was
beginning life again. I knew that you thought I was drowned. Who
could have dreamed that fate would throw us together again! When the
Professor asked me----"

She stopped and gave a gasp for breath.

"You are faint," said the Professor--"keep the head low; it aids the
cerebral circulation." He flattened down the cushion. "I am sorry to
leave you, O'Brien; but I have my class duties to look to. Possibly I
may find you here when I return."

With a grim and rigid face he strode out of the room. Not one of the
three hundred students who listened to his lecture saw any change in
his manner and appearance, or could have guessed that the austere
gentleman in front of them had found out at last how hard it is to rise
above one's humanity. The lecture over, he performed his routine
duties in the laboratory, and then drove back to his own house. He did
not enter by the front door, but passed through the garden to the
folding glass casement which led out of the morning-room. As he
approached he heard his wife's voice and O'Brien's in loud and animated
talk. He paused among the rose-bushes, uncertain whether to interrupt
them or no. Nothing was further from his nature than play the
eavesdropper; but as he stood, still hesitating, words fell upon his
ear which struck him rigid and motionless.

"You are still my wife, Jinny," said O'Brien; "I forgive you from the
bottom of my heart. I love you, and I have never ceased to love you,
though you had forgotten me."

"No, James, my heart was always in Melbourne. I have always been
yours. I thought that it was better for you that I should seem to be
dead."

"You must choose between us now, Jinny. If you determine to remain
here, I shall not open my lips. There shall be no scandal. If, on the
other hand, you come with me, it's little I care about the world's
opinion. Perhaps I am as much to blame as you. I thought too much of
my work and too little of my wife."

The Professor heard the cooing, caressing laugh which he knew so well.

"I shall go with you, James," she said.

"And the Professor----?"

"The poor Professor! But he will not mind much, James; he has no
heart."

"We must tell him our resolution."

"There is no need," said Professor Ainslie Grey, stepping in through
the open casement. "I have overheard the latter part of your
conversation. I hesitated to interrupt you before you came to a
conclusion."

O'Brien stretched out his hand and