“Thank you for telling me this,” Miss Grafton said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I have often thought of the young girl, of whom my father used frequently to speak, and wonder if all was well with her. I congratulate you. I am glad that the wrong-doer was outwitted, and that the innocent will be righted at last.” “My poor, innocent mother can never be righted; those years of suffering and humiliation can never be atoned for,” the young man said, in trembling tones. “My friend,” Miss Isabel Grafton said, meeting his eyes with a sweet gravity that was all her own, “can you not _trust_ that where she has gone all sorrow has ceased, all tears are wiped, and that pain is remembered no more? _She_ can see now, if _you_ cannot, why all this was permitted.” “Miss Grafton, you remind me of my mother, only you are younger—she used to talk that way to me, and she said almost the same thing to me just before she died,” he said, with a touch of reverence in his tones. Miss Grafton sighed, yet at the same time her lips parted in a little tremulous smile. The sigh bespoke the memory of some bitter struggle of the past—the smile of the trust and hope of which she had just spoken. She set before him a pen, ink, and paper, and then quietly left the room while he copied those blessed words from the rector’s diary, which in one hour had changed all his life. Just as he had finished Miss Grafton returned to the parlor, bringing a tempting little lunch for him, and chatted socially with him while he ate it. When at last he arose to go, bade her farewell, and thanked her again for her kindness, and then went away, she for the first time losing all self-control, threw herself prone upon the floor and cried aloud: “Another, O Lord! Why in Thy mercy dost Thou permit the brightest hopes to be destroyed, the happiest and most innocent to suffer such cruel blight?” Thus the story of another sweet woman’s life was told. Isabel Grafton’s own youth had been blasted, her own heart crushed and broken by the treachery of one whom she had trusted. She had loved and plighted herself to one who, all unworthy, had deserted her for the brighter smiles of another but the day before he was to have led her to the altar. * * * * * The son of Marion Vance went forth upon his self-imposed mission—to find the man who had plotted to betray his mother, prove to him the validity of his marriage, and then, leaving him forever, return to Wycliffe and claim his inheritance there. Leaving him thus engaged, we must for a time turn our thoughts in another direction—to Paul Tressalia, who was called from Newport so suddenly, as already mentioned in our story. It will be remembered that on the same night of his final rejection by Editha Dalton, he had received important letters which demanded his immediate presence abroad, and that summons, with his heart so sore from his disappointment, he was only too glad to obey.