SPENCER DELAPLAINE'S will had required that his widow's share of the banking-business should, as soon as possible, become entirely null. Her fortune was to be withdrawn from the house, and subsequently re-invested elsewhere. All such operations as these took time, and were attended with not a few legal compli cations as well. Olivia had many a prosy term of converse to undergo, and some of the proceedings explained to her were by no means as lucid after explanation as she might have wished. Suddenly, one day, the thought of Adrian Etherege flashed through her mind. How materially he could have aided her in the clearer understanding of these perplexing details! And why had she not remembered him before?

The truth was, she had absolutely forgotten him for weeks. 'How ungrateful of me!' she reflected. 'And after he defended me so bravely at Greenacre that evening! He must have felt bitterly toward me all this time. No doubt he has been waiting for me to summon him. What harm can there be in my doing so at once?'

Still, she feared the questions he might ask her regarding that fateful night. Massereene's reference to it had caused her many a memorial shudder. What if Adrian had refrained from seeking her again because he suspected her of greater guilt than that with which she already charged her own unhappy self?

A few hours later one of the employees at the Bank-a gentleman with whom she had already held more than a single rather wearisome parley-presented himself at her house. After not a little hesitation, she made up her mind to inquire concerning Adrian.

"Etherege?" was the reply. "Oh, we have not seen him at the Bank for certainly six weeks. They say he is quite ill. I don't know what the trouble is.

We have paid him his salary as usual. Once or twice his mother-a tall, solemnfaced, elderly lady-has appeared and received the money in person. I myself had no conversation with her, but I believe she said her son was seriously ill with a fever. Several of the clerks called at Etherege's house, but I don't think any of them succeeded in seeing him. Mrs. Etherege always received the visitors, if I am not mistaken, and gave them the same answer-that her son was too ill to have anyone enter his room . . . I've no idea how his sickness will terminate, but it is beginning to be whispered, down at the Bank, that he is in a very dangerous condition. You knew him well, I suppose, Mrs. Delaplaine, when your husband was alive?"

"Yes," Olivia said. "I knew him very well. His illness is a great surprise to me-and a shock also. Can you give me his address?"

"I can have it sent to you," came the answer.

"Please do so, then, immediately."

On the following day Olivia received the address. It was considerably up-town, in one of the easterly side-streets, not far from Second Avenue. That afternoon she had herself driven there in her own private carriage.

She felt convinced that the woman whom she would now most probably meet was the same whom she had seen for a brief minute or two at the head of the stairway on a certain afternoon, not very long ago, while Delaplaine's curt words of dismissal had rung out with such astonishing harshness. And this woman—the mother of Adrian-had no doubt once been the mistress of Delaplaine. All indications, as presented by Adrian himself, had tended toward such a belief on Olivia's part. It was not pleasant to seek her friend with the prospect of being accosted by Mrs. Etherege at the very outset of the search. Still, the gloomy character of the tidings Olivia had heard

left her no alternative. In the way of sacrificing her own inclinations or prejudices, much more than she now contemplated doing would have cheerfully enough been undertaken by her for reasons like the present.

The house at which her carriage finally drew up was one of those small, thirdrate red-brick buildings that contribute so multitudinously toward the renowned ugliness of the metropolis. Here dwelt Mrs. Etherege, renting the house and subrenting all floors of it but one. This was the first, or "parlor" floor, and in its front apartment she received Olivia, amid surroundings of a shabby-genteel quality. Effects here and there suggested the taste or influence of Adrian; but the ensemble was in the main both dreary and threadbare.

Mrs. Etherege looked indisputably the first if not the last. Olivia recognized her at once. And the solemn lines on her worn face did not grow a grade more cheerful after she had been told her visitor's name. Indeed, Olivia noticed the lines about her mouth tighten ominously as she said:

blance to Adrian's; one might almost have said that its beauty had become insultingly flouted by trouble and disap pointment-two as malevolent vitriolthrowers, in their way, as any that ever prowled.

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"He's affected strangely," she at length said, raising her eyes. 'He had typhoid. But that's gone now, and he's . . well, he's very weak." All expression of animosity died on a sudden from her face, and one of excessive worriment succeeded it. "I'm very often afraid he's going crazy!" she exclaimed.

