mvmvvmiM m " 1 ' later Mrs. 'Prescott came rushing to the wharf to malce inquiries. She was frantic, half beside herself. Two hours later this circumstance was obscured by the message flashed from a point 50 miles down the river, that the boiler of the Puritan had blown up in midstream and of the 100 passenger aboard less than 20 had been rescued, About fifty bod ies were recovered. In the list of those not found the names of James and Arlme Prescott were listed. In the village it was supposed that Prescott had been taking his child on a casual down-the-river trip. Alas! poor, bereaved Mary Prescott alone knew the agitating incidents that led up to the tragedy that shadowed her already dreary life. She had never loved James Pres cott It seemed as if some adverse mockery of fate bad conspired to make her accept his attentions back in her home village of Ieclaire. Just before Prescott appeared upon the scene Mary had received a proposal of marriage from a most estimable young man named Paul Barry. She had not known her heart at the time., but later, when the full measure of her sorrowful miseries overwhelmed her, she realized that her hesitation, which had driven him away, had been a lifetime mistake. Mary smothered her disappointment, however, giving her full love to little Arline and by pa tience and loyalty striving to win some measure of kindness from her husband. In this she signally failed. Prescott, pretending to be a man of means, had influenced Mary's father to favor the marriage. Just after the wedding her father died. His estate was quite small and was divided between his daughter and a crippled stepbrother. Soon Prescott had squandered his wife's portion. Then he tried to in duce her to contest the legacy to her father's stepbrother, or induce the latter to lend her some of his small means. Mary refused. It was then that Prescott had threatened to break bee spirit if she did not meet his wishes. It was then that be started out with Arline, to hide the child away from" her mother until Mary relented. Then, overcome with this fearful climax of misfortunes, Mrs. Prescott had resigned herself to her fate as a lonely, brokenhearted being with out a friend in the world. So she thought and settled down to work for a seamstress in the town. In her estimate of friendlessness, however, she had not counted on the undying fidelity of a noble man.' Paul Barry had not forgotten her. News had come to his ears, an intui tion of the wortblessness of Pres cott. He had secretly visited and in vestigated, and had found himself powerless to better things or come between husband and wife, He came again when he learned of the sup posed death of father and child. Then he made a strange discovery. This was the statement from a friend that he bad seen Prescott in a dis tant city two weeks after the sinking Of the steamer. Barry started a new investigation. Whatever he learned, it resulted in his visiting Wartham upon that same evening when Mrs. Prescott bad bought the tiny candles to celebrate' the third anniversary of the birthday of little Arline. Under the cover of darkness he hovered about the boarding house where Mrs. Prescottsoccupied a room. He located the apartment from the outside. At a table he made out Mrs. Prescott, seated at a table upon which was a cake with three lighted candles on it, A great wave of pity and love swept his soul as he comprehended the meaning of the lonely scene. Then Barry entered the house. He consult ed the landlady. She was to manage to get Mrs. Prescott out of her room for a brief spell, while he sped to the village hotel, to return and smuggle into the room a little child, Barry seated Ijer at the table, went down- 3H a -