Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow: A Novel

by C. Despard

A DOUBLE MYSTERY.

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CHAPTER I.

PARTIAL DISCOVERIES.

She seemed to be all nature,
And all varieties of things in one;
Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise
All light and laughter in the morning; fear
No petty customs nor appearances,
But think what others only dreamed about,
And say what others did but think, and do
What others would but say, and glory in
What others dared but do.

"I have no sympathy for you, Adèle—not the slightest."

So spoke Mrs. Churchill, standing by a sofa in her boudoir with a glass of port in the one hand and a bottle of quinine in the other, giving careful attention to the dripping of a certain number of drops from the bottle to the glass.

Her young daughter was on the sofa, looking rather languid and worn. She raised her head, supporting it on her elbow, and her voice was a little peevish as she answered, "I have told you, mamma, that I don't want either sympathy or medicine."

"In the name of all that's sensible try and tell me what you do want, child!"

"I want to see Arthur." Adèle blushed as she spoke.

"To see Arthur, indeed!" Here Mrs. Churchill passed the carefully-prepared dose to her daughter. "You are a pretty pair! I imagine he wants quinine and sea-air as much as you do. And now, forsooth, he must turn studious, ambitious of literary distinction, and what not. The next thing I shall hear about him is that he has taken to the editing of a popular journal. Really, young people of the present day are past my comprehension altogether, and, Adèle, you and Arthur carry matters to the verge of absurdity. You fall in love simultaneously with a pretty widow—whether a widow or not, Goodness alone knows—you suspend your own engagement for a time, as you assure one another, by mutual consent, and then begin the process of fading away, Arthur throwing himself into literature, and you into so-called charity; but, my dear"—here Mrs. Churchill grew severe—"I have always heard that charity begins at home. If charity consists in making your mother's life miserable, and allowing all kinds of absurd notions in the head of the man who is to be your husband (for I believe that these new follies can't possibly outlive your teens), then, so far as I am concerned, the less of charity the better."

Adèle during this harangue had turned her face from her mother. The answer came from the depths of the sofa-cushion in which she had buried her face: "I wish I hadn't told you, mamma."

"Happily, I found out the greater part for myself." Mrs. Churchill was still severe. "Upon my word, Adèle, it was dutiful to begin such a correspondence without your mother's consent or knowledge; but perhaps I have spoken and thought enough on that subject already. Apropos of this Mrs. Grey of yours, I have heard something which will probably interest you. Of course it is not for me to say whether her name is really Mrs. Grey, but some of the incidents in the stories I heard seem to fit in rather strangely."

"Mamma!" In Adèle's excitement she rose to a sitting posture on the sofa and her cheeks flamed suddenly into an angry crimson. "You may say what you like; I know that Margaret Grey is good and true, and it's too bad to believe in nobody."

Her excitement rather alarmed good Mrs. Churchill. "Adèle! Adèle!" she said, "do, like a good child, make an effort to be reasonable. The next thing will be brain fever if you excite yourself in this way. Silly little goose! try and believe that your mother knows more of the world than you do. Some of these days you will be wiser."

"Never so wise, I hope, as to think ill of everybody," said Adèle, half sobbing after her excitement.

"Well! well!" said her mother soothingly, "only be patient and I will admit that everybody is angelic; indeed, after all, why should I take the trouble of pointing out the fallacy? Circumstances will do that for you before you have lived many more years in the world. But about this Mrs. Grey. Very good I must call her to spare your feelings, and doubtless very beautiful, or she could not have taken such violent possession of the heart and head of my impulsive little daughter. It is a pity, by the bye, Adèle, that Providence did not see fit to make you a boy. It would have been possible then for you to have devoted life and fortune to this interesting person, only I'm not so sure that there's not a lingering weakness for Arthur in your contradictory little heart. There, my dear! don't blush about it; you will certainly have no roses for the evening if you expend them so liberally now, and pale cheeks don't suit your style."

"As if I cared about my style, mamma!"

"Well, if you don't, Adèle, I do; and as, at your age, rouge would be rather absurd, I must beg you to give us some of those pretty little blushes this evening. Perhaps you may be able to persuade Arthur to leave his books for a few hours and escort us to Lady C——'s. Is music, by the bye, among the vanities to which he has sworn undying hatred? Signor Mario has promised her a song, and—ah! I am so bad at names!—the great violinist—you remember, Mr. Godolphin was so wild about him—has promised to attend. But really, Adèle," Mrs. Churchill gave an impatient sigh, "one might think you a worn-out woman of the world, or six seasons out at least; you take not the slightest interest in anything I tell you."

Adèle reddened: "I beg your pardon, mamma. No doubt it will be pleasant, and the beautiful new necklace you gave me to-day will be the very thing to wear. If Arthur comes in I shall ask him; but what were you saying a few minutes ago about Mrs. Grey?"

"That interests you far more than either soirée or necklace, I do believe. I wonder how it is, Adèle, that you are so very different from other girls at your age? What I have heard is, after all, not much; and mind, if it excites you I shall leave off telling you at once. It does not redound particularly to the credit of your friend."

Again Adèle buried her face in the sofa-pillow: "Who told you, mamma?"

"You remember that handsome young Russian at Mrs. Gordon's the other night. He took me in to supper, and we got into conversation. Very frank and open these foreigners are—there is none of that English reserve about them. He told me at once what brought him to London. It seems he is in search of an English friend, a certain Maurice Grey, who, after having made himself quite the rage in St. Petersburg (he was staying with the young count's father), suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace behind him. He would not let his friends know where he was going, nor did he write a single line to tell of his safe arrival at any point in his journey. It appears that one and another in St. Petersburg began talking about him, and it came out that he had let fall certain mysterious hints about a great sorrow, weariness of life, and so on—in your romantic style, Adèle. Whether he only wished to make himself interesting to the ladies—who seem to have been the chief movers of the rumor—does not precisely appear: I should think it highly probable. However, St. Petersburg society took a different view. When a week passed and nothing was heard of Maurice Grey, his friends killed him—that is, they determined among themselves that he had killed himself. There seems to have been quite a fever of anxiety about the young man's fate. At last the young count, to satisfy his fair relatives and friends—himself also, for he firmly believes in his English guest, mystery and all—came over here, thinking that in London he might find some clue to his whereabouts. And now comes the part of the story which may perhaps fit in with yours. There are a good many Greys, so I did not particularly interest myself until Count —— informed me by way of sequel that during a former visit of his to London his friend, Maurice Grey, had married one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. It was, of course, the prevailing idea in St. Petersburg that a woman had something to do with the Englishman's gloom, and as he never made the faintest allusion to his wife, it had been presumed that her conduct after marriage had caused a separation or a scandal of some kind. Count —— has set on foot an inquiry about this person. Mrs. Grey—Margaret, he told me, was her Christian name—must certainly be still living. He heard of her from her man of business, but her place of residence is, for some reason, kept a profound secret."

Adèle had risen from the sofa. She was listening to her mother's tale with earnest eyes fixed on her face. When it was over she gave a low, deep-drawn sigh: "Maurice, mamma? Are you sure his name was Maurice?"

"The Englishman's, Adèle? Yes, Count —— called him by that name once or twice in the course of our conversation."

Adèle clasped her hands: "Then there can be no doubt it is the same. That will explain her sadness. Some fearful misunderstanding has come between them. Oh how I wish I could see Count ——! or if Arthur would only come! Perhaps—mamma, how delightful it would be!—perhaps we shall be able to set it all right—to make her happy again!"

Mrs. Churchill groaned: "I thought my story would have had the effect of curing you, Adèle; and now I believe you are actually farther gone than ever with your enthusiasm and your poetic notions. When shall I teach you that all this is childish? 'Perhaps you will set all right'—'make her life happy!' Perhaps, rather, you will obey your mother, and have nothing further to do with a person who has deceived her husband and is otherwise not at all correct. Why, if I don't very much mistake—and I can say, without boasting, I think that I am always pretty well up in these matters—before the season is over your Mrs. Grey will be the talk of every dinner-table in London, for Count —— tells his story freely, and he seems to have the entrée everywhere. 'Miss Churchill's particular friend'—that would be a pleasant addition to the tale when repeated with sundry additions, my dear, in our circle of acquaintance. Thank Goodness! Arthur is the only person who knows anything of your absurd adventure, and his tongue is happily tied."

Adèle looked up indignantly: "Don't think that I shall hide from anybody my friendship for Margaret Grey," she said; "you may feel ashamed—I glory in it. All I regret is that I did so little for her when I had the opportunity." Then, softening, "If you had once seen her, mamma, you could never have believed these cruel tales."

"I should have instantly fallen under the spell, no doubt, like you and Arthur? No, Adèle, it is long since a pretty face affected me so powerfully; indeed, I never remember being so absurdly romantic as you are. But, dear me! there are visitors; you look rather pale, so I suppose, for this one afternoon, I must let you off and leave you here with your book."

Mrs. Churchill really loved her daughter, though she did not quite understand her, but she was certainly tolerably gentle toward what she looked upon as her follies. She stooped and kissed her on the brow before she left the room, saying, with something between a smile and a sigh, "Ah, my dear, perhaps some day you will understand your mother better."

Adèle returned the caress affectionately, but it was a relief to her when the door of her mother's boudoir closed behind her and she was left alone to think and plan, for the story of the Russian had thrown a new light on the subject that had engrossed her so much since that May afternoon in the Academy.

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[CHAPTER II.]

GO AND SEE HER.

Love's very pain is sweet.

Miss Churchill was not allowed to indulge long in the luxury of solitude. Her mother had scarcely left her before there was a well-known knock at the hall door, followed after a few moments' interval by a short, intimate tap at the door of the sitting-room, and Adèle rose from her sofa and held out both hands eagerly to greet her cousin.

Perhaps he did not respond with sufficient warmth to her impulsive welcome, for the light of pleasure died quickly out of her face, she sank languidly into a chair and plunged headlong into commonplaces. "Are you going to Lady C——'s to-night, Arthur?" she asked; "I hear there's to be some first-rate music."

"That means, I suppose, that you and Aunt Ellen want an escort."

"That means nothing of the kind, Arthur. Surely mamma is old enough to take care of herself and me without your assistance."

"Pray don't take offence at such a small thing, Adèle. They say, you know, that people who take offence lightly are in want of a real grievance."

"Heaven knows I needn't look far for a grievance when you are concerned," said Adèle bitterly.

"You are the most forbearing of your sex, my fair cousin," returned he with provoking coolness. "In humble emulation of your patience behold me a willing listener to this list of grievances."

He spoke with a half smile, then threw himself back in an arm-chair and assumed an appearance of rapt attention; but Adèle turned away to hide a treacherous tear. "I wonder how it is that we never meet without quarrelling now," she said plaintively.

He shrugged his shoulders: "That, I fancy, is your affair, my little cousin; you seem to take a delight in snapping me up, now-a-days; which being the case, what can I do but submit and give your woman's wit material to work upon?"

Adèle pouted: "Of course it is anybody's fault but your own, Arthur; but that's always the way with boys—they can't possibly be in fault."

Arthur rose from his seat: "This may be, and no doubt is, highly interesting to you, Adèle. I can't say that I feel the charm of sparring; but then, as you politely observe, I am only a boy, and boys are often unappreciative of women's fine sallies, therefore I think the boy must beg to be excused."

He held out his hand. Adèle was on the point of taking him at his word and allowing him to leave her, but when she looked up at him her mood changed suddenly, for, after all, only her affection had made her peevish. It was a difficult task Adèle had set herself on that day when Arthur first let her into the secret of his love. She had begun grandly. In her, as in many of her sisters, the spirit of self-sacrifice was strong. On the altar of her great love for her cousin, her enthusiastic admiration for the woman of his choice, she had been ready to immolate everything; she would throw her own wishes, her hopes, her future joy to the winds, so that they might be happy; and if in that first moment she could have consummated her sacrifice, could have given them one to the other, she would have done it freely, whatever it might have cost herself. But the daily annoyance her sacrifice entailed; the obligation of listening to her cousin's rhapsodies; the knowledge that though with her in body his mind was far away; even the light way in which he treated her unselfish exertions in his interest,—all these were somewhat hard to bear.

In the conflict Adèle's health was giving way; she grew peevish and irritable. Her gayety and lightheartedness departed, she was not the amusing companion she had once been, and her cousin's visits were in consequence fewer. When he did come, it was only to pour out his heart on the subject which engrossed him—Margaret Grey. Generally she listened patiently, with an appearance of interest and sympathy; and this was all he desired. Arthur did not mean to be unkind—he was one of the most good-natured of his sex—but he had been so much accustomed to consider that what interested him would of necessity interest Adèle that he could not have thought he was giving her pain, and with his every visit planting pin-pricks in her poor little heart.

When, therefore, as sometimes happened in these days—for Adèle's weakness was beginning to prey upon her nerves—she showed herself impatient, was unsympathetic or irritable, Arthur was, as on this occasion, surprised and offended, and deprived her for some days of the pleasure of his society.

But this time Adèle would not let him go off in ill-temper. She looked up, and her woman's heart was moved to self-forgetfulness. "Don't go yet, dear," she said, her voice trembling in spite of strenuous efforts to be calm; "you must forgive my pettishness. I think what mamma says is true. I can't be very well just now. And you look pale and ill, my poor old fellow; you shut yourself up too much with your books. You should leave London and go to some seaside place for a time."

"I scarcely think the books are to blame, Adèle." Arthur gave a little sigh and glanced furtively at the mirror. Through all his new earnestness he had preserved the boyish weakness of a certain pleasure in interesting delicacy. "One must do something," he continued, pacing the room restlessly, "and I've been too long an idle good-for-nothing. I think I have literary tastes. I have been looking up the classics with a view to a novel—something in Bulwer's style, you know, the scene laid in Athens during her palmy days; or perhaps Palmyra, with all the details in the true antique. My heroine must be Greek, fine classic features, and that kind of thing. I have a grand description in my head. Shall I give it to you?"

Adèle smiled: "I think I could give it myself. Certainly I know the model. Am I right?"

Arthur had taken a seat again; he buried his head in his hands: "I have had such a mad idea, Adèle. But no; to do her justice in any description would be impossible, absolutely impossible. It's easy enough to write about dark eyes and fine features and golden hair, but that would not be Margaret. It is the wonderful look in her face, that kind of spiritual beauty belonging neither to form nor coloring, which gives it its chief charm."

"You are eloquent, dear," said Adèle with a little sigh; "if you write your book in that way, I think it must certainly be a success."

"Yes," said he pensively, "the public like reality, but, you see, one can't always give it. These kinds of things look cold on paper. If I could show you my multitudinous attempts in prose and verse to give some idea of her! but they were all poor and wishy-washy. The greater number enriched the ashes of my grate. I am a good-for-nothing, and I shall be a good-for-nothing to the end of the chapter."

There was something of weariness and bitter self-contempt in Arthur's voice. It made Adèle's heart ache for him. She knelt down by his side and put one of her arms round his neck. It was more the gesture of a tender little mother with her child than of a woman with the man she loves, for this protecting motherliness was one great element in the affection of Adèle for her cousin. No doubt it was this in a great measure that rendered it so unselfish. As a little child she had taken upon herself the punishment of his small faults—as a grown-up girl she sought to shield him from every kind of ill.

"Don't despair, dear," she said gently; "there is something for you to do—to do for her, if you can be wise and generous, and put yourself out of the way altogether. Do you remember, Arthur" (Adèle's voice grew soft and the tears were in her eyes), "how you used to come and sit here in the afternoon while I read to you from the Faërie Queene about those grand young knights going out in search of adventures—to rescue women and kill dragons and evil things? And sometimes we used to wish that those days would come back, and I imagined how I would send you out, all clothed in bright armor, to do great deeds in the world. Dear, I think your time for this has come. You are a true knight, you will forget yourself, you will burn to redress a great wrong—especially when she, your Margaret, is the victim."

Adèle's words were exciting. Arthur could barely listen with patience to the end of her tender little harangue, for a great light was burning behind it which set his spirit on flame. "Adèle," he cried eagerly, "you have heard something new about her. Tell me at once."

"I heard it from mamma," she answered. And then, in as few words as possible, she repeated the story of the young Russian. "I have no doubt whatever about Margaret Grey being the Mrs. Grey in question," she said in conclusion. "You remember what I told you about her strange cry when she thought she was alone in the room. Maurice Grey must be her husband. My idea is this: a misunderstanding is at the bottom of their misery—for he is evidently as miserable as she is—brought about by some one who was in love with her before—that tall man, very likely, who looked in at the window and frightened her so much. A person who knew them both might possibly remove this and restore them to happiness. Arthur, you must be that person. There is only one drawback: if the people in St. Petersburg should be right? if he has killed himself? Can you conceive anything more dreadful, she loving him all the time, as I know she does?" The idea turned Adèle pale, but the hopefulness of youth reasserted itself. "I can't bring myself to believe it," she said earnestly. "He got tired of all his friends and the gayety, and they teased him, I dare say. It's not like an Englishman to put an end to himself in that kind of way. No; I feel convinced that he will be found yet; and, Arthur, you must find him."

While Adèle had been speaking Arthur had turned away from her. He was standing by the window, apparently watching the passers-by, but she could see, by the glimpse of his face that was still visible, that he was listening with intense interest.

A fierce struggle was going on in his heart. Adèle had often let him know that in her earnest belief all his hopes were futile. Arthur had hoped against hope. In spite of all she could say—in spite even of the cruel facts that supported her theory—he reared in secret his airy fabric of hopes and dreams. He would work—work day by day and hour by hour. He should be known for a student, an author, a man of genius; not as a boy, but as a man, with an acknowledged place in the world—a man worthy of her, if that were possible (which fact the ardent lover of both sexes is wont to doubt)—he would present himself before her with the tale of his ever-faithful love.

She would be weary of solitude, she would be touched with his perseverance, she would grant him all he could desire. It was thus he always crowned his edifice, though the number of ways to its summit might have been named Legion. Now painting, now poetry, now science, now politics, would be the friendly genius that might bring him at last to her feet.

And in one moment the whole was changed. He was called upon to forget his dream or to expunge his own name from the fluted columns of his mansion in the clouds—never an easy task. I wonder who builds these châteaux en Espagne without self for at least one of the habitants.

Unhappily, Adèle's tale carried conviction. But "None are so blind as those who will not see." Arthur could not believe, because he would not. He did not answer for a few moments, then he turned, with a light laugh that sorely belied a certain haggard look in his young face: "You had better turn novelist, Adèle. Your plots would certainly be first-rate. Why, you have reared a mountain of certainty out of a grain of conjecture. I don't believe it," he continued fiercely. But in his very fierceness was the contradiction of his words. "You pretend to care for her, and yet you can listen to all these foolish tales!"

It was rather an unkind accusation, since Adèle had been doing her very utmost to show how implicitly she believed in Margaret's innocence and truth; but pain blinded Arthur for the moment, and made him cruel and unjust.

Adèle saw how it was with him, and she did not even appear to resent his words. "Sit down again, Arthur dear," she said gently. "I am as anxious as you can be to get to the bottom of this mystery, but if we would do anything we must be calm and have our wits about us."

"Say, rather, I must," returned Arthur, throwing himself down on a small chair at her feet and seizing one of her hands in a sudden access of penitence. "What a brute I am, exciting you in this way, my poor pale little cousin! Adèle, you are wise and kind: I put myself in your hands. What shall I do?"

Adèle's lips quivered as if with a sudden pain, but the answer came out clear and firm: "Go and see her, Arthur; find out the truth about all this. I think when you have once heard her story you will be in no further difficulty."

Arthur started up, his eyes glittering: "Shall I, Adèle? Can I? What if I offend her?"

"You will not, Arthur. Take my advice; this time, I think, it coincides with your own will. Pass me my writing-desk, dear. Here! this is the address I have kept from you so long. Take it, my poor old fellow, and go."

He took it up and looked at it with gleaming eyes, for behind it he seemed to see the vision for which he had been thirsting so long. Adèle had thrown herself back upon the sofa; she looked pale and exhausted. From the little piece of paper Arthur had been studying so earnestly he turned his eyes to her. Something in her pale face touched him. He felt a sudden pang of self-reproach, and kneeling down by her side he pressed one of her hands to his lips: "Adèle, you are an angel! I say it in sober earnest, worthy of one far better and worthier and nobler than I. Dear little cousin, I will take your advice. You shall see me again only when my fate is sealed—when I have seen her. Forgive me, and keep a little corner of your heart for me till my return."

