maid, and an old friend of Marston's, called Henry Goring, was present as his best man.

There was a short wedding tour which lasted a fortnight; and then Mr. and Mrs. Marston returned to The Beacon, and resumed their accustomed duties with scarcely any alteration.

A change, however, had come over Robert Marston. He discovered that, although he had secured the woman he had longed for as his wife, he did not possess her love.

He had noticed her coldness towards him during their courtship, and had attributed it to her maiden modesty; he hoped all that would disappear when they were once married; but to his consternation it increased; though not showing actual aversion to him, his wife often avoided him and seemed to be afraid of him.

Robert Marston was of an excessively proud and jealous disposition; his wife's manner perplexed him. Why did she marry him if she had no real love for him?" he asked himself: and then the idea suggested itself that she had only married him to secure a home for herself when Lady Raymond died. He dismissed the thought at first; but it constantly recurred to him, and he could not shake it off.

He became reserved and silent, and gave his wife very little of his society, but would be absent the whole day engaged in business about the estate; while his wife spent the time with the Countess, whose life was in so precarious a state that Lord Raymond was afraid to leave the Castle.

Within three months of the Marstons' marriage, Lady Raymond passed away.

The end had been approaching slowly and steadily, but so surely for some time past that, when the silver cord was loosed, it caused no surprise, for it had been long expected.

Lord Raymond invited Mr. Marston to stay on at The Beacon and make it his home; but the latter

declined the offer, and shortly afterwards moved into a house he had taken in the neighbourhood.

When once settled in their new home, Mr. Marston and his wife got on better together; and, although not on those terms of affection he desired, the prospect was more encouraging.

Then Tom Marston was born, and this new tie bound the husband and wife more together than they had ever been.

About a week after Tom's arrival on the scene, Mr. Marston had to go to The Beacon to receive the rents. He was engaged all day, and late in the afternoon a messenger arrived at the Castle, requesting him to go home immediately as Mrs. Marston was dangerously ill. He returned to find his wife dead!

The shock prostrated him. The suddenness, the awfulness of the event, and his unpreparedness for such a calamity paralysed him. He had hoped for so much brightness in the future; and for all his aspirations and longings to be dashed to the ground in an instant deprived him of all his courage, and he gave way to melancholy.

The baby was sent to the gamekeeper's wife, Mrs. Cape, to foster, and Mr. Marston led the life of a misanthrope, avoiding his fellow-creatures as much as possible, and scarcely ever appearing in public; his meals were had at all hours and seasons, and frequently late at night he would start off for a long walk, regardless of the weather, and not return to his house until daylight; sometimes he sat for hours brooding, scarcely changing his attitude, and his servants feared his mind was affected.

One night, after the servants had gone to bed, an inclination came over him to find some trifle which had belonged to his late wife and wear it always as a souvenir.

He searched in a very handsome dressing-case, which had been Lord Raymond's wedding present,

and by accident discovered a secret drawer, which was closely packed with letters.

Mr. Marston turned them over listlessly at first; but suddenly he gave a start as he recognised Lord Raymond's handwriting.

He examined them more closely. They were all from the same person, and were all written, more or less, in the same strain passionate love-letters extending over a long period.

Mr. Marston took them down to his study and carefully read each one through, and arranged them as well as he could. Many were without date, and some without signature. Some were subscribed with the title "Raymond," others simply "Hugh;" but the tenor of all was the same: they spoke of an absorbing love that was mutual, and alluded to some hateful obstacle which prevented their being more to one another than they then were.

When Mr. Marston had finished the perusal of each one, he replaced all the letters in the drawer of the dressing-case, and, locking the latter, he placed it in a cupboard in his room, which he also locked.

He had been drinking deeply all through the night; his eyes were bloodshot, his hair was rumpled and his face wore an expression it had never worn before; but he was outwardly calm.

The first streaks of daylight were piercing through the crevices of the shutters. Mr. Marston flung the latter violently open and threw up the window-sash. The outline of The Beacon could be seen standing boldly out against the dawning sky.

He clenched his fist and extended his arm towards the Castle while his form seemed to expand as he said, in a voice vibrating with passion: "You dastardly, lying thief; you robbed me of all I cared for in this world, and have fathered your spawn on me. May I

suffer the tortures of the damned if I don't wreck your happiness as you have wrecked mine."

Just then the shutter, which had been thrown. open, swung slowly back and touched his shoulder. Marston turned round fiercely, and, in his rage, dashed his fist through the panel.

CHAPTER II.

LORD RAYMOND

HAVING once formed the impression that the letters he had discovered from Lord Raymond to his wife clearly proved the latter's infidelity to him, Mr. Marston accepted it as a matter of fact and acted on it. He dismissed all feelings of affection from his mind as though they had never existed, and never allowed his thoughts to dwell on the subject; but worked harder than he had ever worked in the olden days, and kept his mind occupied every moment of his waking hours on the business of the estate.

Of the young child, of whom he was, at any rate, the reputed father, he took no notice; it would be too much to say that he hated it, for he never even thought about it.

Master Tom remained with the gamekeeper's wife, Mrs. Cape, and was brought up with his foster brother, Johnny Cape, just as though they had been twins.

It is always unwise to jump at conclusions, and treat impressions as realities.

Mr. Marston's suspicions of his wife's baseness were unjust and untrue; the only wrong she had ever done him was in becoming his wife when her heart belonged to another; but, although she could not give him the love he craved, she had never been disloyal to him in word or deed since the day she

consented to marry him. She was more to be pitied than blamed, for she, herself, had been the chief sufferer through Lord Raymond's attentions.

The Earl of Raymond was neither better nor worse than the generality of men in his position in life, who, from their birth up, have been treated, more or less, as favourites of fortune.

He was educated at Eton and Cambridge; and for some years held a commission in the Household Cavalry. He raced, betted, hunted, yachted, and indulged in every kind of sport, excitement, and amusement that was to be had; and led the sort of life which is not unusual with young men of liberal means, who are possessed of good looks, good health, and abundance of animal spirits, and are, in addition, heirs to an earldom.

He was a mass of contradictions. Generous though selfish, indolent yet energetic, honourable but unscrupulous; that is to say, that he was each thing by turns according to the mood he was in. He first met Miss Ratcliff at The Beacon when she was companion to his mother, was attracted by her pretty face, and made love to her. It was natural for him to make love to any pretty girl he met, and he did it well; rather too well in her case, for in a short time he had completely won her affections, and she gave him her whole heart.

This is more than Lord Raymond required, as he had not the smallest intention of marrying her; and her complete surrender interfered with his amusement in laying siege to her.

He tried to let Miss Ratcliff see that the whole thing was a piece of fun; but she was one of those girls who consider love as rather a serious affair, and a state not to be entered into, nor abandoned lightly. Lord Raymond's respect for Miss Ratcliff increased, though his love did not, and he blamed himself immoderately for having given way to temptation. Had he been a thoroughly bad man, he would have