been an exciting interview between the widow and her late husband's executor, and he became aware of the fact that a little red morocco box, which in the old days had usually accompanied his master upon his travels, had passed into Mrs. Haggard's personal custody. Intuitively, he correctly jumped to the conclusion, that in some way or other, the red morocco box was connected with the secret of Lucius Haggard's birth. Mr. Capt felt then that it was his duty, as a prudent man, to ascertain the nature of the contents of the box, or even to obtain possession of it. Promptitude as well as firmness had characterised every action of Mr. Capt's life; with him to determine was to execute, and he made up his mind not to rest until he had mastered the secret of the box, and that his subsequent action should be guided by the information so obtained. Reginald Haggard was a wise man, a man who burnt his letters, a man who was as a rule untroubled by sentiment. The one episode in his early life over which, to him, there had still hung a sort of unhealthy halo of romance, was the affair with Lucy Warrender. Many a time and oft had common sense urged him to commit the contents of the little red box to the flames; but he knew too well that somehow or another his wife had become the involuntary accomplice of her cousin's fault. He had not burned the contents of the box; if he had done so the secret, as far as he was concerned, would probably have died with him; but he had not burned it. Hence his whispered death-bed confession to his friend Spunyarn, and his appeal to his wife for forgiveness. Mrs. Haggard had turned the matter over in her mind again and again. To her it seemed unnecessary to rake up an old scandal, at least during Lord Pit Town's life; the propriety of letting sleeping dogs lie commended itself very strongly to her mind. She herself was quite convinced that when it became necessary to communicate the secret to young Lucius Haggard things would right themselves without a scandal. Of course Lucius would do what was right, and so would George for the matter of that. Spunyarn's suggestion that Lucius Haggard should "efface himself," and so voluntarily suffer a social death, seemed to her but a brutal and inhuman method of cutting the Gordian knot. She had never again opened the little red box, since she had closed it on the occasion of her interview with her husband's executor. To her mind the simplest thing of all would have been to do away with the box and its contents, but she gave way to the better judgment of Spunyarn in this matter. On one thing, however, she was determined: by no act of hers should her dead cousin's shameful secret be dragged into the light of day; and so she made up her mind to communicate her decision to Spunyarn, and to deliver the box to him for safety.