'I was too terrified--too mortified to do so, and you were so proud, so suspicious of me. I writhed in secret under the imputation that that man had it in his power to cast upon me with the tampered miniature. I was weak, foolish, Allan, and every act of mine seemed to be a mistake and misplaced; but now----' 'All is over, and all forgotten.' 'Thank heaven for its goodness, Allan. You never wrote to me after that parting at Southsea. Save in your letter to your mother after Tel-el-Kebir, you never once referred to me, and then only in terms of scorn and invective. Oh, Allan, Allan, all that was very hard to bear.' But Allan found ample means of consoling her now. 'How happy I am,' said Lady Aberfeldie, as she nestled both their heads together on her motherly breast; 'ever since you two were little children, how I prayed for this; I reared and taught you to this end, and God has seen fit in His goodness to accomplish it.' And now, having brought our 'heroes and heroines,' to use the old novelist's phraseology, to this point, need we follow them into the region of wedding-bells, wedding-cakes, favours, rice, and old slippers? We think not. THE END. LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE.