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“Oh Paul, Paul, how could you!” and the speaker, a pale delicate look ing girl wrung her hands, while the tears ran down her cheeks. Paul Crossland, a (handsome and rather dissipated looking youth of two or three and twenty, with bold black eyes and curling dark hair, looked a little ashamed and not a little defiant. “Who was to know that he’d be home,” he exclaimed, “and that things would be looked into as 'they are be ing looked into now! I tell you, Milly, after the old man’s buried I shan’t be safe from discovery for one more day; something must be done; but what? 1 don’t see that there’s anything left for me but to hook it, and then what’s to become of you?” What indeed! Paul’s salary was all the two had to depend upon, for the few pupils Milly was able to procure were but a precarious provision for her own personal expenses. When Paul had written his em ployer’s name, securing an advantage to himself by doing so, I can not say to what he had trusted most to pre serve his sin from being found out; whether tothe laxity of discipline in the office, or the failing health and consequent absenteeism of Mr. New ton. It is certain that for a while he had been successful in maintaining his secret. Still Mr. Newton had suspic ions that all was not going on as it should in the office, and wrote urgent ly to his son in India beseeching his return. The result of this letter of entreaty was the eturrn of England ■of Roland Newton, for the superint endance of his father’s affairs. The rumor was that Roland Newton was in truth a very nabob, and that in the event of his father dying, the business would be wound up. Already, so shortly after his return hings were more strictly looked in to in the office than they had been before for many years. It was the dread and the probabili ty of discovery that caused Paul Crossland to make his confession to his sister; but for that he might have kept her in ignorance while he sank deeper into the mire. Milly’s shame and dlistress were very great. “That you should have done this Paul! you, a Crossland. Oh, Paul!” cried the poor girl, “it is dreadful: 1 can hardly believe it of you—that youshould commit forgery to get money to gamble!” “Oh don’t talk such nonsense, Milly, but, like a sensible girl, think of some way of raising the money. Only let me once get clear of this debt and I will never touch a card again.” Milly’s lovely face grew brighter through her tears. “Is that a promise, Paul?” she asked. Will you give me your word of honor that if I help you get quit of this incumbus you will never permit yourself to be tempted into any kind of gambling again?” Paul thought she must isuddenljy have conceived some means of help ing him, and the relief was so great to his mind that he readly gave the required promise, sealing it with a kiss. But Milly’s only idea was to get that promise; she had not the re motest idea how the debt was to be paid. When Paul left his sister to go to his daily occupation, she could think of nothing else than the task she had set herself to accomplish for Paul’s sake all day long, and this was to go THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF OCT. 9 PAUL’S DEBT By VIVIENNE. and confess everything to Mr. (Newton and ask his indulgence till they paid it back. “And how we will work to repay him.” thought Milly. “I will wear my old dresses all the year round, and I’ll deprive myself of every luxury, and I’ll try and get more pupils. We might, yes I diare say we might, go to humbler lodgings. And I wonder whether Mr. Roland has a wife and family? Paul did not say anything about them. If he has, perhaps she will give me some plain work to do. when she knows why I want it.” That evening Paul Crossland brought home the news of old Mr. Newton’s death. The day before a scene had taken place in a gloomy mansion in one of the gloomiest squares of the grand old city. A city merchont lay upon his death bed. His shaking hands grasped those of a younger man, and the dim eyes sought the loved features of the other, in anxious desire to communicate something ere his power to do so was taken from him. Let us give the substance of that communication, without the breaks in it that characterized the speech of the dying man. “Roland, when you come to lie, as I do, at the gates of death, it will not be the many brilliant success you have known in life that will occupy your mind, but the few mistakes that, in spite of your utmost endeavers, have occurred. You remember, be fore you went to India, my intimacy with a fellow merchant, for whom 1 had a great respect and liking.” “You mean Crossland?” said the son. ‘I do,” was the reply. “Four or five years ago he died insolvent, and un der circumstances that compelled all men to pity rather than to blame him. He left a family.” “And you wish me to seek out that family and provide for their wants?” said Roland Newton, soothingly. Never fear, father; if they are upon the face of the earth, I will find and relieve them!” “They are not lost,” said Mr. New ton. “I have not utterly neglected them. Paul Crossland occupies the second stool in the office, but beyond giving him employment I have never inetrested myself to discover whether or not he had other wants. I fear things have not been going on as they should do in the office: if when you come to examine matters you should find Paul Crossland in error, remember what his father was to me, and how upon my death-bed I re proached myself for not having taken a warmer in his welfare, and not giv ing him that assistance that might have lifted him above temptation.” “I promise you that Paul Crossland shall find as merciful judge in me, and one as ready to overlook involun tary transgression, as he would have done in you,” said Roland. At seventy-five years of age a man’s race is pretty nearly run, and seldom is further space granted him in which to perform duties he has neglected be fore that. None "was granted to Jos eph Newton. On the morrow he died, and Paul and Millicent Crossland were left a sacred legacy