"Wrong, mother! How can you imagine such a thing?" cried Anna, as she burst into tears and flung her arms round Mrs. Jenwyn's neck. "In gaining you I have gained everything. All else is as nothing compared with that." The audacious scheme conceived by Mrs. Jenwyn was carried to a successful issue. To Felix Drelincourt in his Italian home came the tidings of his half sister's death on shipboard while on her way back from Madeira. He grieved sincerely for her loss, and wrote Mrs. Jenwyn a letter full of sympathy, regrets, and grateful acknowledgment of her services to the dead girl. Before leaving England Anna had made a will, in which she bequeathed all she possessed, with the exception of a few trinkets, to Drelincourt. This step was rendered necessary by the peculiar circumstances of the case. The money which thus accrued to him made a very welcome addition to Drelincourt's somewhat limited income. After the reading of the will he wrote to Mrs. Jenwyn, expressing his surprise and regret that, except so far as regarded the aforesaid trinkets, her name found no mention in it, and offering to continue to her for life the income his father had set aside for her so long as she and Anna should remain together. In reply, Mrs. Jenwyn informed him, with many thanks, that, by the death of a relative, she had recently succeeded to a legacy which would amply suffice to meet all her simple needs in time to come. And there matters between them came to an end forever, as they probably thought, neither of them foreseeing where and under what peculiar circumstances they should meet again, nor having any prevision of the underlying purpose for which fate had interwoven the threads of their destiny. CHAPTER VIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. It is a lovely afternoon in early summer, and a pair of youthful lovers have the morning room at Fairlawn to themselves. And a very pleasant room it is, at once sunny and airy, with two long windows which open on a space of greenest lawn interspersed with flower beds of various quaint shapes and sizes, which as yet are hardly in their full summer beauty. At one end of the room is an archway shrouded by a portière, forming the entrance to the second Mrs. Drelincourt's boudoir. At a table between the windows a very charming girl, as fresh and sweet as a rosebud dipped in dew, is arranging some cut flowers in a Nankin jar. On a couch no great distance away, admiring her with all his eyes, lounges a rather jaded looking young man in flannels; jaded, be it understood, not from dissipation, but from overwork. "I only sat out two dances the whole evening, and it was my own fault I didn't dance those." It was Marian Drelincourt who spoke. "No doubt you fancied yourself the belle of the ball," rejoined the young man. "I dare say there were several other young ladies there who cherished the same pleasing delusion."