“ I married you, Rachel, for love, and you married me for a home. And the only thing I over gave you that you valued was your boy. It never seemed to occur to you that he was mine as well as yours. Before he was born you received a letter one day—a letter from a woman accusing me of conduct that no wife could for give. You taxed me with my sin, and I remained silent. You never gave me the benefit of a doubt, and the woman who takes it for granted that a man is bad will in the long run make him justify his character, and the devil’s work is (lone. From that day we went different ways. Your child came, and from that moment I do not believe you knew one unhappy hour. Do you think that when I saw you two frolicking and playing together, turning your heads away if I crossed your path, that I did not feel the bitterness of never having even a chance of winning my child’s heart ? To you both I was a bad man, and to each other you were angels. When he fell sick I thought more of you than of him. He died, and, as I expected, you decided to take your own life. I watched outside your door all that night. I heard you speak at intervals. The moment you ceased to do so I burst open the door. You had fought it out with your own soul, and right had conquered. Lallie is gone, but much is left to you. Rise above your self, conquer yourself. In the world there is work to do, and, consecrated by a great suffering, you should do it well.” Rachel sat very still; then she looked at him long and searchingly, as a man with recovered sight may at some familiar ob ject upon which his blind eyes had often rested. “ You talk like a good man,” she said, falteringly. He shook his head. “l am human,” he said, “ but you have done me no harm. The man who will let another person send him to ruin deserves to be ruined ; he has no backbone.” “And the letter T said Rachel, piteously, finding beauty and character in the strong dark face that she had never found before. 