"Ah! how dreadful!" Olivia cried. "But perhaps it 's only the result of the fever. It may wear off when he gets back his physical strength. Such cases are happening all the time.”

Nothing could have sounded more spontaneous, more sympathetic, than these words of the visitor's, uttered in her dulcet voice and with softly sparkling eyes. They perceptibly softened Mrs. Etherege, who gazed long and earnestly at her companion, and then said:

"Adrian's mind is in a very curious state. He lies without speaking, for

Then he'll begin to murmur to himself in a most incoherent manner. It seems as if he were hiding something from me-something that he's heard or done in former days-and yet as if this were preying so on his mind that he must sooner or later disclose it. . He's often spoken of you, ma'am

"Of me!" exclaimed Oliva, a pang of self-reproach passing through her heart. “.. And I must acknowledge that

Mrs. Etherege did not seem at all disposed to tell. She was occupying a straight-backed chair in front of the easier one into which Olivia had sunk. She had drooped her eyes and was scanning the carpet with them. It appeared quite possible to Olivia that she might raise them any minute, and show them glittering with most inhospitable beams. It was evident that the woman did not like her boldness in coming thither, but also that she had motives for not making this disapproval too palpable. Meanwhile, notwithstanding the grimness and bleakness of her visage, Olivia could detect in it a strong though covert resem

had made up her mind to have it all out while her own propitious mood lasted, "he's been begging that I would send for you."

"And why did you not?"

Mrs. Etherege began to gnaw her lips. "Well," she said, "there were reasons. Mr. Delaplaine, as you know, was very good to Adrian. For quite a while he almost adopted him. There was nothing very remarkable in his doing so.

Adrian was a handsome boy, and I . . er . . I was a relation of Mr. Delaplaine's. I don't know if he has ever mentioned this fact to you or not."

"No," said Olivia, "my husband never mentioned it to me. At least, not that

I recollect." She had become somehow most promptly convinced that Mrs. Etherege's latter statement was a premeditated falsehood. All in all, however, she was rather glad that this coolly audacious way had been adopted of dealing with the whole awkward and unsavory subject. If Adrian's mother had ever sought to convince Delaplaine that he was the father of her son, she must signally have failed after the lad reached any appreciable age, since he bore no vaguest trace of such fatherhood. Whatever Delaplaine had subsequently done for Adrian must either have been prompted by some lingering shadow of sentiment for his mother (which, as Olivia had seen, that lady was inclined too daringly to count upon), or by the mingled comeliness and capability which the boy himself presented.

Yes, oh, yes," proceeded Mrs. Etherege, with a slow, decisive nod at Olivia. "I'm surprised he did n't speak of the relationship. Adrian knew nothing about it; I never told him." Here she coughed, as though to give herself time for fresh inventions. "I thought he might refer to it on some occasion when Mr. Delaplaine was not in the best of humors-you understand ?"

"Yes," acceded Olivia mechanically. She thought she understood very well indeed.

"Now I was more than astonished," went on Mrs. Etherege, "I was grieved when I heard that Mr. Delaplaine had not even remembered me by as much as a small legacy." She paused, and drew a long breath, and Olivia wondered whether, during these few minutes of intercourse, she could not read her character somewhat clearly. Was she not a woman who had started life on a large stock of good looks and a moderate amount of principle, and who, having found the resources of both insufficient to keep her prosperously afloat, had mixed herself up in a hundred petty duplicities, remaining now, at a rather advanced age, wholly dissatisfied with the successful diplomacy of any?

"If, as you tell me, you are a relation of Mr. Delaplaine's," Olivia at once answered, "I shall be glad to make some amends for my husband's neglect." She said this, thinking of Adrian, and hoping

that she could thus turn a little golden key in the doorway of obstruction between himself and her.

Mrs. Etherege smiled, and the smile seemed to astonish her sombre, fade face; you might have fancied that certain little muscles used in the process had grown stiff from lack of exercise...

"Oh, thank you, ma'am-thank you very much. We're not in the best of circumstances, and one or two of my boarders think of leaving me. If Adrian's salary at the Bank should be stopped, it would be very hard on us. The truth is, as I can tell you, my up-stairs drainage is n't what it ought to be, and people don't stay with me long, even if they come. But I've a three-years' lease of the house, so I must stay here and try to make both ends meet.” "Well," said Olivia, smiling, "I will help you to do that. Trust me. She was anxious to see Adrian at once, and would have made almost any kind of promise, just then, in order to secure his mother's good will.

