"Read what I have written there," he said; "and you will
understand what those false friends of mine have made me suffer
to-night."

The next morning my wife and I opened the portfolio, and read the
strange story of George Germaine's marriage.

The Narrative.

GEORGE GERMAINE WRITES, AND TELLS HIS OWN LOVE STORY.

CHAPTER I.

GREENWATER BROAD

LOOK back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the past,
through the mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. Rise
again, my boyhood's days, by the winding green shores of the
little lake. Come to me once more, my child-love, in the innocent
beauty of your first ten years of life. Let us live again, my
angel, as we lived in our first paradise, before sin and sorrow
lifted their flaming swords and drove us out into the world.


The month was March. The last wild fowl of the season were
floating on the waters of the lake which, in our Suffolk tongue,
we called Greenwater Broad.

Wind where it might, the grassy banks and the overhanging trees
tinged the lake with the soft green reflections from which it