cle--I'm incorrigible! When I think of
what I was, of what I might have been, and of what I am, despair seizes
on me and then I'm only fit for--the bottle! There's no help for me,
I'm afraid. Why, Pauline, this is Heaven's truth--I'm not perfectly
sober now."

As he spoke, again were heard footsteps on a run outside the barn.

"I know you're not," said Miss Clairville in agitation, "but I don't
shrink from you as I used to do. Perhaps it was my fault. Oh--who can
this be? Father Rielle returning?"

"Hardly. He was told to drive back for you. It's some one seeking
shelter, like ourselves. Hark--the hail is stopping, and now the
thunder and lightning and a good old-fashioned midwinter storm!"

"I know who it is," said she, still more hurriedly, and pushing Crabbe
towards the ladder,--"it is Mr. Ringfield. You must go back to the
loft. I could not have him meet you here. He thinks--he thinks--you
know what he thinks."

"And he's not far wrong, either," said Crabbe complacently. "But
perhaps I'd better do as you say; don't detain him now. When he's gone
I'll get you out of this somehow."

Thus in a few minutes Ringfield entered the barn, found Pauline, as he
supposed alone; but afterwards, watching from the high road, saw the
guide emerge and noted the familiar relation in which they stood in
front of the stricken pine.

More than simple religious feeling entered at this moment Ringfield's
young and untried heart, his vanity was deeply wounded, and the thought
that Miss Clairville could allow Edmund Crabbe to caress her was like
irritating poison in his veins. Yet he was in this respect unfair and
over-severe; the fact being that Pauline very soon observed, on coming
into closer contact with the guide, the traces of liquor, and she then
adroitly kept him at a distance, for in that moment of disenchantment
Ringfield's image again came uppermost.

It was not possible for her to be wise either before or after the
event; she had not sufficient coldness nor shrewdness of character to
enable her to break with all these conflicting surroundings and begin
life over again as she had eloquently described to the priest, for
without money she could not leave St. Ignace, and she could not raise
the money without taking some situation which might unfit her for the
stage and prolong the time of probation too far into middle life.
Pauline might age early, and at thirty-five she saw herself maturing
into a gaunt and