Captain Niel is a man whom any woman might love, and be proud of loving." In another minute she was in her room, and there her composure left her, for she was but a loving woman after all.

She flung herself upon her bed, and, hiding her face in the pillow, burst into a paroxysm of weeping--a very different thing from Bessie's gentle tears.

Her grief absolutely convulsed her, and she pushed the bedclothes against her mouth to prevent the sound of it penetrating the partition wall and reaching John Niel's ears, for his room was next to hers.

Even in the midst of her suffering the thought of the irony of the thing forced itself into her mind.

There, separated from her only by a few inches of lath and plaster and some four or five feet of space, was the man for whom she mourned thus, and yet he was as ignorant of it as though he were thousands of miles away.