RALPH CHAINEY'S ANGER.

Kathleen gained her own room, locked the door, and fell prostrate on the floor in a passion of blinding grief and jealous anger. Tears came to her relief, and rained down her cheeks in a tempest of emotion.

"Will he go away, or will he remain, tell Mrs. Stone my whole story, and beg her to plead his cause with me?" she asked herself, and hoped unconsciously that he would.

She did not know the young man's sturdy pride. He had waited for Mrs. Stone, transacted his business with her, and gone away without a word.

"She did not love me, or she would have let me explain it all, as I wished. She did not care to have the barrier between us swept away. So be it. Let her go. She is not worthy such love as I gave her," he thought, with scorn of the heart that could trample on such devotion:

His brow clouded with a heavy frown as he thought of the woman who had turned the heart of his fair young love so cruelly against him.

"Does she really live? Have I been duped by a cunning lie—a trick to extort the price of a costly funeral? I almost believe it. Let me find out if it is true, and bitter shall be that fiend's punishment," he mused with almost savage intensity.

He had reached Boston only that morning, and he had promised Alpine Belmont, who had written to him almost every day since he left, that he would call upon her very soon. Wondering if she knew of Kathleen's presence in the city, he bent his steps toward Commonwealth Avenue.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Stone, full of elation at the compliments paid her by the gifted actor, and eager to share her pleasure with Kathleen, went upstairs and tapped softly on the door.

Kathleen opened it, and her friend started with surprise at seeing her face flushed and her eyes swollen with weeping.

"Do not mind me; it—it—is nothing," was all she would say in reply to Mrs. Stone's sympathetic inquiries; and at last the authoress plunged into her own affairs, telling Kathleen all about Ralph Chainey's visit, and his wish that she should write a play for him.

"He has taken away the plot of my new novel to read, and he will return in a few days to tell me how he likes it. If I succeed in pleasing him, I shall be famous!" she exclaimed.

"I hope that you will succeed," Kathleen said, earnestly.

"Have you ever seen Ralph Chainey act, my dear, and did you like him?"

"I have seen him, and I think he is a grand actor," the girl replied, quietly.

"How would you like to go and see him to-night? He plays 'A Parisian Romance.' I am sure he will be splendid in that, as he is in everything. We will take Teddy with us. What do you say, my dear?"

Kathleen hesitated, her heart throbbing wildly with the blended love and hate she now felt for the handsome lover who had so wickedly deceived and betrayed her girlish trust.

Then a sudden temptation came to her to stab his heart as cruelly as he had done hers. Why not go with Teddy, who loved her so dearly, and pretend to return his devotion?

"I should be delighted to go!" she said, unfalteringly to Mrs. Stone.