"Good-bye, dear."

It was all Adèle could say for the tears that would not be restrained. But she was happier. There was a feeling of settled calm in her heart to which it had long been a stranger. She had done what she could; she was willing to leave the rest.

He left her then, and she rose from the sofa to prepare for dinner and the gayeties of the evening.

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[CHAPTER III.]

THE HOUSE IS EMPTY.

All within is dark as night,
In the windows is no light,
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.

And in the mean time what was she doing, the object of all this solicitude, the unconscious origin of so many storms of feeling?

We left her on the sea-shore, the wide ocean before her, the cool sands around her, with a white face and quivering nerves, and a heart that was sick with aching. For the interview had tried her sorely, and it left behind it no luminous trail, but rather a deep shadow that seemed for the moment to kill even the faint hope which her spirit had cherished through all its woe.

What she looked upon as her own miserable weakness terrified her—filled her with a certain vague fear of such depths of darkness before her as hitherto she had never known. Pitfalls seemed yawning on every side. She was to herself like one who was drifting on alone, unprotected—not even shielded by her woman's weakness—to meet some terrible fate. Sitting there, her head buried in her hands, she shivered and moaned, for the remembrance of that moment of weakness, when, as it seemed, only a trifle had saved her from listening to the honeyed words of the tempter, and putting herself partially, at least, in his power, filled her with the bitterest humiliation.

Another remembrance agitated her cruelly as she cast her thoughts over the interview. His last words had implied a mystery which her tortured brain strove in vain to fathom.

Her husband, Laura's father! had the child's instinct been true? Could he be near them? and if so, what did the threat mean? Could he, her Maurice, have sought her with any but a friendly object? Yet this was what her tormentor had foreshadowed in his mysterious words. She could not cast them aside as unmeaning, the poison thrown out in the anger of disappointment, for she knew L'Estrange. He never spoke meaninglessly, and therefore his words had weight. Besides, he was one who understood his kind—who could trace with the keen eye of a master the purposes of those with whom he came into contact.

Observation and deduction had been carried by this strange man to such an extent in the course of his ceaseless wanderings, that at last they had reached almost the rank of a science. In ancient days his acuteness would have earned for him the unenviable notoriety of the wizard; men would have imagined that he had dealings with the powers of darkness. Indeed, as it was, Margaret and her friends had often been perfectly astounded by the accuracy of his predictions, based on grounds to them undiscoverable, for they never failed of verification.

Connecting the past with the present, Margaret's brain—unhealthily active in this her hour of deepest misery—began to trace for itself a theory to account for the mysterious words, which clung to it like a subtle poison. He had met her husband, she said to herself; he had found out, by the marvellous power he possessed, that no friendly purpose had brought him to the vicinity of his wife—that he was hostile to her still, that some new misery was in store for her.

But what could it be? Could her sufferings be increased? She had risen from her seat. In the restlessness of her spirit movement seemed a necessity. She had walked with unconscious rapidity to some distance along the shore. Suddenly, as she reached this point in her theory of possibilities, she stopped; covering her face with both hands, she uttered a low cry and sank down upon the grassy edge of the cliff. There had come to her mind, like a fatal knell, one sentence of her tormentor's speech—"In all hearts there is one assailable point"—and it brought a picture to her mind.

She seemed to see the pensive, half-melancholy eyes, the golden curls, the graceful, childish form of her little Laura, and as she saw she realized what her affection for the child had become during the last few weeks—how the little one was her hope, her joy, the sheet-anchor of her soul.

But Laura was his. Could it be that he would take away her treasure and punish her afresh by an added loneliness—by letting her know that he felt her unworthy to be the guardian of his child after the age when the young soul is plastic and open to impressions? It was unlike Maurice. Ah, how unlike! pleaded the weary heart; but misery had been known to change men utterly was the answer of the brain, grown morbid by lonely pondering; and that Maurice, with his earnest craving for sympathy, could have been anything but miserable through those long months was impossible.

But he could not remove her without warning. He would see his wife, he would speak to her; Heaven, in its mercy, would give her one more opportunity. This she said to herself as she sat almost helpless by the cliff, crushed by the dreary possibilities which this new presentiment of evil had brought to her mind. And with this idea came a desire for action. Even at that moment, as she sat there inert, he might be at the cottage waiting with impatience for her return, wondering at her long absence from his child.

She sprang to her feet and began rapidly to retrace her steps, skirting the sand-cliff that rose up from the shore. By this time evening had come. The little ones were being marshalled by their nurses for home and bed, two or three loving pairs were pacing the yellow sands, the sun was stooping down in ruddy glory to the rest of his ocean bed, there was a fragrant steam from the fields of clover and cowslip, a hush as of coming repose upon everything; but what can stay the tumult of the soul?

Like the fabled Io of the Greek, she may wander hither and thither, the lulling sounds and the restful sights of Nature may wrap their calm around her, but only externally. When the gad-fly of stinging misery follows evermore in her track, what are all these? Nothing, less than nothing, or a mocking echo of that to which she can never attain.

Something of this Margaret felt that evening as, through the torturing consciousness of a new possibility of anguish, she looked upon the fair outer world. Nature was too calm, too fair—she was antagonistic to the mood of the lonely, suffering woman.

Margaret had wandered farther than she thought, and the sun had already dipped below the western horizon before she saw her cottage. It was lying in the shadow, not touched by the sunset glory. To her imagination, distraught by the experiences of the day, it looked cold and blighted.

She stopped when she saw it. Almost it appeared to her as if she could not go farther to meet the realization of her dread. Everything looked so still—no little white fairy at the garden gate watching for mamma, not a sound among the trees. How could she go on into the desolate solitude? But, after a moment's pause, her strength returned. If the blow had indeed fallen no delay could avert it. On then, up to the little gate, through the garden, with still the same chilling silence. No little face at the window, no sound of merry laughter, no light bounding steps. The hall door was open; she passed in. With haggard face she peered into the rooms, hoping against hope for a sight of that tiny figure.

The child would be asleep perhaps, wearied out by the pleasant fatigue of the bright day: she would be found behind sofa or ottoman or curtains, curled up like a kitten, or tired out with watching for mamma, she had thrown herself down on her little bed. Like one who seeks thirstily for hid treasure, Margaret looked, her soul in her eyes, into every nook and corner of her little domain: corners possible and impossible she searched, for the mother's heart within was crying out, and she could not despair until nothing else would be possible. She was so absorbed in her hopeless task that she did not know she was being watched, that a pair of lynx eyes, in which cool triumph was shining, noted her every movement; that when at last, worn out and despairing, she crept, like one who has received a death-wound, into her sitting-room and threw herself down, almost lost to the knowledge of what she was doing, upon hands and knees to the ground in her exceeding agony, her servant was glorying in her fall, triumphing at her expense; but so it was. Jane Rodgers's hour had come. Her lodger was paying, and paying dearly, for her insolence.

She did not wish to be discovered, and she had seen enough to assure herself that the blow had told. Retreating softly from the hall, with a smile on her lips that was not a pleasant one to look upon, she returned to her comfortable kitchen, leaving her mistress alone in her agony.

Jane Rodgers had one anxiety. She muttered its import to herself as she stooped over the fire to turn a piece of bacon which was frizzing merrily for her tea. "Trouble do sometimes kill people; it wouldn't do to have a death in the house, and she looked queer; but there! she'll get over it, and perhaps be a trifle civiller for the future."

So even this anxiety, as it appeared, did not affect Jane very severely. She lifted the frying-pan carefully from the fire, placed its contents in a plate that had been warming in the oven, and sat down to enjoy her tea in peace.

To Margaret it seemed as if all the glory had gone from earth. True, her desolation had been grievous at times, but she had ever possessed some consolation; now in a moment all seemed rent from her. Hope, for if he had ever wished to see her again in this world he would not have taken away her little one; love, for the clinging affection which had become so precious would nevermore surround her—Laura would be taught to forget, perhaps even to despise, her mother; peace, for if her husband was so terribly changed, how would he bring up their daughter? and, doing his very best, could he surround her with the watchful care of a woman—a mother?—Laura, as her mother had learned, was so sensitive and tender; joy, for she was alone, uncared for, a widowed wife, a childless mother.

One after another came these cruel thoughts to crush her as she crouched down upon the ground, plucking with nervous, aimless fingers at the sofa-trimmings. For the last stroke had told. The poor heart was incapable of bearing more. Margaret's mind was in danger. She was standing, though she knew it not, on the border-land which skirts the dark region of insanity. A little more of this heart-dissecting torture and that numbing, more to be dreaded than the keenest pain, would of necessity be the result, and the beautiful, fair-souled woman be changed, by the mysterious action of disease, into a maniac, a pitiable object in the sight of God and men. Was this last, this bitterest woe reserved for her?

No: suddenly the consciousness of the new danger dawned upon her. She caught the wild, wandering thoughts and sternly brought them to bay; then, shuddering, she threw herself on her knees.

"My God," she cried piteously, "send me death in thy mercy—death before madness—for I can bear no more, no more."

Her voice sank to a sobbing sigh, but the prayer seemed to have stayed the fever of her brain. The white terror left her face; she even smiled to feel the pain deadening, though with the deadening came a chill that froze the warm life-blood in her veins. Her satisfaction was but momentary. She staggered to her feet. Was this, then, the death she had craved? And with a pang she recognized her folly, she would fain have recalled her prayer; for life, sweet life, is precious, even to the wretched, when they are called upon to face the dark reality we call death. Life cannot be utterly reft of hope. To the most forlorn it holds out a future, and what is this future but the possibility of better things to come? The time might yet come when Margaret would be able to look for another and more certain future—a future to which death is but the prelude. That time had not yet arrived. Her treasures, though swept from her grasp by the hand of a wayward fate, were still in the warm lap of earth; and warm is that lap to the heart when its withdrawal is threatened as a something not vaguely distant, but near and certain.

It took but a moment for these thoughts to flash through Margaret's brain, for stealthily the chill crept over her. She made a few steps forward to gain the window, but it was too rapid for her. Gasping, she fell back heavily to the ground.

---

[CHAPTER IV.]

JANE'S REVENGE.

For very fear unnethës may she go,
She weeped, wailed, all a day or two,
And swooned, that it ruthe was to see.

Jane Rodgers had discussed the bacon, and, as she was a tidy woman, the plate was put carefully aside for washing while she ruminated quietly over her last cup of tea—a particularly good one, black as ink, hot as an earthenware pot that had been some time on the hob could make it, rendered delicate by a few drops of rich, yellow cream, and extremely palatable by two lumps of white sugar.

Jane was not always so extravagant, but tea was her weak point. Her hard face looked almost pleasant for the moment, she was so thoroughly comfortable.

Apparently the meditations that enlivened the kindly cup were of an agreeable nature, for she smiled once or twice, and occasionally cast a glance of infinite content on the dresser, where, nestling among the bright crockery, lay a little knitted purse, from the meshes of which something closely resembling yellow gold was gleaming. A large black cat was purring by the fire; in her satisfaction Jane stooped and stroked its soft fur caressingly. But nothing in the house seemed to be stirring, and, in spite of her pleasant reflections and the abundant comfort that surrounded her, Jane began to feel, as the darkness gathered, a certain creeping sense of uneasiness. She addressed the cat, for when people feel this loneliness even a dumb creature seems a companion. "Pussy," she said, stooping again to caress it, "it's lonesome here to-night. What's she doing, I wonder, up there by herself? We'll light the candles and take them up."

As Jane spoke she rose from her seat and stretched out her hand to take the lucifer matches from the chimney-piece. But she did not draw it back so quickly. Her hand was stayed by a sudden horror. The stillness in the house was broken. There came from overhead the sound of a dull thud, as if a body had fallen heavily to the ground. The sound was followed by a silence more oppressive even than before.

Jane Rodgers was a coward, and like many uneducated people extremely superstitious. The sound came from the room where she had left her mistress about half an hour before, "looking," as she had expressed it, "rather queer." She was the only person in the room; the sound had come from a heavy fall. It must, then, have been Mrs. Grey herself who had fallen. Had the trouble crushed her utterly? Was she dead? The bare supposition sent every particle of blood from Jane's face. She turned as pale as death. There rose up, in a grim host before her mind, some of the many ghost-stories that are the terror of the ignorant. If she were dead she would certainly return again to haunt the unfaithful servant, for Jane had a vague idea that death could clear up mysteries. And in what form would the injured lady come? Perhaps every evening at nightfall that sound of heavy falling would be heard, only muffled and terror-laden; perhaps as a sheeted ghost she would haunt the bedside of her unfaithful servant; perhaps—But Jane could scarcely bear to conjecture further; even certainty, however dreadful, would be better than this vague sense of horror.

With a hand made tremulous by fear she lit a candle. From Ajax downward human nature is the same. Whatever be the danger, darkness gives it an added horror. Jane Rodgers with her candle in her hand felt much braver than Jane Rodgers in the dark.

She paused for a moment on the threshold of Mrs. Grey's sitting-room, and applied first her ear and then her eye to the keyhole. Her ear told her that there was within the room a silence as of death; her eye could distinguish nothing through the gloom. In her superstitious horror she was on the point of running away from the door and from the house, but there came another dim perspective of future uneasiness to delay her.

If the lady were indeed dead—and Jane had almost come to this conclusion—it was a fact that could not be hidden. Her body would be found, then the neighbors would talk, the inquest would follow, and the cross-examination about her own whereabouts, as the landlady and servant, at the time of the accident. How would she be able to stand this? Then, if it should be found out that she, the pattern of strong-mindedness, she who talked in the village about her experience and knowledge of the world, who was known far and near as a person equal to any emergency—that she had turned tail like a frightened dog and fled from imaginary dangers, how would she bear the ridicule and contempt of her fellows?

These last considerations decided her; she opened the door of her mistress's sitting-room and peered in cautiously.

What she saw realized for the moment her worst fears. Margaret was stretched on the carpet rigid and motionless, her hands were clenched, her feet were drawn up under her; the attitude was that of one who had suddenly yielded in a struggle with dire agony.

Shading her candle with her hand, for the night-winds were sweeping through the room, and with a face almost as white as that she looked on, Jane Rodgers crept near to the prostrate lady. Jane had seen something of illness, and in her days of domestic service had been considered a good nurse; indeed, she had looked, and looked unflinchingly, on the face of death itself more than once in her life. What alarmed her so much on this occasion was the attendant circumstances, which had called into play the cowardly and superstitious side of her nature. The white face of her wronged mistress seemed to call for vengeance, while something whispered to Jane that the vengeance would come, and in a terrible form.

But as she drew near to Margaret her terror grew less. Her experienced eye, as soon as she was sufficiently herself to look at the matter calmly, told her that this was not death, but only a kind of fainting-fit, produced probably by strong mental excitement. Her first feeling was one of intense relief—her second, of indignation against the unconscious cause of her alarm.

"A body would think," she muttered, "that she'd done it a purpose."

As she spoke she lifted the fainting lady—without much difficulty, for Margaret had grown very thin, and Jane's physical strength was extraordinary—and laid her on the bed in the next room. Then with some roughness she proceeded to use the various remedies—splashed water in unnecessary quantities into her mistress's face, and rubbed Margaret's soft palms with her bony fingers.

It was a rough and ready mode of proceeding, but it proved effectual. Margaret opened her eyes and looked round her, perfectly bewildered at her position. Jane Rodgers's hard face was the first object that met her gaze; feeling round her, she discovered that water was dripping from her face and hair.

She tried to rise. "Where am I?" she said faintly.

"Lie still," replied Jane authoritatively, holding her down with that vice-like grasp which is so irritating to the weak. "You've been and fainted," she continued sullenly—"Goodness knows for why—and frightening the very breath out of my body; but if this kind of thing is to go on, you must find some other place, or else get a woman in. I've too much to do in the house to be giving my time continual to nurse-tending."

The rude speech was almost lost upon Margaret, for memory was awaking from its sleep; the events of the day were returning gradually to her mind. "Yes," she said slowly; "I remember now. I suppose I fainted." Then rising to a sitting posture she fixed her large eyes on her servant's face.

The face was so white in its strange chiselled beauty, the eyes were so wild and mournful, that for the moment Jane's superstitious fears returned.

"Lor!" she said hastily, "don't look at a body like that, there's a dear. Come—Miss Laura'll come back, never you fear. Children isn't lost in that way."

"Where is Miss Laura gone?" Margaret's voice was very low, her eyes were still fixed on her servant's face.

Jane placed the candle on the table and turned aside to pull down the window-blind and arrange the curtains. "I'll tell you all about it," she said soothingly, "if you'll lie down quiet. Miss Laura, she came in alone, and I give her her dinner; after dinner she sits down with her picture-book. Presently a gentleman came in at the garden-gate; I, as it might be in the kitchen, see Miss Laura, from the window, a running out, quite pleased like to meet him. Them two go into the sitting-room, and then Miss Laura, she come running down into the kitchen. 'Jane,' she says, 'my hat, quick; it's my papa, and we're going to meet mamma on the sands,' Miss Laura, as your orders is, mustn't never be contradicted, so I get her hat, and off they go together through the garden-gate. I see them walk along the sands, and thinks I to myself, 'I'll get tea ready, for they'll find missis, and all come in together.' So now you know as much as I do, for Miss Laura ain't come back all the afternoon."

As Jane spoke she turned her face, which expressed nothing but conscious virtue, to her mistress. Margaret was writhing on the bed as if she had been suffering from some keen physical pain.

"What was he like—this gentleman who came in I mean?" she asked in a low, weak voice. A last hope, a very faint one, was struggling with her misery.

"Difficult to say exact," replied Jane, rather hesitatingly; then, as though repeating a lesson, "He be tall, as far as I remember, and good-looking, dark hair and whiskers, and eyes like Miss Laura's own."

It was all Margaret wanted to know. "Thank you, Jane," she replied quietly, "you may go now. Don't be alarmed," she continued, half smiling, as the woman hesitated on the threshold, "I shall not faint again."

"But you'll take something," said Jane, a certain feeling of compunction pricking the small remnant of a heart she still possessed; "come, have a glass of wine, like a dear."

"You may bring a glass and put it down by the bedside," she replied, so calmly that Jane went away quite bewildered and a little frightened still. "There," when she returned with the glass, "that will do; thank you. Now good-night." When Jane had left her Margaret looked round, and her worst enemy would have felt a pang of remorse could he have noted the white, haggard desolation which that day's suffering had left upon her face. Holding by the bed-post for support, she raised herself and felt along by the bits of furniture till she came to Laura's little cot. There she paused. Kneeling down beside it, she kissed the pillow where the child's head had rested only the night before.

"My Laura," she murmured faintly, "my child—mine—mine;" and then again, "His, not mine—mine no longer. God forgive me! I did not prize my treasure, and now it is taken from me for ever."

The little pillow was clasped to the breast of the bereaved mother as if it had been her child, for she scarcely knew what she was doing; that torpor of brain had seized her once more. Sinking to the ground, she rocked it to and fro in her arms, murmuring over it soft words of endearment.

And thus at last sleep, the nursing-mother of the wretched, found Margaret Grey. Well for her that it came when it did, for her mind could scarcely have borne at this time a more continued pressure. With her cheek resting on the pillow, which was wet with her abundant tears, and her back against the iron supports of her child's bed, Margaret forgot all her sorrow for the time in the arms of "Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep."

---

[CHAPTER V.]

THE LAWYER IN HIS OWN DOMAIN.

Overreach. 'Tis a rich man's pride! there having ever been
More than a feud, a strange antipathy,
Between us and true gentry.

Mr. Robinson had not forgotten Mrs. Grey, nor the little business which she had confided to him. With his usual tact and judgment he had secured his bird, the bird in this case being their common debtor. Like a clap of thunder, one fine morning the news reached this worthy that his account had been attached at the bank by the man who for some time had acted as his solicitor.

He was on his knees at once with abject entreaties, and Mr. Robinson, who was too Christian-hearted to wish to crush a fellow-creature, consented to act for him again, thereby in a measure restoring his credit, but only on one condition—that he should receive without delay the amount owing for his somewhat exorbitant lawyer's bill.

