Thornleigh answered with a laugh, for the wife in question not being his wife, the idea of Helen's 'virtuous indignation' amused him; and moreover, good-natured as he was, he found something especially ludicrous in the idea of his friend's delusions.

'Poor fellow! Poor old Stony,' he said, when his pleasant laugh had subsided. 'I only hope he won't be enlightened. always so jolly-'

He's

But when, after a few minutes' pause, Helen expressed to Philip her opinion of mercenary marriages in general, and of one in particular, which at that moment was occupying public attention, she was agreeably surprised to find that his ideas (for, like most men, he had a yearning to be loved for himself alone) coincided with her own. Together they inveighed against the perjured ones who vowed a love they could not feel, and who, to make the nauseous draught of life go down,' consoled themselves with the pearls and the diamonds that lay at the

bottom of the cup; and when their vituperations were at an end, and the force of language could no further go, Helen, turning a look of love and pride on the handsome figure by her side, whispered

"There is one thing that comforts me, Philip, and that is, that I at least have not sold myself. Oh! the lies,' she added, that I have seen looked out of young girls' eyes, and that, too, on men who should not have touched my ungloved hand in common courtesy !'

'Why, you foolish woman,' said Philip, smiling at the energy with which she poured forth her reminiscences, don't you know there is such a thing as being more nice than wise?'

Notions of honour cannot be too nice; can they Philip?" she asked; but he made no reply, for it was not for him to talk to her of honour.

Helen sighed. Perhaps,' she continued, 'I am wrong to talk of such things, for had I

been tempted, I too might have fallen. But still I think I could not have purchased money or high position by the sacrifice of my self-esteem and my sense of honour. Tell me that I am an honourable woman. Tell me that you think so, Philip,' and she looked at him with pleading eyes.

Thornleigh stroked her dark hair fondly. 'Honourable to me, dear love. But the world, my Helen—'

Ah! the world,' she cried impatiently. Your world-your God. Mine is truth

and honour.'

• But

Raise an altar to the unknown deities,' said Philip, with a languid smile. seriously, I think you are rather too hard upon poor Mrs. Stonehurst.' He was lying idly on a couch, smoking and sangareeing away the broiling midday hours. She is a deuced pretty woman, and old Stony is a bore. Now Nelly, you must allow that.'

Helen would not deny the fact, but nevertheless she was not to be laughed out of her

opinion that, as long as a husband performs his part of the social compact, his wife, if she break hers, is utterly without excuse, and should be held up to general reprobation.

And as to a man's being a bore,' she mentally added, 'why every one is tiresome occasionally. Even Philip is not always so agreeable as he was before we '-married was the word her thoughts uttered-and surely few wives, whose vows had been spoken in Holy Church could have felt more certain than did Helen, that her lot in life was fixed beyond the possibility of change.

Among those with whom Mrs. Vaughan sometimes came in contact, and that principally by the bedside of the sick, must be mentioned the garrison chaplain, Mr. Fanshawe by name, whose office naturally led him to where sin and sorrow did most abound. He was a very average man, that military parson-one of the million mediocrities of the earth; but he was a kind man at heart, and being generally denominated a good

fellow' by the youngsters in the regiment, it may be inferred that his sermons were short, and his advice not often forced upon them. The Chaplain's manner to Helen was civil in the extreme, and whatever surprise he might have felt, when on the first occasion of his meeting with her, she knelt in prayer beside the dying, was carefully concealed. Perhaps, aided by the solemnity of the scenes they witnessed together, and strengthened by the power of his sacred office, a more earnest man might have succeeded in arousing her to a sense of her delinquencies, but the conversion of such a sinner was not in Mr. Fanshawe's line, nor was he rash enough to risk his popularity with the Colonel (for Thornleigh commanded the regiment then) by a vain effort at interference with his pleasures. So Helen was left to her sins, and the Chaplain retained the good word of the thoughtless boys, which he prized far more highly than it deserved, and was made happy by the occasional notice of

VOL. I.

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