A Woman Martyr

ctate terms--I surre

ce--miserable with the woe of reality after the delirious joy o

to keep it secret, either. Uncle will guess! Why, I have hardly been decently civil to any man who seemed as if he had ide

o had let her father, his brother, die unsuccoured, had brought about hysteria. He had read and heard of such cases. It behoved him to come to his darling's rescue--to cherish and care for her--ward off every

rld! I can manage everything secretly: you will only have to walk out of the house one fine morning and be married to me, and we will take the next train to wherever the yacht will be waiting for us, and be off and away before your absence has been remarked and wondered at! I will leave explanations t

had seen in a great picture of souls suffering in Hades--an expression too full of agony to be easily forgotten

ten, encourage her drooping spirits, as he painted the joys of their future life in the most glowing terms at his command, during the rest of what was to him their glorious hour together. To a certain extent he thought he had succeeded. At least, Joan had smiled--ha

t--a miserable one to so tender yet passionate a nature--that while she is loaded with luxuries by her uncle, her parents died almost in want becau

*

er for a small capital, which he had got rid of some time before he ran away and left his wife and infan

cheme for getting as much out of life as it was possible to get. Naturally sharp, and with good looks of the kind that some women admire, he had not only made a willing slave of his mother, bu

ng member of the weakly family represented by the wealthy Sir Thomas Thorne--he grew more and more reckless in the expenditure of his master's money and in his falsifying of the accounts. Like many others of his kind, he overreached his mark. When he paid a flying visit to London to ma

outh Africa. The lady of the establishment had fallen in love with him, and there was, in fact, money to be made all round about by one who was not too particular in his morals and opi

er on, of being rich, at least for a month or two. T

uke of Arran. He sought him out, flattered, and--without confiding his real story to him--made him his cr

ings of the family, who, he told him, owed his late father a considerable sum of money, which he wished to recover privately to save scandal. That very night Paul was taking Julie to see Mercier's so-called half-sister act in a transpontine theatre. "Vera Anerley," as she had stage-named herself, had

rcier walked along, then--hailing a passing cab, was driven to the thea

hought. "Always another man--they

, innocent-looking Frenchman, coming out. He

ster is adorable!" said Naz, as they stood toge

. "So is your Julie, eh? By the way

r who has been out of the country to try and forget her, shooting big game! They ride--meet--he w

Mercier. There was

. "The Duchess has been heard