"But what am I to do, my good sir?" faltered the man; "all I possess is in your hands."

"And nothing much to boast about," replied the lawyer quietly; "but, sir, you will not presume to tell me that all you possess is in the hands of your banker? Pray reflect a moment. In the dealings between man and man, especially when they hold the relation of solicitor and client—a relation which I trust will be resumed between us when this matter is adjusted—there must be frankness, honesty. Come now"—he spoke jovially—"about that fine house of furniture?"

"My wife's, I assure you—bought with her money."

The lawyer's face fell perceptibly: "Settled then?"

"Not precisely, but the same thing; you see it was in fact a wedding-present from her father, a man in an excellent position, Mr. Robinson."

"Ah!" Mr. Robinson showed his teeth. "Law doesn't recognize sentiment, my dear sir—a pity, clearly, but so it is. The furniture is yours to dispose of as you will."

The unfortunate man first flushed, then turned pale. "And what has this to do with it?" he asked rather angrily.

The lawyer raised his hand: "Calmly, calmly. These matters should be looked in the face, sir—looked in the face. I only speak in your own interest: that little balance at the bank—very little indeed, I think—is all you have to look to if you wish to set up again. I (remember, sir, I too have a wife and children) must be firm in this matter. A bill of sale on this furniture of yours—or of your wife's, if you will—can be given to me as security; I will then release your account and set you on your feet again. What do you say?"

"If it must be, it must be," replied the man with something between a groan and a sneer.

Mrs. Grey's name, or that unfortunate mortgage of the interest on which not a penny had been seen for the last year, was not, as it will be noticed, mentioned between them. One allusion only was made to it.

"We'll allow you to make a start," said Mr. Robinson benevolently, "and after that it will be time enough to look into those other little matters that are between us still."

"Those other little matters!" The bare mention of them made the unfortunate wince, especially when the reference was made to the accompaniment of Mr. Robinson's hard smile and cold, blue-steel gaze; but he hoped on, as men in his position will hope, for a stroke of luck, a good speculation, something to raise his status in the monetary world.

He drew on his gloves hurriedly: "Yes, yes, my good friend, as you so kindly say, time enough; I must feel my legs before I disburse, and to pay up at present would be out-and-out ruin. In the mean time you may rely upon me. My affairs are in your hands."

So Mr. Robinson felt, and he rubbed his hands pleasantly. The consciousness of power was always agreeable to him. "I hope so, I hope so," he replied briskly. "Let me assure you, sir, that I shall watch you narrowly. In my client's interests you know it is incumbent on me to be firm."

"But in your own firmer," muttered the man between his teeth as he went down stairs. "What precious humbugs these lawyers are! If I were only out of this one's hands!" He clenched his fist and his brows contracted. That "bill of sale" was rankling in his mind, but moaning could not mend matters, and he was by no means the only one whom Mr. Robinson held that day, writhing but submissive, under his cunning hand.

He smiled when the door closed behind his client. This man's tastefully-decorated house had often awakened in the lawyer's mind not envy, malice, guile and all uncharitableness, for Mr. Robinson was a consistent man, but a certain keen admiration that perhaps, looking at it in the light of the sequel, might have passed very well for their counterfeit.

The furniture he had admired was in his power; this made the lawyer smile, but the smile passed into a business frown as a timid rap at the door announced the approach of one of his clerks.

He was bringing in the letters from the last post, and presenting those that had been written for the signature of the head of the firm. Mr. Robinson proceeded slowly to inspect his letters, the young man standing near him in a quietly respectful attitude.

"Mr. Moon been written to?" he inquired curtly.

"Yes, sir."

"And Mrs. Grey?"

"A letter from her, sir, on the table."

"Right!—wait a moment."

Mr. Robinson did everything in a quiet, business-like way. He proceeded with great deliberation to open his letters one by one, using a paper-cutter for the purpose, until he came to the one in question.

"Have you got Mrs. Grey's letter there? Ah!" He tore it across, and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket at his side. "Tell Wilson I will write myself—something wrong there. What are you waiting for? Do you want anything?"

"Only to say, sir, that you promised—that is, I mean—"

"Say what you mean—can't you?—and don't stand there wasting my time and your own."

The young fellow's features twitched nervously. He was of good birth and breeding, though so poor as to accept, and accept thankfully, the miserable pittance of a lawyer's clerk.

"I have been with you three years, sir," he said with some dignity; "you promised my mother that if I gave you satisfaction you would give me my articles. My mother has requested me to ask you whether this promise is to be fulfilled. My poor father—"

The young man spoke easily now; he was warming to his theme. His poor father had made Mr. Robinson's fortunes.

As a man of the world he had taken him up, introduced him to his circle, a large one and influential, and by his recommendations gained for him clients innumerable.

He was dead, and before his death, by an unfortunate series of speculations, had ruined his family. His sons had been trained at school and college, they were at home in the hunting-field, they excelled in all kinds of manly sports, their pleasant accomplishments and gentlemanly ease made them welcome in every society, but as men of business they were practically useless.

Mr. Robinson had been accustomed, only when their father's back was turned, to sneer at them for fine gentlemen. Nothing aroused his jealous ire so much as the sight of what he was pleased to call a fine gentleman, for Mr. Robinson had a certain innate consciousness which more of his class possess than we generally imagine. It was this: he knew that in the world he might do his own will, coin money by the handful (for in his temperament and constitution were all the elements of success), become rich, powerful, sought out: one distinction he could never reach. The quiet ease, the graceful nonchalance, the tone of high breeding which a fine gentleman possesses, as it were, by instinct, was and would always remain beyond him. And therefore he professed to despise the class.

"Tush! tush!" he said, breaking short the young man's allusion to him who had been his friend in those days when he, the great Mr. Robinson, had been climbing painfully; "don't you attempt to bring home tales to me or I'll make short work with you. There shall be no snivelling here. Mind you, it is only respect for your father's memory that induces me to keep you at all. You're not worth your salt. As to giving you your articles, what good do you suppose that would do you? Be off! mind your work, and let me have no more of such whining."

James Robinson was enjoying himself. His blue-gray eyes flashed and a smile curled his lips. To put down a fine gentleman was the finest piece of fun in the world, but this time he had gone too far. Suddenly the boy changed; manhood and manly purposes seemed to look out from his eyes, the obsequious attitude had gone, he approached his master, and dared to look him fully and fearlessly in the face: "Then, Mr. Robinson, hear me. I will sit down no more to your desk; I will bear your insolence no longer. My mother and I believed you had offered me a situation out of kindness and gratitude; yes—glare at me if you will; I repeat it—gratitude to my father's memory. We thought your intentions honest, and the peculiar ungentlemanliness of your conduct to be attributed only to your want of good breeding. I may tell you that yesterday I was offered, and offered pressingly, what you refuse so insultingly to-day, and by a far better and older firm than yours. I thought I owed you a certain duty, and would not accept it until I had put you in mind of your promise. Now I have heard you, and once and for ever I shake myself free of you, only humiliated that for three long years I should have associated daily with so base and low a nature."

He turned on his heel, he was gone, leaving Mr. Robinson in a white heat of rage and indignation. He had been hearing home-truths for once, and, what was still worse, hearing them in his own domain, the kingdom he had been accustomed to rule with a rod of iron. For a moment he was utterly taken aback, breathless, but lest the contagion should spread self-control and swift action were necessary.

"Let him go, the insolent young beggar!" he muttered; then turning he rang his bell. The office-boy appeared: "Send Mr. Wilson here." There was a notable change in his voice; the bully had gone from it, preparation was being made for the impressive chapel tone.

Mr. Wilson, the head-clerk of the firm, found his chief rather pale and exhausted, leaning back in his chair.

"Sit down, Wilson," he said with unusual urbanity; "I must have a few words with you."

The flattered Wilson obeyed.

"You noticed, I dare say," he continued after a pause, "that young McArthur went out in something of a hurry just now?"

"Yes, sir."

"I am sorry to say that I have been obliged to perform a very painful duty. I will not enter into details. My deep respect for the unfortunate youth's family, and especially the memory of his father—a true Christian, Wilson, one who sleeps in peace—makes me wish that as far as possible this should be kept a profound secret. Of course I have dismissed McArthur. It was a duty, and from duty, however painful, the Christian never shrinks." Mr. Robinson paused to draw his white handkerchief over his brow. The force of habit is strong. He imagined himself for the moment on the platform of a gospel-hall. "If he had been my own son"—Mr. Robinson's face expressed proud consciousness that a Robinson could never demean himself in so mysterious a way—"if he had been my own son I could not have felt the matter more keenly; nor indeed could I have acted differently; the position I hold enforces upon me a certain responsibility. But this is all to no purpose—a few words drawn from me, as I might say, by excess of feeling on this painful occasion. What I particularly wished to say to you, Wilson, is this: it is my desire that no questions shall be asked in the house about this unfortunate boy or his sudden dismissal. You may say, if you like, that he was discontented, tired of the monotony of office-life—anything; my only wish is that he should be shielded from exposure. I would give him a chance of buckling to once more. Heaven grant, if only for his poor mother's sake, that he may see the error of his ways! But we are wasting time over this unhappy youth. Well, human nature is human nature, and my feelings toward him were those of a father. Ah! I remember one thing more. It is my special wish that none of my clerks shall have intercourse of any kind with young McArthur. You will understand me, Wilson. The young man is indignant at discovery—not as yet, I fear, truly penitent. He may wish to injure the firm. We must be on our guard."

Mr. Wilson was clever as a man of business, but he did not possess much penetration. He cherished a blind admiration for his chief, and was quite ready to look upon his every statement as gospel. On this occasion he did not even stop to consider how very vague and guarded was all that Mr Robinson had said about the young man he professed to have dismissed; he was satisfied in his own mind that something dark lay behind these vague phrases, and was ready to help his chief to neutralize the mischief.

"All right, sir," he replied quietly; "I will see to the young fellows, but I scarcely think Mr. McArthur will venture to show his face here. A pity, too—a fine young man, and tolerably smart, his bringing-up considered."

"Ah! there it is," replied Mr. Robinson, with unction. "Pride, Wilson, pride, the crying sin of our fallen nature. His bringing-up was his ruin. But enough about him. Anything particular for me to-morrow?"

"No, sir; we can manage very well. You think of going into the country?"

"On business. Mrs. Grey is in some new trouble. Unfortunate woman! I suppose I had better see after the matter myself. I verily believe she has no friend in the wide world but me. Queer person, too—can't quite make her out. Send up the rest of the letters, Wilson, and if there should be anything of importance, telegraph to this address. I may probably be two or three days away."

Wilson retired, and Mr. Robinson proceeded to inspect the time tables of the Great Northern. A little change in the early summer weather would do him a world of good, and Mrs. Grey's business could easily be prolonged.

Before the letters came in for signature he had decided on an early-morning train, and was already enjoying by anticipation the luxury of a series of drives along the coast.

---

[CHAPTER VI.]

MR. ROBINSON PROMISES TO DO HIS BEST.

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.

"Let us look at the matter in this light, Mrs. Grey." The speaker was Mr. Robinson, and his tone was particularly lively. "Your husband has cause, fancied or real—for the sake of argument we must put that part of the question aside—your husband, we shall say, has cause of complaint against you. He has ceased to consider you a fit guardian for his daughter after the first unconsciousness of childhood. What ought to be his method of proceeding in such a case? Why, clearly this. He should advertise you, through your solicitor, of his desire, and allow him to negotiate between you. Had he done so, my advice no doubt would have been of some service. I should have suggested that Miss Laura should be placed, for the time being, in some educational establishment where both parents could have had access to her, even, if Mr. Grey had insisted upon this point, under certain restrictions on your side."

Mr. Robinson paused at this point as if for consideration. Mrs. Grey shivered slightly, and drew her shawl more closely round her shoulders. It was a beautiful July day. The sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing, there was the warm breath of summer upon everything, but Margaret was like one stricken with a chill. Her face was pale and haggard, her dark mournful eyes were sunken, her long white fingers, almost transparent, twitched nervously from time to time.

"But Mr. Grey has not acted in this way," she said with some fretfulness in her tone.

"Patience, my dear lady," he answered in the lively manner with which he had entered upon the subject; "we are coming to that point presently. Affliction, you know, cometh not forth of the dust. Job suffered grievously, but held fast his integrity. In this world tribulation; your trials are sent; you must ask for the grace of patience, that you may be enabled to bear them worthily. But to return. The first point we should consider is this: Who was actually the person that removed your daughter from your care? the second, How and in what method was such removal accomplished? In this you must help me. Will you try and make a concise statement of the events of the day in question—what your occupations were, how your child came to be alone—giving me also the grounds of your suspicion that Mr. Grey is a party to the kidnapping of his child?—Rather amusing, by the bye, when one comes to think of it—a father running away with his own daughter." Mr. Robinson laughed pleasantly at his own joke, which did not seem to impress his companion so agreeably.

Margaret rose from her chair impatiently, rang the bell and walked to the door of the room: "I shall send you the servant, Mr. Robinson; she was the only person in the house when my daughter was taken away."

She went out into the garden and stood under the trees. The sun was falling on her hair, the soft wind swept it back from her brow, but her pale lips quivered, and from her eyes came no responsive gladness to meet the beauty of the summer morning. She was wondering why she had sent for this man, why she had laid bare her bleeding heart. Would it not have been better, a thousand times better, to have hidden this last anguish as she had hidden the others—to have suffered and wept in silence? For the lawyer's keen criticism and unsparing common sense had been like a kind of analysis of her torture—had added to her sorrow the agony of undeserved humiliation. Her husband had insulted her. This was the bitterest drop in her cup of anguish, and this Mr. Robinson, a representative of the world, which is given to harsh judgment of the weak, had not failed to bring clearly before her mind. It was bitterly hard to be borne.

She thought, and bowed her head upon her breast with a sigh that seemed to drain the life-blood from her heart. How was it that everything grated upon her, wounded her? What had she expected, then? she asked herself. That this man, a man of business, with interests and affections of his own, would enter tenderly and religiously into the sanctuary of her grief, would touch her wound lightly, would bring help without adding suffering? Was it not folly, madness? But she would cast this morbid sentimentality aside; Heaven would grant her in time the hardness she needed.

She sat down on a seat under the tree. She could see through the parlor-window that Jane was taking full advantage of her position. She was interviewing the lawyer to some effect, talking volubly and illustrating her statement with expressive gestures.

Margaret could not help smiling faintly. As a calmer mood returned she felt she had put herself in a somewhat ridiculous position. She returned to the house, breaking in upon a florid account of Jane's terror on the night following Laura's disappearance. "That's quite enough, Jane," she said, some of her old dignity in her voice and manner; "you may go down stairs now."

The landlady by no means approved of the interruption. She had been giving the lawyer her statement, in keen and hungry expectation of his. He would probably, she thought, unfold to her some of the mysteries that had been perplexing her, and now she was summarily dismissed.

There was some malignity in the glance she cast upon her mistress, but Margaret was too much engrossed in the business upon which she was bent to take the slightest notice of her. Jane retired—as far as the next room, that is to say, hoping some fragments of the conversation would reach her.

She was disappointed. Mrs. Grey opened the French window and led her solicitor into the garden.

"That's a most sensible woman," Mr. Robinson said when they had seated themselves outside; "she has a good head and evidently a good heart; her feeling for you is quite remarkable. You see, Mrs. Grey, the goodness of Providence?—friends raised up for the friendless. We are all apt to overlook our mercies and over-estimate our trials. You don't agree? Ah! one day I trust you will come round to my opinion. But to business. Will you be kind enough to tell me what you wish me to do in this matter?"

"I thought I had explained it already, Mr. Robinson." Mrs. Grey looked tired and spoke with a certain languor. "I do not wish to dispute my husband's will. If it is his desire to remove my daughter from my care altogether, I submit. I wish simply to communicate with him on my own account, and for this reason I want you to find out his address for me. It cannot surely be a very difficult matter. These affairs, I know, are sometimes expensive. I desire that no expense shall be spared. Let any capital I may still possess be sold out and used. I believe I have this power. I have some jewelry too; I had wished to keep it, but that desire has gone entirely." She drew off two or three rings, one of diamonds and emeralds apparently very valuable, and placed a casket in his hands, saying as she did so, "Do what is to be done as quickly as possible; there is no time to lose." Her cheek flushed painfully, and she pressed her hand to her side.

Mr. Robinson had taken the jewelry with some empressement. He looked at it curiously: "I shall have these trifles valued on my return, Mrs. Grey. We shall hope to have no occasion for the use of them. Of course these inquiries, especially when time is a matter of such moment, cost something, and capital can scarcely be realized at so short a notice. However, set your mind at rest: everything that lies in human power to accomplish shall be done; the result we must leave to higher hands than ours. And, by the bye, as we are on the subject of business, you will be glad to hear that your debtor the mortgagee—you will remember if you cast your mind back to our last interview—is completely in my power. I shall certainly realize the greater part of the sum lent. Do you follow me, Mrs. Grey?" for Margaret's attention seemed to flag. She had forgotten the mortgage, the debt, the threatened poverty, for her whole force of mind was centred on the one anxiety—to find out her husband, to appeal to his memories of the past, to persuade him at least to see her; and that fainting-fit with the succeeding weakness had frightened her, making her feel that possibly her time on earth might be short.

"Yes," she said absently; "but, Mr. Robinson, tell me how soon you will be likely to hear of Mr. Grey?"

"Impossible to say accurately, my dear lady, and it is quite against my principles to encourage false hope. If I were a doctor, I should frankly tell my patients of their danger, relying on a higher power than mine to temper the wind and prepare the mind of my patient for the shock, though, indeed, if we all lived in a state of preparation, the approach of death would be little or no shock—shuffling off the mortal coil, going home. But to return: I was saying, I think, that I make it a rule never to encourage false hopes. I have lost clients by it, Mrs. Grey; you would really be amazed at the pertinacity of some folks. It is in this way: A man comes to me. 'Shall I succeed if I go to law in this matter?' he asks. If hopeless, I answer candidly, No. Sometimes my client will insist upon my taking up the business. If not against the dictum of my conscience—an article, by the bye, which we lawyers are not supposed to possess—I submit and do my best, leaving the result. Sometimes he will go off to a more unscrupulous practitioner. It matters very little. What, after all, is so much worth having as the answer of a good conscience?"

Mrs. Grey sighed. This torrent of words wearied her beyond measure. "You have not answered my question, Mr. Robinson," she said; "under favorable circumstances how long would such an inquiry take?"

"And who is to guarantee us favorable circumstances?" replied the lawyer, smiling pleasantly. "My dear lady, I must beg you to be patient. We may fail absolutely. Mind you, I do not mean to assert that I apprehend we shall fail. Come! a promise. As soon as ever I receive intelligence of any kind I will transmit it to you by telegraph. Will that satisfy you?"

"I suppose it should," she replied sadly, but there was a feeling of dissatisfaction at her heart that belied her words.

She had not quite the same confidence in Mr. Robinson as she had once had.

In the light of that fever of anxiety which consumed her his trite commonplaces, his rapidly-given assurances looked hollow and vague. She felt as if another standing-point were being cut ruthlessly from under her feet, and yet what could she do? She had no friend, no hope in the wide world, but this man.

She looked up at him, fixing on his rather hard face her mournful eyes, in which unshed tears were swimming. "Mr. Robinson," she said, "you are a Christian man. I can trust you; you will do your very best for me."

He answered by a frank smile and a cordial hand-grip: "You are a little upset, Mrs. Grey, or I should be apt to resent the want of confidence which those words imply. Of course you can rely on me. Now good-bye: I must be off to my wife. I left her at the hotel here, close at hand. She came along with me merely for the trip, and is particularly anxious for a drive before her return; but duty first, pleasure afterward, I told her."

"Good-bye," said Mrs. Grey.

She was reassured once more, ready to blame herself for the momentary distrust.

Mr. Robinson went away with a light swinging step and a cheerful smile. He was no villain, at least in his own eyes, for his small villainies were disguised under such pleasing names that he really thought himself a very good man.

"Poor woman!" he said to himself as he walked along, "what an absurd notion! She'll never find that husband of hers; and if she did, where would be the use?"

