called the Algerian Pompeii. While Pompeii was a summer resort of the most luxurious kind, Thamagudi was a stronghold and a genuine Roman city occupied by the Thirtieth Legion and given to them by the emperor in recognition of their valor. The city is laid out in true Roman style, with two main streets at right angles, one called Cardo Maximus, the other Decumanus Maximus, and at their intersection was the forum with a colonnade the entire length of the north side. To the east was a basilica, which was a court of justice; the prætor or judge was seated in the apse with the assessors on either side. A railing separated the apse from the nave. This form of building being peculiarly adapted for the Christian form of worship, it was immediately adopted by the Western Church. The bishop took the place of the prætor, his subordinates the offices of the assessors. The altar, like the statue of the god of the ancients, was in front of the bishop, separating him from the congregation in the nave. Near the forum was the theatre, built on the side of a hill. The auditorium is almost entire and would accommodate about four thousand persons. The stage has disappeared, but the portico still remains. The theatre was very substantially built and was evidently fireproof. The acoustics are perfect, the slightest whisper being heard in every part of the auditorium.

Below the theatre on the floors of some of the buildings are curious inscriptions rudely cut, one being quite legible.

In an open space are holes such as boys now use in playing marbles. Outside the north gate were the Thermæ, paved with mosaics, perfectly preserved. Near the gate is a little fountain flowing with pure water brought from a distant spring through the original stone pipes. From numerous inscriptions it has been decided that the city was built in the second century during the reign of Septimius Severus. From the top of the theatre a fine general view of the city is obtained. Looking southwest the two great pillars of the capitol stand out

like sentinels grim and silent; all the others lie scattered about the temple supposed to be that of Jupiter Capitolinus. In front of the temple was a large court with a beautiful colonade, portions of which are still standing. The temple must have been a beautiful structure, for the walls are over six feet thick, while the stones used in their construction are very large. The pillars are over four feet in diameter and are fluted. The interior was lined with reddish marble of great beauty, obtained from the quarries of Aïn-Smara, not far from Constantine.

Near the capitol is the market-place, founded in the third century by a Roman lady whose statue with a dedicatory inscription was found almost entirely perfect. On the side toward the capitol is a hemicycle with seven shops. In front of each was a flat stone table which was used as a counter in a modern shop.

In the street Decumanus Maximus stands the Triumphal Arch, the finest of its kind in Africa. It has three openings or archways, the centre being about eleven feet wide. Above the side arches are niches for statues, one of which still is in place. None of the original inscriptions remains in situ, but from fragments found near by it is called the Arch of Trajan. Just behindthearch on either side of the street are houses of various sizes filled with mortars, mills, and other household utensils made of stone. It seems possible to reconstruct the place so that in the near future one may see just what a Roman frontier city was. Wandering about these silent cities of an extinct race of mighty men, the imagination pictures the streets full of life, the markets teeming with activity, triumphal pro-, cessions passing through Trajan's arch, incense rising from the altars of the godsBut the vision vanishes and the causes of all this destruction are sought for. Unfortunately, the nomadic tribes from the desert and the Aures Mountains which caused it have left no history or literature behind them, and all that is known is the fact that immense hordes of the natives came suddenly down upon these strongholds, weakened by the excesses of their rulers, and literally swept them from the pages of history for many centuries.

S became persons of their rising consequence, the Gormers were engaged in building a country-house on Long Island; and it was a part of Miss Bart's duty to attend her hostess on frequent visits of inspection to the new estate. There, while Mrs. Gormer plunged into problems of lighting and sanitation, Lily had leisure to wander, in the bright autumn air, along the treefringed bay to which the land declined. Little as she was addicted to solitude, there had come to be moments when it seemed a welcome escape from the empty noises of her life. She was weary of being swept passively along a current of pleasure and business in which she had no share; weary of seeing other people pursue amusement and squander money, while she felt herself of no more account among them than an expensive toy in the hands of a spoiled child.

It was in this frame of mind that, striking back from the shore one morning into the windings of an unfamiliar lane, she came suddenly upon the approaching figure of George Dorset. The Dorset place was in the neighbourhood of the Gormer's newlyacquired estate, and in her motor-flights thither with Mrs. Gormer, Lily had caught one or two passing glimpses of the couple; but they moved in so different an orbit that she had not considered the possibility of a direct encounter.

Dorset, swinging along with bent head, did not see Miss Bart till he was close upon her; but the sight, instead of bringing him to a halt, as she had half-expected, sent him forward with an eagerness which found expression in his opening words.

"Miss Bart! You'll shake hands, won't you? I've been hoping to meet youI should have written if I'd dared." His

face, with its tossed red hair and straggling moustache, had a driven, uneasy look, as though life had become an unceasing race between himself and the thoughts at his heels.

