n great
excitement until she heard the offending stranger leave.

Then she descended to the parlor, looking pale, but her bright eye
clear, and resolve in every lineament. Wentworth was alone, standing
on the rug, with his back to the fire as she entered.

He evidently quailed as he encountered her full glance, but instantly
made an effort, and attempted to bluster it out.

She approached close up to him before she spoke, and then said in a
clear, low voice.

"I am not come to reproach or to listen to recriminations, but to tell
you I never will submit to such insult again." And baring her delicate
wrist where the mark of his fingers was now turning black, said,
"Should my father see that, you well know the consequence. I have
nothing more to say, but remember it," and passing through the room,
she left him speechless with contending feelings, shame predominating
perhaps over the others, and retired once more to her room.

Mr. and Mrs. Grey dined with Pauline the next day, and Wentworth did
his best to behave himself well. He was attentive and respectful to
them, affectionate to Pauline.

She looked very pale, however, though she made an effort to be
cheerful and animated. At dinner the loose sleeve of her dress falling
back as she raised her hand, her mother exclaimed, "Oh, Pauline, what
is the matter with your wrist?"

Glancing slightly at her husband, who obviously changed color and
looked uneasy, she said quietly, as she drew her bracelet over the
dark stains, "I struck it and bruised it." Wentworth's brow cleared,
and there was a look of grateful affection in his eye which Pauline
had not seen for many a day.

Mr. and Mrs. Grey returned home better satisfied with their son-in-law
than they had been almost since his marriage. So little often do the
nearest friends know of what is going on in the hearts of those
dearest to them.

We will not trace Mr. Wentworth's career more closely. It is a common
one--that of a "wild" young man settling into a dissipated one. Mr.
Grey heard occasionally who his associates were; and he knew them to
be men without character, a kind of gentlemen "blacklegs." He heard
intimations, too, of his habits, and intemperance was leaving its
traces in his once rather handsome countenance.

But from Pauline came no murmur. And soon the birth of a daughter
seemed to absorb all her feelings, and opened, they trusted, an
independent source of happiness for their unhappy child.

Pauli