And all this meant, "I shall take no particular pains to find him, and certainly not yet; it might be awkward."

Thought is strange in its working. There is the surface action, employed on that which holds it for the moment—the book, the work, the occupation; that which flows under, memory of what has just passed, planning for something in the new future; and often, beneath both these, a deeper undercurrent, its existence scarcely acknowledged even to the mind itself.

It was in this undercurrent that James Robinson hid thoughts which would not hear the light, and thus to the world, to his family, and even to himself, he continued to be an upright and strictly honorable man.

It was a dangerous game. Thought has a volcanic tendency. It is apt to force its way upward, to cleave suddenly the superincumbent strata that holds it from the surface.

Many such a man as James Robinson, quiet, respectable and respected, even to all appearance devout, has been astonished by waking up some fine morning and finding himself a villain.

---

[CHAPTER VII.]

THE TWO FRIENDS.

Friend of my heart! away with care,
And sing and dance and laugh.

On the day succeeding that of the interview between Margaret and her solicitor, Arthur Forrest was preparing in his chambers for a short absence from town. The memorable conversation with his cousin had taken place on the previous afternoon. Since then he had made all needful arrangements, and was to start by the afternoon mail for York. He was busy about his room, his portmanteau open before him, picking out the few necessaries he would require.

He looked rather different from the moonstruck individual who had so sorely tried his good little cousin's patience only a few hours before, for determination and action have a certain power. They can brace the nerves and give courage to the spirit. There was fresh, buoyant life in young Arthur's face; there was light in his eyes; there was healthy activity in his movements.

He was whistling lightly over his task and the pleasing meditations induced, when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. The knock was followed by the appearance on the threshold of a young man probably of about his own age, only that the pallor of his face and a general delicacy of appearance made him seem younger.

Arthur leapt over the portmanteau, upset in his transit two or three chairs laden with linen and clothing of various kinds, and grasping the new-comer warmly by the hand drew him into the room:

"Why, Mac, old boy! who would have thought of seeing you, and in the middle of the day, too? Has your old tyrant played the truant, or have discipline and responsibility run wild in his establishment?"

The young man laughed: "Neither. But the fact is this—I have grown tired of my master at last; and yesterday—or the day before it must have been—I told him a few wholesome truths and turned my back on the firm, leaving my last few pounds of salary in his hands as a parting gift."

Arthur had been gathering some of his shirts together. He dropped them suddenly and gave a rapturous bound: "At last! You don't surely mean to say so? All my prophecies come true. Bravo, old fellow! I congratulate you heartily. But come, I am all impatience. I must have a full, true and particular account of the whole. What was the last drop? How did you resent its introduction? For, upon my word, Mac, you took him so patiently that I began to fear your old spirit had gone. I longed at times to show all those muffs in that confounded hole of an office what you could do when the blood was up. But why don't you say something?"

"Because, old fellow, you won't let a man get in a word edgeways. And then, you see, my memory's short. I was never good at learning by heart, especially my own efforts at composition. He spoke insultingly when I asked him to keep his word to my mother and give me my articles. In reply I let him know, in good strong English, what I thought of him generally and of his present conduct in particular. Finally, I left his place in a fine rage, I can assure you. I imagine Robinson was ditto, but his after-thoughts he didn't reveal. There! will that satisfy you?"

Arthur gave a long whistle: "Spoke insultingly, did he? I wonder who that fellow thinks himself? Well, I needn't enter into particulars; you're well aware of my sentiments. And now, old man, what's to be the next step?"

"Perplexing," replied young McArthur, knitting his brows. "There's your man of business—Golding. You heard of the kind offer he made me the other day. I was scarcely, as I thought, in a position to accept it. I wish to Goodness I had, though; my cutting remarks would have had double force. By the bye, Arthur, that was prompted by you, I imagine. Do you think he would renew it?"

"Not the faintest doubt in the world. Golding is an excellent old fellow, and honester, I sincerely believe, than the ordinary race of lawyers. Then, don't you see, it would scarcely suit his book to break with me just now. I shall be of age in a few weeks, and he takes a fatherly interest in my affairs. Joking apart, though, I believe he does. It's a better firm altogether than Robinson's. But come, I was just off to lunch. Take a little something with me and we can talk it over by the way. Then, if you like, I shall have time to go with you as far as Golding's. I know your mind will be easier when this matter is settled. Now, don't be a humbug. I can see in your face that you have not lunched, and for once in the way you are, like myself, an idle man."

McArthur smiled, and pointed to the chairs and table.

"But what about all this? Do you intend to leave it so? And—you're off somewhere?"

"Only to York on a little matter of business," replied Arthur, who had turned to the mirror, and was occupying himself in imparting a certain air of fascination to the set of his budding moustache. "I must get the old woman here—a motherly body in her way, and useful when a fellow can get out of reach of her tongue—to finish for me. Yes, that's decidedly the best plan. Come along, Mac! If my coming of age is worthy of being made a festival, certainly your breaking loose from that rascal—whose whining is enough to sicken the healthiest person—is trebly so. We must have a bottle of champagne and a general jollification on the strength of it; then we can go to Golding's together, and after that I shall still have time to catch the afternoon mail."

"I didn't know you had friends in York."

"Did I say I had friends there?"

"No, but what can your business be? I always thought it consisted in carrying out and bringing to a successful end a rather laborious system of amusement."

"Come, Mac, don't be severe. I'm turning over a new leaf, and am fast becoming a most useful member of society. I have already two pictures, a score of elaborate novels, a series of scientific works and books of travel innumerable in my eye."

"As your own performance or your neighbor's?"

"My own, of course. Do you mean to be insulting, Mac, or have you fallen so low as to imagine a solicitor's office the only path to fame? But don't apologize, old fellow; I forgive you in consideration of a certain derangement of brain, the result, no doubt, of your late experiences."

"What have you been doing to yourself, Forrest?" The young man looked at his friend with some curiosity. Arthur's face was flushed and his eyes were beaming with excitement. "Your spirits have been at rather a low ebb whenever I have had the opportunity of seeing you lately; now they are perfectly exuberant. I think there must be something more in this visit to York than is quite apparent to the casual observer. Blushing, too! Why, old fellow, I thought your blushing days were over long ago, like mine."

Arthur turned away in some impatience: "Don't be absurd, Mac, or I shall certainly be cross, and at present I feel generally genial—sympathetic, as I shall remark in my first novel, with the sweet influences of the balmy breezes. By the bye, that would be rather neat, wouldn't it?"

"Uncommonly. You're improving, old fellow. Heigh-ho! my sentimental days are gone by. Nothing like office-life for rubbing off that kind of bloom. Do you remember the girls' school, and my deep indignation when you would insist upon singing about 'the merry little maiden of sweet sixteen'?"

"An awfully good song, by the bye," put in Arthur.

His friend did not notice the interruption. "I am not so sure, after all," he said thoughtfully, "that hard work is not the best thing at our age. Everybody could not pass as you have done through the temptations of an idle youth."

Arthur laughed, but he looked at his companion affectionately: "Come, come, Mac, that kind of thing won't quite fit in, you know—philosophy and compliment in one breath. But here we are. Now, if you're not hungry I am; so a truce to reflections. They shall come, if you still feel anxious for them, in the shape of dessert."

The young men sat down to dinner together, and Arthur took care it should be a particularly good one. He and McArthur had been chums at Eton, and although the very different circumstances of their after-life had necessarily thrown them apart, they had still kept up their friendship in a certain spasmodic way.

It had been broken at times by a slight want of consideration on the one side, and a certain pride, the growth of poverty, on the other; but real mutual affection and respect had been strong enough to heal the different little breaks, and the young men had reached the point of understanding each other, and of making mutual allowance for the weaknesses engendered by circumstances.

They did not often meet, for their lives were very differently spent, and McArthur was wise enough to know that for him to enter at all into his friend's pursuits or to frequent his circle would be sheer folly. This it was that occasionally hurt and fretted Arthur. But a meeting such as that of this day was a source of real pleasure to both.

During the short hour everything life held of weariness and discontent was forgotten. They rattled on as if they had been still school-boys, with no present care to oppress their lives and a brilliant future before them.

---

[CHAPTER VIII.]

THE INDIAN SCARF.

A man in love sees wonders.

A few hours later, and Arthur Forrest was lodged for the night in an hotel which looked out upon one of the quaint, old-fashioned streets in the ancient city of York.

The journey had by no means diminished his excitement. He was literally aflame with the fever of anxiety and suspense that consumed him, for this was his first young dream, and it mastered him with an absoluteness which only that first in the series that often diversifies the adolescence of humanity, male and female, can possess.

Afterward we know what to expect; then everything is new, wonderful, incomprehensible—the sweet waking up to a heavenly mystery. And it comes generally at a time when life is at its fullest; when imagination, passion, sentiment reign in the soul with undisputed sway; when the heart is uncontaminated—at least partially so—by the influences which those to whom youth's Eden is a forgotten land delight to throw round the inexperienced, giving them lessons, they would say, in the great art of living—lessons, alas! which the young are only too ready to receive and put into practice.

Arthur was in this first ecstatic stage. No doubt to the experienced onlooker it might appear highly ridiculous; to himself it was intensely real. His very existence seemed to have changed in the dazzling glamour that the treacherous little god had cast over his vision. He saw all his past, his present, his future in relation to this one thing—his chances of success with the fair Margaret.

It was late when he reached York—too late for him to think of going farther that night.

He ordered a private sitting-room, for no particular reason but the necessity he felt for quiet meditation, that he might unravel the tormenting problems of the how, the why and the wherefore which, in spite of Adèle's encouraging assurance, had begun to embarrass him sorely. How should he present himself to Mrs. Grey? What could he give as a reason for having left London to seek her out? In what light would she look upon his intrusion? These thoughts perplexed him as far into the night he paced the floor of his sitting-room, resting himself by the continual movement, but sorely interfering with the rest of the gentleman who occupied the room below his. He had taken many turns up and down before any light had dawned upon his mind, and in final despair he was about to retire to his bedroom and try the effect of darkness, when suddenly his eyes fell on something that had hitherto escaped them. It was an Indian scarf of great brilliancy which had been left lying on a small low chair in one of the corners of the room.

It brought a certain memory to Arthur's mind. He took it up, handling it with reverential tenderness. Where had he seen it before? Why did the sight of it affect him so strangely? He looked at it, he touched it; he laid it down and retiring to some distance examined it again. Then by degrees the sought-for link returned. The pictures, the crimson-covered seat, the pale woman, her shabby dress, and in striking contrast with it, the costly fabric on her shoulders. It was a coincidence, he said to himself—a very strange one—that here, when he was seeking Margaret, he should find the fac-simile of what she had worn on the occasion of their first meeting. Could it be the same—hers, left behind her? If so, here was an opening thrown by kind Fate into his lap.

The silken scarf should be his excuse; with it he would present himself to Mrs. Grey. It was valuable in itself, and she had evidently had some other reason besides its intrinsic worth for prizing it. She would be grateful for its preservation, and the bearer of her treasure would have a certain claim on her consideration.

Arthur determined to discover the history of the scarf on the next day, and if he should find it at all fit in with his ideas to take it back to its owner in triumph. For that night it was too late to do anything. He looked despairingly at the little French clock over the chimney-piece. It was two o'clock a. m., and an absolute silence reigned in the house.

But he possessed the sanguine nature of youth. He could not doubt that he had found a solution to the problem which had been agitating his mind. His anxieties being thus partially set at rest, he began to feel tired. With the silk scarf close to his hand he fell asleep; its colors mingled in confusion inextricable with all his dreams; it was the first object that met his gaze on the following morning.

He felt inclined to ring at once and make inquiries, but on second thought he decided that to take such a step would scarcely be wise. Young men in Arthur Forrest's position are keenly susceptible to ridicule. Undue anxiety might possibly seem suspicious. He controlled himself so far as to dress, to walk into his sitting-room, and to restore the scarf to the place it had occupied on the previous evening; then he rang for breakfast.

While the waiter was busy about the table he looked across the room as though for the first time the appearance of the scarf had struck him; then he took it up and examined it with apparent curiosity.

The waiter noticed his movement. "Ah! sir," he said briskly, "queer thing that."

"This scarf?" said Arthur carelessly; "it's certainly a very handsome one."

"I didn't mean the scarf, sir, but the tale, as one may say, that hangs on to it. It was left in this very room, identical, some four or five days ago, it may be, and I was the waiter as attended on the gentleman and little girl: a pretty creature she was too, with—"

"A gentleman and little girl?" broke in Arthur, forgetful of his prudence in his astonishment.

"Yes, sir; a gentleman not young, as one might say, to be the father of the little lady; and a lady she was, every inch of her, so pretty and well-behaved. It's my belief"—here the waiter lowered his voice and looked confidential—"there was somethink there over and above what met the eye, as one might say, sir." Then he disappeared to fetch the tea-pot.

Arthur was strangely interested in the little tale. "Stop," he said as the waiter was about to leave the room again; "what makes you think there was something mysterious about these people?"

The waiter smiled pleasantly. His loquaciousness was natural to him, but it had so often received rude checks that he had long ago been taught to control it. "It interests you, do it, sir?" he said cheerfully. "Well, now, to speak confidential, it's my belief as that gentleman wasn't father at all to that there little lady. She cried considerable that first night, for the chambermaid had been given somethink a little extra by the gentleman when he came into the hotel that every care might be taken of the little lady. And it was all on and off, so she says, the little lady a-crying and a-sobbing, and 'Oh, my mamma! I want my mamma; take me home.' Not much sleep had the little lady, or Jane either, for the matter of that. She has an uncommon soft heart, has Jane, and the little lady's sobs, she says, would have melted a heart of stone, let alone hers. Well, sir, as I was a-saying, it looked queer; but next morning the gentleman—He was a fine man, sir, he was, but had a look with him as if from foreign parts, which, as one may say, looked queer again, the little lady being very fair, with hair the color of that there frame, sir, all in curls over her face, and the loveliest complexion you ever see. What was I a-telling you of? Oh! The next morning the gentleman, he ordered breakfast, and he and the little lady had it in this very room, as it might be now, sir, and certainly it wasn't no later, I being the waiter, Jane coming in now and again to see if little missy wanted for anythink. Seemed to us, Jane and me, that the gentleman said somethink in private, as it might be, to the little lady, for they seemed more friendlier-like, and after a bit little missy she write a letter and she look a deal cheerfuler, as one might say. The poor little dear hadn't so much—not as a change with her, sir." Again the waiter lowered his voice: "Looked queer, it did, and so says Jane to me in that very passage out there. Strange to tell, sir, the words is scarcely so much as out of our mouths before the bell rings violent-like, and Jane is sent out by that there gentleman, twenty pounds in her hand, and cart blank to get everythink ready made, and expense no object, as might be thought necessary for a young lady. It didn't take her long, I can answer for that. She come back with the things packed in a small portmanter, and her accounts made out all proper and business-like. It's Jane all over, sir. She do like to have everythink square and correct. 'But,' says the gentleman as grand as you please, 'I didn't want no accounts, and divide the change between yourself and the garçong;' by which he meant me, sir. It's the French way. They started that morning, and the little lady tell Jane, 'I shall come back very soon, I shall,' and then she puts her arms round her neck, 'Thank you,' she says in such a pretty way that Jane was quite upset like. And when she and the gentleman's gone there's this kind of shawl, as you have just remarked upon, sir, a-lying here in this room, and here it's been ever since. That's the story, sir, and I think you'll agree with me that it looks queer."

"It is strange," said Arthur very thoughtfully, "I can't understand it at all. Do you know," he continued, turning to the waiter, "I am almost sure I know the owner of this scarf. It is, I see, a thing of some value, but if the proprietor of the hotel will put it in my charge for a time, I will leave a deposit to any amount he may think fit in its place, and restore it to him faithfully if I should prove to have been mistaken."

"I can't see for myself as how he can make any objection, sir; however, with your permission I must leave you now—there's my bell."

The waiter did not stay away longer than he could possibly help. Arthur's interest in the scarf seemed to him a new link in the story which had so powerfully excited the curiosity of various members of the establishment. On his return he found the young man still holding the scarf in his hand, with a thoughtful look on his face. But his patient receptivity of the waiter's good-humored chat seemed to have passed. "I wish to speak to the proprietor of the hotel," he said shortly.

"At once, sir?" asked the man in a disappointed tone. He was full to the brim of fresh particulars, hastily set in order during his journey from one breakfast-table to another.

"As soon as possible," was the reply, "I must leave York by an early train."

For Arthur Forrest could scarcely control his impatience. The waiter's dramatic little tale had awakened his interest. He had a kind of fancy that it was connected in some way with Margaret.

The proprietor found him pacing the room excitedly. He was politely surprised at the interest taken by the young gentleman in this small item of property left in his house, agreed with him that it was an article of some value, but refused to receive any deposit in exchange for it, with the exception of the young gentleman's card, and his assurance that they should hear whether or no the owner had been found, and finally presented his little bill, swollen in various items to fit in reasonably with the importance the young gentleman appeared to attach to the discovery he had made in the establishment. The landlord might have asked for double the amount; Arthur would have been perfectly unconscious. He was only anxious to get away with his treasure—to unearth the mystery it seemed to hide.

In all haste he sent for the friendly waiter, pressed half a sovereign into his willing hand, urging him to order a fly and get his traps together without delay.

In an incredibly short space of time the lumbering vehicle, as light as any that could be found in the ancient city, was bearing him through the narrow streets and overhanging gates to the station—a fresh stage on his journey to her.

---

[CHAPTER IX.]

ARTHUR ARRIVES AT MIDDLETHORPE.

Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for.

Margaret Grey was sitting in her garden. It was a warm day. A faint haze, born of the vapor, paled the deep blue of the sky; not a breath of wind stirred the languid foliage of the trees; the flowers were bathed in light and color; through a gap in the trees came the glimmer of the sea, and faintly on the still air rose the murmur of lulling waves—scarcely waves, perhaps only movement, stir, the manifestation of ocean's ceaseless life. It was a day to rejoice in—a day when the pulses quicken and the heart is glad with unconscious, unreasoning gladness; when lovers look into one another's eyes and creep more closely together; when children laugh and sing, and even the dumb creatures seem to rejoice in being.

In her face was no sense of gladness. She sat under the trees, a book in her hand, a shawl wrapt closely round her shoulders.

Every particle of color had left her face, even her lips were pale. The golden coronal of hair with which Nature had endowed her seemed to throw a ghastly shade over her face. It looked unnatural, like the glory of youth when its life and gladness have gone by. Only her eyes retained their beauty, for through their mournful wistfulness, their sometimes wild eagerness, the beautiful soul still shone, and in the week of hope, of beauty, of life itself, that soul was learning, slowly and painfully, it is true, but learning still, the lesson that, consciously or unconsciously, all must learn,—submission to the Supreme Will first and above all; not the mild sentimental "Thy will be done" of which hymnists and sermon-coiners discourse so glibly, nor even that "grace of patience" which her solicitor had recommended her to seek as a panacea for all her ills, but a something far above and beyond these—a something that, perhaps, only those who have suffered keenly can ever know—the laying down of self-will altogether, the recognition, through sorrows and contradictions manifold, of a Divine Love

"Shaping the ends of life."

A book was in Margaret's hand, but she did not often look at it, at least not for long. There seemed to be a disturbing cause at work that prevented her from fixing her attention on anything but the absorbing anxiety which held her.

It was toward the afternoon of the long day, and she had been sitting there since early morning waiting and watching. From time to time she would take out her watch and consult it, and once she pressed her hand to her side, murmuring, "Patience, patience! My God, shall I ever learn it?"

And the song-birds flitted backward and forward over her head, and the sea smiled and the earth rejoiced. There was no answer to the cry of the lonely heart. Patience; yes, patience, poor stricken one! for "when night is darkest, then dawn is near." I wonder who thinks of it when the black darkness is closing around them? Certainly Margaret did not.

She was sitting in the back part of the little garden; from her position she could hear the door-bell and the click of the latch of the front gate, but she could not see those who came in or went out, and through that long day there had been no sound of outside life to break in upon her solitude. It had begun to sicken her as she sat under the trees looking out upon the sunshine.

