"Oh, I needn't go," said Pinney, and his face burned.

He was full of nervous trepidation at the start, and throughout the journey he was anxious and perturbed, while on Northwick, after the first excitement, a deep quiet, a stupor, or a spiritual peace, seemed to have fallen.

"By George!" said Pinney, when they started, "anybody to see us would think you were taking me back." He was tenderly watchful of Northwick's comfort; he left him free to come and go at the stations; from the restaurants he bought him things to tempt his appetite; but Northwick said he did not care to eat.

They had a long night in a day-car, for they found there was no sleeper on their train. In the morning, when the day broke, Northwick asked Pinney what the next station was.

Pinney said he did not know. He looked at Northwick as if the possession of him gave him very little pleasure, and asked him how he had slept.

"I haven't slept," said Northwick. "I suppose I'm rather excited. My nerves seem disordered."

"Well, of course," said Pinney, soothingly.

They were silent a moment, and then Northwick asked, "What did you say the next station was?"

"I'll ask the brakeman." They could see the brakeman on the platform. Pinney went out to him, and returned. "It's Wellwater, he says. We get breakfast there."

"Then we're over the line, now," said Northwick.

"Why, yes," Pinney admitted, reluctantly. He added, in a livelier note, "You get a mighty good breakfast at Wellwater, and I'm ready to meet it half way." He turned, and looked hard at Northwick. "If I should happen to get left there, what would you do? Would you keep on, anyway? Is your mind still made up on that point? I ask, because all kinds of accidents happen, and—" Pinney stopped, and regarded his captive fixedly. "Or if you don't feel quite able to travel—"

"Let me see your warrant again," said Northwick.

Pinney relaxed his gaze with a shrug, and produced the paper. Northwick read it all once more. "I'm your prisoner," he said, returning the paper. "You can put the handcuffs on me now."

"No, no, Mr. Northwick!" Pinney pleaded. "I don't want to do that. I'm not afraid of your trying to get away. I assure you it isn't necessary between gentlemen."

Northwick held out his wrists. "Put them on, please."

"Oh, well, if I must!" protested Pinney. "But I swear I won't lock 'em." He glanced round to find whether any of the other passengers were noticing. "You can slip 'em off whenever you get tired of 'em." He pushed Northwick's sleeves down over them with shame-faced anxiety. "Don't let people see the damned things, for God's sake!'"

"That's good!" murmured Northwick, as if the feel of the iron pleased him.

The incident turned Pinney rather sick. He went out on the platform of the car for a little breath of air, and some restorative conversation with the brakeman. When he came back, Northwick was sitting where he left him. His head had fallen on his breast. "Poor old fellow, he's asleep," Pinney thought. He put his hand gently on Northwick's shoulder. "I'll have to wake you here," he said. "We'll be in, now, in a minute."

Northwick tumbled forward at his touch, and Pinney caught him round the neck, and lifted his face.

"Oh, my God! He's dead!"

The loosened handcuffs fell on the floor.



XI.

After they were married, Suzette and Matt went to live on his farm; and it was then that she accomplished a purpose she had never really given up. She surrendered the whole place at Hatboro' to the company her father had defrauded. She had no sentiment about the place, such as had made the act impossible to Adeline, and must have prevented the sacrifice on Suzette's part as long as her sister lived. But suffering from that and from all other earthly troubles was past for Adeline; she was dead; and Suzette felt it no wrong to her memory to put out of her own hands the property which something higher than the logic of the case forbade her to keep. As far as her father was concerned, she took his last act as a sign that he wished to make atonement for the wrong he had committed; and she felt that the surrender of this property to his creditors was in the line of his endeavor. She had strengthened herself to bear his conviction and punishment, if he came back; and since he was dead, this surrender of possessions tainted for her with the dishonesty in which the unhappy man had lived was nothing like loss; it was rather a joyful relief.

Yet it was a real sacrifice, and she was destined to feel it in the narrowed conditions of her life. But she had become used to narrow conditions; she had learned how little people could live with when they had apparently nothing to live for; and now that in Matt she had everything to live for, the surrender of all she had in the world left her incalculably rich.

Matt rejoiced with her in her decision, though he had carefully kept himself from influencing it. He was poor, too, except for the comfortable certainty that his father could not let him want; but so far as he had been able, he had renounced his expectations from his father's estate in order that he might seem to be paying Northwick's indebtedness to the company. Doubtless it was only an appearance; in the end the money his father left would come equally to himself and Louise; but in the meantime the restitution for Northwick did cramp Eben Hilary more for the moment than he let his son know. So he thought it well to allow Matt to go seriously to work on account of it, and to test his economic theories in the attempt to make his farm yield him a living. It must be said that the prospect dismayed neither Matt nor Suzette; there was that in her life which enabled her to dispense with the world and its pleasures and favors; and he had long ceased to desire them.

