Year: 1870

fort for me--no last tender message of love?
Have you died without SO much as confess
ing your secret and mine? God pity me-
God help and pity"


There were curious, startled looks on
every face. Dote sank shiveling into the
nearest chair. Phil seemed like person
in dream as he stopped to raise the sor-
rowing woman.


"You are beside yourself with grief-you
do not know what you are saying" he be-
gan. Let me entreat you to be calm.''


go, Phil" she cried, "that man was
my husband. Old and gray as he was
l loved him. We were afraid of you and
Dote, and we were. married in secret
Great God that he should be taken from
me like this ~


She wrung her hands in convulsive fit
of weeping. Dote, sitting in chair close
by seemed like statue carved in stone.
She drew her hand once OF twice across her
brow, and then got up slowly, looking into
Honoria's face with steady, burning
gaze.


"What are your proofs of the romantic
story with which you have been entertain
ing us? ?'' she asked, in clear, cold voice.


A resentful flush crept into Honoria's
face, but she preserved perfect self-con-
troll.


"This ought to be sufficient evidence"
she said, taking marriage-certifcat from
her bosom, and spreading it open before
Dote and Phil. 81 wanted to tell you in
the first place, but Mr.. Greyson would
not hear to it. He knew you would be
angry, and has kept putting it Off He
wrote out confession, though, and sent it
to you tonight, Dote. Can you deny
that?"


Poor girl, she could not. With face
white as was that of the dead man, she
tottered to the door, turning to wiring Phil's
hand as he followed her, and to say, in a
broken voice


"But we will at least try if surgical aid
will not bring him to us again and then we
can hear the story from his own lips"


A physician was accordingly sent for
from the nearest village, who made futile
efforts to restore Father Greyson to life.
His decision was that the deceased had
come to his death from an overdose of
chloroform. The weakened state of his
system had probably helped to render the
effect of the drug fatal. By whom it had
been administered, and for what purpose
was still a matter for conjecture.


After the strange revelation that had
been made, Phil would have suspected
Honoria but for the fact that she, too, was
found to have been put under the influence
of the same opiate. If she was really
Father Greyson's widow, (and he could not
deny the evidence of the certificate in her
possession she had married him for his
money, no matter what she might say to
the contrary and what was more probable
under such circumstances, than that she
should seek to make away with life that
stood between her and half million?


But the insensible condition in which
she had been discovered by those who first
entered Father Greyson's bedroom, seemed
conclusively to prove that the foul deed
had been committed by some person out
side of the household. 1t was even uncer
tain whether there had been an intent tc
kill, or merely to cause insensibility. A
profound mystery enveloped the whole affair


Early on the following morning, Mr.. Ar
thur Clayton and Mr.. Green, the family
solicitor, come over from the village
Both expressed the deepest consternatiol
respecting the singular events that hac
transpired during the night. The latte
Immediately set about putting the paper
of the deceased to rights. At the end o
half an hour Phil and Dote were summone,
to the library, when he communicated tn
startling intelligence that the will whicl
he had drawn up less than year previously
was nowhere to be found, nor was ther
; any other to supply it's place.
: This was singular to say the least. MI