hout scandal, although he
was a clergyman, with a sister housekeeper. Here they were now--past
midnight, and practically without a soul in the house--and he so young
still, and, if he might presume to say it, so attractive!

He put the case to her guardedly, gradually, plainly at last, and
argued it for a full hour, while she drooped and wept, gazing at the
smelly stove and shaking her head wearily. By the time dawn came, and
she was quite worn out, he had won her consent to be his wife, which
meant for her a footing somewhere, and at the same time a means to
commit suicide without violating the law.

Miss Goldsworthy, who was but his humble slave, came home, put the
forlorn girl to bed, and made a wedding breakfast for her while she was
there; Mr Goldsworthy took the opportunity to fill up marriage papers
in his study. Ruby was sent to school, as usual. Before her return
therefrom, Mary Pennycuick had been led to the altar of the adjacent
church, the white frock in which she had tried to drown herself dried
and ironed to make her bridal robe. A neighbouring clergyman and crony
of the bridegroom's performed the ceremony. Old Miss Goldsworthy, the
chief witness, deposed, bewildered, wept bitterly. The bride was
unmoved--until little Ruby, returning during the course of the ghastly
wedding breakfast, was brought up, giggling and staring, to "kiss her
new mamma", when the new mamma snatched the child to her breast, and
went off into wild hysterics.

"There, there," said the new husband, pleased with the maternal
gesture, but alarmed by her excitement, "you are overwrought. You have
had no sleep. You must come and rest, my dear. Come and lie down. You
can have Ruby with you, if you like--while I go and settle things at
Redford. No, I won't be long; I'll just see your father, and be back by
tea-time. Have the drawing-room opened, Charlotte"--it never was opened
except for visitors--"and we will sit there this evening. And
meanwhile, make her some tea or something, and see that she has all she
wants. Come, my love--"

He led her to the door of a room, and she shrank back from it with a
shriek.

"Well, well," he soothed her; "the spare room, if you like--"

"Oh, promise me--promise me--!"

"Yes, yes; just as you wish, darling. I would not hurry you."

She turned to Miss Goldsworthy and clung to her. "Save me! save me!"
was what the desperate clutch meant, but what the paralysed tongue
could not articulate.

She was