was arranged that Jim should see her home across the park, a suggestion which, you may be sure, he was not slow to take advantage of. They accordingly watched the carriage pass through the lodge gates, and then themselves set out for the Dower House. As they walked Jim told his sweetheart of the ill success that had attended his mission to London.

"But, Helen," he said at last, as they approached the house, "you have not told me what it is that is worrying you about your grandfather. I hope he has not been making you unhappy?"

She hung her head but did not answer.

"Ah, I can see that he has," he exclaimed, "and I suppose it was something to do with me. I wonder whether I should be right if I hazarded a guess that Mr. Bursfield had been trying again to force you into giving me up? Is that the case, Helen?"

"I am afraid in a measure it is," she replied, but with some diffidence. "You may be quite sure, however, that whatever he may do it will not influence me. You know how truly I love you?"

"Yes, I know that," he answered, "and I am quite content to trust you. I know that nothing Mr. Bursfield can say will induce you to do as he proposes."

"Remember that always," she said. "But, oh, Jim, I wish he were not so determined in his opposition to our marriage. Sometimes I feel that I am acting not only like a traitor to him, but to you as well."

"That you could never be," Jim returned. "However, keep up a good heart, dear, and you may be sure all will come right in the end. In the future we shall look back upon these little troubles, and wonder why we so worried about them."

A few minutes later they reached the gates leading into the grounds of the Dower House. Here Jim bade his sweetheart good-bye, and, having arranged another meeting for the morrow, set off on his walk to his own home. Immediately upon his arrival there, he made his way, accompanied by Alice, to the lumber-room on the top story of the house, in which the boxes he had come down to over-haul had been placed. How well he could recall the day in Australia on which his father had packed them. Little had he imagined then that those boxes would next be opened in order to discover a portrait of the same kind father's murderer. When the first box had been overhauled it was found to contain unimportant papers connected with the dead man's various properties in Australia. In the second was a miscellaneous collection; which consisted of a variety of account books, 

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