she discovered a note which had been left under it and had thus escaped earlier recognition. It was from her mother.

Doris locked herself into her room in order to read the letter, which was blotched and blurred with the tears that had been shed over it:

"MY DARLING CHILD,--

"I am grieved to tell you that a very terrible thing has happened. Your father has unfortunately lost all Bernard Cameron's money. He speculated with it as if it were his own, in the firm belief, he says, that he would be able to double the capital. However, he lost everything, and he is overwhelmed with grief and remorse, realising now, when it is too late, that he had no right to speculate with Bernard's money. Indeed, a terrible penalty is attached to such a mistake--the law deems it a crime--as he has made. He dare not face Bernard and his mother, Mr. Hamilton and the lawyer to-morrow, and his only chance of escaping from a dreadful punishment is by flight. Doris darling, my heart is torn in two; I cannot let him go alone for his heart is broken--and something dreadful may happen if he is left to himself--so you will forgive me, darling, but I must go with him--I must. For twenty years we have been married, and I cannot leave his side, now that he is in despair. Oh, I know it would be better of him, and more manly and just, if he would stay and face the consequences of his sin, but I cannot persuade him to do it, though I have implored him with tears, and so, if it is wrong to flee, I share the wrong-doing, and may God forgive us! Now, my dear Doris, when we have gone you must tell Susan that she must give notice to our landlord that we give up our tenancy of the house; then she must arrange with an auctioneer to sell all the furniture; and tell her when that has been done, after paying the rent and taxes and the tradesmen's bills, she must put the remainder of the money in the bank to your father's account.

"And then, as for yourself, my dear child, it will be better for you to know nothing of our whereabouts, or our doings. You must go to London to my dear old friend Miss Earnshaw, and ask her for my sake to give you a home. I am sure she will do that, for she is so good and loves me dearly. She lives at Earl's Court Square; and you must go to her at once, travelling by train to King's Cross, and then taking a hansom there.

"Once before, long years ago, Miss Earnshaw wanted to adopt you and make you her heiress, but your father and I could not give you up. Tell her we do so now, and consent that you shall take her name--which was the sole condition she made--it will, now, be more honourable than our own. Farewell, dear, my heart would break at parting from you thus were it not that what has happened has broken it already.

"Your loving Mother,

"DOROTHY ANDERSON."

Doris read the letter over and over again before she could quite realise all that it meant. She was nineteen years old, had received a fairly good education, and now her parents had forsaken her, leaving her entirely to her own resources, except for the command that she should go to London to Mrs. Anderson's old friend, Miss Earnshaw.

Doris had never been to London, and she had never stayed with Miss Earnshaw, though the latter came to be at the hydro at Askern every year, and never left without visiting them for a few days. She was rich and generous, and Doris knew that she would be willing to give her a home.

"But oh," said the girl to herself, "it is hard to have to leave here in this way--never to return--under a cloud, too, a dreadfully black cloud!" And she sighed deeply, for it was difficult for her to understand how her father could possibly have speculated with money that was not his own. He was a reserved man, who had never spoken of business matters to her, and she was a child yet in knowledge of the world, and did not comprehend such things as speculating on the Stock Exchange; but she knew that he had done wrong--for had not her mother acknowledged that?--and realised, with the keenest pain, that Bernard Cameron, her lover, was ruined by it, absolutely ruined, for he could not continue his career at Oxford, and the capital with which he meant to start his school, afterwards, was all lost, too. Moreover, they could not marry, for he was penniless, and she a beggar, going now to beg for a home in London. All thoughts of a marriage between them must be over. It was a bright dream vanished, a castle in the air pulled down and shattered.

"I suppose we must prepare the luncheon, Miss Doris?" said Susan, when, at length, in answer to her persistent knocking at the door, Doris turned the key to admit her, and as she spoke the woman cast an inquiring glance toward the letter in Doris's hand.

"Lunch? Oh, yes, Susan! Mr. Hamilton, Mrs. Cameron, and the others will be coming--although----" The poor girl broke down and wept.

"Don't, Miss Doris! Don't cry so, dear!" said Susan, pityingly, wiping her own tears away as she spoke. "Master and mistress may return in time to sit down with their guests."

"No, they won't. They'll never come back!" exclaimed Doris, with another burst of sobs.

"What do they say in the letter?" asked the old servant.

"It's awful!" replied Doris. "Just see"--she passed the letter, with a trembling hand--"see what mother has written to me. You may read it, Susan, though no one else shall. There's a message for you in it about the house."

Susan adjusted her glasses and began to read the letter with some difficulty, for tears were in her eyes, and she had to take off her spectacles again and again in order to wipe them away.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she ejaculated more than once, as she read the letter. "That I should have lived to see this day! My poor mistress! What she must be suffering!"

"And father!" exclaimed Doris. "Oh, how miserable he must be! For it is his fault, you know, and the knowledge of that must be so dreadful."

"I cannot understand his doing it," said Susan, looking deeply pained. "Such a high-minded, honourable gentleman as he always seemed. Your poor mother! your poor mother!" she repeated. "What must she be feeling."

"It's bad for me, too," said Doris, "to be deserted, to be left behind like this."

"Aye, dearie, it is," sighed the old servant, looking at her with great affection. "But you must remember, 'When my father and mother forsake me then the Lord taketh me up.'"

"I don't feel as if He takes me up," sobbed Doris, whose mind was too full of trouble to receive any comfort just then. "Father and mother might have kissed me and said good-bye! Oh, it was cruel, cruel to steal away when I was asleep!" And again she cried as if her heart would break.

Susan endeavoured to calm her, but for some time in vain. At last, however, the old servant, glancing at the small clock on the mantelpiece, exclaimed: