"Surely to-night, of all nights, she will not be wakeful! But I need not fear that; Alice will be asleep long before he comes."

Then Mrs. Clayton stood before the clock, and looked at it earnestly.

“No, Alice, it is not fast-would it were slow, very slow. Well nigh three hours to wait! Oh, if he knew, if he knew, how my heart is breaking, and how every minute is a life-time of suffering, he would be here now! But God forgive my impatience. I have borne with ten years of watching, and what is three hours?"

She went to the window, drew aside the curtain, and looked out upon the night. It was a scene of surpassing glory that she beheld. The soft white light of the new-born moon illumined the snowcovered houses. The cloudless sky was refulgent with the shining of a myriad stars. Even within the horns of the moon there was a bright glowing star irradiating the gentle haze that thinly veiled the disc of the Queen of Night. But the woman had no eye for the enrapturing One thought filled her mind and ruled her senses.

scene.

"I am glad it is fine. It was a black and rainy night when he left me. It is ten years ago, yet that night is always yesterday to me. But it is very cold, and he will need a good fire. Alas! there is time enough-time enough to make up the fire."

She went to Alice's room, and saw that she was sleeping, and returned on tip-toe to the parlour.

"Oh! Henry, I am alone. Why are you not with me?"

She sat by the table, took a letter from her bosom, and read it :

"Whether you love as you did, or whether that love is dead, I must see you. Though you were to spurn me, I must see you. I purposed never to do so again, but I must see you. I have no strength to keep my resolution. It will be ten years to-morrow since we looked upon each other, and to-morrow we will meet. I pray you to keep my coming secret. Let the servant be out; let the child be in bed. If you ever loved me, I implore you do as I now ask you. At eleven o'clock to-morrow night, if you are alone, open the door. Be prepared for a change. You will hardly know me.-With the love that has not changed and can never change,

" HENRY."

"Not know you, darling! Oh, Henry, any time and anywhere, in the world or out of the world! If I love him! But my love does not doubt my love. It would kill me and would kill him. I, too, am changed, but you will know me, my Henry, even as I shall know you."

She looked in the glass. She is thirty-three years old, though the lines of her pale and wan face make her seem older. Her eyes are somewhat sunken, but to-night they are lustrous with the fever of frenzied expectation. The hair that was so luxuriant is thin and neatly braided, and here and there streaked with grey.

"I am indeed changed. I wish when he comes home to-night I could, for one hour-only for one hour-be as I was in the happy days. But, oh, my darling, our hearts are not changed, they have not grown old, and in your eyes I shall be sightly!”

The clock struck nine.

"One hour gone; two hours to pass, and he will be with me. Unless but no, no, no-you are too merciful, oh, my God, to keep him longer from me!"

Again the lone woman peered out into the night. The moon was higher in the heavens, and the brightness and the glory of the night cannot be told, exceed all human thought. Mrs. Clayton only noted that it was fine, and then closed the curtains. She sat on a low stool and looked at the fire as if the burning coals were living oracles and she was reading them. But she did not see the fire. The vision that seemed so real to her was an awakening of memory. A tall, stalwart man. A man who trod the earth with the gait of a king. A man who was known for his strength, and for his daring, and his skill in all manly sports. A man who would have been a hero of heroes in the ages of yore, when courage and strength were the virtues which gained present power and deathless fame in the poet's song. And this most manly man had been to her tender and gentle, as true men ever are to women and children. What change has ten years of woe wrought in him?

Mrs. Clayton started and looked at the clock. Surely she had dreamed away the hours! No; dreams are quicker than the lightning. It was only a few minutes past nine. She went to the sideboard and unlocked a desk that was on the top of it, a desk that night after night she carried to her bedroom. She touched a spring that disclosed a secret drawer, and from that drawer she took a letter. A carefully preserved letter, but the paper was discoloured and the ink was somewhat faint. Letters soon grow old and show their age. "It is six years since I had this, and then not a word from him until yesterday."

She sat down and read the letter, as she had done nightly for six years. Every word was graven on her heart, yet she read it eagerly, as if she might discover some syllable that had as yet escaped her notice.

"ANN,-Yesterday I left the prison, and before you get this I shall be on my voyage to a far-off land. The gaol bird will not foul his nest. I shall never see my home again. If I could take away the shame and sorrow that you have suffered I would do so, but that is impossible. I can do no more than be dead to you, and that I will do. Go from where you now live and settle amongst strangers. Do not let the child know that her father has been a convict. Let her think I am dead. To her and to you, dearest, I am dead-for ever dead.

