SHE WAS BREAKING THE COMPACT, AND CONCEALING IT FROM HIM.

Under strong temptation she had gone into business again; she had risked their whole fortune in a purchase of all the railway systems and coal and steel companies in the country on a margin, and she was now trembling, every Sabbath hour, lest through some chance word of hers he find it out.

In her misery and remorse for this treachery she could not keep her heart from going out to him in pity; she was filled with compunctions to see him lying there, drunk and contented, and ever suspecting.

Never suspecting--trusting her with a perfect and pathetic trust, and she holding over him by a thread a possible calamity of so devastating a-- "SAY--Aleck ?" The interrupting words brought her suddenly to herself.

She was grateful to have that persecuting subject from her thoughts, and she answered, with much of the old-time tenderness in her tone: "Yes, dear." "Do you know, Aleck, I think we are making a mistake--that is, you are.