music he had ever heard, as he drew Madge to him and pressed a lover's
first kiss on her lips. Side by side they sat there in the leafy
retreat, heedless of time, while the afternoon sun drooped lower in the
sky. They had much to talk of--many little confidences to exchange. They
lived over again the events of that brief period in which they had known
each other.

"You have upset all my plans," said Madge, with a pretty pout. "I was
going to devote my life to art, and become a second Rosa Bonheur or Lady
Butler."

"One artist in the family will be enough," her lover answered,
laughingly. "But you shall continue to paint, dearest. We will roam
over Europe with our sketch-books."

"Oh, how delightful! To think of it--my dreams will be realized! I
knew your work, Jack, before I knew you. But I am so ignorant of the
world--even of the little world of London."

"Madge, you are talking nonsense. You are my queen--you are the dearest,
sweetest little woman that ever man won. And I love you the better
because you are as fresh and pure as a flower, untainted by the wicked
world, where innocence rubs off her bloom on vice's shoulders. I am not
old, dear, but I have lived long enough to appreciate the value of--"

"Hush, or I shall think you do not mean all you say. Oh, Jack, promise
me that you will never repent of your bargain. I wonder that some woman
did not enslave you long ago."

A shadow crossed Jack's face, and he was silent for a moment.

"Madge," he said, hesitatingly, "I have not been a bad man in my time,
nor have I been a particularly good one. I was an art student in Paris
for years, and Paris is a city of dissipation, full of pitfalls and
temptations to young fellows like myself. There is something connected
with my past, which I feel it is my duty to--"

"Don't tell me, Jack--please don't. I might not like to hear it. I will
try to forget that you had a past, and I will never ask you about it.
You are mine now, and we will think only of the present and the future.
I trust you, dear, and I know that you are good and true. You will
always love me, won't you?"

"Always, my darling," Jack replied in a tone of relief. He told himself,
as he kissed the troubled look from the girl's eyes, that it was better
to keep silence. What could he gain by dragging up the black skeleton of
the past? He was a free man now, and the withholding of that bitter
chapter of his life would be the wisest course. If the future eve