upon the hands of his only son and heir. Could this be the place? A dark, gloomy, five-storied house! Millie looked up to it depreciatingly and in queringly. Yes there was the word “Newton” on a brass plate on the door. Twice she spelt over the six letters, whispering to herself the name they formed, before she dared to ring. “Can I see Mr. Roland Newton?” faltered Milly. Seeing her shabby look, the porter hesitated a moment and then showed her into an apartment that had an air of somber and oppressive grand eur. the funeral plumes of the mourn ing hearse had left their atmosphere behind and their 'shadow upon the brow of the man who sat upon the hearth. When he arose, Milly did not recog nize in him the Roland Newton of her brother’s description. “I —I —beg your pardon for my in trusion,” said Milly nervously; “is is Mr. Roland Newton I wish to see.” This young man—at least not over thirty—with a space figure, deeply bronzed but handsome face, and crisp, curley, dark hair. “I am he,” he replied in quiet, grave tones. Poor Milly became confused and trembling, but in her embarassment she mentioned her name. “I am so glad to see you,” he said. “The name of Crossland was almost the last my dear father’s lips utter ed. What is there I can do for you?” Then Milly forgot everything but the cause she had come to plead; and for herself and Paul she pleaded, having made confession of his guilt. “He is so young,” she cried, “and our lives have been so dull since our poor father died, that he was sorely tempted to seek amusement where he should not have done. If you will only have pity, if you will give us time; Paul has promised never to touch cards again, and we will both work unceasingly until we have re paid you the debt.” She had thrown herself upon the floor. She raised her streaming eyes, and the sight of so young a creature in such deep distress went straight to Roland Newton’s heart, as no wo man’s loveliness had done yet. He raised her from the floor and placed her in the large easy chair he had occupied upon her entrance. “You have made my task easier for me,” he said; “for it was my task to seek you out and learn in what way I could most benefit you. I am sorry to hear that your brother has made himself amenable to the laws of his country, and I trust the fear and the pain he has suffered himself has caused you to suffer, may be a warning to him. I need hardly say, after what I have fold you, that I can not entertain any idea of prosecuting him. For the present make yourself quiet happy upon his account, belie\ ing in me as a friend. You shall hear from me very shortly..” Overcome with gratitude, Milly could but murmur a few broken words of thanks. Then Roland New ton conducted her to the hall, with a suddenly assumed and protecting care that was full of promise for the future as it was of assurance in the present. Mr. Newton saw Paul Crossland at the office the next day; he held a private conversation with him for a short time informing him of his knowledge of the forgery of his father’s name —all of which, of course, Paul had in the meanwhile heard from Milly—and the forged bill was destroyed in Paul’s pres ence: Mr. Newton only making it a condition that the young man should repeat to him the promise he had given his sister. Then Mr. Newton dismissed him with a severe caution as to his conduct in future. Mr. Newton had strict ideas with regard to crime and its punishment; it is hardly to be supposed he would have let Paul off so easily but for the re memberance of two tearful blue eyes, and a mouth quivering as it told its agony. In as short a time as possible from the old gentleman’s death the clerks were paid off, and, with the excep tion of Paul, obtained other situa tions through Mr. Newton’s recom mendation. Paul dared not asked for that, re membering the history of the forged bill, and walked home mortified and indignant, because in his heart he felt that Mr. Newton treated him with more than justice. “Well, there’s good-by to him for ever,” he soliloquized, as he mount ed the stairs to their little sitting room. “I must get along as best I can now.” But there was not good-by to him forever. Milly jumped up from her low seat to prepare tea for him, with radiant face. “O, Paul, guess whom 1 had a visit from today?” she said. “But you never will unless I tell you.” “I don’t know and I don’t care to night,” he said. “Is tea ready?" “Not quite,” said Milly; “but I am sure you would care, Paul. It was that very Mr. Newton you are so angry against.” “Mr. Newton here!” cried Paul in amazement. “Yes, he came to see me,” said Milly. “And he has invited both you and me to dine with him tomorrow; I promised for you, because I guess ed you would have nothing better to do.” This altered the aspect of affairs, and Paul’s face brightened as he drew up to the tea table. “Perhaps,” said Paul, “he is going to suggest some way in which my debt may be paid.” Mr. Newton treated his young guests with the utmost courtesy and kindness. Paul was astonished at the difference there was between him in the respective capacities of a host and a master. Nothing was said that had the re motest reference to business matters until Paul and Mr. Newton sat to gether, then Roland Newton spoke. The purport of his remarks was that Paul should go to India and take the place he had himself left to return home. Paul was overjoyed at the idea and readily promised. After all the arrangements were made, Mr. Newton continued : “Leave it to me, then, to inform your sister of it. Don’t say a word to her about it to her tonight, and I’ll drop it at your lodgings about five o’clock tomorrow afternoon.” Paul absented himself from Milly nearly the whole of the afternoon on the morrow, hardly daring to trust himself to look into her face, remem bering as he did how he was with holding from her a secret that was about to transform their lives entire ly. Milly prepared the tea and sat down to wait for Paul. A step upon the stair* caused Milly’s heart to beat mdcklv. but something whispered to her that it (Continued on pag e!5.) 3