The summer sunshine waned, the summer roses faded, and the "melancholy days—the saddest of the year," hurried swiftly on. The chilling winds howled drearily about the river cottage, but long ere the last autumn leaf was whirled from the tall trees standing round about like giant sentinels, the fickle fancy that Leon Vinton had felt for the farmer's dark-eyed daughter had perished like the frailest flower of the summer.

"The illusion was soon over," he said to himself. "It was the briefest fancy I ever had. But that was her own fault. She was too easily won. The game was not worth the candle."

Simple little Jennie had been living in a "Fool's Paradise" ever since the mock-marriage which the deceiver had duly caused to be celebrated. Ostensibly she remained as the companion of Mrs. Bowers, and that kind lady appeared to be perfectly blind and deaf to all the strange things that went on around her.

If Jennie had not been the most innocent of women she could not have failed to know that Mrs. Bowers was perfectly cognizant of her secret, and was only laughing in her sleeve all the while that she appeared so stupid and good-natured to the new victim of her employer.

"I am heartily tired of the little fool," he said to her one day in confidence, when the autumn days had given place to the freezing ones of winter; "I wish I could get rid of her."

"Your fancy was soon over this time," remarked Mrs. Bowers.

"Her own fault," grumbled the wretch. "In the first place she was too lightly won. In love more than half the pleasure lies in the pursuit, and 'lightly won is lightly lost.' She is changed now, also. How rosy and bright she was at first—how pale, how altered, how plain she is now!"

"She is ill," said Mrs. Bowers, in a significant tone.

"The deuce!" exclaimed Leon Vinton, angrily. "Why, then, I surely must get rid of her. But how to do it—that's the question!"

"Tell her the truth—that she is not married at all—and send her home to her parents," said the woman, heartlessly.

He did not reply for a moment, but paused to light a cigar and place it between his lips. Then he threw himself back on the lounge where he sat, and remarked indifferently:

"Yes; I suppose I shall have to do that. There will be a scene, I suppose."

Mrs. Bowers merely laughed in reply, as if he had uttered the most harmless jest. She was thoroughly wicked and heartless, and cared not a jot for the miseries of the whole world.

"Well, the sooner the better," went on Vinton, heartlessly. "I believe I'll go and have it out with her now."

He arose as heartlessly and indifferently as if he were going about a mission of happiness instead of being about to strike the cold steel of despair into the young heart that trusted him so fondly.

Jennie was sitting by a window in the parlor looking out at the great, blinding flakes of snow that whirled through the air and covered the ground with a pure white carpet.

She looked pale, but very pretty in a black dress with scarlet trimmings, and a scarlet shawl was draped about her shoulders, partly concealing her form.

As Mr. Vinton entered the room her dark eyes turned from the window and rested on him with a very fond and loving smile.

"You've come at last," she said, in a tone of joy and relief. "Where have you been all this long week?"

"In town," he answered, laconically, as he dropped into a chair near her.

A look of disappointment came into her eyes. She rose and went to his side, winding her arms about his neck, and pressing her lips on his brow.

"I've missed you so much," she said, lovingly. "I sha'n't let you leave me so long again."

"I shall not ask your leave!" he answered, sharply, and muttering an oath between his teeth as he rudely pushed her off.

The movement was so sudden that she nearly fell. It was only by catching the back of a convenient chair that she steadied herself. She turned a white, frightened face toward him.

"What's the matter?" she said. "Are you angry with me, Leon?"

"I'm sick of your baby fondness," he answered brutally. "Have done with it."

Jennie fell back into her chair as if shot, and looked at him with reproachful eyes.

"You're angry with me," she said, plaintively; "and I had something to tell you—something very particular."

"Tell it, then," he answered, with a frown as black as night on his handsome face.

The trembling young creature before him remained silent for a few minutes, so utterly confounded was she by the unaccountable change in her husband. His manner had always been the perfection of gentlemanly refinement before. This sudden change to coarse brutality amazed and frightened her. When she spoke her voice was low and broken, and her eyes rested on the carpet.

"I waited to tell you, Leon," she said, with a scarlet blush, "that—that we will have to make some change soon. You'll be obliged to tell Mrs. Bowers that we are married, or take me to some other place. If you don't she'll find out our secret pretty soon. We are compelled to make a change!"

"I have been thinking so myself," he answered, coolly.

"You have," she said, with an accent of gladness. "Then what do you think we had better do?"

"I think you had better go home to your mother," he answered, brutally.

She looked up at him in surprise and doubt.

"You mean to own our marriage, then, do you?" she asked, and there was a faint suggestion of hope in her tone.

"No, by George! I don't," he answered quickly.

"You don't," she exclaimed. "Then how can I go home? They would—they would think I had disgraced myself. Father would turn me out of doors!"

"I'm very sorry for you, then," he answered, coolly. "I see no other resource for you."

"Leon, I don't know what you mean!" exclaimed Jennie, in surprise and pain at his careless words and utterly indifferent manner; "you are not one bit like yourself. What makes you talk so strange to your own wife?"