There was a sound at last—the stopping of wheels at the garden-gate, the latch pushed back with something of impatience, a ring at the door-bell that echoed through the house.

Margaret leapt to her feet and tried to rush forward. It was surely that for which she had been looking—a telegram to tell her something had been done. He had promised to use all possible despatch.

Alas, poor Margaret! The "he" in question was at that moment exciting himself very little about her or her concerns. He was not very far from her. He could have been seen by any who had chosen to take the trouble of looking for him, seated on a strong little black pony, jogging along with great contentment—a conspicuous object on the yellow sands.

In moments of strong excitement physical power sometimes abandons us: perhaps it is that the spirit would master the body, and forgetting its bonds rush forward alone to meet the coming fate, and that then the weakness of its natural home draws it back to its humanity.

It was something like this Margaret experienced. She rose, she would have pressed forward. In an incredibly short time she would have had the message in her hands, but her limbs refused to bear her. She sank back on the garden-seat, compelled, whether she would or no, to wait—to wait.

The delay was not long, but it seemed to her as if the moments were ages, each laden with an agony of suspense, while she sat still in her forced inaction.

Jane crossed the lawn at last with something in her hand, and Margaret covered her face and moaned faintly. If this should be disappointment, how could she bear it? It was disappointment. The message turned out to be a card which Jane put into her hands, explaining as she did so that the young gentleman had come on important business, and wished particularly to see her, if only for a few moments.

"A young gentleman—important business," said Margaret faintly; "then it is not a telegram?"

"Who said it were?" asked Jane rather rudely. She knew very well that speak as she might her mistress would take very little notice of her now. "I said a young gentleman was in the parlor," she continued in a higher key, as if Margaret had been deaf, "and I've too much to do to be wasting my time argufying. Everybody can't set doing nothing all day like some folk I could tell of. Are you going to see him or are you not?"

"I will see him," replied Margaret quietly. "Ask him to wait a few minutes."

She had wondered only a moment before how she could bear the disappointment. It came, and she neither fainted nor wept, only there fell a chiller shadow over her heart—the darkness of her lot on earth seemed to deepen.

She watched with eyes from which all the light had gone out until Jane had re-entered the house, then she rose again, and this time no ultra-impetuousness delayed her. The name on the card puzzled her. She had a vague notion she had seen it somewhere before, but in her trouble her London remembrances were partially swamped. She scarcely knew even why she had decided to grant this young man an interview. She was only obeying a secret impulse: he might possibly be the bearer of a message.

She had not thought at the moment she left her seat that the parlor-window looked out upon the little garden; but so it was, and as languidly and with apparent pain she crossed the lawn its temporary occupant was gazing upon her.

Her appearance shocked him terribly. He had been in no way prepared for the change which that week of misery and loneliness had brought about. She did not look the same. Then, indeed, she had been sad, but the sadness had not absorbed her utterly—had not written on her face the haggard, weary hopelessness which it now bore.

The young man's heart contracted painfully; a sudden dismay seized him. He would have turned and fled. How could he bear to face this suffering? In its presence he felt weak and helpless as a child.

But he looked at her again, the white patient face with its halo of golden color, the weak languid steps, the beautiful outlines, the never-failing, unconscious grace, and as he looked the love of his heart surged in a great wave over his being. Unconsciously he clasped his hands, his brows knit, his form dilated.

"God helping me," he said in a low impassioned voice that swept upward from the innermost depths of his spirit—"God helping me, I will help her!"

Scarcely was the vow made before the door opened and Margaret and he were face to face. She looked at him for a moment, then held out her hand, smiling her recognition. "Sit down," she said with the quiet graciousness Arthur remembered so well, taking a seat herself at the same time; then suddenly she caught sight of what he brought, for Arthur had the scarf on his arm. Her quietness fled, she rose to her feet, and seizing his arm pointed to it eagerly: "Where did you find it? Whose is it? Why did you bring it here?"

She spoke and fell back on her chair, gasping for breath.

---

[CHAPTER X.]

ON THE BRINK OF MADNESS.

My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love;
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.

Arthur's instinct had not erred. There was something more than the recovery of what she valued that made the sudden reappearance of her scarf a matter of great moment to Mrs. Grey. The facts of the case were these: The voice of many-tongued Rumor had been busy in the village with the wonderful history of the disappearance of the pretty child, whose vivacity and pleasant friendly ways had made her well known in the neighborhood. Through the medium of her laundress and a little girl from the National School, who came in the morning to help Jane, some of these little bits of gossip had made their way to Margaret.

The laundress poured into her ears the tale of how the little one had been met on the sands with a gentleman and a big dog on the afternoon of the day of her disappearance; the little girl chimed in with a true, full, and particular account of every item of the dress and appearance of both. One of these items puzzled Margaret. The girl declared positively that Miss Laura had carried her mamma's scarf upon her arm. Now, Margaret could not but remember that on that ever-memorable day she had worn the scarf herself. She had reason for connecting it with the interview between herself and L'Estrange. Strangely enough, from that very moment she had missed it.

In her first horror at the discovery of Laura's departure the lesser loss had naturally escaped her; when the girl mentioned the scarf, however, she remembered that she had not brought it home with her. But how could Laura have obtained possession of it? Margaret wearied herself with conjectures, but at last she came to this conclusion—she had left it on her seat among the bushes, Laura had gone there with her father anxious to find her, they had seen the scarf, and the little one had picked it up to take it back, for that Laura had willingly left her Margaret never imagined for a moment. Either this or else that the girl had been mistaken altogether. It was thus she had dismissed the subject of the scarf from her mind. It did not afford any clue; it did not alter in the remotest degree the fact of the child being lost to her, of her husband having cruelly and wantonly wronged her. But when the scarf reappeared in this strangely unexpected manner it was like a message from her child, a link by which it might be possible to trace her, and the first revulsion of feeling which its sight occasioned was so great as almost to deprive Margaret of her small remnant of strength.

She did not faint, though Arthur, when he saw the deadly pallor of her face, was about to spring to the door and call out for assistance. She warned him by a rapid gesture to do nothing of the kind. This was her first impulse; she pointed then to a caraffe of water. He poured some into a glass and brought it to her. It revived her partially. The color struggled back into her pale cheeks, she sat up and tried to smile—such a faint watery attempt at a smile that her companion could have gone on his knees, then and there, imploring her only to weep.

"I am very foolish," she said faintly, "but since we last met I have suffered, and suffering has made me weak. Have patience with me for one moment. Give me your arm, that will be best; the fresh air may revive me; and—walls have ears."

She looked round with a sudden terror in her eyes. To describe the effect of her words, of her weakness, on the inflammable heart of the young man would be impossible. He was beside himself with the longing to take her to his heart, to proclaim himself, once and for ever, her protector and champion. But love had taught him self-control. Trembling from head to foot, he still preserved an apparent composure. He took the hand she offered and raised it reverently to his lips, then placed it on his arm.

"Be calm, dear lady," he said gently, "I have come here with this express purpose to find some way out of your troubles, and, God helping me, I will."

The boy spoke slowly, deliberately. In his words there was all the fervor of a vow, all the hallowed binding power of a sacramental utterance; and to her for the moment it did not seem unnatural. He spoke again, after a short pause: "Mrs. Grey, do you think you can trust me?"

She looked up. There was a dreamy softness in her eyes and her voice was low: "Yes, I think I can. God knows I was sorely in need of a friend. But" (her voice changed, she looked round in a bewildered manner), "come out; I cannot speak to you here. I have a kind of feeling—dear me! how weak and childish I have become!—I hear voices, I see faces. I fancy sometimes I am being watched."

"You are weak and ill, Mrs. Grey; you should not be here alone. Let us go out to the shore; the sea-air will do you good. See! your hat is lying here."

She obeyed him. It almost seemed as if his voice had a certain power over her for the moment. He took her hand again and led her from the room and from the house, half supporting her from time to time. Neither spoke until the cottage was left far in the background, and then they were on the sands close by the sea.

"Shall we sit down here?" asked Arthur.

"Yes," she said, "we are alone; sea and sky—sea and sky." Then she paused with a bewildered look: "What am I saying? I know I wanted to speak to you, and now everything has gone."

This was far more bewildering to Arthur than her former state, for there was a wild, appealing look about her eyes which made him fear for her reason; but with the emergency came a certain power. It was truly a transformation. The boy was changed into a man. He stood up and taking both of Margaret's hands into his own, looked steadfastly into her eyes.

"Mrs. Grey," he said slowly and distinctly, "try and remember what has brought you here. Your child, little Laura!"

She put her hand to her head: "Laura! Laura! Do you know where she is, poor child? The heat has tired her; she must be lying down."

Arthur trembled, but he kept his eyes still fixed on those of his companion, which wandered hither and thither like restless stars.

"Mrs. Grey," he said again, "do you wish to find your child?"

Her eyes had begun to feel the power of his; they were falling under the spell of his steadfast gaze. Now was Arthur's time of trial, for the unmeaning wildness grew gradually into surprised displeasure. "Dear lady!" he said pleadingly, but not for a moment removing his gaze, "you have been patient; be so still. Do not let your sorrow overcome you utterly."

There spread a faint color over the dead whiteness of her face. The young man saw that for this time the danger had gone by. He had the tact to release her suddenly and to turn away for a walk along the shore. His true, unselfish love had given him eyes to see and a heart to understand. He knew that the return to a sense of her position would be painful to Margaret for more reasons than one. He left her to recover herself alone. Presently she called him. He went to her, and took his place by her side as if nothing had happened to disturb their conversation.

"Thank you," she said, gently raising her dark, troubled eyes to his face, "I understand you—you are my true friend;" and then a few tears that she could not keep back flowed over her pale cheeks. "Oh," she said, slowly and painfully, "if God will I shall learn; but, young man, it is a dreary time for learning. In our days of happiness and youth we put all this away, and the hour of trouble finds us without a refuge. You see I bore all the trouble," she continued, smiling faintly; "it is the glimmer of hope you have brought me that so nearly upset my poor, weak brain. But tell me, have you seen my little one?"

In reply Arthur gave, as clearly as possible, the story given to him by the waiter at the hotel in York, to all of which Margaret listened with rapt attention. Once or twice she was on the point of interrupting him, but she controlled herself to the end, and there was disappointment in the heavy sigh with which she answered him. "It is certainly my scarf," she said, taking it up and examining it attentively; "I could not possibly be mistaken, and as certainly that little child was my daughter—my lost Laura. Yes, it is all so probable. My little one's grief, the love of those around her, and her letter—it was to me—he never sent it. I am deceived, betrayed. Oh, Maurice! Maurice!"

Her grief seemed to overcome her. She covered her face with her hands, and once more, in his perplexity and distress, Arthur was on the point of throwing himself at her feet, of declaring his boundless love.

Before he could decide she looked up again and spoke with apparent calm: "There are some difficulties in the story. Are you sure the waiter said he was old and like a foreigner?"

"Perfectly certain; I could not possibly be mistaken."

"Then he must have changed wonderfully in the short time."

"Forgive me for asking, Mrs. Grey, but whom do you suspect of this atrocity? I would not be intrusive for the world; I only wish to be your friend." The young man's voice trembled; he went on more rapidly: "You must know, you must have seen, that I take no common interest in your concerns. I feel this is neither the time nor the place to force my own feelings upon you; but, Margaret, when I see you alone, friendless, when I know it is in my power to give you everything, to devote myself to you utterly, even to bring back perhaps those days of happiness of which you spoke, how can I resist the temptation of letting you know all? Since first I saw you your fair, sad face has haunted me; I can think of nothing else. Ah! I have been idle, good-for-nothing, but all that has passed away. Give me hope, and I will yet make myself worthy of you."

He spoke with such impetuosity that it was almost impossible to stop him. But when he paused for lack of breath, Margaret drew herself away, putting back gently his pleading hand. Perhaps it was well for her that this new excitement came. It seemed to restore her strength of mind, her gentle, womanly dignity. "Hush!" she said quietly; "you must not speak to me in this way. If you really care for me you will respect my lonely position. Arthur, I am married, and my one absorbing anxiety is to see my husband again before I die. Come, I do not mean to lose you as a friend; you have shown yourself a man, and a noble man, to-day; you will soon overcome this weakness."

Arthur was looking away over the sea. He was staggered for a moment, and yet he was not really surprised. His voice was a little husky as he answered, for after all he was only a boy, and he had taught himself to hope. "Forgive my folly and presumption," he said.

She put her hand on his shoulder with the caressing gesture of an elder sister. "I want a friend," she said, smiling into his downcast face. "You shall be my brother, Arthur. I have never had a brother, for I was an only child, and my sole friend in the wide world is my solicitor. He is a man of position and character, and yet—do you know? my loneliness makes me so sensitive—I sometimes feel inclined to distrust even him."

"Can you tell me his name?"

"It is rather a common one. Very likely you will not know it. Mr. Robinson—James, I think, is his Christian name."

"Of the firm of Robinson and ——?"

"Yes."

"Then, Mrs. Grey, your suspicions were only too well founded." He gnashed his teeth. "The old hypocrite! I trust you have not given him your confidence to any great extent."

Margaret turned pale: "Everything I have is in his hands. Only two days ago I gave him some valuable jewelry to ensure the speedy carrying out of my instructions."

"And he took it away with him, I suppose," Arthur smiled sardonically—"recommended patience and resignation. Ah! I know him well. But forgive me; I am allowing my feelings to run away with me and frightening you. The fact is that I happen to know something of your solicitor, and the very mention of his name excites me. Mrs. Grey, we must save you from him. Tell me once more, do you trust me?"

Margaret looked up into his frank, open face and smiled. "As I would my own brother," she replied heartily; "and in proof of it, if you can listen to a long, painful story, I will tell you my history, and how it is that you find me here in this little village alone and unprotected. You have given me the full confidence of your young, true heart; you have trusted in me, Arthur, in spite of much that must have seemed strange and mysterious. I will give you my confidence in return. But I think for to-day the exertion would be almost too much for me. Can you come again to-morrow, or must you go away at once?"

"I shall not leave this place until I have found out some way of helping you, Mrs. Grey; but if you really mean to trust me as your brother, will you let me say that I don't like the idea of your staying by yourself in this solitary house? You want some one with you upon whom you can thoroughly depend. I rather distrust your landlady; I can scarcely say why." They had risen from their seat on the sands, and were walking toward the little cottage. "As I came in," continued Arthur, "she entertained me—a perfect stranger, at least as far as she knew—with the story of your child's disappearance and your fainting-fit of that evening, seeming to expect me to give my errand in return."

"I rather distrust her myself," replied Margaret; "but one cannot always tell. Her manner certainly is unfortunate. I believe, however, that she is really a good kind of person, and her character stands high in the neighborhood. I do not like the idea of a change just now, but thank you all the same for the kind thought. You saw me, you must remember, at a weak moment; I am not always so foolish, and to-night I shall have something to think about. Here we are at the gate. Come in and have a cup of tea. By the bye, where are you staying?"

"At the hotel, Mrs. Grey; it's not very far from here. I think if you even called out to me from the window of your dining-room, I should hear you."

Margaret smiled: "I shall have no occasion, I hope, for the assistance of my champion till to-morrow; then you must hear my story, and help me to devise some plan for communicating with my husband and child."

"You think your husband has taken the child?" said Arthur, stopping suddenly.

"To-morrow, Arthur, to-morrow; before we discuss that point I must rest."

---

[CHAPTER XI.]

THE ACCOLADE OF KNIGHTHOOD.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial:
We should count time by heart-throbs.

And Margaret rested that night, for the first time since the evening when exhausted Nature had failed utterly and she had slept at the foot of her lost child's bed. There was a new feeling of rest and hope in her spirit; the events of the day had stimulated her; there was an uprising of the dormant courage and energy in her nature; she began to feel that something might yet be done. Jane was astonished that evening to find some small impertinence on her part rebuked by her mistress with all her old dignity, and to hear that if matters did not mend very considerably she would run the chance of losing her lodger. She was slightly alarmed, not only on this account, but also because this sudden resurrection of spirit might notify a change in her lodger's circumstances; but she kept her own counsel.

Breakfast was to be prepared for two. "Strange goings on," muttered Jane to herself, but this time she did not dare to express her feelings.

Arthur arrived early in the morning. He was excited and restless. With the impulsiveness of youth he had thrown himself heart and soul into the task that appeared to be opening out before him, and until some light had been thrown upon it he could not rest. He and Margaret breakfasted together, but by mutual consent nothing was said about the subject which engrossed them both until they had again left the house behind them, and were able to talk quietly, without need for caution, under the broad open sky.

She seemed so quiet, so self-contained, that Arthur began at last to fear that she had forgotten her promise, or rather that it had been given impulsively and withdrawn after calmer thought. And something of curiosity—which, by the bye, is pretty highly developed in the male portion of humanity—mingled with the true interest he took in Margaret's concerns. But she had not forgotten.

They had been sitting for a few moments by the sea-shore, talking of indifferent matters, when all at once she turned to him. "You ask me no questions," she said; "you are not curious to know more about me?"

Arthur reddened: "Not curious, Mrs. Grey. I am ready to hear whatever you wish to tell me. I know it can be nothing unworthy of yourself, and pray do not imagine that I wish to hear anything you care to conceal or that would give you pain to tell. I only desire to help you to the best of my ability."

For Arthur was a little hurt by the question. She smiled and rested her hand on his shoulder as she had done the day before, and her touch stirred the young man's heart to a strange mixture of feelings—pride, for it seemed to show that she depended on him, that his presence was a comfort to her, and yet a certain mortification. "She would not treat him in this way," he said to himself with somewhat of bitterness, "if she could understand in the slightest degree the feelings that had brought him to her—if she felt the remotest danger to her own heart in the companionship. He was a boy to her, nothing more."

But Margaret spoke, and her voice had a salutary effect. In its sweet sadness, the remnant of selfishness was rebuked.

"Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with might—
Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight."

Thus it was with Arthur. Self trembled, but self passed. He was ready to do everything for the sake alone of her loveliness, of his love.

"You don't seem to care to ask me questions," she said gently, "so I suppose I must take the matter into my own hands, and unasked let you know something of my past life. I feel very old, Arthur—more fit to be your mother than even your elder sister, as I called myself just now; for life"—she looked across the sea, and her voice was low—"life should be reckoned not by the years, the days, the moments, but by the heart-pulses, the living, the battling, that the years and moments hold. I am not really old. I married at the age of nineteen, and then I had lived, I was older than my years; my little one was born when I was twenty, just seven years ago; that gives you my age—an easy piece of arithmetic. Many women are young at twenty-seven. I am old, old; hush, Arthur! you must not protest. When life has lost all its beauty and gladness, what can it be but dreary? And dreary days pass slowly. The last eighteen months might have been eighteen years, and that would make me old, even according to your reckoning. But I do not seem to get on very fast with my story. Ah! I must go back—such a long way—to the time when I was a girl, with a girl's freshness and ignorance of life, and fervent belief in herself and the future. I lost my parents even before that. I scarcely remember my mother. After her death my father left me at school and took to wandering. He did not survive her very long. But I was not left alone to battle with life. An aunt, my mother's only sister, took her place with me. She, too, had one daughter, and my cousin and I became like sisters; more than sisters—friends. She was younger than I, but she was everything to me. I don't think it can often be said of any woman that she loves another verily better than herself, but this was actually the case with my poor Laura. My loves, my accomplishments, my success were far more to her than her own. We were one, absolutely one—never a breath of discord between us; and now," Margaret paused and sighed deeply, "she has gone, and my after-sorrows have been so bitter that I have not even a tear to give to the memory of my first grief, the worst, I thought then, that I could ever encounter. We had a passion for travelling—Laura and I—and when she was about sixteen and I seventeen my aunt, who was then a widow, indulged us by a six months' trip on the Continent. It was to be strictly educational. My poor aunt! I can hear her now talking about all we should do, the regular hours of study, the steady application. Music was to be taken up in Germany, singing in Italy, languages everywhere. She was too gentle for the management of such volatile young ladies as we were. Laura and I had pretty much our own way. It was a pleasant time. How intensely we enjoyed the fresh, new life, the constant variety, the enlargement of ideas! Ah, if that could have been all! But I must hasten on. You see," she smiled faintly, "I am like a shivering mortal; afraid of the first plunge into icy waters, I hover about the brink."

"If it is painful to you, say no more, Mrs. Grey," said Arthur earnestly; "nothing you could possibly tell me would alter my feelings toward you."

She shook her head: "It is kind of you to wish to spare me, but I must go on. You know you are to be my friend, and if you are ever to help me you must know all. Laura and I were admired. Young English ladies are thought much of abroad. And very innocently, I think, we enjoyed the attention we excited. One of our admirers was continually appearing and reappearing. He seemed to find out our plans as if by intuition, was always on the spot when we wanted assistance, and on more than one occasion saved us much trouble and annoyance by a little timely help. A strange man who interested and puzzled us all, though to this day I fail to understand him. As far as we could make out, he was half Spanish, half French. Certainly he had the ease and grace belonging so peculiarly to France, with the fire and enthusiasm of the Spaniard. My aunt, I imagine, had full confidence in him, because his hair was gray, though at that time he could not have been more than forty, and his face was particularly plain. She could not have thought of his cherishing anything but friendly feelings for girls like Laura and me; indeed, I always have a kind of suspicion that she took his manifold attentions to our party as a tribute of homage to herself, for my aunt was a pretty woman, and by no means old to be Laura's mother. M. L'Estrange did everything he could to foster this feeling. How clever he was! his delicate flatteries! his personal kindnesses! his assiduous courtesy! Laura and I enjoyed them often, for we were wiser: we knew that he thought himself neither too old nor too ugly to fascinate les demoiselles Anglaises. And we both fell in love with him, though in different ways. Laura had no scruple in speaking of her affection. He was her 'bon père, her frère ainé;' she liked him better than any one she had ever seen; and he in return petted and caressed her, brought her cakes and bon-bons, took and demanded a thousand and one little daughterly attentions, at all of which my good aunt smiled complacently. But she did not know what Laura knew—that he seized every opportunity for speaking to me of love. She made opportunities—my sweet little cousin—for in her beautiful, unselfish way she could imagine nothing more delightful than this love-making ending in marriage, her sister and her bon père living together, with her for their little one, their 'chère fillette'—this last being one of his pet names for Laura.

"We met in Paris, we met again in many of the Italian towns, and he and I corresponded. I was very young; I knew nothing whatever of the world; it seemed to me strange that with all his professions of devotion he never mentioned marriage; but I believed his mode of living was precarious and that as soon as something settled should be offered him he would ask me to pledge myself. This was Laura's view, too, for my little darling was older than her years, and she and I discussed the matter frequently. But at last we—or I should say I—found out what he was. Laura would scarcely believe anything against her bon père, but I knew that of him which I could not tell her. He and I parted, and were to one another as if we never had been even so much as friends. I suffered, for though I believe now that my imagination rather than my heart had been touched, still he had formed so large a part of my life that the parting could not but be painful for the time. I should have told you that all this had filled about two years; we had been twice in England, and twice again on the Continent, before I could make up my mind to break finally with my lover.

"It was in the course of the winter following my second visit, when my heart was still aching with the kind of loneliness which the withdrawal from my life of the one who had made all its romance for so many months could not but cause, that I met my husband, Maurice Grey. There could not have been a greater contrast. He had the fire of the Frenchman, but he lacked his dissimulation. He was in those days—God only knows how this trial may have changed him!—a true gentleman, frank, manly, courageous, but with none of the delicate finish, the courtly ease, the wily fascination of L'Estrange. I soon saw he loved me—so deeply that my refusal to become his wife would cause him the intensest pain—And when he made me an offer I accepted him at first only because I was sorry for him and tired of my solitary position; but I came to love him, and with a far deeper, truer love than the former had been, for that had a certain sense of dissatisfaction about it. I never thoroughly understood M. L'Estrange; Maurice I honored as well as loved, and with my whole heart. Ah!"—she covered her face with her hands and moaned—"if he could only have known! But to return: I told him the whole story of my former love. It did not affect his feelings toward me. We were married, and two, three years passed by happily. I don't say we had never little breaks. I suppose in every married life these occur; and Maurice had one fault: he loved me too much—he was inclined to be jealous of my affection. I think, when I look back over that time, that the old story rankled in his mind; he could not quite shake off the idea that my duty was his, my love still another's. There came a time when our little child took ill. It was scarlet fever, and after it was over the doctors recommended sea-air. This was in the height of the London season, and my husband could not leave town. He took lodgings for us in Ramsgate, and came to see us whenever it was possible.

"Now comes the strange part of my story. Up to that time I had neither seen Monsieur L'Estrange nor heard of him since my marriage.

"Of course I thought of him sometimes, and my poor Laura before she died spoke of him often with lingering affection. At times I had a kind of morbid curiosity about him. I felt as if I should like to meet him, only to know whether I was perfectly cured—whether in my mature age he could exercise the same strange fascination over me as in my girlhood. This idea I never ventured to mention to Maurice. Would to God I had! I was walking one day on the Ramsgate pier when suddenly I saw him. My little girl and her nurse were with me. He recognized me instantly, looked at me in his curious way and lifted his hat politely. This chance meeting made a tumult in my brain, but I tried to treat it as a matter of very small importance. On the next day Maurice was to arrive, and here was my first false step. I said nothing to him of the meeting. I noticed him once or twice look at me strangely, as if trying to read my heart; but he said nothing and I said nothing. He went away, and on that very morning arrived a letter in the small, well-known handwriting. I knew it was from him, and yet, and yet—God forgive me!—I opened and read it. It was a simple matter, after all, claiming common acquaintanceship, asking permission to call on me. He was waiting at the hotel; if I chose to forbid him he would go no further; if he received no answer he would be with me in the course of the afternoon. I persuaded myself that this meant nothing; we should meet once more—meet as strangers. I should have the opportunity of proving to myself how foolish my girlish weakness had been. And to forbid his coming, what would it be but a tacit acknowledgment that he still possessed a certain power over my heart? I decided to allow him to come, and through the afternoon I sat indoors, waiting with (I will always maintain) no stronger feeling than curiosity in my mind. It was nearly evening before he arrived. I was in some trepidation, but he behaved perfectly; his manner was easy and natural; he seemed to forget there had been anything but simple friendship between us. We chatted pleasantly for about half an hour, and then he rose to take his leave. The room was in half darkness; I had sent my little one to bed. I put out my hand carelessly, as I would have done to any ordinary stranger, but a sudden change seemed to have come over him. To this day I have never been able to account for it. He who had been so calm only a few moments before was trembling with excitement. He seized my offered hand, and before I knew where I was he was kneeling at my feet, pouring out words that he had no right to speak nor I to hear. Before I could thrust him away, before I could give voice to my indignation—ah! shall I ever, ever forget that moment?—the door opened slowly, and I saw my husband's face as I had never seen it before—dark, threatening, suspicious. It all passed in a moment. I was conscious of sinking down in a chair, and covering my face with my hands to hide my burning shame, for my husband suspected me. I heard high words, and when I looked up again Maurice and I were alone.

"'That man has escaped with his life,' he said sternly; 'he has you to thank for it.' I tried to explain, but he stopped me harshly. It was a stormy night. The wind was blowing about the house in fierce gusts. Oh how every detail of that terrible time clings about my brain!

"My husband left me in the room alone. I sat there for it might be an hour, as darkness had come before he returned. When he came in a carpet-bag was in his hand; he was evidently dressed for travelling. I sprang to my feet. I threw my arms around him; I implored him to stay and listen to me, but he only answered with that dark suspicious look. He loosened my hold at last—he reached the door; as he opened it there swept a great blast of wind into the room. I shall always feel thankful for that, for he saw me shivering as I lay exhausted on the sofa, and he came back suddenly to cover me from head to foot in his travelling-rug; then he kissed me—my poor Maurice!—and I saw something like relenting in his sad eyes, but I was too weak to tell him all: the soft moment passed, and I have never seen him since."

Margaret's voice sank into a wail. Her story had carried her away, so much so that she had almost forgotten her companion, and when Arthur, who had been listening intently, sprang suddenly to his feet, she was almost startled.

"It is as we thought," he cried impetuously—"my cousin's very words; she said it was some dreadful misunderstanding. But it shall be set right. Mrs. Grey, you have given me your confidence nobly and truly. It shall not be in vain. I have a kind of feeling that it will be given to me to disentangle this coil."

And then he knelt down before her on the sands. "Margaret," he said—and as he spoke the name with all a boy's timidity his young face flushed and his eyes seemed to burn with a steady, lustrous shining—"long ago, in the days of chivalry, ladies used to send out their knights wearing their colors to fight for them and for truth and for justice. Make me your knight, let me fight your battles. So help me God, I will stand by you as your own brother might do; I will seek through the world till I find your husband, I will never rest till I have righted you! Will you accept my service?"

She smiled, and bending forward kissed him on the brow.

"It is the accolade of knighthood," she said. Then they rose together and went toward the cottage, for the sun was high in the heavens.

---

[CHAPTER XII.]

"I SHALL LIVE AND NOT DIE."

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow
To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel.

They had further discussion that evening. Margaret told her young protector, after she had rested a little, how from that day she had been persecuted by the attempts of L'Estrange to force himself upon her. How at last she had found this little seaside village, and had rested there with her child, hoping its isolation and retirement would hide her. She told of her adventures in London, of the escape so ably managed by Adèle, of the discovery of her hiding-place, of that interview, and of her persecutor's concluding words, which, as she believed, had foreshadowed her present trouble.

"This is the mystery," said Mrs. Grey in conclusion, looking down at the scarf, "for a vague idea begins to dawn on me that I did not leave it on that seat on the sandhills. I remember, or I think I remember—all that night is in a kind of maze—looking for it, and being annoyed by the belief that M. L'Estrange had taken it away with him for some reason best known to himself."

"What!" said Arthur eagerly; "then, after all, this might be explained. Mrs. Grey, do you know I begin to have a dawning suspicion that your husband was not the person who took away your child? In the first place, to act in this way would be very unlike an English gentleman, such as, from your account, I imagine Mr. Grey to be; then that threat of the villain who was annoying you was un peu fort—one might possibly see daylight through it; then—"

He stopped, for Margaret was giving no attention to his reasons. "Not my husband!" she cried, and there came a sudden light into her face. "If I could only think so, but even to wish it would be wrong. Think of my poor little darling in strange hands!"

"That need scarcely alarm you. The person with whom your child was seemed to take every care of her."

"And you think that person was—?" Margaret fixed her eye on Arthur. The dreadful wildness was gathering there once more.

"Dear Mrs. Grey," he said earnestly, "I only say I have my suspicions. Trust me, I will leave no stone unturned to find your husband and child. I have a clue to both."

"What do you mean?"

Arthur gave in answer the story of the Russian, omitting, of course, the suspicion of the fair St. Petersburgers.

"My first step," he said, "shall be to look up Count Orloff. He has set the Russian police to work, and I believe has found out something through Mrs. Grey's solicitor in England. Your child and the gentleman with whom she is will certainly be conspicuous travellers. I made inquiries at York, at the hotel and station, and found that about a week ago they must have taken the train from York to Southampton, so it is highly probable they were bound for some foreign port. We must set agents to work at Cherbourg, Havre, Lisbon and Gibraltar, for I think it scarcely likely they can have left Europe. Courage, my dear Mrs. Grey! I think we shall light upon them. I will follow the track most likely to have been taken by your husband, leaving the recovery of the child in the hands of my solicitor—a very different person, I can assure you, from Mr. Robinson—for if, as I suspect, this villain has taken his revenge by depriving you of your child, remember, it is an offence punishable by law, and he shall be hunted down till his crime is discovered and himself traced."

The young man's form dilated, he stood erect, he looked what he was—an Englishman, strong, vigorous, full of noble impulse, of physical power, of untiring energy. The languor of the fashionable, the elegant good-for-nothingness, the nonchalant indifference, had all gone; he had found an object and was ready to throw himself heart and soul into its pursuit.

Margaret listened to his hope-inspiring words, and she felt herself animated with a new courage. She turned to her young protector with glistening eyes: "And you are ready to do all this for me? How shall I thank you?"

"By being strong and courageous," he answered; "but, Mrs. Grey, it is I who should talk of gratitude. You have changed me from an idle good-for-nothing into a man with an object before him, an aim to which all his soul is given. I know it is a good thing. I feel it. It will be my first battle with the world's injustice. God grant it may succeed! I believe it will. There is one thing more. You tell me that your landlady, in relating the story of your child's disappearance, described your husband. Now, either one of two things. My theory, supported by the waiter at York and suggested by the man's own words, is wrong altogether, or else she has been bribed to give you false information. In the latter case—which, I must say, rather fits in with my own ideas—she ought to be watched; and certainly this is no place for you. Who knows what she might not do in dread of discovery? Here you are more or less in her power. Think a moment. Have you no friends?"

Margaret turned pale. "Jane has certainly acted strangely of late," she said, after a pause; "she has even been insolent once or twice when, as she thought, I was too weak to notice it; but I cannot think her quite so bad as you seem to imagine. I do not wish to leave this place yet; you see, I have become accustomed to it. Then I have a kind of feeling that here, if anywhere, my trouble is to end. You remember that picture which was the first link between you and me? Do you know why it appealed to me so strangely? It was like a kind of dream I have often had. I used to say in the old days that I had what Goethe called the second sight. Sometimes at superstitious moments I was inclined to think this dream a kind of vision of the future, and it comforted me beyond measure. It has come so often and in such different forms, but it always ends in the same way—Maurice coming back to me over the sea, and living here in my quiet corner. If I could tell you how much I have built on this small foundation! But the dream only comes with the sea-sounds. In those miserable London days I used even to pray for it at night, I was so utterly hopeless; it never came."

Arthur looked thoughtful: "I shall see my cousin before I go; she has been very delicate lately, and my aunt, I believe, is very anxious for her to have change of air. Perhaps she would allow her to come here and stay with you for a time."

Margaret shook her head: "I cannot hope for that, though of all things I think it would be the pleasantest; but do not be uneasy on my account. No doubt I shall manage very well by myself; and you will let me hear whenever any trace has been found?"

"Indeed I will, Mrs. Grey; and cheer up, for I believe that will be soon."

"God grant it!"

Margaret clasped her thin hands together. She looked so frail, so shadow-like in the failing light, that Arthur's heart gave a sudden bound. What if she were fading—if, before he could gladden her by the news she craved, her spirit should have passed from earth? The thought made him impatient. He longed to be up and doing, taking the first step at least in his self-set task. And here would be a plea to urge with her husband. If he had ever loved her, surely, surely he would forget everything and fly back to her side when he should hear of her state.

Arthur was ready with youth's burning eloquence to plead for her. He felt he could paint her in such colors that not the stoniest heart could resist him. And while he was thinking it all out, already at his goal, pouring into the ears of the man he sought the history that had come upon his own youth like a life-giving power, of the beautiful, patient lady wasting her fair life away in faithful solitude, she turned from the open window, crossed the little room and sat down by his side.

"God has been good to me," she said gently. "I thought He would take me away in my sadness, life's broken entangled threads lying loosely in my hands, but now He has given me back my hope. I shall live and not die, at least not yet. Young man, there is something in the Bible about the 'blessing of those who are ready to perish.' Surely in the sight of the All-pitiful that must be a good thing. It is yours. Poor that I am, I can offer you no more."

Arthur's eyes glistened. "I hold it more precious than gold," he said, stooping over her hand and raising it to his lips; "with this I think I could engage the world."

---

[CHAPTER XIII.]

ARTHUR AT WORK.

Wait, and Love himself will bring
The drooping flower of knowledge, changed to fruit
Of wisdom.

And so Arthur Forrest's little love-dream was dispelled. In Margaret's presence, with her calm, saddened beauty before him, her gentle words in his ears, he had not seemed to feel it; for as at the first her beauty had come upon him like a heaven-sent message, arousing dormant emotion, awaking his spirit from youth's self-worship, so now it continued its work by slaying absolutely the still dominant self within him. He had thought and hoped and longed and chafed through the weeks of London life, haunted by her presence and by the dream of gaining her. He saw her again, he recognized that she was not for him, and he submitted, without a single wish to drag down the goddess of his idolatry from her seat in the clouds to a lower seat by his side. Arthur was young. Had the dream come later he might have acted differently, but as yet he was tolerably free from the world-wisdom which so many able teachers were ready to impart; besides, there was that in her quiet dignity, in her ready confidence, in her natural way of accepting his knight-errantry, that would have effectually checked any presumption. She did not even seem to imagine that the passion she had inspired in the breast of this man, so much her junior, could be anything but transitory, and in her presence he acquiesced calmly.

The reaction came when he was alone in the hotel that night. To lose no time he had started for York in the evening, and the officious waiter, his friend of the day before, had procured for him the same rooms which he had occupied then. Peopled they had been with the creations of his fancy evoked by her, and the prospect of seeing her again; he returned to them disappointed, denuded of hope, and there was a rue look in his young face as once more he inflicted the echo of his restlessness on the innocent occupant of the room below. For when all had been said and done—when he should have compassed heaven and earth to restore her to happiness and peace—when (for Arthur never dreamt of failure) through his efforts, and his alone, she should be enjoying once more the position from which by no fault of her own she had been torn—when her husband should return to his faith and devotion, and her child be given back to her arms,—then for himself, what? A grateful remembrance at most. Their lives would drift apart, ever more widely: he who believed he should be able to make her joy would yet form no part of it. His very love would have to be smothered—to be as if it had not been. With all the grand sentiments in the world to set against it, this is not an easy thing to bear.

The greatest hero, the most self-abnegating being that ever lived, must, I think, have had these moments of reaction—moments when the heart, looking inward, aches a little for the poor trembling self which must be buried, hidden away out of sight, if the life would be whole and consistent.

And Arthur Forrest was no hero; only a young gentleman trained in the school of luxury and self-pleasing, and for the first time brought face to face with necessity. One thing in his favor was that it was necessity—that there could be no beating about the bush, no half measures. As a gentleman and a man of honor he was bound to serve the lady of his choice, and to serve without hope of recompense—such recompense, at least, as he had pictured to himself only twenty-four hours before.

Perhaps nothing better could have happened to the young man than this early enforced lesson of submission to the law of necessity. Young men start off on life's race like well-fed stallions, scenting the goal afar off, and if the world be moderately submissive they ride over her rough-shod till her weeds and nettles sting them and they fall back panting from the course. But if the yoke be borne early, submission becomes a habit and its difficulty is infinitely less. Arthur, however, could not be expected to be thankful for the salutary lesson, and what wonder that when the first excitement of planning and scheming, of playing the grand rôle of disinterested benefactor was over, he looked a trifle blue and crestfallen, called himself hard names, and quarrelled with what he was for the moment pleased to look upon as his "ridiculous age!"

There is something in the forced inaction of night, when it is not occupied entirely with its legitimate tenant, Sleep, to nurture morbid thoughts and gloomy ideas. Like misshapen ghosts they flee with the daylight—when, that is to say, their sources are not very deep in the spirit, imbedded there by cruel, unbending circumstance, for then night is the relief-bringer, morning has the pale terrors of reality in its train. Arthur's woes were rather of the imagination than the heart. Morning and action dissipated them.

He was up early, and before midday had satisfied the proprietor of the hotel about the ownership of the Indian scarf, had gathered fresh particulars from the waiter, had cross-examined Jane, the soft-hearted chambermaid, with all the acumen of a barrister, had caught the morning mail, and was far on his way to London.

The fruit of his first day's exertions—for he could not rest until something had been done—was that he had obtained the permission of his guardians (merely nominal, for he was within three weeks of attaining his majority) for a lengthened absence from England, and that by the next morning's mail a messenger was ready to start for Middlethorpe, with a hopeful missive from himself and a little casket containing the jewelry which had been left to the grasping hands and predatory instincts of Mr. Robinson.

The messenger was an elderly woman, with gray hair and a pleasant, homely face. She had been Arthur Forrest's nurse, and his mother had left her a pension amply sufficient to keep her in comfort and supply her few wants. The old woman's affection for her nursling was so great that she had never lost sight of him, and the young man, who knew how much he owed to her tender care, had gratified her in his youth and manhood by visiting her from time to time.

Old Mrs. Foster had been the recipient of Arthur's confidence more than once, and she had helped him out of many a boyish scrape. In this dilemma he thought of her. The kind old woman took an interest in his tale, especially because there seemed to be no scheme attached to it for the entrapping of her darling. That he should be led away by the snares of womankind was a subject of constant terror to Mrs. Foster.

"Tak' tent of the lassies, my bairn," she would say to him at times; "they're an awfu' sight tae deep for the lads."

But on this occasion there seemed to be no lassie in the question; only a suffering lady, who, in the very teeth of her bairn's most dangerous admissions (over these the old woman shook her head solemnly), had confessed to a husband still, as it seemed, in the land of the living.

She consented readily—all the more so, perhaps, because of the power it would give her of watching the matter—to what Arthur had been almost afraid to mention, that she herself should become for the time being a kind of confidential servant to the lady, supposing Margaret herself would permit it. In any case she would not shrink from the office of messenger and from the task of observation, for with her young master she was of opinion that the landlady was a dangerous person.

It was a tolerable amount of work for one day, and Arthur was satisfied. He felt that the stone was set rolling at all points, and that it would reach its destination in time if human skill and human energy could accomplish anything.

---

[CHAPTER XIV.]

TWO INTERVIEWS.

One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Mr. Robinson was virtuously indignant and highly incensed at the turn matters had taken. He talked loudly at home and among his religious friends—who were accustomed to small roughnesses in his style, but attributed them to the manly nature of his Christianity—about the young jackanapes, another of your fine gentlemen, who impudently meddled with what could not possibly concern him; but in presence of Arthur Forrest's young chivalry he was rather more subdued than usual. Not that he appeared to be crestfallen—that would have been a tacit acknowledgment of feeling himself to be in the wrong: he only took the matter as was becoming to a man and a Christian to take it, laying himself down ostentatiously for his young friend to tread upon, but bringing in from time to time unexpected hints about the youthfulness of the course of conduct he was pursuing, about the necessity for common sense in dealing with the world, and the certainty he felt that sooner or later his young friend would find out his mistake.

Arthur left him with no victory but such as was represented by the casket, which Mr. Robinson had willingly surrendered.

The lawyer assured Arthur Forrest, showing his teeth and smiling pleasantly, that when he knew more of the world he would be aware that what Mrs. Grey had done was a thing done every day. He could show—and he opened drawer after drawer to substantiate his statement—pounds' worth of jewelry left, and left wisely, by ladies who had no need for it for the moment, in the keeping of their solicitor. If Mrs. Grey had ceased to repose confidence in him—he shrugged his shoulders to prove his entire indifference—he could only say that the sooner she took charge of her own valuables the better, both for her and for himself. Certainly, she had acted rather strangely after all the trouble he had taken in the affair for very inadequate remuneration—and his time, as all the world knew, was valuable; but one must not expect gratitude in this world. He only trusted—for he could not help still taking a certain interest in the matter—that everything would be far better managed.

Arthur left the office, in fact, with a very bewildered feeling about his brain. He had known Mr. Robinson well by rumor, but hitherto he had not been brought into very close contact with him. This interview shook him considerably. He was at a loss to account for the strange mixture in the man—his apparent frankness and bonhomie, his real selfishness and hypocrisy. Before men and women know the world well they find it difficult to understand mixtures. People, with them, are ranged into two vast classes, each class bearing written on its brow in legible characters the legend of its belonging. The good are in their imagination all frankness, courage, ingenuity; the bad have the malignant scowl of a villain in a play. They are totally unprepared for the frank address, the words of common sense and true wisdom, which men whose hearts are bad have picked up in intercourse with their betters, and which they use daily in the world as a kind of current coin whose worth is incalculable. Mr. Robinson had plenty of this, and it somewhat staggered Arthur. But the recollection of his friend strengthened him, and he cast aside as unworthy all the lawyer's hints.

Quietly he requested Mr. Robinson to use neither time nor money in the effort to find Mr. Grey, and to prepare for having Mrs. Grey's affairs most thoroughly looked into, as she had friends who would see justice done to her. The lawyer's parting shrug and voluble assurance of entire indifference were lost on the young man. He had a more satisfactory interview later in the same day. His own man of business, Mr. Golding, was shrewd and well versed in character. He knew where his own interests lay, and when it was possible he guarded them carefully; but he was actually—what Mr. Robinson made a loud profession of being—a God-fearing, conscientious man. He, or the firm he represented, and which had succeeded to him from his father, had taken charge of the property inherited by Arthur Forrest for some generations. Naturally, then, he took a deep interest in it, and it was a matter of some moment to him that the young heir should place the same confidence in the firm as his father had done before him.

When, therefore, he came with his tale—a tale that to the man of the world sounded rather romantic and far-fetched—Mr. Golding listened patiently. He did not fail to represent to his client that the business on which he was embarking was of a highly delicate nature; that action of his might very possibly be looked upon as an impertinent interference; that in any case his success—in one at least of the objects he had set before him—was extremely doubtful. Not that there could be much difficulty in finding Mr. Grey. If he should still be above ground he would be found; if not, the fact could easily be ascertained. The question was, whether, in the first place, there had not been some motive beyond that imagined for his long absence (it was difficult for a hard-headed man of business like Mr. Golding even to imagine how any man could behave so impulsively in such an emergency), and in this case his return was certainly improbable; whether, in the second place, should he have left England solely on this account, his belief in his wife's unworthiness would not be too deeply rooted to yield to a few enthusiastic words; whether, in the third place, granted even that his mood toward his wife had softened in the interval, he would not resent the intervention of a stranger, and be inclined to feel annoyance at a stranger's intimate knowledge of his affairs.

To all this Arthur only answered, "I know there are difficulties: I am prepared for them. I will set to work with great prudence, but set to work I must. The question is this, Do you feel inclined to help me?"

The shrewd man of law saw that his young client was in earnest, and he demurred no longer. "I will help you willingly," he said. "I only wished to prepare you for certain difficulty and very probable disappointment. And now to work. This gentleman was last heard of at St. Petersburg?"

"Yes. He left there ill and evidently dissatisfied. His friends feared he had some intention of committing suicide."

The lawyer's lip curled ever so slightly: "The ladies were in want of a bit of sensation. Probably Mr. Maurice Grey is forgotten by this time. More likely, I should say, late hours and a gay life had knocked him up. There is no city where a man can live faster than in St. Petersburg. He left, probably, to get a little rest, and would not write for fear of another pressing invitation. But he can't live on air, wherever he may be. Can you tell me if he derives his income from property in England?"

"I believe he does, and that he communicates from time to time with his solicitor in London. I have his name too. But I believe he is close, or has been recommended to secrecy by his client."

Arthur passed a card to Mr. Golding, who glanced at it and gave a sudden exclamation: "That Grey! Why, I know all about him. You have a mortgage on his property, Mr. Forrest, and a very first-rate security it is, too; we could not wish for better. I will write at once to my friend Edwards appointing an interview. There's a little matter of business between us, so he will suspect nothing. Then I shall draw him on to Mr. Grey. He has once or twice entertained me with an account of his eccentricities. You must not be too sanguine. I believe Mr. Grey has a kind of objection to letting any one know his true address; so, even upon the authority of Edwards, I may be sending you off on a wild-goose chase. However, if we hear something of his whereabouts, we shall have less difficulty in tracing him."

"How strange," said Arthur meditatively, "that I should have had something to do with him all this time without knowing it! But about the other matter, Golding—the child?"

"There I disagree with you entirely. That any man can have taken so stupid a revenge is really absurd, even to imagine. No: Mrs. Grey's first impression was correct. Her husband wished to overlook the education of his daughter. He carried out his purpose in a most unwarrantable manner; but evidently the man is soured—I should say scarcely responsible. Perhaps he sent an agent to secure the child, and this would account for the gray hair and foreign appearance. More probably still, a good deal of this was put on for effect by your informant."

"I don't think so," returned Arthur. "It is just possible, as you say, that Mr. Grey deputed some one to fetch his child, but it would be a very strange kind of proceeding."

"Not half so strange as your foreigner encumbering himself with such a charge out of mere jealousy. However, all this remains to be proved. Southampton, you say? I will send a clerk there to make inquiries—a sharp fellow; he has often done me good service in this line. He shall start this afternoon. It's a pity it has been delayed so long. If Robinson had understood his duty, he would have set this search on foot at once. In eight days no one knows what can be done with a child. However, I have great hope of a clue from Southampton. As you say, they must be conspicuous travellers. And now, my dear sir, you are interesting yourself very much about your neighbors, but are you aware that in three weeks' time we shall have to give an account of our proceedings during your minority? It is quite necessary that you should make some provision for the transaction of your business, especially as, if you follow out your present plans, your whereabouts for the next few months may be doubtful."

"I have thought of it," replied Arthur gravely, "and I hope I am not totally unaware of the responsibilities of my position. For the present, however, I shall ask you to continue to take the entire management. When this affair which occupies me so much is over, I shall be ready to receive your statement, which I know will be satisfactory in every way." He smiled as he spoke and held out his hand.

Mr. Golding was surprised as well as touched. It was pleasant to the man of business—whose labor in the cause of young Forrest's family had been to a certain degree a labor of love—to find his client able to take a practical, common-sense view of his position, and to appreciate his upright and assiduous care.

He smiled in return, and shook the young man's hand warmly: "You gratify me, my dear sir. Yes, indeed, I have done my best, my very best, for the estate, as my father did before me; and the day upon which I shall deliver up my accounts and those of your guardians into your hands is one to which I have long looked forward with pleasant anticipation. In the mean time I may say, in the name of your guardians, that you can draw upon us in excess of your ordinary allowance. There are certain accumulations of income which we always thought would serve for some such purpose as this projected journey. We could have wished, of course, that it had been delayed, but as matters stand for you to anticipate their receipt by a few days can be an affair of no great moment to us."

And thus it was arranged. Arthur's way was smoothed, and nothing remained to be done but the attainment of some clue to Maurice Grey's place of refuge.

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[CHAPTER XV.]

THE YOUNG PEOPLE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER AT LAST.

If that there be one scene in life wherefrom
Evil is absent, it is pure early love.

Adèle's languor increased with the summer. The heat, which had grown intense in and about London, the fatigues of the season, the anxiety about Arthur and their mutual friend Mrs. Grey,—all these worked upon a constitution in which the seeds of delicacy were deeply rooted.

Mrs. Churchill began to be anxious, and to cast about for some suitable method of giving her daughter change of air. Nothing presented itself for the moment. It was too early for Scarborough or Whitby; only plebeians frequented Brighton in July; against the Continent, Switzerland, Germany or the Italian lakes Adèle protested loudly, and the good Mrs. Churchill felt a certain sinking of heart at the prospect of putting the breadth of the Channel between herself and England during the London season. The little gossip of society, the projets de mariage, the whispers of political complications, the scandals of high life were dear to Mrs. Churchill's soul. And at this special time, when the air was rife with rumor, it would have been irritating, to say the least of it, to go out into the blank of an existence from which the Morning Post and Court Journal would of necessity be excluded. But none of these things could alter the fact. Adèle was pining in the great city; she wanted change of air.

Indecision and anxiety are not improving to the temper. The good-natured Mrs. Churchill became sharp and irritable. She was annoyed with Adèle for being ill, and with Fate for not delaying her illness by a few weeks, when London could be left without a pang, and the bracing climate of Scarborough would have been open to them; she was angry with Arthur for his new independence and mysterious course of conduct, and especially with that absurd Mrs. Grey, who seemed, by means of her romantic story and inexplicable power of fascination, to be at the root of all the inconvenience. The worst of it was that this internal effervescence could be allowed very little external vent, for Arthur and Mrs. Grey were out of reach, and the doctors, several of whom had been consulted, had given express orders that Adèle should be kept as quiet as possible. Of course it was idle to rave against Fate, for Fate is calm and impersonal, and only bruises the breasts of the tumultuous. The servants were the only sufferers, but they took their mistress's ill-temper with great equanimity, knowing their personal comforts would not be one jot diminished, and that this storm would pass as others had passed before it. But Mrs. Churchill could not always keep her annoyance from her daughter, and on one of these hot days her feelings became quite too much for her.

Adèle was on the sofa again, deeply engrossed in one of her pet volumes with the calf-skin binding. Her mother had been wandering about from one position to another in the vain effort to cool herself; she had tried at least a dozen different fans, she had bathed her face and hands again and again in eau-de-cologne, she had read a little and worked a little, had taken up the paper and thrown it down again, had sighed and fumed and bustled till her state was really pitiable.

"Adèle," she cried at last, "for Goodness' sake put down that book. Whatever the doctor may say about your not being crossed, I'm quite sure—and so I told him only yesterday—that so much reading is very bad for the mind, especially in hot weather. Why, I can't even get through the paper; and you look as pale as a ghost. Oh," wringing her hands in desperation, "if I only knew what to do with you!"

"Only don't excite yourself, mamma," said Adèle languidly.

"Excite myself? That is not a very dutiful way of addressing your mother, Adèle, especially when what you call my excitement is solely on your account."

"I know it, mamma dear," said Adèle gently, putting down the obnoxious volume. "Forgive me if I annoyed you, but really I wish so much that you would cease being anxious about me. I shall be better as soon as ever the weather is a little cooler."

"And how long may we suppose that will be?" Mrs. Churchill panted, and began again agitating desperately the latest fan, a feathered one. "I tell you what it is, if this goes on I shall shut up the house and leave London altogether."

She spoke defiantly, as if London would be greatly the sufferer by such a step.

Adèle shook her head: "You would certainly not like it, dear. No: I'll tell you what to do. You must get Mary Churchill to stay with you here. It will be pleasant for her to see a little of London, and you know Aunt Mary will be charmed. Send me away somewhere for a fortnight. I have a kind of longing for the sea." The young girl closed her eyes. "I can imagine it, mamma, always so fresh and beautiful—Lord Byron's 'deep and dark blue ocean.' How nice it would be after the tiresome, dusty streets and squares! I shall get better there directly; I feel it."

Mrs. Churchill sighed impatiently: "One would think to hear you, Adèle, that a young lady could live at the seaside by herself, without any protection. Pray, little Miss Wisdom, how am I to send you to this sea which you describe so romantically? I do believe those poetry-books are at the root of all the mischief. I wish they were all drowned in that same blue ocean. Blue, indeed! I never see it anything but a dirty gray. I suppose I want the fine poetic insight. And instead of helping me you have started another difficulty. I promised your aunt Mary to show your cousin a little of the world this season; of course it would have been pleasanter for you to have gone out together; you are such different styles that it might have been very safely done. I must say it is extremely tiresome to have all one's plans upset. I wouldn't mind so much if I could see any way out of all this, but really and truly I was never so utterly at sea in my life."

"Write to Aunt Mary," said Adèle cheerfully, "and leave me to manage the rest."

"Leave you, indeed! I might as well leave a baby. I know your unpractical schemes of old. Dear me! I wish I could think of some feasible plan."

"Only don't fret yourself, dear," said Adèle, kissing her mother affectionately; "and listen! is that not Arthur's knock? I dare say he can help us."

"Very likely!" said Mrs. Churchill in a manner that was meant to be splendidly satirical. "However," she continued, "I must dress now, but I shall come down again before I go out; and remember, Adèle, if I find he has excited your mind by any of his absurd romances, I shall forbid him the house at once."

Adèle's eyes twinkled pleasantly at this awful threat. She knew her mother too well to have even the faintest fear of its fulfilment.

When Arthur came in she saw in a moment that he was changed. The languid, quasi-sentimental look had gone from his face, his step was brisk and vigorous, he held himself erect; he even seemed to his cousin's partial eyes to have grown since she saw him last. For the moment as she gazed she trembled. It was all over, then. He had come to tell her of success; but, reproving herself for the selfishness of the thought, she held out her hand with a smile: "The sea-air has done you good, Arthur; you look a different person."

He looked down upon her kindly: "I think I am better, Adèle, and in more ways than one; but, my poor little cousin, I can't return the compliment; you look as pale as a ghost. What in the world has Aunt Ellen been doing with you?"

Adèle flushed painfully, for she was impatient to know what his experience had been: "Please don't mind my looks, Arthur. Remember I am curious. Be kind to me, dear," she smiled faintly; "keep me no longer in suspense. Your eyes tell me something has been done."

Arthur sat down, and took one of her hands in his: "What do you read in them, Adèle?"

She looked away, shading her face with her hand: "That you have something to live for at last—that she, the woman whom you love—and I believe she is worthy of your love"—it was bravely said, though there was a certain rebellious rising in the poor little throat; she paused a moment to choke it down, then continued very calmly—"that Margaret has chosen you for her protector, that you are already busy planning to restore her to happiness."

Arthur smiled again, then stooped over his cousin's sofa: "Why do you look away, Adèle? If I should say that all this is true, that you are the most penetrating little lady in the world, would you not be glad, seeing that I have only obeyed you?"

"Don't, Arthur, don't," was the stifled answer, for he was struggling with the hand which hid her averted face, and tears were in her eyes, tyrannous exponents of a secret she would have died rather than reveal. Arthur might have descanted with reason on the capriciousness of woman's character, but he did not; he only smiled very tenderly, and drew the tear-stained face to a surer shelter as he told in a few earnest, manly words of the experiences of the last few days, and of the task he had set himself.

"Adèle," he whispered in conclusion, "I am cured. When I left you my brain was full of mad ideas. She showed me their folly, and now I can admire her, I can honor her, I can even love her, as a brother might, with the purest desire for her happiness, which I still earnestly hope to restore by giving her back her husband. For myself, my dream has changed. Listen, Adèle, dear. Look up at me once: my present hope is this—to strive by every means in my power to make myself worthy of the gentlest, the most womanly, the noblest—"

She read the rest in his eyes, and with a smile that irradiated her face till it was absolutely beautiful she looked up and put her finger on his lips: "Hush, dear, hush! say no more; you make me ashamed of myself, I have been so impatient and foolish. But, Arthur, I am happy now, so happy!"

She rested her head on the sofa and looked up at him, her blue eyes shining and her cheeks glowing with soft excitement; a little smile of contentment was playing about her lips, her golden hair fell back from her forehead in rippling waves; she was fairer than ever before, for nothing is so beautifying as happiness, especially to women of Adèle's type.

Her cousin felt it. He looked at her with a smile. "Do you know, Adèle," he said gently, "I never thought you beautiful before, but you are beautiful. What is it that is new to me in your face, little cousin?"

She shook her head: "I can't tell, dear, unless perhaps it may be that never in all my life have I been so very, very happy."

By which answer it will be seen that Adèle was but a novice in the ways of the world. She was not afraid, now she knew her love was returned, of letting its fullness be seen.

Let him love her little or much, that he loved her was enough. From the moment that was known she could not help letting him see she was his without reserve.

And Arthur's was not a nature to abuse such confidence "She trusts me fully. She shall never regret it," he said to himself. The consciousness of love and confidence unreservedly given is ennobling to some natures. His cousin's simple trust was a new rock of strength to the young man.

He stooped and kissed the young girl's ruddy lips, and there went from her warm, glowing life and love a thrill of something reciprocal through his being. He loved her, not with the first unreasoning love of the boy throwing his wilful soul into a dream that has come he knows not how—that is beautiful, fascinating, enthralling, he knows not why—but with a riper, better feeling, for those weeks' experience had served to form the young man's character, and it may be that for the time he was even in advance of his years.

He loved his cousin for herself, with a love founded on the sure basis of unwavering respect. He had seen her as she was, and he admired her with all his soul for her beautiful unselfishness. Besides, she loved him with a force of loving that only a few weeks before would have been utterly incomprehensible to him. Arthur's suffering had taught him something, and he was able to understand his cousin.

After the mutual revelation they chatted together pleasantly, formed plans by the thousand for Arthur's guidance in the difficult task that was before him and for Adèle's demeanor in his absence. They were as happy as two birds in a nest, for Arthur was at rest in his heart and in his conscience, and in the light of her own happiness and pride Adèle could not even be distressed at the indefinite separation before them. For with the sanguine nature of youth she could not bring herself to believe it would be long.

But as they talked the glow faded from her face. She was still weak, and the glad excitement that had lent so soft a bloom to her cheek for a time was itself exhausting.

