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Her youth! In the glowing fire she seemed to see herself again as she had been fifteen years before, when Jasper first came into her life, when she had been a happy innocent girl of barely twenty sumâ€" mers. But it was not so much the picture of her own youthful face and form that rose before her now; it was the remembrance of the heart and character that had lain behind that bright young face. With What glad confidence she had been cerâ€" tain that only the very best could be waiting for her. Withâ€"what a vehemence of love and passionate faith she had given herself to Jas- per Martindale, beguiled by the fallacy that a face is the true inâ€" dex to the soul. Behind Jasper’s undeniably beautiful face, her fan- cies had built a soul of equal beauâ€" ty; beneath the-passionate expres- sions he had poured out upon her, she had imagined a love as high and as broad as.__ heaven. And thenâ€"â€" then she had discovered, what in the bitterness of her soul she told herself all other women must soon- e‘er or later discover, that the feet of her idol were feet of clay, that her lover’s beautiful face hid only a shrivelled soul devoid of beauty, that after the brief storm of his pas- sion was over no love for her was left in his heart. ‘ As her meditations reached this point there broke from her a low laugh, whose echoes roused her to see that Thompson had brought in the tea, and that the ordinary af- fairs of every day must go on as usual, even in a. house to which death has lately come. ' She poured out the tea and drank it mechanically, feeling that it was very strange notto be obliged to go and sit beside her husband’s bed to relieve the hospital nurse. The sudden cessation ot all those little duties of the sick~r00m that had be- come part of the household routine, brought home to her the irrevoc- able fact of Jasper’s death as noâ€" thing else could have done. Once, during the course of her tea, Ger- trude started violently, thinking she heard a. sound overhead and that the nurse needed her help; but .in a moment she remembered that all the ministrations to the patient were over, because Jasper was dead: Jasper had died that very morningâ€"and she was a widow! 1 She put down her cup and turned again to the fire, once more allowâ€" ing old memories to troop back- in- to her mind: and most persistent amongst them all came the memory of her early married life, and of the man who in after days had bro- ken her heart. The thought of the husband who lay dead in the great room overhead faded into oblivion; in those moments of remembrance her mind was filled only by the young husband whom she had loved. The garden in which he had wooed her came vividly before her eyes; once again she was walking across the velvet lawns and along its paths amongst the roses. Their petals were scattered at her feet by the June breezes; their fragrance filled the air, and the tall white lilies under the garden wall sent a waft of sweetness from their stately heads to greet her as she passed. At the’end of the rose garden Jas- per had asked her to be his wife; his touch on her hand; Jasper’s voice in her earsâ€"these had woven a magic halo about that summer af- ternoon, making it seem to the girl like the threshold of paradise, and Jasper himself, with his eager, im- petus wooing, had seemed the very prince of lovers to open for her the gate of that enchanted land. 1 Three months later she had walked down the nave of the little village church as Jasper’s wife, and when he and she trod together a flowery path to the churchyard gate, she had been very sure that she was entering the very doors of heaven itself. hOvér the first few months of her married life memory? lingprgd wi_th a tenderness re-awakened her by death, a. tenderness which thrust all the intervening years into ob- livion. Loving sorrow for the hus- band of her youth softened the bit- terness which, a few hours earlier, had made death seem not an en- emy, but a. deliverer. “I wonder,” she thought present- ly, when the tea. had been taken away, and she leant forward to look more intently into the red caverns among“ the coalsâ€"“I wonder whe- A DIPFICULT SITUATIQN"; CHAPTER III.-â€"(Cont’d) OR, THE END CROWNS ALL. ther anything I could have done would have made things different ‘li â€"whether Iâ€"failed him, or disapfi pointed him? Sometimes I‘ thinkâ€"i if I could blame myself for any ofl the misery it would make it more] endurable. But I can’tâ€"J can’t! I did my bestâ€"J did all that 3 WOâ€" man could doâ€"and he just tired of ‘ Though she was alone, ahflame of color flushed into her face, and she pushed back her chair and again began to move restlessly about the room, as though to thrust from her mind some thought that'had ob~ truded itself without her own wish. me. I supBosé al‘l' mien are the‘ same, orâ€"no, not allâ€"surely not: all l” “Poor Jasper," she whispered under her breath, pausing before a large portrait in a silver frame. “I sometimes think that if the child had'lived, you and I would never have drifted into all our misery? “How beautiful you were!” she said quietly as if speaking to a liv- ing being. “I do not think I ever saw anyone with such a beautiful faceâ€"and yet yo_u broke my hearftfl’ , She put the picture back into its place, and the softness that had momentarily broken up‘ the, hard lines in her face did not leave it. She sat down in the arm-chair again, and a, great tenderness came into her eyes. . . . . 