The day that was to make Barclay a free man, and happy in the possession of one of the sweetest girls for a wife he had ever seen.

“I shall not see you again, until to-night, John,” his sister said to him, as he was about leaving the house, after dinner, laying her hand as she spoke upon his arm, and looking into his face with a quiet smile resting upon her own lovely features.—­“I have promised Helen to go over and spend the afternoon with her.”

“Very well, sis’.”

“Of course we shall see you pretty early,”—­an arch smile playing about her lips as she made the remark.

“O, yes, I shall be there in time,” was the brother’s smiling reply, as he kissed the cheek of Alice, and then turned away and left the house.  He first proceeded to his store, where he went through, hurriedly, some business that required his attention, occupying something like an hour.  Then he went out, and walked rapidly up one of the principal streets of the city, and down another, as if on some urgent errand.  Without stopping anywhere, he had nearly returned to his own store, when he was stopped by a friend, who accosted him with—­

“Hallo, John!  Where are you going in such a hurry?”

“I am on my way to the store.”

“Any life and death in the case?”

“No.—­Only I’m to be married to-night, as you are aware; and, consequently, am hardly able to tell whether I am on my head or my heels.”

“True enough!  And besides, you are a free man today, are you not?”

“Yes, Watson, thank Heaven! that trammel will be off in half an hour.”

“You must be fond of trammels, John, seeing that you are going to put another on so soon after getting rid of this—­” the friend said, laughing heartily at his jest.

“That will be a lighter, and far pleasanter bondage I trust, Watson, than the one from which I am about escaping.  It will be an easy yoke compared to the galling one under which I have toiled for the last six months.  Still, I do not regret having bound myself as I did.  It was necessary to give me that self-control which I had well-nigh lost.  Now I shall be able to act like a rational man, and be temperate from principle, and not from a mere external restraint that made me little better than a machine.”

“Your time will be up, you say, in half an hour?”

“Yes—­” looking at his watch—­“in ten minutes.  It is later than I thought.”

“Come, then, let us go over to R—­’s—­it is full ten minutes’ walk from here—­and take a drink to freedom and principle.”

“I am ready to join you, of course,” was Barclay’s prompt reply, as he drew his arm within that of his friend, and the two turned their steps towards the drinking establishment that had been named by the latter.

“A room, a bottle of sherry, and some cigars,” said Watson, as they entered the drinking-house, and went up to the bar.

In a few minutes after, they were alone, with wine and glasses before them.