enched hands, with unseeing eyes,
with ears in which was ringing still the memory of that low,
passionate cry. And then the fit passed. He looked down to the little
half-way house where he had left his wife. He fancied he could see
someone waving a white handkerchief from the platform of pine logs. It
was all so right, after all, so right and natural. He began to descend
alone.

Saton brought her down about an hour later. Their faces told all that
there was to say.

"Bertrand is going to stay here for another year," Pauline said,
answering Lady Mary's unspoken question. "The first part of his work
with Naudheim will be finished then, and we think he will have earned
a vacation."

Saton held out his hands to Rochester.

"Mr. Rochester," he said, "I have never asked you to forgive me for
all the hard things I have said and thought of you, for my
ingratitude, and--for other things."

"Don't speak of them," Rochester interrupted.

"I won't," Saton continued quickly. "I can't. That chapter of my life
is buried. I cannot bear to think of it even now. I cannot bear to
come in contact with anything which reminds me of it."

Rochester took his hand and grasped it heartily.

"Don't be morbid about it," he said. "Every man should have at least
two chances in life. You had your first, and it was a rank failure.
That was because you had unnatural help, and bad advice. The second
time, I am glad to see that you have succeeded. You have done this on
your own. You have proved that the real man is the present man."

Saton drew Pauline towards him with a gesture which was almost
reverent.

"I think that Pauline knows," he said. "I hope so."

Early in the morning their sleigh rattled off. Saton stood outside the
cottage, waving his hand. Naudheim was by his side, his arm resting
gently upon the young man's shoulder. A fine snow was falling around
them. The air was clean and pure--the air of Heaven. There was no
sound to break the deep stillness but the tinkle of the sleigh-bells,
and behind, the rhythmic humming of the machinery, and the crashing of
the falling trees.

"Naudheim is a great master," Rochester said.

Pauline smiled through her tears.

"Bertrand isn't such a very bad pupil."

THE END

E. Phillips Oppenheim's Novels

He possesses the magic art of narration.--_New York Herald._

Mr. Oppenheim never fails to entertain us.--_Boston Transcript._

The author has acquired a