"But that your memory of me may be just, I will tell you what happened. The story believed is that I deliberately stabbed Mellish with intent to kill him, because he asked me to pay some money I owed him on a betting account. I did not owe him a sixpence, and, indeed, he was my debtor. And, Ann, I did not stab him. This is what occurred. On that day we had dined together in a coffee-room, and both of us had taken more wine than usual. We were sober, but excited, and Mellish became quarrelsome. We had played a game of billiards before dinner, and I had won. Mellish wanted me to play another game, but I refused, and said that I was expected home. Mellish sneered and said that was a poor excuse for not giving him his revenge, and that he could promise me my wife would be quite as happy without me as with me. The way this was said was worse than the words. I told Mellish that if he spoke of my home again I would strike him. He jeered at me and muttered that 'truth was unpleasant.' In a rage that I could not control I got up and struck at him. He took a knife from the table and struck at me. We closed, and I got the knife from him. My rage was over, and I stepped back to throw the knife out of his reach. Before I could do so he sprang upon me, and in the scuffle he was wounded. You know the rest. The wound was supposed to be mortal, but he soon recovered. In the witness box he swore that I threatened him because he asked me for a debt, and that I deliberately stabbed him whilst he sat at the table. No one was present; my lips were sealed, his story was believed, and I was sentenced to five years' penal servitude. At the end of four years I am released, but of what use is liberty to me? my name, my career, and my life are blasted.

"How I mourn for you, my love, passes thought. Devils, the very devils, might pity me for the agony I suffer to think that my childoh, Ann, you know how I love our child-is lost to me now and for evermore. Oh, Ann, if you love me, pray that I may die! Should I live and succeed in getting money, I will remit to the lawyer who defended me, but in such a manner that he will not know my VOL. X. N. S., 1873.

3 B

address or even the country in which I am living. I should have seen you once more, but I feared that I should not keep to my resolve, and that you would have had the shame of living with a convict. Goodbye, Ann. For the child's sake you will bear this parting. For God's sake do not think I am cold to you! Oh, Ann, oh my true loving wife, oh mother of my little child, my suffering is too terrible to be told or to be imagined!

"HENRY CLAYTON.”

Now that he was coming home, his letter had a new interest. If he were guilty would she not forget his guilt and press him to her heart with passionate fondness? Not that love is blind, but clearsighted. Hate is blind, for hate can only see the fault on the surface; while love sees the goodness, even though it be thrice crusted with vice and folly. "Charity covereth a multitude of sins," says the Apostle. Well, in that sense, love is blind; for, clinging to that which is lovely, it is not prone to note that which is unlovely. But Mrs. Clayton's husband was not guilty; he was innocent and persecuted, and the love for his wife was in some degree the cause of his suffering. How could she recompense him for his love? He would have her love, and be comforted. There was the child, too; and the child would be a blessing to him.

As the hour of eleven drew nigh, Mrs. Clayton could neither read nor sit still. She paced the room with her hands tightly clasped together. The ten years' separation was just over. In a little while, in so many minutes, she will behold her husband!

Ah! can it be true? Is it a dream? Is it delirium! Her eyelids are burning; the pulses of her heart are throbbing horribly. Louder than the tick! tick! tick! of the clock, she hears the thud! thud! thud of her heart. In her brain is a wild whirl of conflicting memories; she cannot even for a second keep to one thought. Her husband, her child, the past, the present, and the future, are thought of in the same moment. Is this madness? Oh, that she could hear the sound of a human voice!

But, no; she must be alone! He has promised to come to her if she is alone.

The hour is very nigh. She pauses in her walk, and stands staring at the clock. Can she note the movement of the hands? Now the dial is bleared so that she can see neither hands nor figures! Now the figures are dancing over the dial, and the hands are rushing round.

"Oh, God! save my reason and my life until I have seen him!"

Hush! there is the grating sound that precedes the striking of the hour. The wife shrieks, falls on her knees before the clock, and buries her face in her hands. Another age of suffering! Has the clock stopped? Or has it struck, and she unconscious? No; at last the hour has come! Clang! clang! clang! eleven times. Το every clang the tortured woman answers with a groan. She rises suddenly, and goes to the door. It is the supreme moment, and her strength returns to her. She is bathed in perspiration, though her face is pallid with the dark, awful pallor of death. She does not totter or tremble. If he is not there she will surely die. If he is there can she look upon him and live? God have mercy on her child! Mercy, mercy, mercy, was the word that hissed over her parched and burning lips.

The door was opened, and she was not alone!

CHAPTER II.

THE FATHER'S RETURN.

SHE stood motionless, and but for a piteous moaning might have been taken for a statue. The eyes fixed in a spellbound gaze. Features rigid as though wrought in marble. A statue that no one could look upon without unspeakable pity.

The man, too, was motionless for a minute. Then his ashy lips moved, but no word, not even a whisper, escaped from him. Joy is sometimes harder to bear than sorrow. The moaning of the wife became more piteous. It was like the last struggle of the fleeting breath. Then the husband's spell of silence was broken.

"Ann, Ann, I am with you! Speak to me-only speak to me." The strong man shook as though he were stricken with palsy, and his husky voice was weak as the voice of a sick girl.

But the wife could not speak. At the sound of his voice the moaning ceased, there was a smothered cry, and she fell towards him. He caught her in his arms, carried her into the parlour, and laid her on the sofa.

"Speak to me, Ann! Darling, speak to me! For mercy's sake speak at least a word to me."

But she spoke not, heard not.

Still as death, not deathlike, but like unto marble. Not like death, but like the dead likeness of life.

Her husband tried in vain to rouse her. He pressed her hand, but the pressure was not returned. He kissed her, and she kissed