his usefulness among the brethren, and he fled. Naturally, he left his second wife behind, having previously secured a bill of sale on her household effects. A few months elapsed, the woman was turned adrift by her husband's creditors, and then a child was born. It was a poor little thing – a boy. The good souls of the "connection" provided for it until it was two years old, and afterward placed it in a charity school. While the little fellow was there, his mother was struck down by a mortal complaint. Then for the first time the poor ruined woman asked to see her child. They brought the little one to her bedside, and it smiled down into her dying face. "Oh, that it may please the Lord to make him a preacher!" she said with a great effort. At a sign from the doctor the child was taken away. The face pinched by cruel suffering quivered slightly, the timid eyes worn by wasted hope softened and closed, and the mother bid farewell to everything.
The boy lived. They christened him Josiah, and he took for surname the maiden name of his mother, Bonnithorne. He was a weakling, and had no love of boyish sports; but he excelled in scholarship. In spite of these tendencies, he was apprenticed to a butcher when the time came to remove him from school. An accident transferred him to the office of a solicitor, and he was articled. Ten years later he succeeded to his master's practice, and then he sailed with all sail set.
He disappointed the "connection" by developing into a Churchman, but otherwise aroused no hostile feeling. It was obviously his cue to conciliate everybody. He was liked without being popular, trusted without being a favorite. Churchwarden, trustee for public funds, executor for private friends, he had a reputation for disinterested industry. And people said how well it was that one so unselfish as Josiah Bonnithorne should nevertheless prosper even as this world goes.
But there was a man in Cumberland who knew Mr. Bonnithorne from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. That man was Mr. Hugh Ritson. Never for an instant did either of these palter with the other.
When Mr. Bonnithorne left the charcoal pit, he followed the road that crossed the Newlands Beck, and returned on the breast of the Eel Crags. This led him close to the booth where the sports were proceeding. He heard, as he passed, the gurgling laugh with which the dalesfolk received the peddler's story of how he saw Paul Ritson at Hendon. A minute afterward he encountered Hugh Ritson on the road. There was only the most meagre pretense at greeting when these men came face to face.
"Your father sent for me," said Mr. Bonnithorne.
"On what business?" Hugh Ritson asked.
"I have yet to learn."
They walked some steps without speaking. Then the lawyer turned with his constant smile, and said in his soft voice:
"I have just seen your little friend. She looks pale, poor thing! Something must be done, and shortly."
Hugh Ritson's face flushed perceptibly. His eyes were on the ground.
"Let us go no further in this matter," he said, in a low tone. "I saw her yesterday. Then there is her father, poor, broken creature! Let it drop."
"I did not believe it of you!" Mr. Bonnithorne spoke calmly and went on smiling.
"Besides, I am ashamed. The thing is too mean," said Hugh Ritson. "In what turgid melodrama does not just such an episode occur?"
"So, so! Or is it the story of the cat in the adage? You would and you wouldn't?"
"My blood is not thick enough. I can't do it."
"Then why did you propose it? Was it your suggestion or mine? I thought to spare the girl her shame. Here her trouble must fall on her in battalions, poor little being. Send her away, and you decimate them."
"It is unnecessary. You know I am superior to prejudice." Hugh Ritson dropped his voice and said, as if speaking into his breast: "If the worst comes to the worst, I can marry her."
Mr. Bonnithorne laughed lightly.
"Ho! ho! And in what turgid melodrama does not just such an episode occur?"
Hugh Ritson drew up sharply.
"Why not? Is she poor? Then what am I? Uneducated? What is education likely to do for me? A simple creature, all heart and no head? God be praised for that!"
At this moment a girl's laugh came rippling through the air. It was one of those joyous peals that make the heart's own music. Hugh Ritson's pale face flushed a little, and he drew his breath hard.
Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head in the direction of the voice, and said softly: "So our friend Greta is here to-day?"
"Yes," said Hugh Ritson very quietly.
Then the friends walked some distance in silence.
"It is scarcely worthy of you to talk in this brain-sick fashion," said Mr. Bonnithorne. There was a dull irritation in the tone. "You place yourself in the wrong point of view. You do not love the little being."
Hugh Ritson's forehead contracted, and he said: "If I have wrecked my life by one folly, one act of astounding unwisdom, what matter? There was but little to wreck. I am a disappointed man."
"Pardon me, you are a very young one," said Mr. Bonnithorne.
"What am I in my father's house? He gives no hint of helping me to an independence in life."
"There are the lands. Your father must be a rich man."
"And I am a second son."
"Indeed?"
Hugh Ritson glanced up quickly.
"What do you mean?"
"You say you are a second son."
"And what then?"
"Would it be so fearful a thing if you were not a second son?"
"In the name of truth, be plain. My brother Paul is living."
Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head twice or thrice, and said calmly: "You know that your brother hopes to marry Greta?"
"I have heard it."
Again the flush came to Hugh Ritson's cheeks. His low voice had a tremor.
"Did I ever tell you of her father's strange legacy?"
"Never."
"My poor friend Robert Lowther left a legacy to a son of his own, who was Greta's half-brother."
"An illegitimate son?"
"Not strictly. Lowther married the son's mother," said Mr. Bonnithorne.
"Married her? Then his son was his heir?"
"No."
Hugh Ritson looked perplexed.
"The girl was a Catholic, Lowther a Protestant. A Catholic priest married them in Ireland. That was not a valid marriage by English law."
Hugh smiled grimly.
"And Lowther had the marriage annulled?"
"He had fallen in love," began Mr. Bonnithorne.
"This time with an heiress?" There was a caustic laugh.
Mr. Bonnithorne
