how to sign this—so I won’t. You’ll know who it comes from, won’t you? Good-by. Burn this.”     

       These letters, no doubt, make it plain that there had been at least a momentary weakness both in Mary and in John; but in a true and charitable view their conduct in rising superior to temptation finally was all the more remarkable and praiseworthy. They had indeed, for the time, been carried away. Even now Mary found it hard not to make allowances for herself, little as she was prone to weakness when she thought of the impetuous abandon and conquering whirl with which Charlie Ellerton had wooed her; and John confessed that flight alone, a hasty flight from Interlaken after a certain evening spent in gazing at the Jungfrau, had saved him from casting everything to the winds and yielding to the slavery of Dora Bellairs’s sunny smiles and charming coquetries. He had always thought that that sort of girl had no attractions for him, just as Mary had despised ‘butterfly-men’ like Charlie Ellerton. Well, they were wrong. The only comfort was that shallow natures felt these sorrows less; it would have broken Mary’s heart (thought John), or John’s (thought Mary), but Dora and Charlie would soon find consolation in another. But here, oddly enough, John generally swore heartily and Mary always began to search for her handkerchief. “They’re as affectionate as one could wish when they’re together,”       mused Miss Bussey, as she stroked the cat, “but at other times they’re gloomy company. I suppose they can’t be happy apart. Dear! dear!”       and the good old lady fell to wondering whether she had ever been so foolish herself.     

  

  

       CHAPTER II. — SYMPATHY IN SORROW     

       “Give me,” observed Sir Roger Deane, “Cannes, a fine day, a good set to look at, a beehive chair, a good cigar, a cocktail on one side and a nice girl on the other, and there I am! I don’t want anything else.”     

       General Bellairs pulled his white mustache and examined Sir Roger’s figure and surroundings with a smile.     

       “Then only Lady Deane is wanting to your complete happiness,”       said he.     

       “Maud is certainly a nice girl, but when she deserts me——”     

       “Where is 

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