The Ponkwasset directors had no hesitation in accepting the assignment of property made them by Northwick's daughter. As a corporate body they had nothing to do with the finer question of right involved. They looked at the plain fact that they had been heavily defrauded by the former owner of the property, who had inferably put it out of his hands in view of some such contingency as he had finally reached; and as it had remained in the possession of his family ever since, they took no account of the length of time that had elapsed since he was actually the owner. They recognized the propriety of his daughter's action in surrendering it, and no member of the Board was quixotic enough to suggest that the company had no more claim upon the property she conveyed to them than upon any other piece of real estate in the commonwealth.

"They considered," said Putney, who had completed the affair on the part of Suzette, and was afterwards talking it over with his crony, Dr. Morrell, in something of the bitterness of defeat, "that their first duty was to care for the interests of their stockholders, who seemed to turn out all widows and orphans, as nearly as I could understand. It appears as if nobody but innocents of that kind live on the Ponkwasset dividends, and it would have been inhuman not to look after their interests. Well," he went on, breaking from this grievance, "there's this satisfactory thing about it; somebody has done something at last that he intended to do; and, of course, the he in question is a she. 'She that was' Miss Suzette is the only person connected with the whole affair, that's had her way. Everybody else's way has come to nothing, beginning with my own. I can look back to the time when I meant to have the late J. Milton Northwick's blood; I was lying low for years, waiting for him to do just what he did do at last, and I expected somehow, by the blessing of God, to help run him down, or bring him to justice, as we say. The first thing I knew, I turned up his daughter's counsel, and was devoting myself to the interests of a pair of grass-orphans with the high and holy zeal of a Board of Directors. All I wanted was to have J. Milton brought to trial, not so I could help send him to State's prison with a band of music, but so I could get him off on the plea of insanity. But I wasn't allowed to have my way, even in a little thing like that; and of all the things that were planned for and against, and round about Northwick, just one has been accomplished. The directors failed to be in at the death; and old Hilary has had to resign from the Board, and pay the defaulter's debts. Pinney, I understand, considers himself a ruined man; he's left off detecting for a living, and gone back to interviewing. Poor old Adeline lived in the pious hope of making Northwick's old age comfortable in their beautiful home on the money he had stolen; and now that she's dead it goes to his creditors. Why, even Billy Gerrish, a high-minded, public-spirited man like William B. Gerrish,—couldn't have his way about Northwick. No, sir; Northwick himself couldn't! Look how he fooled away his time there in Canada, after he got off with money enough to start him on the high road to fortune again. He couldn't budge of his own motion; and the only thing he really tried to do he failed in disgracefully. Adeline wouldn't let him stay when he come back to buy himself off; and that killed her. Then, when he started home again, to take his punishment, the first thing he did was to drop dead. Justice herself couldn't have her way with Northwick. But I'm not sorry he slipped through her fingers. There wasn't the stuff for an example in Northwick; I don't know that he's much of a warning. He just seems to be a kind of—incident; and a pretty common kind. He was a mere creature of circumstances—like the rest of us! His environment made him rich, and his environment made him a rogue. Sometimes I think there was nothing to Northwick, except what happened to him. He's a puzzle. But what do you say, Doc, to a world where we fellows keep fuming and fizzing away, with our little aims and purposes, and the great ball of life seems to roll calmly along, and get where it's going without the slightest reference to what we do or don't do? I suppose it's wicked to be a fatalist, but I'll go a few aeons of eternal punishment more, and keep my private opinion that it's all Fate."

"Why not call it Law?" the doctor suggested.

"Well, I don't like to be too bold. But taking it by and large, and seeing that most things seem to turn out pretty well in the end, I'll split the difference with you and call it Mercy."



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS'S NOVELS.

THE QUALITY OF MERCY.

AN IMPERATIVE DUTY.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

THE SHADOW OF A DREAM.

ANNIE KILBURN.

APRIL HOPES.



BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.

AS WE WERE SAYING.

With Portrait, and Illustrated by H.W. MCVICKAR and Others.

So dainty and delightsome a little book may it be everybody's good hap to possess.—Evangelist, N. Y.

OUR ITALY.

In this book are a little history, a little property, a few fascinating statistics, many interesting facts, much practical suggestion, and abundant humor and charm—Evangelist, N. Y.

A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD.

A Novel.

