the parapet, began to think again. It was a curious thing that this young man, brought up in a quiet, Christian household, should let his thoughts run on such a morbid idea as the possibility of his being a natural son. He had no experience of vice, and should therefore have accepted the marriage of his unknown parents as a fact, especially when his nurse asserted that they had been married. But the strangeness of his position led him to believe that there must be some motive for concealment, and this motive, he determined in his own mind, was the want of a marriage certificate.

The real cause, however, which led to this morbid analysis of the possible relations between his parents, lay in a discovery which he had lately made--a discovery which changed the simple manly life he was leading into a raging hell of doubts and self-torturings.

He was in love--and Una Challoner was the woman he loved. It was not that sickly evanescent affection common to adolescence, known by the name of calf love--no; but that strong overwhelming passion of the soul which has no limits and which dominates and sways the whole nature. Drawn in the first place towards Una by simple admiration of her beauty, he learned later on to discard this passion without soul, and found in the kindred sympathy of her spirit with his own that ideal union which so rarely exists. She, on her part, had been attracted to him by the same qualities which he found in her, and this perfect agreement developed in each a pure and spiritual adoration.

His love thus being pure, he would not dare to offer her anything but purity, and anxiously began to examine his life in order to discover all flaws which marred its whiteness. He was not an ideal young man, still he discovered nothing in his life which could embarrass him to explain, so felt quite easy in himself, but now this shadow of possible illegitimacy seemed to threaten disaster. He would not dare to offer to the woman he loved and respected a name which was not legally his own.

However, it was no use indulging in self-torture when it could be ended by getting a proper explanation of the circumstances of his birth from Patience Allerby. Hitherto he had shrunk from doing this with the vague hesitation of a man who dreads to hear the truth, but now it was imperative he should learn all, be it good or evil, and shape his course accordingly. At this moment of his life he stood at the junction of two roads, and the explanation of Patience Allerby would decide which one he was to take. Having come to this logical conclusion, he resolutely banished all dismal 

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