borrowed the money, received the promise of my nearest neighbors to look in once in a while upon the children and then I started off, praying that I might reach my mother in time."

"And did you?" asked Nancy eagerly.

"Yes, and my coming was such a joy to her that sometimes I have let that thought compensate for all the trouble that came after. When I saw her I realized how cruel I had been to sacrifice her to my own desires. How could I have left her? How could I have married so precipitately? Why did I not wait? Well, dear, when one is young one does many foolish things, yet who can expect level judgment from young, inexperienced persons? If they do nothing to bring lifelong regrets I suppose it is the best that can be expected of them. Pray Heaven you may never do such."

"Oh, but I have, I have done just that," murmured Nancy. "But never mind, please go on, Mrs. Bertram, I never heard such an exciting story. Did you go back, and—and?"

"I went back as soon as I could, though not as soon as I expected, for after my dear mother's death there were necessary things to be attended to, but I wrote very, very often to my husband, and never received a word in reply. During the first weeks I had one or two post-cards from a neighbor to say the children were well, but after that nothing. I knew that my husband's insane jealousy had probably led him to believe that I had made my mother's illness an excuse to leave him. The message I received I had enclosed in a note which I left for him, in my anxiety forgetting that the name signed was Ernest Kirkby, the curate's."

"Oh, dear, oh, dear, but it was unfortunate under the circumstances," exclaimed Nancy.

"Terribly so, for I believe it was that which did the mischief. Well, at last I returned to the little city where we had lived, only to find my husband and children gone, none could tell me where. Poor, unhappy boy, he was not so much to blame. His plottings with revolutionists brought suspicion upon him. He was a marked man, and one night his friends hustled him on board a ship about to sail for Cuba, in order to prevent his arrest, perhaps his assassination, for it was that way, rather than another, that they were doing things in Mexico at that time. A number of his fellow-plotters did meet death by stealthy means; others fled the country, so there were few to give me any news of my husband. At last I learned where he had gone, was told he had taken the children and the nurse with him, and had left the town where we had lived, 

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