of bitter remembrance through life, always with that terrible sword of Damocles hanging over him.  But still, he would write out his confession, and after his death, whenever it may happen, it might help if not altogether to exculpate, at least to secure some pity for a man who had been hardly dealt with by Fate.  His resolution taken, he put it into force at once, and sat all day at his desk filling page after page with the history of his past life, which was so bitter to him.  He started at first languidly, and as in the performance of an unpleasant but necessary duty.  Soon, however, he became interested in it, and took a peculiar pleasure in putting down every minute circumstance which made the case stronger against, himself.  He dealt with it, not as a criminal, but as a prosecutor, and painted his conduct as much blacker than it really had been.  Towards the end of the day, however, after reading over the earlier sheets, he experienced a revulsion of feeling, seeing how severe he had been on himself, so he wrote a defence of his conduct, showing that fate had been too strong for him.  It was a weak argument to bring forward, but still he felt it was the only one that he could make.  It was quite dark when he had finished, and while sitting in the twilight, looking dreamily at the sheets scattered all over his desk, he heard a knock at the door, and his daughter’s voice asking if he was coming to dinner.  All day long he had closed his door against everyone, but now his task being ended, he collected all the closely-written sheets together, placed them in a drawer of his escritoire, which he locked, and then opened the door.

“Dear papa,” cried Madge, as she entered rapidly, and threw her arms around his neck, “what have you been doing here all day by yourself?”

“Writing,” returned her father laconically, as he gently removed her arms.

“Why, I thought you were ill,” she answered, looking at him apprehensively.

“No, dear,” he replied, quietly.  “Not ill, but worried.”

“I knew that dreadful man who came last night had told you something to worry you.  Who is he?”

“Oh! a friend of mine,” answered Frettlby, with hesitation.

“What—­Roger Moreland?”

Her father started.

“How do you know it was Roger Moreland?”

“Oh!  Brian recognised him as he went out.”

Mark Frettlby hesitated for a few moments, and then busied himself with the papers on his desk, as he replied in a low voice—­

“You are right—­it was Roger Moreland—­he is very hard up, and as he was a friend of poor Whyte’s, he asked me to assist him, which I did.”

He hated to hear himself telling such a deliberate falsehood, but there was no help for it—­Madge must never know the truth so long as he could conceal it.

“Just like you,” said Madge, kissing him lightly with filial pride.  “The best and kindest of men.”

He shivered slightly as he felt her caress, and thought how she would recoil from him did she know all.  “After all,” says some cynical writer, “the illusions of youth are mostly due to the want of experience.”  Madge, ignorant in a great measure of the world, cherished her pleasant illusions, though many of them had been destroyed by the trials of the past year, and her father longed to keep her in this frame of mind.