be complaisant toward a man who would not continue his business support to one whose daughter had just refused him."

Madge was silent.

"You wouldn't do such a thing, I suppose.

"I couldn't, Graydon," she said, simply. "If I should ever love a man I think I could suffer a great deal for his sake, but there are some things I couldn't do."

"I thought you would feel so."

"Why don't you help her father out?" Madge faltered.

"I don't think I have sufficient means. I have never been over-thrifty in saving, and have not laid by many thousands. I have merely a good salary and very good prospects. You can't imagine how slow and conservative Henry is. In business matters he treats me just as if I were a stranger, and I must prove myself worthy of trust at every point, and by long apprenticeship, before he will give me a voice in affairs. He says coming forward too fast is the ruination of young men in our day. Nothing would tempt him to have dealings with Mr. Wildmere, and I couldn't damage myself more than by any transactions on my own account. But even if

I were rich I wouldn't interfere. I don't like her father any better than Henry does, and if I began in this way it would make a bad precedent. What's more, I won't introduce money influences into an affair of this kind. If it comes to the point, Stella must decide for me, ignoring all other considerations. If she does, I won't permit her family to

suffer, but I propose to know that she chooses me absolutely in spite of everything. I am also resolved that she shall be separated from her family as far as is right, for there is a tone about them that I don't like.'

"I thank you for your confidence, Graydon," said Madge, quietly. "You are acting just as I should suppose you would. No one in the world wishes you happiness more earnestly than I do. Come, let us take this level place like the wind."

She was unusually gay during the remainder of their ride, but seemed bent almost on running her horse to death. "To-morrow is Sunday," she explained, and I must crowd two rides into one.

"Wouldn't you ride to-morrow?"

66

No; I have some old-fashioned notions about Sunday. You have been abroad too long, perhaps, to appreciate them."

"I appreciate fidelity to conscience, Madge."

They had their supper together again as on the evening before, but Madge was carefessly languid and fitful in her mirthful sallies, and complained of over-fatigue. "I won't come down again tonight," she said to Graydon as they passed out of the supper-room. Good-night."

"Good-night, Madge," he replied, taking her hand in both his own. "I understand you now, and know that you have gone beyond even your superb strength to-day. Sleep the sleep of the justest and truest little woman that ever breathed. I can't tell you how much you have added to my happiness during the past two days."

"He understands me she muttered, as she closed the door of her room. "I am almost tempted to doubt whether a merciful God understands me. Why was this immeasurable love put into my heart to be so cruelly thwarted? blindly on to so cruel a fate? nounce everything for him. be, she is not an idiot."

Why must he go Of course she'll reWhatever else she may

Henry Muir's quiet eyes had observed Madge closely, and from a little distance he had seen the parting between her and his brother. Then he saw Graydon seek Miss Wildmere and resume a manner which he had learned to detest, and the self-contained man went out upon the grounds, and said, through clinched teeth: "To think that there should have been such a fool bearing the name of Muir! He's been gushing to Madge about that speculator, and we shall yet have to take her a we would an infection."

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE FILIAL MARTYR.

ISS WILDMERE appeared in one of her most brilliant moods that evening. There was a dash of excitement, almost recklessness, in her gray eyes. She and Mr. Arnault had been deputed to lead the German, but she took Graydon out so often as to produce in Mr. Arnault's eyes an expression which the observant Mr. Wildmere did not like at all. He had just returned from dreary, half deserted Wall Street, which was as dead and hopeless as only that region of galvanic life can be at times. He had neither sold nor bought stock, but had moused around, with the skill of an old habitué, for information concerning the eligibility of the two men who were seeking his daughter's hand. In the midsummer dulness and holiday stagnation the impending operation in the Catskills was the only one that promised anything whatever. He became more fully satisfied that Arnault's firm was prospering. They had been persistent "bears" on a market that had long been declining, and had reaped a golden harvest from the miseries of others. On the other hand, he learned that Henry Muir was

barely holding his own, and that he had strained his credit dangerously to do this. He knew about the enterprise which had absorbed the banker's capital, and while he believed it would respond promptly to the returning flow of the financial tide, it now seemed stranded among more hopeless ventures. There was no escaping the conviction that Muir was in a perilous position, and that a little thing might push him over the brink. Therefore, he had returned fully bent upon using all his influence in behalf of Arnault, and was spurred to this effort by the fact that his finances, but not his expenses, were running low. His wife could give but a dubious account of Stella's conduct.

"In short," said Mr. Wildmere, irritably," she is dallying with both, and may lose both by her hesitating folly."

His daughter's greeting was brief and formal. A sort of matter-of-course kiss had been given, and then he had been left to eat his supper alone, since his wife could not just then be absent from her child. At last he lounged out on the piazza, sat down before one of the parlor windows, glanced at the gay. scene within, and smoked in silence. Before the German began, Graydon passed him several times, regarding him curiously and with a growing sense of repulsion. He disliked to think that the relation between this man and the girl he would marry was so close.

Before the evening was over, Mr. Wildmere saw that his daughter was in truth pursuing a difficult policy. The angry light in Arnault's eyes and the