The vigor and vividness of the tale and its sustained interest are not its only or its chief merits. It is a study of American life of to-day, possessed with shrewd insight and fidelity.—GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

A powerful picture of that phase of modern life in which unscrupulously acquired capital is the chief agent.—Boston Post.

STUDIES IN THE SOUTH AND WEST, with Comments on Canada.

Perhaps the most accurate and graphic account of these portions of the country that has appeared, taken all in all.... A book most charming—a book that no American can fail to enjoy, appreciate, and highly prize.—Boston Traveller.

THEIR PILGRIMAGE.

Mr. Warner's pen-pictures of the characters typical of each resort, of the manner of life followed at each, of the humor and absurdities peculiar to Saratoga, or Newport, or Bar Harbor, as the case may be, are as good-natured as they are clever. The satire, when there is any, is of the mildest, and the general tone is that of one glad to look on the brightest side of the cheerful, pleasure-seeking world with which he mingles.—Christian Union, N. Y.



BY CONSTANCE F. WOOLSON.

JUPITER LIGHTS. EAST ANGELS. ANNE. FOR THE MAJOR. CASTLE NOWHERE. RODMAN THE KEEPER.

There is a certain bright cheerfulness in Miss Woolson's writing which invests all her characters with lovable qualities.—Jewish Advocate, N. Y.

Miss Woolson is among our few successful writers of interesting magazine stories, and her skill and power are perceptible in the delineation of her heroines no less than in the suggestive pictures of local life.—Jewish Messenger, N. Y.

Constance Fentmore Woolson may easily become the novelist laureate.—Boston Globe.

Miss Woolson has a graceful fancy, a ready wit, a polished style, and conspicuous dramatic power; while her skill in the development of a story is very remarkable.—London Life.

Miss Woolson never once follows the beaten track of the orthodox novelist, but strikes a new and richly-loaded vein, which so far is all her own; and thus we feel, on reading one of her works, a fresh sensation, and we put down the book with a sigh to think our pleasant task of reading it is finished. The author's lines must have fallen to her in very pleasant places; or she has, perhaps, within herself the wealth of womanly love and tenderness she pours so freely into all she writes. Such books as hers do much to elevate the moral tone of the day—a quality sadly wanting in novels of the time.—Whitehall Review, London.



BY MARY E. WILKINS.

A NEW ENGLAND NUN, and Other Stories.

A HUMBLE ROMANCE, and Other Stories.

Only an artistic hand could have written these stories, and they will make delightful reading.—Evangelist, N. Y.

The simplicity, purity, and quaintness of those stories set them apart in a niche of distinction, where they have no rivals.—Literary World, Boston.

The reader who buys this book and reads it will find treble his money's worth in every one of the delightful stories.—Chicago Journal.

Miss Wilkins is a writer who has a gift for the rare art of creating the short story which shall be a character study and a bit of graphic picturing in one; and all who enjoy the bright and fascinating short story will welcome this volume.—Boston Traveller.

The author has the unusual gift of writing a short story which is complete in itself, having a real beginning, a middle, and an end. The volume is an excellent one.—Observer, N. Y.

A gallery of striking studies in the humblest quarters of American country life. No one has dealt with this kind of life better than Miss Wilkins. Nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, sympathetic, tenderly humorous pictures.—N. Y. Tribune.

The charm of Miss Wilkins's stories is in her intimate acquaintance and comprehension of humble life, and the sweet human interest she feels and makes her readers partake of, in the simple, common, homely people she draws.—Springfield Republican.

There is no attempt at fine writing or structural effect, but the tender treatment of the sympathies, emotions, and passions of no very extraordinary people gives to these little stories a pathos and human feeling quite their own.—N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.

The author has given us studies from real life which must be the result of a lifetime of patient, sympathetic observation.... No one has done the same kind of work so lovingly and so well.—Christian Register, Boston.



By LEW. WALLACE

BEN-HUR:

A TALE OF THE CHRIST.

Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of this romance does not often appear in works of notion.... Some of Mr. Wallace's writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The scenes described in the New Testament are rewritten with the power and skill of an accomplished master of style.—N. Y. Times.

Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at the beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and brilliant.... We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we witness a sea-fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Roman galley, domestic interiors at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among the tribes of the desert; palaces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman youth, the houses of pious families of Israel. There is plenty of exciting incident; everything is animated, vivid, and glowing.—N. Y. Tribune.

It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and there is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclature, etc., to greatly strengthen the semblance.—Boston Commonwealth.

"Ben-Hur" is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong. Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is laid, and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to realize the nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Roman life at Antioch at the time of our Saviour's advent.—Examiner, N.Y.

The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with unwonted interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional novel and romance.—Boston Journal.

THE END