He called upon me yesterday, as soon as he heard the sad news, and we arranged everything." Felicita did not hear his words distinctly, though her brain caught their meaning vaguely.

She was picturing herself free from poverty, surrounded with most of her accustomed luxuries, and shielded from every hardship, while Roland was homeless and penniless, cast upon his own resources to earn his daily bread and a shelter for every night, with nothing but a poor handicraft to support him.

She had not expected this contrast in their lot.

Poverty had seemed to lie before her also.

But now how often would his image start up before her as she had seen him last, gaunt and haggard, with rough hair and blistered skin serving him as a mask, clad in coarse clothing, already worn and ragged, not at rest in the grave, as every one but herself believed him, but dragging out a miserable and sordid existence year by year, with no hopes for the future, and no happy memories of the past! "Mr.Clifford," she said, when the sound of his voice humming in her ears had ceased, "I shall not take one farthing of any money settled upon me by my husband.