engaging in her person and manners-sure, therefore, to have offers from men enjoying all those advantages of person and pecuniary position that he lacked-she marry him, the poor collier; for he was not even then a Deputy! Absurd! Wrong even to think of. He would take care he would think of it no more.

And he kept to his purpose for a little while, until this incident of the coat took place; which, trivial in itself, revealed him to her in just that aspect of simple genial humanity, which alone she needed to encourage and stimulate her liking into a warmer sentiment.

From that moment a change went on almost unconsciously to both. She would venture to ask him questions on sublunary topics, to tell him of matters that had interested her in the people, or things about her, and find to her gratification that he, instead of regarding her talk as trifling, responded with similar but richer experiences from his own daily life; and became quite animated in such discourse, while delighting her with his touches of character, and his keen perceptions of their humorous side, to which she had fancied him inaccessible.

He brought books home and read to her. And these were so judiciously selected, so adapted to her unliterary experience, that while they never wearied her, they always left behind in her remembrance some seeds of culture that promised in time an unexpected harvest.

Still neither for a moment thought of love.

But discovery came at last. And discovery itself is at once the greatest charm of love, and the most powerful of influences in stimulating it to new zest, ardour, and strength. So was it with Rees Thomas and Margaret.

The maiden was simply confused, but very happy at the discovery.

The man felt happy, too-so happy that it seemed wrong; and then he took that as a warning that he was forgetting the dearest aim of his life, his most sacred duty, and began to withdraw himself.

Thus for some little time the atmosphere of their humble dwelling was one full of the strangest lights and

shades; faithfully reflecting the hopes and fears, the conflicts of duty with passion, that possessed the hearts and minds of the two actors therein.

And it was just at this critical period that Rees Thomas thought to solve the very serious problem presented to him by a kind of compromise shaped out in his own secret thoughts, to the effect that, before he spoke to Margaret, and so, perhaps, committed them both to what could not be again undone, he would feel he had achieved something for his Divine Master, that might excuse, if not justify, his worldly falling off.

Hence his determined efforts to establish prayers in the mine as the fit preliminary to such daily work; hence his quarrel with Israel, his separation from him, his efforts to carry out his aims elsewhere, his utter and melancholy failure, and final return to drink the cup of anguish, disappointment, and humiliation to the very dregs by resigning Margaret, and once more casting in his lot with Israel.

He did resign her, and in so stern a manner—one she had not conceived it in his power to use that poor Margaret, scarcely able to keep back her tears, yet felt called upon to display her womanly pride; and when her mother strove to speak to her about the business, answered her with a quite unusual asperity and irritation. And so all three were silenced.

CHAPTER XIX.

A FALL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

REES THOMAS had been some days at work; and Margaret sees that on each recurring eve he comes back more weary than ever, faintly smiling away questions about himself, refusing offers to help, and retiring as soon as possible, after his meal, to the solitude, though not the rest, of his bed-chamber.

There is no more pleasant gossip now between them, no more reading, and Margaret finds life hard to bear, and is inclined bitterly to ask why he could not have left her alone before awakening in her such new hopes and aspirations, rather than after.

Still he goes on with the labour that is killing him. Let us follow him on a day that was to bring him face to face with yet a new aspect of destiny.

He was at work in a stall that opened from the engineplane, or incline, monotonously hewing away, and almost as monotonously repeating what had become a sort of hourly formula of utterance with him.

'No; men like me have no business to wed!'

The morning had been chilly, and the face of the coal where he was working not being very far from the shaftbottom, he felt little of the high temperature that affects. the industry of the miners in the deeper recesses of the pit. He had, therefore, retained his jacket.

Feeling warmer now, he rose to take it off, and was placing it on the top of a wall, when he became aware of a sudden check in the wind-draught.

This is always a more or less alarming circumstance, as it may mean a great Fall somewhere, that has interrupted the ventilation, and which may soon be followed by explosions, through the gas accumulating where it should have been dispersed and carried away; or it may mean that the greater danger of an explosion has happened.

He could not even guess at the precise point where the check occurred, nor at the magnitude of the affair.

A man working as much as a mile away may know of even a slight explosion, through such a check to the wind, if he be in the same current.

While he stood listening in suspense and fear, not so much for himself as for others, the colliers who had been working near drew towards him, as if with an instinctive faith in his mining knowledge, whatever they might think of him as a spiritual comforter, if danger or death were nigh.

6 It is a Fall!' cried one. 'I knew it must come ! knew it months ago!'

I

6 No,' said a second; 'it's an explosion, and we shall soon be meeting the choke-damp! Hadn't we better run?'

6

'Let us first see which way to run,' answered Rees Thomas, lest we run into the danger we wish to escape.' I know what it is,' said still a third; it's an inundation. The waters are breaking in upon us, and have filled up the seven foot dip, so that no air gets that way.'

A man came running towards them, and shouting as he ran, The roof has fallen in the No. Five level, and there's been an explosion since, and more are expected. Run for your lives!'

He turned, and they were all about to follow him, holding their lamps so as to give them all possible aid, when before they had advanced many yards the lights grew dim, their breathing difficult, and they all as by one impulse stopped.

6

We must go back,' called out Rees Thomas. Be calm, dear brethren, and all shall be well!'

Returning to the place where they were before, Rees Thomas snatched at his jacket, in which he had things that might prove of infinite value if wanted. He called to them to follow him.

He forgot now he was a simple collier, and he spoke with all the decision of one in authority.

Presently they reached in safety the main drift, where the air was still passable, and where they were in assured safety for the time.

But reflection came with all its bitterness. They had gone further away than they were before from the bottom of the shaft; and they knew there was a double barrier betwixt them and that place of safety and deliverance, the Fall, and the unbreathable air.

But Rees Thomas's soul was full of anxious enquiry as to the fate of the many men who were at work in different parts of the pit.

He thought of individual persons, with whom he had had sweet religious communion; he thought of others who had sorely tried him by their ribald jests and hostility to his every effort among their companions, and he hardly knew as to which class he felt more anxious to learn if they had escaped; or if that darkness, to which the darkness of the mine is as nought, had come over them, and set their spirits free to join in hope or fear their Maker and Judge.

It was with the sense of receiving a great shock that he thought just then of David.

But if he needed any more powerful incentives than he already had, the thoughts of the lad, and his danger, and of the possibility of saving him, gave them to him.

They now heard groans, and a cry, and Rees Thomas advanced as far as he dared in the direction of the sound. Presently he returned with a collier, who had crawled from the Fall through the darkness and the foul air, his lamp smashed and useless, and his arm broken.

He had been on their side of the Fall, and, happily so far for him, only just on its outskirts.

He feared, he said, that many men had been injured, and that more had perished.

Time passed, though none could tell how fast or how slow.

It seemed after a while to Rees Thomas that the mass of fallen matter that choked the way must have been penetrated by the manual efforts of people on the other side of the Fall, between it and the shaft, or else that the Fall itself had not yet come to its natural end, and that anyhow fresh air was beginning to pass through.

Inexpressible was the comfort this thought and belief gave to the imprisoned men.

Still in spite of repeated efforts they found it impracticable to reach the Fall by the proper route, and it became a question whether they should not try another, a circuitous one.

But that, objected one of the colliers, would, he thought, carry them where the explosion had been.