"You might have been more considerate, Millicent. You have had a care for every one but me. I do not deny that you do your duty in interfering to prevent me from marrying my own daughter; but you should have begun sooner. To find an intended wife changed into a daughter is--is--is a shock!"

"You will bear it, Joseph, like the man you are. In any case, you could not have married this headstrong girl: she is another man's wife."

Rose flushed, but said nothing. She and her Aunt Millicent had been accustomed to each other's contradictious speeches all through life.

It was Joseph who came to the rescue of his new-found daughter.

"You should not speak so, Millicent, of your sister's child. You may not hold with divorces in general, but you should keep quiet in this case. If the law of her country declares her single, there is no gainsaying it."

"That is just where the impediment stands, Joseph; for I have taken a lawyer's advice. She is a single woman in the United States, and a married one in British territory. She was married at Sarnia in Canada.

She is Bertie Roe's wife wherever British law prevails, seeing that she was granted her divorce on grounds which a British court will not allow. See the sc.r.a.pe your daughter is in! and use a father's authority to send her back to her husband."

Rose tried to grow angry. She turned upon her aunt with a frown, to repudiate the proposal and declare she would never go back. But the words failed her; a strange, sweet weakness stole through every limb.

She felt conquered without knowing how, or desiring to know why. She covered her face and burst into tears.

Millicent saw her opportunity. While father and daughter were still struggling with themselves to regain composure, she sent for Roe, presented him to his father-in-law, and explained the legal position of his relation to his wife.

The wife kept her face concealed in her handkerchief, but she relented so far as to let Bertie take her hand. To all expostulation she declared that she could not do more. "Was she to make herself the laughing-stock of the house? She was on American ground, where Millicent herself acknowledged she was free; and she would remain so, or go right away from everybody, if they teased her any more."

It was concluded at length that they should return to Canada that very day. Roe, Mrs Naylor, Lucy, and Millicent, accompanied Rose and her father; and Blount and Margaret were telegraphed to meet them at Jones's Landing. There, away from the curious eyes of fellow-guests who had been witnesses, if unconscious ones, of their little comedy, the party at once fell into their readjusted relations with one another. Joseph, with a grown-up and married daughter, naturally took the position of benevolent patriarch and head of the family. He a.s.sociated Blount in his business, thereby securing that his niece should not be carried away into the wilds, and contenting his sister-in-law Susan, who thereafter maintained in private to Lucy that she had carried her point after all, notwithstanding the seeming defeat; as, but for the stand which she had made against Margaret's living in the woods, it never would have occurred to Joseph to provide for Blount, and settle the pair beside her at Jones's Landing.

From the moment Rose got into the railway at Narwhal Junction, she slid contentedly back into Mrs Roe. No one ever again alluded to an estrangement between the married pair, and Jones's Landing was left in total ignorance that their married life had ever been other than the even, trustful, and happy existence which it had now become. The two seemed never apart, never weary of each other's society, yet never in each other's way in fulfilling the duties of social life. The only separation which took place between them was when Gilbert returned to Chicago to wind up his affairs there, preparatory to settling in Canada beside his father-in-law. Rose shrank from meeting again the aiders and abettors who had encouraged her matrimonial escapades, of which she was now thoroughly ashamed, as well as the friends who had disapproved of her conduct. Having sealed a peace with her husband, she was fain to forget that they had ever been divided. Scenes and persons a.s.sociated with the estrangement had become alike detestable to her; she wished never to see or hear of them again. The only occasion on which she has ever recurred to that miserable year of her life was when, about twelve months after their establishment at Jones's Landing, she came unexpectedly upon Bertie writing a letter, with a case containing jewellery lying open on the desk beside him.

"What a lovely bracelet, Bertie!"

He looked up, colouring and confused, and drew the blotting-paper across his letter.

"And you are writing! To whom, pray? Sending valuable presents to ladies, and not a word to your wife. There was a time--when,--but never mind. Who is it you are writing to?"

"It is--but you never heard the name--Mrs Langenwoert."

"No. Where did you know her?"

"Do you remember the little schoolma'am at Clam Beach?--the last lady you did me the honour to be jealous of? She is to be married to-morrow."

THE END.