"Spent hundreds of my hard-earned pounds to free you from a bankrupt lover--a scoundrel whose every thought was on my cash, whose every calculation was as to how many years I should be before I died; upon a man who had not the heart to stand up for you, who valued you at less than five hundred pounds; and yet you reproached me with wishing to sell you to a rich husband, when he is a pure, sterling, true-hearted man, the only one I know that I could trust--a man you have known from a child, and one who has long loved you. Suppose he is grey-headed, what then? You can trust in his experience and--eh? What? Why? What the deuce! talk of the--How are you, Brough? glad to see you. Got the gout awful this morning. Don't stop; I'm bothered and sick with pain. Take May up-stairs. My dear, give Mr Brough some lunch." Then, in an undertone, he spoke to the new-comer: "I've done it for you, Brough; smoothed the way, and the day's your own. Bought him off for five hundred." "And has he taken it?" said the new-comer, a handsome, florid, elderly man. "As good as taken it. It's all right, I tell you. She knows it too. Go and comfort her up, Brough; comfort her up." "Poor child, poor child," muttered Mr Brough, taking a cold stony hand in his; and the tears rose to his eyes as he read in the despairing look directed at him the truth of the old money-lender's words. The next minute he had led May Richards up-stairs and was seated by her on one of the sofas, gazing pityingly at her, for with her face covered by her hands the poor girl wept as though her heart would break. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ STORY FIVE, CHAPTER THREE. TOM BROUGH. For a good quarter of an hour no word was spoken; then again taking one of the unresisting hands in his, May's new courtier talked long and earnestly, telling of how, with no ardent passion, but with the chastened love of one who had known a bitter disappointment, he had long watched her and waited. "And now, at last, May, I ask you to be an old man's wife," he said. "Yours shall be no life of slavery; but there, you have known me long, and for some time past," he said tenderly; "I have not been without hope that you loved me in return."