1 And yetâ€"” Her sentence broke off; she lift- ed the silver frame from the table and looked into the strikingly handsome face of me man in the photograph. .n 1 “Perhaps it is not fair to judge him hardly,” so her thoughts ran; “we have no right to judge the dead, who cannot defend them- selves, and I thinkâ€"I am sure that at the last he was sorry for all my pain! He remembered the child. Surely I can forgive him everything, because he remembered the child.” The death of their one child, in early infancy, had been a blow to Gertrude Martindale, a. blow not lightened by the fact that her husâ€" band had' never seemed to her to grieve over the boy’k death as a father should have grieved. For the baby’sloss the mother’s heart had ached unceasinglv; but Jasper, so it seemed to her, never even re- membered that they had had a, child and his apparent indifference had rankled terribly in his wife’s soul. But on his death-bed he had thought of their child, and this was a'drop of joy now in the cup of misery. ' I should always be that.” Her voice had falt-ered over the words; it was so hard to keep back the ris- 1ing tide of emotion. as she thought 'what life might have meant for her if the child had lived. But her [words only reached her husband’s. Sitting before the boudoir fire, she recalled the moment on the pre- vious evening, when he had awak- ened from a. long spell of uncon- sciousness, to look at her with eyes that knew her. She was alone with him, and he put his hand weakly out towards her,’ making an effort to speak some words, which at first she failed to understand. 'Then, Out of the thickly spoken mutterâ€" ihgs, she managed, bending over him, to catch the words, “Promise â€"me.” He repeated them twice, and the anxiety in his eyes smote his wife’s heart, with a sense of pain. “Yes, dear,” she said gently, leaning yet nearer (.0 him. “What is it you want me to do for you? Of'course, I will do it.” The ankiety of his eyes lessened, a} smile trembled about his lips, his hands still grOped after hexjs. “The child,” he Whispered; “take â€"careâ€"of the child! Promiseâ€"me â€"youâ€"â€"Wi11â€"be good to theâ€" child!” When his words became clear to her, Gertrude’s heart had yearned over him with some of its old ten- derness; With a leap of the pulses she told herself that Jasper was thinking of their baby boy; she said to herself that she had misjudged him when she thought him indiffer- ent. He must in reality have cher- ished the baby’s memory; and now, in the hour of his own death, his memory lingered lovingly round their child, and fancied the boy was alive! Her hand close-d firmly over Jasâ€" per’s groping hand: she spoke very gently, not wishing to disturb or excite him. “Jasper dear. you can trust me 36 be good 130 the c_hild_; yoy kggw ears, her emotion passed .unheedâ€" ed, and his hand feebly returned the pressure of hers. Then his voice had died away into silence, and he drifted back into the unconsciousness which had been only temporarily broken, an uncon- sciousness from which he never awoke again. But the memory oj those few moments of consciousness did much to soften the heart of Jasper’s widow towards him: they Were the moments upon which her thoughts lingered, as the Novem- ber afternoon deepened into even- ing, and darkness crept over the outside world. “The child,” he murmured again, “will be safe with you. xIâ€"was wrong all throughâ€"but} the childâ€"’ ’ The funeral was over, the guests had departed, and Lady Martindale was left alone in the house, which was waking up to its normal existâ€" ence. By her husband’s will, made shortly after their marriage, the property was left to his child in children, with a substantial life al- lowance to his wife. But should no children survive, the death of their father,“ the property was to be Lady Martindale’s unreservedly until her death or second marriage, either of which eventualities would entail the transfer of the Martindale estates and fortune to Sir Jasper’s cousin, Godfrey Martindale. In the na- tural course of events the title passed to this gentleman, and as his own property, Hambley Chase, lay only a few miles from Sir Jasâ€" per’s house, Standon Towers, he was able to be of service to his cou- sin’s widow during the first days of her widowhood. “It is easier .to forgive him, eas- ier to forget'the pain, now that I know he remembered the child,” Gertrude said to herself, when at last she rose from her chair to leave