The look drew a word of compassionate greeting from Lily, and he pressed on, as if encouraged by her tone: "I wanted to apologize to ask you to forgive me for the miserable part I played—

She checked him with a quick gesture. "Don't let us speak of it: I was very sorry for you," she said, with a tinge of disdain which, as she instantly perceived, was not lost on him.

He flushed to his haggard eyes, flushed so cruelly that she repented the thrust. "You might well be; you don't knowyou must let me explain. I was deceived: abominably deceived

"I am still more sorry for you, then," she interposed, without irony; "but you must see that it's impossible I should discuss the subject with you."

He met this with a look of genuine wonder. "Why not? Isn't it to you, of all people, that I owe an explanation'

"No explanation is necessary: the situation was perfectly clear to me."

"Ah" he murmured, his head drooping again, and his irresolute hand switching at the underbrush along the lane. But as Lily made a movement to pass on, he broke out with fresh vehemence: "Miss Bart, for heaven's sake don't turn from me! We used to be good friends-you were always kind to me and you don't know how I need a friend now."

The weakness of the words roused a motion of pity in Lily's breast. She too needed friends-she had tasted the pang of loneliness; and her resentment of Bertha Dorset's cruelty softened her heart to the poor wretch who was after all the chief of Bertha's victims.

"I still wish to be kind; I feel no ill-will

toward you," she said. "But you must understand that after what has happened we can't be friends again—we can't see each other."

"Ah, you are kind—you're mercifulyou always were!" He fixed his miserable gaze on her. "But why can't we be friends-why not, when I've repented in dust and ashes? Isn't it hard that you should condemn me to suffer for the falseness, the treachery of others? I was punished enough at the time-is there to be no respite for me?”

"I should have thought you had found complete respite in the reconciliation which was effected at my expense," Lily began, with renewed impatience; but he broke in imploringly: "Don't put it in that waywhen that's been the worst of my punishMy God! what could I do-wasn't I powerless? You were singled out as a sacrifice: any word I might have said would have been turned against you---'

ment.

"I have told you I don't blame you; all I ask you to understand is that, after the use Bertha chose to make of me-after all that her behaviour has since implied-it's impossible that you and I should meet."

He continued to stand before her in his dogged weakness. "Is it need it be? Mightn't there be circumstances- -?" He checked himself, slashing at the wayside weeds in a wider radius. Then he began again: "Miss Bart, listen-give me a minute. If we're not to meet again, at least let me have a hearing now. You say we can't be friends after-after what has happened. But can't I at least appeal to your pity? Can't I move you if I ask you to think of me as a prisoner-a prisoner you alone can set free?"

Lily's inward start betrayed itself in a quick blush: was it possible that this was really the sense of Carry Fisher's adumbrations?

"I can't see how I can possibly be of any help to you," she murmured, drawing back a little from the mounting excitement of his look.

Her tone seemed to sober him, as it had so often done in his stormiest moments. The stubborn lines of his face relaxed, and he said, with an abrupt drop to docility: "You would see, if you'd be as merciful as you used to be: and heaven knows I've never needed it more!"

She paused a moment, moved in spite of herself by the returning sense of her influence over him. Her fibres had been softened by suffering, and this glimpse into his mocked and broken life disarmed her contempt for his weakness.

"I am very sorry for you—I would help you willingly; but you must have other friends, other advisers."

"I never had a friend like you," he answered simply. "And besides can't you see?-you're the only person"-his voice dropped to a whisper-"the only person who knows."

Again she felt her colour change; again her heart rose in precipitate throbs to meet what she felt was coming.

"You do see, don't you? You understand? I'm desperate-I'm at the end of my tether. I want to be free, and you can free me: I know you can. You don't want to keep me bound fast in hell, do you? You can't want to take such a vengeance as that. You were always kind-your eyes are kind now. You say you're sorry for me. Well, it rests with you to show it; and heaven knows there's nothing to keep you back. You understand, of course—there wouldn't be a hint of publicity-not a sound or a syllable to connect you with the thing. It would never come to that, you know: all I need is to be able to say definitely: 'I know this-and this-and this'—and the fight would drop, and the way be cleared, and the whole abominable business swept out of sight in a second."

He spoke pantingly, like a tired runner, with breaks of exhaustion between his words; and through the breaks she caught, as through the shifting rents of a fog, great golden vistas of peace and safety. For there was no mistaking the definite intention behind his vague appeal; she could have filled up the blanks without the help of Mrs. Fisher's insinuations. Here was a man who turned to her in the extremity of his loneliness and his humiliation: if she came to him at such a moment he would be hers with all the force of his deluded faith. And the power to make him so lay in her hand-lay there in a completeness he could not even remotely conjecture. Revenge and rehabilitation might be hers at a stroke

there was something dazzling in the completeness of the opportunity.

She stood silent, gazing away from him