that the same world that holds you can
have held him. And oh, Kenneth, indeed,
indeed, it is not possible that I, who was
his, should be yours."

"You were not his," he said, almost
roughly.

"My soul was not, my will was not;
but only if I could be passed through fire,
and so purified, could I bear that you should
take me."

She came at last to the very end. The
report of the pistol, the feeling something
on her hands and face, the looking at
something, not knowing what she saw — and
then— not supported now by the fever-
strength that the first time she told the
story had borne her through— indeed, it
had been told in a changed and softened
spirit, nurse's words, "It may be God's
will you should remember and forgive,"
occurred to her; there was half excuse in
the way in which she had said, "Surely his
badness was madness"— she sank against
Kenneth in a deadly swoon.

"I have tried her too much!" Mr.
Stewart said, remorsefully, as he laid her
on the couch. "Heaven help us both!"
he added, as he looked down on her deathlike
face, and almost thought it might be
better for them both if she never woke.

Her first words when she came to herself
were: "And now, Kenneth, you know that
I am right; that it is not possible that you
should take me for your wife."

"A pearl is always a pearl, however
foul the mud in which for a time it may
have been lost," was his only answer,
then. He would not let her talk. He
called old Keziah to come and wait upon
her and he left her. He himself walked over
miles and miles of moorland. "To the edge
of the world and back again," he told
Daisy, whom he saw again that night for a
few moments, before he went to the little
inn at which he was staying. "And I'm
come back unchanged, Daisy," he added.

And the ending of this story was according
to his will. Not exactly "a happy
ending," but yet an "ending" that held
the possible beginning of happier things.
All the days of her life, both stormy days
and sunny days, Daisy loved her husband
as perfectly as it was in her to do anything.
For a long time Daisy's child was thought
to be dumb. It had a dumb look in its
gentle face, a pathetic, struggling look.
But, at last, it learned to talk, not till it
was five years old, just enough to prove
that it was not, mentally, like other children.
Rough and careless tongues named
it an idiot; but it was not that. Then it
died. Unfit to lead anything but a child's
life, requiring to be always cared for as a
child, when with its childhood its life ended,
even the mother, in her first bitter grief,
and conscious that a vacant place was left
which nothing could ever fill, felt: "It is
well. It would have been so terrible to die,
and leave him without a mother."

And Myrrha?

Myrrha was Aunt Daisy's bridesmaid.
Myrrha was triumphant. "I told you so,
Mr. Stewart! I told you Aunt Daisy was,
I believed, already married!" Myrrha lived
with "Aunt and Uncle Stewart" till she
herself married. Perhaps Myrrha lost some
of her "wisdom" at Redcombe. When she
married it was only a fair match, not a
splendid one, and she was "in love."

Myrrha was disappointed in herself,
rather ashamed of herself. Aunt Daisy
did what she could to console her, and
Myrrha was open to consolation that
came to her in the shape of a liberal
and fashionable outfit, and all kinds of
beautiful and costly presents. Myrrha's
husband had the prettiest and most stylish
woman in the neighbourhood for his wife.
That "they got on very well together,"
was the history they gave of their married
happiness.

Now ready, price 2s. 6d. in boards, and 3s. 6d. in cloth,
THE NINE
CHRISTMAS NUMBERS
OF
ALL THE YEAR ROUND,
CONTAINING:
The Haunted House.
A Message from the Sea.
Tom Tiddler's Ground.
Somebody's Luggage.
Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings.
Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy.
Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions.
Mugby Junction.
No Thoroughfare.

London: 26, Wellington-street, Strand.

On December 5th will be published, price 5s. 6d., bound
in green cloth,
THE FOURTH VOLUME
OF THE NEW SERIES OF
ALL THE YEAR ROUND.
To be had of all Booksellers.

END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.