would come. to his arms without a qualm.

Nevertheless he felt that he must convince her. Now that he was sure she loved him, the possibility of losing her was not even to be entertained; but he wished her to succumb as the result of agreement, and not in spite of herself, both because he realized that she would not be happy otherwise, and because the doctrine which she had invoked as a binding obligation jarred not only with his desires, but with his deepest opinions. Therefore, at the conclusion of their interview, he took up straightway the cudgels of thought in defence of his convictions against what

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