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He paused for ato htly, and the color rose to her face She had forgotten

Falconer!

"That was the last drop in ht of you as the little girl of Shorne Mills, as--as--free I had

not reflected that it was inevitable that some other man should ade way, seemed to

belong to h I knew I had lost you!"

No words he could have uttered could have touched her more sharply and

deeply than this siht not see the quivering of her lips, the tenderness which sprang

into her eyes

"That was the hardest blow of all that Fate had dealt me, Nell It

almost drove me mad to know that you once loved me, and yet that you

were to be the wife of another man! It made me mad and desperate for a

time, then I had to face it, as I had faced ain, and ventured to draw a little nearer to her; but as she

still shrank froainst the tree, he stopped short and