Before he reached the cottage there was a little flutter at the door. A white dress and the flash of a scarlet ribbon at the throat. A gleam of soft brown hair, just as the last reflection of sunset through the trees took it, and played about like an aureole.

She came to meet him, this little Janet Raeburn. An hour ago her face was worn and gray; every limb tired and overstrained, working at her machine. She had sighed wearily over the last long seam, shut down the cover with an impatient snap, hurried around with the supper things, and found at last a few brief moments in which to wash her face, comb out her brown hair, and change her dress. It had transformed her, or else the hope that brightened her cheeks. For now, coming out to meet her lover, she looked really pretty. He scanned her face earnestly. A broad, low forehead, small, but irregular features, a mouth compressed by emotions or trials to a firmness and reticence rarely seen in two-andtwenty. He fancied, and perhaps rightly enough, that she was growing old and worn. He was in a mood to note these things, so she had put on her smiles and brightness in vain. He took the little hands in his and kissed her. Then he held her quiet for a moment and sighed.

"What is it, Mark?"

She had a low, smooth, cool voice. One in a sick room, or at any time of great trial. like to hear her pronounce a benediction summer day.

pleasant to hear

As if one would over this dying

"Let us walk out here. I am stifled all day with that hot, smothering air in the shop! It almost makes me hate to enter a house."

She was a trifle surprised at his vehement tone.

They took the edge of the soft short grass, as it was too early yet for dew, down as far as the great sycamore treeback again, and all in silence.

Janet studied his face furtively. It was gloomy and impenetrable. Of late he had been unlike himself. She tried to make him talk, but at first he responded only in monosyllables. And then she returned to the old query

"What is the matter, Mark?"

"Sit down here," and he paused at a great stone by the road-side, "for I have much to tell you, Janet."

She looked at him wonderingly.

"I am going away."

A woman would have skirmished about this fact and broken it by degrees, to make the suffering less for the listener. He, being a man, went straight to the point at once.

She studied him with her brown eyes. There was something in the fearless scrutiny that made him wince.

"Why?" She could not trust herself to any longer sentence, for the blow seemed to have struck some vital part.

"I'll tell you why. I've been a fool for weeks and weeks. I've beat about the bush and staved off the truth when I ought to have spoken. I am tired and sick of this dragging life. The same, month in and month out. If a man was stick or stone he might be satisfied to go on the treadmill round. But I am not. Life isn't endurable on such terms !"

His enunciation was rapid, his voice hoarse with dull passion.

"I thought you had a good situation, Mark ?"

"Good enough, I suppose, as the matter goes, but I'm tired of drudgery. A man just keeps soul and body together. If one saves up a few dollars, the machinery's out of gear and all hands off for a week or two. Or orders don't come in! Something continually to drain a man of his last cent. So there's nothing ahead, nothing between one and starvation, if an unlucky stroke should befall him. It frets me to death!" "What can you do?"

"I'll show you what I can do, some day. I mean to be a rich man, Janet," and he brought his clenched fist down on the rock with a force that numbed his fingers.

"Oh, Mark," she said, with a little cry, "wealth doesn't always bring happiness."

"Don't take up that cant; I'm sick and tired of it. I'd risk wealth bringing me happiness. All I want in this world is money. With that will come every thing else. And why have not I as good right to it as any other person. When I see these men riding round in their carriages, dressed in broadcloth and fine linen, giving sumptuous dinners, their

houses perfect palaces of elegance, I am filled with envy. Why, their very servants have an easier life than mine!”

"I believe God gives us what is best." She spoke slowly, but in a steady tone.

"No, you can't think it, Janet. The clergymen preach about it on Sundays, and some weak, deluded people hug a sort of martyr belief to their hearts and glory in it. As if for every evil here, every misfortune, every loss, some great gain was to be met with in that other and fabulous country."

A bitter, bitter fear smote Janet Raeburn's heart. How many times she had trembled at the half knowledge that this man affected to sneer at a Supreme Ruler.

