had resolved to place Annie in some small cottage not far from Holmfirth I had thought of Greenfield. I could see her there each week. And there was another reason why another home should be found for her. Judge of my consternation when Mrs.--, in answer to the inquiry which I made with assumed indifference as to the health of the children and their governess, told me that Miss Lisle had been dismissed her service, dismissed ignominiously, without a character. I controlled myself as well as I could. Mrs. ---- said enough to convince me that my darling had been dismissed under the darkest suspicion that can rest upon a pure, unsullied woman. But even then I did not disclose the truth. My wife had vanished and left no trace behind her. She had been true to her promise to me, even when a word would have cleared her name and confounded the angry jealous woman who spurned her from her home. Almost penniless she turned into the world. She never wrote to me or sent me word. Judge how I searched in all places likely and unlikely for her. Secretly, with what scant means I could procure. I instituted inquiries on every side; but my wife had disappeared as effectively as though she had never been. She had never worn her wedding ring; she had borne my name only during all that too brief week of wedded bliss at Seaford. Time went by; I knew my wife, if she still lived, must be a mother. I feared, then at last I persuaded myself, that in her shame and grief she had destroyed herself. I called upon my head the curse of the Almighty, but God seemed heedless of my blasphemous ravings. From that time life for me had lost its savour. I lived only for work, for business success. They were my distraction. Then, as you know, I married. But of that I need not speak. My wife bore me no children, and when I took Dorothy as my ward I almost hated the child because I could not love her as my own." There was a long silence. Tom feared to speak. He guessed the rest too surely. "One present only had I given to my sweetheart. It was a locket with our initials intertwined, and a love-knot of our hair inside. It was a whim of Annie's. Tom, my boy, my son, you have worn that locket about your neck. Can you forget the wrong I did your mother, and forgive the father who can never forgive himself?" "Nay, Mr. Tinker, nay, father, if indeed I am your son," faltered Tom. "I've seen Moll o' Stute's. I've seen Mrs. Schofield. They remembered the features of your mother as though she died but yesterday. Besides--but there can be no question of it." "Well, father," said Tom, very solemnly, "I thank God that I am indeed your son. It is not for me to judge or to forgive. I will try to be to you all your son should be." Jabez bent over the bed and kissed Tom's brow, and the tears streamed down the face of the elder man, his pride humbled, his cold reserve broken down, the man of iron melted to a gentleness he had never known before.