"I WILL GO TO THE OLD HAUNTED MILL," SAID KATHLEEN, BRAVELY.

Kathleen Carew sat in the library of Helen Fox's home, with her cheek bowed in the hollow of her delicate hand, and a very sad expression in her downcast eyes. She was thinking of the tragedy of two weeks ago, by which the prison walls had been rent asunder, sending so many wicked souls to their account with God.

"And in that awful wreck Fedora perished—poor guilty soul!—and with her died the secret I would have risked so much to know. Now I shall never know it; but Ralph, dear Ralph, I must trust you blindly. I must not let this dark cloud of suspicion drift between us. But, oh, Heaven! that it might have been lifted!" she half sobbed, in her self-absorption.

In those two weeks many things had transpired of interest to Kathleen. The Carews had gone abroad, and, although Kathleen knew it not, they had faded forever out of the life that they had done so much to wreck and ruin. Uncle Ben, as he still called himself, had not yet disclosed his identity to his daughter, but kept up his incognito for reasons best known to himself. The grand Carew mansion remained closed and silent, and people said that Mrs. Carew and Miss Belmont intended to be absent for years.

Ralph Chainey, under the magical influence of renewed hope, was fast recovering his health again. Kathleen and Helen had been to see him several times, and, although no tender words had been uttered between them, Ralph no longer feared and dreaded handsome Teddy. He fancied that all would come right between him and his darling.

But Kathleen was very sad at heart. She had the greatest esteem and regard for her betrothed, and shrunk from telling him the unflattering truth that her heart belonged to another man.

"He has been so good and kind to me, how can I grieve him so?" she thought.

The ring of the door-bell startled her from her sad thoughts.

Several letters were handed in. On one she recognized the writing of her cousin Chester. She broke the seal with eager impatience, and as she read on smiles began to dimple her scarlet lips.

Helen, who was reading her own letters, was startled at a gay exclamation from her friend.

"Oh, Helen! good news! Chester and Daisy are—engaged!"

"But I thought it was you he loved, my dear."

"Oh, a mere fancy! It is that dear, darling Daisy Lynn he loves. And she—there's a little note from her, too—she has forgotten or outlived that old love—gives her whole tender heart to Chester. Listen, Helen, how he writes me—apologetically, you know, fearing I may think him fickle."

She read aloud, with a mischievous smile playing round her lips:

Helen smiled in sympathy.

"Poor boy! I'm glad he's to be made happy," she said. Then she nervously fingered a letter she held.

"Mine is from Loyal," she said, bashfully.

"From Loyal? Oh, Helen, is he ever coming back to America? You cruel girl! why did you send him away?"

"I did not know my own mind," the beautiful young girl answered, in a low voice, and then she added, softly: "You remember those sweet lines of Jean Ingelow?

"Oh, you darling, I'm so glad!" cried Kathleen, springing to her friend's side and giving her a girlish hug. "That dear Loyal Graham! I always thought he was perfectly grand, and I know you will be happy with him. Does he know yet, darling?"

"Yes; and he is coming home to me;" and her soft blue eyes drooped with a loving smile to the dear letter.

Ah, the gladness, ah, the madness, ah, the magic of a letter!

And Helen recalled the beautiful lines of Adelaide Proctor:

"I must go and tell mamma that I shall marry Loyal, after all," said the blushing Helen, gliding from the room; and then Kathleen turned to her other letter.

It was superscribed in a strange hand—feminine, yet bold and dashing.

"It is a strange hand," Kathleen said to herself, as she tore it open; but stranger yet were the words it contained—strange, few, mysterious:

"If you wish to have full proof of the guilt or innocence of the man you love, come alone at twilight this evening to the old Cooper saw-mill, where I am dying. I can not survive the night. Do not hesitate about coming. I know that a beautiful young girl like you will do and dare all for love and happiness, and it is all-important that you should know what I have to tell you. If I die with the secret untold, you will forever rue it. Come without fail, secretly and alone. Destroy this letter.

"One Who Knows All."

Kathleen read and reread this strange letter with fascinated eyes.

"I know the old Cooper saw-mill," she murmured. "It is on the old country road where we used to drive so often, near the glen and the waterfall. I have seen old Myron Cooper, too, that strange old man with his long gray duster. People said he wrote poetry as wild and gloomy as the glen where he lived. Yes, I will go, although they say the old mill is haunted after nightfall. But my unknown correspondent is right. A young girl will do and dare much for love—love, that mighty passion that moves the whole world."

She spent the remainder of the day in restless thought, longing for the hour to come when she should go upon her strange mission, and yet half ashamed of the longing to know all the truth about her lover.

"Why is it that I can not trust him wholly?" she asked herself; but the reckless curiosity of a woman's nature drove her forward on that perilous quest fraught with mystery and danger. "I must know!" she declared, passionately, to herself.