s niece and her husband. "I told her that I would
come to you to-night," he said, "that I would plead her cause, and I
have, have I not?"

"Well and nobly," answered Mrs. Home. "Angus, think of her trusting me!
I am so glad she could trust me. Indeed she is safe with us."

"How soon can you go to her in the morning, Lottie?" asked the curate.

"With the first dawn I should like to go, I only wish I could fly to her
now. Oh, Angus! what she must suffer; and next Tuesday is to be her
wedding-day. How my heart does ache for her! But I am glad she trusts
me."

Here Mrs. Home become so excited that a great flood of tears came into
her eyes. She must cry them away in private. She left the room, and the
curate, sitting down, told to Uncle Sandy how Charlotte Harman had saved
little Harold's life.

CHAPTER XLIV.

LOVE BEFORE GOLD.

For the first time in all her life, Mrs. Home laid her head on her
pillow with the knowledge that she was a rich woman. Those good things
which money can buy could be hers; her husband need want no more; her
children might be so trained, so nurtured, so carefully tended that
their beauty, their beauty both physical and moral, would be seen in
clearest lustre. How often she had dreamed of the possibility of such a
time arriving, and now at last it had come. Ever since her dying mother
had told her own true history, she had dwelt upon this possible moment,
dwelt upon it with many murmurings, many heart frettings. Could it be
realized, she would be the happiest of women. Then she had decided to
give it all up, to put the golden dream quite out of her life and,
behold! she had scarcely done so before it had come true, the dream was
a reality, the riches lay at her feet. In no way through her
interference had this come about. Yes, but in the moment of her victory
the woman who had so longed for money was very miserable; like Dead Sea
apples was the taste of this eagerly desired fruit. She was enriched
through another's anguish and despair, through the wrecking of another's
happiness, and that other had saved the life of her child. Only one
thing comforted Charlotte Home during the long hours of that weary
night; Charlotte Harman had said.--

"With her I am safe; dearly as she loves money, with her I am quite
safe."

Mrs. Home thought the slow moments would never fly until she was with
the sister friend, who in her own bitter humiliation and shame could
trust her. In the morning, she an