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The door opened and Florence entered She started on seeing her lover, but advanced to them much as usual He raised his head, and cold and stern was the glance he bent on her beautiful face She stood beside hi, he placed a chair for her in perfect silence Mary's heart ached, as she noted the marble paleness which overspread her cousin's cheek Mr Stewart folded his arms across his chest, and said in a low, stern, yet mournful tone: "Florence, I could not have believed that you would have deceived me, as you have silently done"

Mournfully Florence looked for a lance; it seemed but to say--"You have wakened me from my dream of happiness"

She lifted proudly her head, and fixed her dark eye full on her lover

"Explain yourself, Mr Stewart; I have a right to knohat I ah I almost scorn to refute that of deceit"

"Not a week since, Florence, you heard me avow my dislike of the tenets and practises of the Ro-e could consult the page of history and then say that she conscientiously believed its doctrines to be pure and scriptural, or its practises in accordance with the teachings of our Saviour You tacitly concurred in my opinions Florence, did you tell me you had once held those doctrines in reverence? Nay, that even now you lean to papacy?" Stern was his tone, and cold and slightly contelance

A bitter, scornful se neither the authority of questioning, nor allow the privilege of any on earth to in my motives or my actions Had I felt it incumbent on me to acquaint you with every circumstance of my past life, I should undoubtedly have done so, when you offered ation to that effect, and consequently consulted my own inclinations If, for a moment, you had doubted me, or asked an explanation of the past, I should have scorned to dissemble with you; and now that the subject is broached you shall have the particulars, which, I assure you, have kept well, though, as you suppose, sometime withheld I have been a member of the Church of Roin, counted beads and used holy water, and have knelt in confession to a priest of papal Ro, for a time, my salvation dependent on it You know all now"