"It was because I felt so hurt about Mr. Delaplaine's forgetting me altogether," now pursued this lady, "that Iwell, I did n't think it was best to send for you, no matter how hard Adrian begged."

"And he did beg hard?" exclaimed Olivia. Ah, I hope you would have relented soon and sent for me!"

"Well, 1 dare say I would," she replied, looking down with an uneasy roll of the eyeball; and her hearer almost concluded that she would have been cruel enough to delay the summons perhaps many days.

But Olivia now made an eager request to see Adrian. Mrs. Etherege presently rose and left the room, after saying that she would ascertain if such a plan were feasible. Her return was awaited most impatiently. But not until twenty good minutes afterward did she again appear.

"He is very weak to-day," she said. "I had to tell him in the most cautious way that you were here."

face. . . Please do not let him excite himself any more than you can help.”

"I will do my utmost to soothe, to quiet him," Olivia answered.

"Very well. He wants me to leave you alone with him for a half an hour That is rather a long time, considering how ill he is . . . But I shall be within call, if you should want me. It's only two rooms off. Will you come with me now?"

Olivia rose, following Mrs. Etherege. Very soon, after that, she was standing in a neat, plainly-appointed room, near the bedside of Adrian.

XXV.

His face, as she cast her eyes upon it, sent a thrill of horror through her nerves. Its beauty of contour and proportion was not so altered that she could not recognize it at once, and yet the change, the pallor, the attenuation! . . . Olivia did her best to conceal a visible tremor, and succeeded. She went nearer to the bed and took the hand that Adrian stretched out to her. Its clasp was burningly feverish. His exquisite brown eyes seemed to devour her face as she paused close beside him.

"Leave me with Mrs. Delaplaine, mother," he said, suddenly making this appeal. Remember your agreement."

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"Yes, Adrian," was the reply. Without another word Mrs. Etherege passed from the room.

There was a chair quite near Olivia. She took it, and then, amid the silence that ensued after Adrian's mother had departed, she said, with her voice full of the tenderest solicitude:

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"I had no idea until yesterday that you were ill."

"No?" he responded. His eyes dwelt upon hers as though some fascination compelled the searching intensity of their survey. "I wanted mother to send for you; I wanted it so much! But she kept putting me off. At length I made up my mind to do a certain thing, for I had lost all patience, and I suspected that she was deceiving me with false promises. If she did not send for you this very day I had determined to give her a fright-for she loves me, notwithstanding her tame and gloomy way of showing it."

"A fright, Adrian?" asked Olivia. "You mean?"

"I'd have told her the blunt truththat I'm dying, and that if she kept us apart any further length of time she would be merely hastening the end for me."

"No, no, no," Olivia murmured. "You cannot mean that, Adrian!” She laughed as cheerily as she could, though her heart had begun to beat in a sickening way.

'Yes; it is true. I made the doctor tell me yesterday. He is a clever man, Dr. Wallace; he saw that I was in earnest, and that no prevarication would avail with me. Mother thinks that because my mind wanders, now and then, while I'm lying here as weak as a little child, it's my brain. But it is not. It's my heart. Dr. Wallace says so. There's no hope for me; it's what they call an atrophy, a wasting away. It followed the fever; I had typhoid, you know, for months Isn't it strange that I should die from that?-a heart that is starving? I used to feel as if my heart were starving when I looked at you in those other days.'

Oh, Adrian!" Olivia faltered, drooping her head.

"I did. But all that is past, now. I had resolved not to speak of it when you came. You knew that I loved you. It was torture for me to see him treat you as he did. I shall never forget that last evening at dinner. When I left you, a little later, after you had fainted, you believed (did you not?) that I had left for town?"

"Yes."

"It was not true. I staid in the village all the next day. The next night I went back to Greenacre. My thoughts all day had been horrible. It seemed to me at times as if your very life were in peril from him. As I said, the next night I went back to Greenacre."

He appeared purposely to emphasize that last iterated sentence. He spoke in a low voice-almost too low for his mother, if she had chosen the part of eavesdropper, to have heard him. Speaking doubtless fatigued him, and at times a glossy light would replace the richer and sweeter lustre of his eyes. He was too sick a man to talk as much as this. Olivia was