the boudoir. “I am glad; I Wish I could tell him how glad I am that at the last he spoke to me of the child.” But now Gertrude was alone; she had no near relations of her own, and she showed no eagerness to invite any of\her late husband’s distant relatives to share her soli- tude. Sir Godfrey, a man of quick and instinctive sympathy, perhaps understood and respected the comâ€" plex feelings that prompted her wish for‘solitudelbetter than did other members of the‘ family, and beyond coming to see her upon necessary business he left her ‘much to herself. “You will like to have a quiet time to go through Jasper’s private papers,” he said to her, two days after the funeral, “and for the pre- sent I shall not disturb you. If you come across anything important, let me know. I want you to feel I am always ready to help you.” Gertrude looked into his face with a, smile. She and her husband’s cousin had always been friends, and Godfrey was a strong rock to lean upon; yet she welcomed the prosâ€" pect-of the quiet days before her. She needed time in which to _recover the balance of her mind, to adjust herself to the new conditions of her life. The wintry sun shone into the lib- rary of Standon Towers on the morning set apart by Gertrude for unlocking the drawer of her hus- band’s writingâ€"table and gping through his letters and papers. She and Sir Godfrey were the dead man’s executors, but Sir Godfrey had begged her to look herself at Sir Jasper’s private papers before he handled any of them, and Ger- trude spent a, busy morning in readâ€" ing family letters and business papers, some of which could be torn up forthwith, Whilst others were set aside for her coâ€"executor. There was nothing of special in- terest in the writing-table drawers, and Lady Martindale quickly turn- ed from them to her husband’s deâ€" spatch-box, of which he had given her the key on the night when he was stricken with his last. illness. As he had handed her the tiny key he had tried to‘speak; but con- sciousness simultaneously failed him, and that which he had intendA ed to say to her remained for ever unsaid. As she turned the key in the lock, she recollected with what wistful~ ness his eyes had sought hers on the night when she had taken the key from his trembling hand; she remembered how pitifully his face had worked, how terribly. but vain- ly, he had struggled to speak. The gravity of his sudden illness had put the remembrance of this inci- dent from her mind, until this mo- ment when, having unlocked the box, she lifted the lid and glanced inside it. A long ray of sunlight uickly flops :0:E.vcuresvcoldn. beg; l a throat and Inn 3. 3 - - 35 can“. 511%sz 611m CHAPTER IV. a. great’help in being able to make cures colds. heal: fup your mlnd. ' »' ' ' 35 “i”- ’ “Don’t be a dllly dallyer. always fell across the contents, shining brightly upon an oval metal object, lying exactly in the centre of‘the box, and with a faint feeling of curiosity Gertrude picked this up. But as she turned it over and saw its reverse side, 1a low exclamatiqn broke from her, for there lay in her palm an exquisitely painted miniature of a young and very lovely girl. The blue eyes of the pictured face looked up into Gerâ€" trude Martindale’s eyes with some- thing of wistful appeal, yet the soft lips smiled radiantly, and happiness 1was plainly written upon the delir Icately-chiselled features whose colâ€" oring was the coloring of a briar rose in June. Gertrude stared dumbly at the miniature for many minutes, only one thought swinging backwards and forwards in her be- wildered brain. “Who is she ‘l” 7 That Jasper, her husband, had neglected her, ceased to love her, and broken her heart. she could not deny ; but he was not the man to indulge in any vulgar intrigue; he had been far too proud to make'his name a byword through any vulgar scandal, and his wife had not the smallest ground for believing that he had been otherwise than faith- ful to her throughout their married life. Fret and misery their life had held, but no unfaithfulness. _. The lovely laughing face in the miniature seemed to mock at her; it seemed as if those smiling lips must be on the point. of saying something to taunt her. And yet the pictured face held nothing but sweetness and joy. Lady Martindale laid the miniaâ€" ture upon the table and turned back again to the box, half hop- ing, half fearing, that she would find in it some explanation: for she was sure there must be an ex- planation. She was certain that she would be able to discover the identity of the blueâ€"eyed girl with the delicately lovely face; she would learn what relationship the girl bore towards Jasper. There would, there must be, some explanation. The contents of the box were in strange confusion, and this she at once noticed and marvelled over, for her husband had been a man of methodical habits, and the papers in his drawers bore witness to his neatnes's and method. 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