Twenty years ago, and the high-spirited Algernon Hurdlestone would have rejected the miser’s offer with contempt, but his long intercourse with the world had taught him the value of money, and his extravagant habits generally exceeded his fine income.  Besides, what Mark offered him was, after all, but a small portion of what ought to have been his own.  With an air of cheerful good-nature he thanked his brother, and carefully deposited the draft in his pocket-book.

After having absolved his conscience by what he considered not only a good action, but one of sufficient magnitude to save his soul, Mark intimated to his brother that he might now leave him—­he had nothing further to say; a permission which Algernon was not slow to accept.

As he groped his way through the dark gallery that led from the miser’s chamber, a door was opened cautiously at the far end of the passage, and a female figure, holding a dim light in her hand, beckoned to him to approach.

Not without reluctance Algernon obeyed the summons, and found himself in the centre of a large empty apartment which had once been the saloon, and face to face with Mrs. Hurdlestone.

Elinor carefully locked the door, and placing the light on the mantel-shelf, stood before the astonished Algernon, like some memory-haunting phantom of the past.

Yes.  It was Elinor—­his Elinor; but not a vestige remained of the grace and beauty that had won his youthful heart.  So great was the change produced by years of hopeless misery, that Algernon, in the haggard and careworn being before him, did not at first recognise the object of his early love.  Painfully conscious of this humiliating fact, Elinor at length said—­“I do not wonder that Mr. Algernon Hurdlestone has forgotten me; I once was Elinor Wildegrave.”

A gush of tears—­of bitter, heart-felt, agonizing tears—­followed this avowal, and her whole frame trembled with the overpowering emotions which filled her mind.

Too much overcome by surprise to speak, Algernon took her hand, and for a few minutes looked earnestly in her altered face.  What a mournful history of mental and physical suffering was written there!  That look of tender regard recalled the blighted hopes and wasted affections of other years; and the wretched Elinor, unable to control her grief, bowed her head upon her hands, and groaned aloud.

“Oh, Elinor!—­and is it thus we meet?  You might have been happy with me.  How could you, for the paltry love of gain, become the wife of Mark Hurdlestone?”

“Alas, Algernon! necessity left me no alternative in my unhappy choice.  I was deceived—­cruelly deceived.  Yet would to God that I had begged my bread, and dared every hardship—­been spurned from the presence of the rich, and endured the contempt of the poor, before I consented to become his wife.”

“But what strange infatuation induced you to throw away your own happiness, and ruin mine?  Did not my letters constantly breathe the most ardent affection?  Were not the sums of money constantly remitted in them more than sufficient to supply all your wants?”