's sake, don't be too hasty! Give me opportunity for
explanation. I admit that I did wrong, but there are extenuating
circumstances. Let me explain, I entreat you, before you thus blight my
life, and your own.'

'What explanation is there to give? If it is true that you ruined that
poor girl,--and do you think that a lie can be uttered on a
death-bed,--what more is there to say? Gather up these baubles, and take
them away.'

Her bearing was that of a queen. Well might he shrink under that
matchless scorn, yet never had she appeared more beautiful, more
desirable in his eyes. He made one more attempt.

'Take time, Gladys. I deny nothing; I only ask to be allowed to show
you, at least, that I am a repentant man, and that I will atone for all
the past by a lifetime of devotion.'

'To whom?'

'To you. I have been a wild, foolish, sinful fellow, if you like, but
never wholly bad,' he said eagerly. 'And, Gladys, think of the fearful
scandal this will be. We dare not break off the marriage, when it is so
near.'

'I dare; I dare anything, George Fordyce. And I pray God to forgive you
the awful wrong you did to that poor girl, and the insult you were base
enough to offer me in asking me to be your wife--an insult, I fear, I
can never forgive.'

'Aunt Isabel, will you not help me?' said he then, turning desperately
to his aunt. 'Tell Gladys what you know to be true, that there are
hundreds of men in this and other cities who have married girls as pure
and good as Gladys, and whose life before marriage would not bear
investigation, yet they make the best of husbands. Tell her that she is
making a mountain out of little, and that it will be madness to break
off the marriage at this late date.'

Mrs. Fordyce slowly turned towards them. The tears were streaming down
her face, but she only sadly shook her head.

'I cannot, George. Gladys is right. You had better go.'

Then George Fordyce, with a malignant scowl on his face, put his heel on
the bauble which had cost him a hundred guineas, crushed it into powder,
and flung himself out of the room. Then Gladys, with a low, faint,
shuddering cry, threw herself upon the couch, and gave way to the
floodtide of her grief and humiliation and angry pain.

Mrs. Fordyce wisely allowed it to have full vent, but at last she seated
herself by the couch, and laid her hand on the girl's flushed and heated
head.

'Now, my dear, be calm. It is all over. You will be better soon, my
poor