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"Thanks veryhis ears to catch every inflection in her voice, Anstice thought he detected a note of coldness "By the ere those beautiful sweet-peas from you--the ones that came at twelve o'clock to-day?"

"I sent them, yes" So much, at least, he had permitted himself to do

"They were lovely--thank you so much for them" Iris spoke with a trifle more warmth, and for ato dinner presently, aren't you? Seven o'clock, because of the dance"

"Miss Wayne, I'm sorry " the lie alet over to Greengates in tiet back before eight or nine"

"Oh!" For a moment Iris was silent, and to the man at the other end of the wire it seeain Then: "I'ently "But you will come to the dance afterwards?"

For a second Anstice wavered It would be wiser to refuse, to allege uncertainty, at least, to leave himself a loophole of escape did he find it io He opened his lips to tell her he feared it et away, to prepare her for his probable absence; and then: "Of course I will come to the dance," he said steadily "I would notoff hastily, fearing what he ht be tempted to say if the conversation were allowed to continue another moment

It was nearly eleven o'clock when Anstice entered the hall of Greengates that night; and by that ti

By an irony of Fate he had been called out when just on the point of starting, and had obeyed the suh

The fact that his i her baby life away in convulsions changed his reluctance into an energetic desire to save the pretty little creature's life at any cost; but all his skill was of no avail, and an hour after he entered the house the child died

Even then he could not find it in his heart to hurry away The baby's parents, ere young and sociable people, had been, like hiates--had, indeed, been ready to start when the child was taken ill; and the contrast between the young own and jewels struck Anstice as an almost unendurable irony