‘lt is quite true, Rosalie,’ answered the clergyman, sadly. ‘Y on shall he convinced of it yourself if you will. In one respect the young man is honourable, for he is no liar : when taxed with it by one who had a right to question him, he allowed its truth. My child, you cannot marry a gambler. It is the worst vice, sove one, that man can acquire. ’ ‘No, no, I cannot marry him,’ acquiesced Rosalie, rising up with trembling lips and pallid face. ‘ Papa, for your sake, for all our sakes, I renounce Bertram Payne. ’

So Mr Payne and Miss Halcroft met no more—exceptat church,where his eyes would dwell on her pale face until it burned with feverish crimson beneath his gaze, though her look was turned away in resolute avoid ance; or when they encountered in the street, where he lingered to meet her, and flushed and trembled : but she passed on with a cold bow. He was too proud to plead, too re morseful to resent, but she knew by intui tion as she sat weeping in her chamber, the passionate words of explanation he wrote, and tore, and flung away, and never sent. ‘ Rosalie, I did it for you. I won to win you; I knew it was the surest road to for tune, and fortune sanctions love. Poor, I could not address you ; rich, I might dare to ask, I never remembered it was a sin, I only remembered your sweet words and lovely looks. I never thought of wrong, I only thought of you—Rosalie,’ Over and over again these or some such words of excuse were gone over in her mind. They were very near the truth. Only—he had not at first staked to win, but only out of idleness, only from example : when he found he was indeed winning—for he had a strange and wonderful run of luck in the German town —lie went on pursuing it, thinking of Rosalie. But, had he explained all this and sued for pardon, what would it have availed against the mild horror of the Christian minister, or the fiei’ce virtue of the village gossips ; least of all the shocked pride of his beloved ? To her maidenly inexperience, the sin of gam bling looked so very dark and horrible. 