She looked up at the handsome man with the tears of wounded feeling starting into her eyes, but all unconscious of the terrible blow that was to fall upon her defenseless head.

"You are not my wife!" he replied, with a dark and threatening frown.

"Not your wife!" she cried, turning as white as death. "Oh, Leon, you surely are going mad! What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say," he answered, curtly. "It's time you knew the truth, Jennie. You are not my wife—never have been! The marriage ceremony was read over us, to be sure, but it was only a mock-marriage to quiet your scruples. The pretended preacher was a friend of mine—the wickedest blade in town—with a soul as black as the devil!"

She sat still and looked at him, her eyes wild and frightened, her face as white as the snow which whirled past the window. At last she spoke, but her voice was low and thick, and did not seem like her own.

"You're joking with me, Leon—you can't mean it?"

"I do mean it—it's the truth," he replied, coolly; "come, now, Jennie, don't take it hard. We've had a pleasant time—have we not? And now you can go home to your mother. I am tired of you, I confess it; and I'm going away myself—to Europe, I think. So of course you can't stay here. My sister would turn you out of doors as soon as she found you out. Go home to the farm, and there's a hundred dollars to help you through your trouble."

He tossed a roll of bank-notes into her lap with a complacent air as if his munificent generosity condoned everything.

The girl had been sitting quite still, looking at him with a terrible pain frozen on her pretty young face, but at his concluding words she sprang up and tossed the roll of notes into the fire as if it had been a serpent. Her dark eyes blazed with passion and her voice shook with rage as she wildly confronted her base betrayer.

"Oh, you devil!" she cried, "I would not touch one cent of that money to save your soul from the torments of hell! My curses be upon your head! May the Lord never forgive you for this cruel sin! May you die by the hangman's rope!"

The handsome villain laughed mockingly, and turning on his heel walked out of the room.

As he passed through the hallway he heard the sound of a heavy fall. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that his victim had fallen senseless upon the floor.

He walked on and entered the room of Mrs. Bowers, his housekeeper, and not his sister, as he had pretended.

"I have told her," he said, "and she has fainted—as they mostly do. I am going away now, and I shall be absent a week. You must try and get her away from here before I come back!"

"Oh! you wicked man," said Mrs. Bowers, laughing, and shaking a finger at him. "Where shall I send her?"

"To the devil for aught I care!" said the gentleman, smarting with the recollection of Jennie's curse and the burning of his hundred dollars. "I care not where she goes so that I am rid of her. But take good care of the other one. Do not suffer her to escape."

He tossed a roll of bills into her lap and walked away humming a tune. In a few minutes after she heard him riding off down the road to the city. She locked her money carefully away in a drawer, then went up to the parlor where poor Jennie lay insensible upon the floor, and sitting down in an easy-chair, carelessly regarded the poor girl whom she had pitilessly helped to ruin.

It was a long time before the unhappy girl revived from her deep swoon, but the housekeeper made no effort to restore her to life though the thought crossed her mind more than once as she sat there that she might die without assistance.

"And no matter if she does," said the heartless woman to herself. "It would be all the better for her and for all parties concerned."

But it was not to be as Mrs. Bowers thought and almost wished. Life came back to the poor girl with a long, fluttering sigh, and the first thing she saw when she looked up was the angry face of the woman glaring down upon her.

"So you're alive, are you?" she said fiercely. "Why didn't you die and hide your shame and disgrace in the grave?"

"Ma'am?" faltered poor Jane, blankly.

"I say why didn't you die and hide your shame and disgrace in the grave?" repeated the housekeeper, angrily. "Ah! I've found you out, Jennie Thorn! I took you in my house for an honest girl, but you've ruined yourself and disgraced your poor old parents; I'll not keep such trash in my respectable home. Out of my house you go before night!"

The poor girl rose and looked out of the window. The cold winter twilight was already falling and the great, white flakes of snow still filled the air.

"Oh! Mrs. Bowers," she said, piteously, "it is night already, and where could I go?"

"You should have thought of that sooner," said the pitiless woman. "It's too late now. Go get your cloak and hat and put them on."

Almost stunned by her sorrow Jennie mechanically obeyed her imperious command.

"Now, leave here!" said the housekeeper.

"Oh! Mrs. Bowers," cried the wretched girl, "let me stay at least until morning! Indeed I am not what you think me! I was deceived by a mock-marriage, and I thought myself an honest wife until Mr. Vinton told me just now how cruelly he had betrayed me. Oh! for God's sake have pity on me, and don't turn me out to-night in the cold and the darkness!"

For all answer Mrs. Bowers caught her by the arm and rudely dragged her along the hall to the front door.

"You can't deceive me with your trumped up lies, you shameless thing!" she said. "Go now, and never let me see your face here again."

She opened the door and pushing the poor, weeping, betrayed and deserted girl out into the blinding storm, slammed and locked the door.