"You can't think it," he went on with more vehemence. "Is it right that you, a weak and frail woman, should have the care of a bedridden mother and a feeble old father who is as much charge as a child? There is your brother and his wife taking their pick of every thing, making money, scrimping and squeezing until the very stones cry out. See how they are prospered while you are working yourself to death! Is there any justice in that? Is God pleased to see you tried and worn and worried, here in your youth, when every thing should be bright and restful? No, I don't believe it. Here's the world and here's the struggle. Strong souls win, and I mean to dare it."

In the earlier days of their acquaintance she used to argue. More than once it seemed as if she had almost persuaded him. But he had always gone back to his old skepticism, so she had trusted to the future day of love. Would it ever come? For now she felt tired and faint-hearted. She, with her woman's eyes saw how he could have lightened her burdens, but she would sooner die than thrust them upon him.

"So I am going away. I've had it planned for several weeks, and been putting off the announcement in a cowardly fashion. I knew how the separation would hurt you. If it could be, I'd take you with me. God knows I shall miss you sorely. But I'm bound to get above this stagnant level. I'll have enough to satisfy my wants without groveling like a dog from Monday morn until Saturday night."

"What will you do?" How curiously calm her voice was.

"I've some brains and a tolerable education. There's a friend of mine in New York who has made a good deal of money one way and another. He was in town a month ago, and wanted me to join him in some ventures. It's just the life I should like-hurry, excitement, something for your pains. I've saved up a little, and I mean to double it, quadruple it, make a fortune, in short."

"And then-?"

"I'll come back for you."

She stood up straight and firm before him. The twilight was falling now, and making purple shadows at the edges of the trees. Her white dress looked almost ghostly, but her eyes were unnaturally bright.

"No, Mark," she said, "you will not come back for me then. You think so now-I'll do you that justice-but in the new life, when wealth and station and refinement are yours, I should be an unsightly blot, mar the picture with my plainness, my worn face, my tired heart. You will need youth, and grace, and beauty."

"Do you doubt me-my truth, my honor?"

He rose too, then, and folded his arms across his broad chest. How proud she had been of him! How many times she had nestled to that bosom, been folded in those arms. Forgive her if she had longed for the time when it would be her home, her shelter. She felt so utterly lost and forlorn without him, and yet he seemed to be drifting rapidly away from her. She could make no answer.

"The old, stale romance," he said, with a little sneer. "You don't give me much credit in fancying it."

"I shall not be fit for you then." Her voice was low and sad.

He walked up and down past her. He hated to have her doubt him, for he was so confident of his own strength.

"No," he went on, "I want you to believe, whatever comes, that no woman can ever fill your place to me. I shall not be so weak after my struggle as to long for the youth and beauty that can be purchased with gold. And for your sake I want to be rich. To marry as men do on precarious wages, and rear a family that may be doomed to beggary by another's

whim, is what I could never do. And to go on waiting year after year in this fashion"

Something roused her strangely. A fire flashed into the eyes and the pale cheeks.

"And I want you to believe," she said in a strong, clear tone, "that poverty has no terrors for me, that work is no hardship. It was my birthright. I feel as if I should distrust any life that was easy and luxurious."

He laughed a trifle scornfully.

"Well," he said, "when I come back a rich man, reject me if you will, but now do not refuse me your love. Some of your true believers pretend to look upon woman's love as a sort of safeguard in an evil hour. So don't deprive me of this strength."

His words cut deeply into her heart, but, for all that, she came to him, leaned her throbbing head against his shoulder. He could not see the tears that overflowed her eyes.

They both paced the rapidly darkening path in silence. Once as they neared the cottage, she said:

"You will come in?"

"Not to-night, Janet. I must go back immediately."
"When shall
you leave?"

"Next week. Monday is pay night. It will be a relief not to drudge at the old toil any more."

"And what you mean to do, Mark, is perfectly honest and honorable ?"

He laughed scornfully.

"Janet," he said presently, "the world isn't as you think it. These overstrained virtues do not pay in a great city, or anywhere, if a man means to get along. This high theoretical honesty sounds well enough in a book or a sermon-people are paid for writing and preaching it—but it never made the listeners rich, that I heard. How much of it do your church members carry into business? They're sharp enough, heaven knows!"

He had taunted her more than once, lately, in this manner. She turned now.

"I do not know that the treachery of Judas was ever con