useless to deny the plain fact that grief had crowded every thought of him out of her heart now. Every day he sent her flowers--although he felt assured that they all found their way to the cemetery--and every day he went to Dr. Belford to find out how she was. The report was always the same--calm, uncomplaining, hopeless! He longed to feel that Christine thought of him with some degree of comfort, but there was absolutely no foundation for such a hope. He had always felt a certain impatient scorn of the unfortunate, and to him totally uninteresting baby, whom Christine had loved with such idolatry, but now he found himself formulating a passionate wish that he could get back the child's life for her at the sacrifice of his own. He almost felt that he could consent to it. X. About two weeks after the death of the baby Dr. Belford called upon Noel. It was absolutely necessary, he said, to do something to rouse Christine from her state of hopeless lethargy. He had accordingly laid his plans to do this. He had discovered, through Eliza, that all the money furnished for the support of the establishment for some time past had come from Christine, and that Dallas even applied to his wife for money for tobacco and car-fares, pretending he went out looking for work. "As far as I can understand," said Dr. Belford, "the creature has no strong vices--he is too bloodless and inane for them. Even when he had money it doesn't appear that he gambled, and I don't believe he drinks. He is simply wanting in principle, feeling and everything. Eliza says he has scarcely spoken to his wife, or she to him, since the baby died. Indeed she never speaks a word to any one beyond what is strictly necessary. This state of things cannot go on. I told Eliza yesterday to go and ask her for money, which she did. On the heels of it I went to her and told her you wanted to begin a new picture and could find no model so suitable as herself. I asked her if she would agree. She told me then that Eliza had come to her for money to carry on the house, and that she felt she must, in some way, earn it, as she would not owe tradespeople, who could not afford to lose by her. So she asked me to tell you she would begin the sittings to-morrow." "What a friend you are, Doctor, to her and to me!" said Noel, grasping his companion's hand. The doctor held his hand in a resolute pressure as he looked at him keenly and said: "I think I know my man. At all events I'm going to trust you. I haven't much belief in saints, but unless you're a double-dyed scoundrel you will never betray this trust." Noel answered nothing. The two men grasped hands a second longer and then, each satisfied with each, they parted.