Arthur was alarmed as he looked at her, she was so pale and fragile. This friend, whose affection he had almost despised, was becoming infinitely dear to him, and with a sudden pang he thought that perhaps this delicacy might mean more than they had imagined.

"Adèle," he said in a startled tone, leaning over her sofa and gazing anxiously into her eyes, "you must keep nothing from me; remember I am to be your husband. Tell me the whole truth, or I shall go away from you with a haunting fear. Is anything seriously wrong with you? Does the doctor seem alarmed?"

She smiled a glad smile. It was sweet to be so cared for.

"In all honesty I believe not, dear. All I want is change of air. You see I am weak," she sighed, "and all these people coming and going tire me. Oh, Arthur, if you knew how I long for the sea sometimes! It is like a kind of home-sickness. I feel as if I should be well at once if I could only hear the waves. Don't you know—that nice, fresh, restful sound?"

"I can't conceive why Aunt Ellen keeps you here," said Arthur with the indignant impatience of youth. A few days before he had not been so boundlessly considerate for his cousin himself. But human nature is ever the same. We would wish all our neighbors to view the landscape from our own standpoint; indeed, we are sometimes highly incensed if they persist in looking at it from theirs.

"Poor mamma!" said Adèle, "she is quite put out and puzzled about me. You see, she never likes to leave London at this time; and then she promised to have Cousin Mary here, and there is so much going on."

"But why need she go?" persisted Arthur. "Now, if she would only agree to the arrangement, and if you could stand the journey, I would willingly see you as far as Middlethorpe. Mrs. Grey has plenty of spare room, she would be delighted to see you, and old Martha is travelling there to-day, so that you would be well taken care of; then later in the year Aunt Ellen could pick you up on her way to Scarborough."

Adèle shook her head: "I should like it very much, but I fear mamma won't. She will call it one of our unpractical schemes."

"But that's all nonsense," said Arthur impatiently; "she must either take you away herself or let some one else do it, and surely I am as fit a person as any one to decide on what is fitting for my future wife."

Adèle laughed out merrily then, for as the last words were spoken in a tone of indescribable importance, the door opened and Mrs. Churchill appeared, radiant with smiles and good-humor. She had caught the latter part of Arthur's sentence, and its decisive tenor set her mind completely at rest. Evidently these ridiculous young people had at last settled matters to their own satisfaction and hers.

"Treason in the camp!" she said, gayly, repulsing her nephew's offered hand. "No, no, sir; before I have anything whatever to say to you I must hear the burden of your complaint, and understand from your own lips what is fitting for your future wife."

"Mamma!" "Aunt Ellen!" Adèle and Arthur were covered with confusion in a moment.

"Blushing, too!" said that lady unpityingly. "Come, Master Arthur, your confusion is becoming, and Adèle's blushes particularly charming, but I am not answered. What are your lordship's commands? for I suppose they must be obeyed."

"Must they, Aunt Ellen? tant mieux," answered the young man lightly; "then I shall lay them upon you without delay. This young lady"—he took one of Adèle's hands and held it in his—"my future wife, as you observe, is looking wretchedly ill and worn; she requires change of air at once."

Mrs. Churchill's face clouded: "Easily stated, my dear nephew; the difficulty is at the present moment to give it to her."

"The difficulty can easily be overcome, Aunt Ellen, if you will only have confidence in my judgment. You have heard something about Mrs. Grey—"

"And quite enough, Arthur; pray don't begin upon that old story."

"But I must, indeed, Aunt Ellen, if you are to understand what I want. Mrs. Grey has been good enough to put all her affairs in my hands. I have learned from her that the separation between herself and her husband was brought about by a misunderstanding which she has been allowed no opportunity of explaining. My business now is to find out her husband and make him understand the true state of affairs."

"All very well," broke in Mrs. Churchill impatiently; "and I'm glad to hear she had the good taste and honesty to let you know at least that her husband is living. But, pray, what has this to do with Adèle?"

"Patience for one moment, Aunt Ellen. I only trouble you with all these details that you may know my scheme for my cousin is not so unpractical as it may seem. Mrs. Grey, I am firmly convinced, is an honorable, high-minded lady, or else indeed I could not wish to entrust her, even for one day, with the keeping of any one so near and dear to me as Adèle must be under any circumstances; for (please let me go on for one more moment) my scheme is this: Mrs. Grey has a charming little house on the Yorkshire coast; the air is splendid, the neighborhood is quiet."

Mrs. Churchill could not help smiling: "Don't take a leaf out of Murray, Arthur."

But the young man continued seriously: "She will be delighted to receive Adèle for a time. If you agree to this, I can take her to Middlethorpe before I go abroad, and you, on your way to Scarborough in the autumn, can bring her on with you. Old Martha will be there, for I sent her on to-day with some jewelry belonging to Mrs. Grey which I have reclaimed from her lawyer. You know Martha will look after Adèle's comfort as well as you could. Come now, Aunt Ellen, is this such a very unpractical scheme?"

"Perhaps not, since your Mrs. Grey has turned out to be a respectable matron after all; but what warrant have we that her story is true?"

"Mamma!" began Adèle indignantly, but Arthur stopped her:

"My moral conviction of her truth is enough for me, Aunt Ellen, and for Adèle; I believe it would be for you if you had once seen her. But for your satisfaction I can tell you that her story has been rather strangely confirmed. I went to see Golding about it this morning, for I wished to set him on the track of Mrs. Grey's child, who, I should tell you, was mysteriously stolen away from her about a week ago. He knows Mrs. Grey's solicitor, and had heard from him all the leading points of the story."

Mrs. Churchill sighed: "Ah, well! I hope no harm will come of it. I must say it's a queer state of affairs altogether, but as far as I can see it seems the best plan. Adèle is certainly old enough to take care of herself, and Mrs. Grey could scarcely have any ulterior design in asking her to stay at the house. Then old Mrs. Foster being there is a great thing; she is a most trustworthy person. I suppose it will be necessary for me to write to Mrs. Grey, but how am I to put it? Is she supposed to have sent an invitation by you?"

Adèle's eyes were glistening with delight at this happy termination. "Never mind about that, mamma," she said gayly. "I will write a little note to Margaret to prepare her for my coming, and, let me see, if you like, Arthur, I can start the day after to-morrow."

"My dear child, how impetuous you are!"

"The day after to-morrow, Aunt Ellen," said Arthur decisively; "that will give me to-morrow for further inquiries in town, the day after for our journey, then on the day following, if at all possible, I shall start for the Continent."

"Well, well," said Aunt Ellen, good-humoredly, "you young people have taken the law into your own hands, so all I have to do is to submit." And thus the matter was arranged to the mutual satisfaction of the cousins.

---

[CHAPTER XVI.]

A STORM.

There's somewhat in this world amiss,
Shall be unriddled by and by.

The sultry afternoon was closed by a stormy evening. As Arthur and Adèle sat together in the library—for Mrs. Churchill, who was herself at a large dinner-party, had been graciously pleased to leave them alone together in this coziest corner of the comfortable house—the clouds began to gather and a moaning, sighing wind to sweep up the street.

"There is going to be a storm," said Adèle with a little shiver; "close the curtains, like a good old fellow, and come to tea."

"Don't you like storms, Adèle? I thought you were so brave."

"Sometimes, but not to-night."

She rose from her seat at the table and stood by his side, leaning her hand on his shoulder and her little rounded chin on her hand.

"How the clouds are driven about, and how wild they look! Oh come away, Arthur. I am so glad I am not alone!"

"Why, my little cousin? Is lightning more dangerous in solitude?"

"Everything seems more dangerous when one is alone; but you don't understand me, Arthur. I never feel as if a storm were dangerous. It's not fear, but a kind of feeling rather difficult to explain, as though bad things were about and near us."

"Witches on broomsticks and malignant fairies," suggested Arthur.

Adèle laughed: "Not exactly. I lost my faith in them a few years ago; indeed, by the bye, I never believed in them. My fairies were always pretty and good. This storm makes me think of wicked people more than wicked spirits. There! look! That yellow, sinister-looking flash brought before me as distinctly as if I had seen him at the moment the face of Margaret Grey's tormentor, the tall dark man who smiled in at the window so insolently. Oh, I do hope and trust I shall never meet him anywhere!"

"How funny!" said Arthur lightly: "the storm made me also think of some one connected with Mrs. Grey. That horrid old landlady's face came in a most contorted manner before my mind. I fear that woman is no better than she ought to be; however," he drew out his watch, "if Martha has followed out my directions she ought to be at the cottage now. Let me see: the train is due in York at half-past four, by six she should be at Middlethorpe Station, then a two hours' drive. I hope it is all right, but I can't help wishing I had got the old woman to start last night."

"What are you afraid of, dear?" said Adèle nervously.

Arthur laughed, but there was something forced in his mirth: "We'll draw the curtains, Adèle. You have infected me with your fancies. I really feel as if something uncanny were abroad to-night." They sat down together to the tea-table luxuriously spread with rich plate and china. There were no hot fumes of gas to poison the atmosphere, but a silver reading-lamp cast its warm light upon the table, leaving the heavy crimson curtains in their long folds, the tall stately bookcases and the oaken cabinet in shadow. It was a pleasant room, restful to the senses. Adèle looked round her. "How comfortable we are here to-night, Arthur! and," as a sullen crash of thunder and the splash of falling rain came from outside, "how desolate it must be out there! Oh, Arthur, why can't every one be as happy and comfortable as we are?"

For the sound of the tempest had brought the eternal shadow that lurks in the background of every human joy to the young girl's soul, and she was ready to reproach herself for her own exuberant gladness.

"It's much better not to think of it at all," said Arthur lightly—"at least not to disturb one's self;" and then he added more gravely, "I think if we each do our best to lessen the amount of human suffering, we may safely enjoy our own happiness."

"And you are doing yours," said Adèle, looking admiringly at the young face ennobled by its transient gravity; "if you succeed in bringing back happiness to that one life, it will be something to have lived for."

"If I succeed!" Arthur sighed; some of the rebellious thoughts of the preceding evening were troubling him once more. He rose and paced the room. "I feel so restless, Adèle," he said in explanation. "When this storm has cleared off a little I shall go out for a stroll."

Was there a reason for his restlessness? Had some electric current, flashing through the troubled air, notified him of the terrible scene that was being enacted under the storm-sounds in the distant little village, where the woman to whom the first love of his boyhood had been given was, as he fondly believed, resting calmly in her dwelling, cheered by the hope and confidence he had brought her?

Who can tell? for life has many chords, and Nature has agents infinite and varied to work her strange will, and humanity is a complex thing that no philosopher has yet been able to resolve into all its component parts. Matter he may hold, but mind defies him, and these strange coincidences, these half-revelations, are all of the impalpable spirit, humanity's crown and power.

It will be remembered that in the course of the last conversation between Margaret Grey and her young protector he had expressed in very strong terms his distrust of her landlady, and had even hinted some suspicion of her false dealing in the information she had given about the lost child.

That conversation had been overheard by Jane Rodgers. Something of this she had suspected, and with ear applied to the keyhole she had been listening to every syllable of the conversation. Much of it had been inexplicable. It required the disclosures of the morning, which had been given on the sea-shore utterly out of reach of her ears, to give any meaning to much that passed between Mrs. Grey and her visitor; but this one thing clung to Jane's mind with a sullen persistency. The young man had seen through her—her lodger distrusted her.

Jane was conscious of this: that she had been guilty of double-dealing, that she had received a bribe for carrying out a certain purpose, that she had given the cunning of a clever brain to helping forward the commission of what she knew to be a crime. And this she had done, not for the money's sake, though Jane was fond of gold, but for the gratification of a hatred which was daily strengthening in her narrow mind. Jane had not many passions or affections; she had, as she thought, outlived the gentler ones, she had grown hard in a hard school; and this hatred had taken all the deeper root. It grew, in fact, till it absorbed her, and drowned in its turbid depths every other emotion.

She had long disliked her mistress—at first she could scarcely have told why. Perhaps it was Mrs. Grey's peculiar beauty and grace and the quiet dignity of her manner that made her so utterly antipathetic to her landlady. Little natures are apt to be jealous in a wild, unreasonable kind of way. Jane in the course of her life as a servant had come often into close contact with beauty, wealth, happiness, but none of these had affected her so strongly as the constant presence of this patient lady, who, she had taught herself to believe, was "no good," and yet whose quiet dignity and calm superiority made her universally respected and admired.

Another element went to the forming of this deadly hatred. Her mistress was kind and gentle, but she never descended to Jane's level. The landlady might think as she would of her lodger's antecedents; there remained in spite of all as immeasurable a distance between them as had ever separated Jane Rodgers the servant from her haughtiest mistress. It was a something that daily fretted the woman's spirit—in a great measure, it may be, because it was incomprehensible.

Jane was no communist or republican; the barriers of rank and fashion she could thoroughly understand. She had never bruised herself by attempting to beat against those iron bars. "Providence," she would piously remark to such of her equals as complained in her presence of inequality of lots—"Providence had ordained as there should be rich and poor, high and low, which, as far as she could see, was judicious, for what would a servant do as a fine lady, and how could a fine lady do for herself?"

But in the refinement that independently of circumstances and surroundings raises one above another, Jane could not see the hand of Providence so directly.

Mrs. Grey seemed to have no particular position in the world, few people knew her, her clothes were often shabbier than Jane's. The landlady believed, and probably with reason, that she could have bought up her mistress's possessions with very little trouble. Where, then, was the difference between them? Why was it that Jane had instinctively stood in the presence of her lodger, and treated her (until the last access of rage and hatred) with the same respect as she had treated mistresses who were high in the scale of the world's honor? She could not understand it, and it galled her proud spirit till dark, brooding evil took full possession of her.

This it was that had prompted her strange behavior in Mrs. Grey's absence. This it was that had caused her last and basest treachery.

Jane had not, indeed, objected to the bribe, which had been tolerably large, but for the money's sake she would not have compromised herself. It was against Jane's principles. That she had gone through life tolerably clean-handed was chiefly owing to this. She had a mind capable of looking beyond the paltry bribe to the consequences involved in its reception. Anxiety of mind, care, terror of discovery,—she was given to comparing the relative value of these with that of the gold which would buy her concurrence in some underhand scheme, and generally the decision was against the gold. But this time the danger of discovery was not great and the service rendered was small, scarcely amounting, so Jane reasoned with herself, to complicity in the deed. The money was acceptable and the revenge was sweet.

It was very bewildering to Jane's mind and rather destructive to her peace that as soon as ever the affair had occurred Mrs. Grey's friends came flocking to the place. First the lawyer; but Jane was shrewd enough to see that he was not dangerous to her—rather, perhaps, to her mistress. After him, however, came the young Arthur, a man of very different type, and even before the overheard conversation Jane had caught the young man watching her very closely. She knew then that Margaret had told her troubles to a sympathizing listener, who was ready to devote himself to her service. She had a shrewd suspicion, too, that he would succeed in unearthing the mystery. And then her share in the abduction of the child might very possibly come to light.

Her suspicions were confirmed by the few decided words in which Arthur alluded to his fears for Margaret and his earnest desire that she should choose another residence. If they had seen the white look of fear and hatred which overspread the face of the listener, Margaret would probably have come to a very different decision. Jane's hatred had been great before. The penetration of the young man and the quiet acquiescence of her lodger increased it tenfold; while joined to these was a sudden fear lest the salutary advice should be followed, lest Mrs. Grey should leave the house and the schemes of her young protector be carried on wholly out of her reach.

Her fears were set at rest, but Margaret's calm answer inflamed her once more. She read in it a quiet contempt at the bare idea of Jane being able to inflict any kind of annoyance upon her, with the exception of a stupid insolence.

The woman crept from the door with the spirit of evil in her heart. She spent the next day brooding.

---

[CHAPTER XVII.]

WHAT THE STORM BROUGHT.

I said that I was dying. God is good:
The heavens grow darker as they grow the purer;
And both as we do near them; so near death
The soul grows darker and diviner hourly.

The storm that had looked so wild among the streets and terraces of London broke in absolute fury over the northern ocean. The waves were lashed into violence under the fierce rushing of the winds, the great yellow clouds sent out vivid flashes that lit up the desolate scene, and ever and anon came the sullen crash of thunder through the darkness.

The sun had gone down, the twilight had passed into the storm-darkness; it was about the time when Adèle and Arthur had been discussing the mental effects produced by tempest in the closely-curtained library, and sending out the warm compassion of their young souls to the world's great army of mourners. Margaret Grey sat beside her parlor-window looking out upon the storm. She looked very desolate in the silent, half-dark room, with its white curtains and ghostly holland draperies. Her hands were folded listlessly, her eyes were full of sadness. She had been much happier and far more hopeful since Arthur's visit, but on this evening, she could not have told why, the deep depression from which his presence and her own strenuous exertions had aroused her seemed to be settling down upon her once more.

She felt so absolutely alone and uncared-for in the dreary tumult upon which she gazed that she began to feel as if it were impossible for anything but this to be her lot. Every sweet human tie that had once rejoiced her had been loosened, and she told herself she only was to blame, and therefore they might never, never be reknit. It was a curse upon her, and she could not believe it would be removed.

She bowed her head upon her hands as she thought of the past—as she felt within herself the rich, boundless capabilities of loving—as she looked out upon her own desolation.

And while she was brooding the darkness gathered. In the distance the white foam of the waves gleamed through it, and from time to time it was disturbed by the lightning; but for that it was deep indeed. A dark night has terrors for the imaginative: Margaret looked out with a shudder.

"It was into such a darkness that he went out," she murmured. "Oh, my darling! my darling!"

And then she turned, and began to feel with a certain creeping sense of uneasiness that the house was very still. She drew down the blind with a hasty impulse. The outside world made her think too painfully of that wanderer in his first desolation. Alas! he would have recovered from that—perhaps he was even rejoicing in his liberty. The thought was too bitter. She felt her overstrained mind must have relief. A book might bring it, so she rose to ring for lights.

But before she could reach the bell-handle the door opened slowly, stealthily, as if ashamed of its own creaking, and a figure that in the half darkness she did not recognize crossed to the window, and taking a seat gazed at her across the interval of shadow. There was something defiant in the action, and for a moment Margaret was frightened. Who was this that had dared to intrude upon her?

But she and her landlady were alone in the house. Her fears, she told herself, were puerile; crossing the dark room, she looked her intruder in the face. By the faint light which still struggled through the window-blind she recognized Jane Rodgers. But could she be right? Was not this rather a distorted creature of her own imagination that had taken the landlady's face and features to mock her? This being was very unlike the quiet and eminently respectable landlady, for the face was so livid that it seemed to gleam out of the darkness, the eyes were wild and lurid, and the lips and tongue seemed to be moving convulsively, as though the woman were agitated with burning thirst.

Margaret started back in momentary alarm; but she was naturally brave—she would assure herself that this was no dream conjured up by a diseased imagination, but actual, living flesh and blood. She put her hand on her landlady's shoulder. "Jane," she said, "is this you? My good woman, what is wrong? Has the storm alarmed you?"

Her touch was flung off with such violence that she staggered and nearly fell, for the torrent of this woman's wrath and hatred had been so long suppressed that now no bounds would hold it. "Leave me alone!" she cried. "How dare you put a finger on me? No," with a wild laugh as Margaret retreated quietly to the door. She thought the woman was mad, and so Jane was in a sense. "I've turned the key. We're alone together, at last, my fine lady; you shall hear me out; you shall know what's in my power—what I'll do, by ——! It's a fine night, dark as pitch; a body could be easily put out of the way—made quiet and then tossed out there!"

She lifted the blind, and even as she did so came a lurid flash. It showed the outside tumult, the black, restless waves, seeming in their unrest to hunger for a victim, and for one moment it showed in bold relief what was more dreadful still, a dark human face distorted with hideous passion. The eyes of the landlady seemed to be starting from their sockets, her strong sinewy hands were clenched, her body was stooping forward; the attitude was that of a cat about to spring upon its prey. Margaret saw and shrank back in sudden terror, the sight was so repulsive. But she recovered herself. They were woman to woman. Why should she fear? Again she touched the landlady on the shoulder. "Jane," she said in a low voice that trembled in spite of her strong effort to be calm, "you must be mad or dreaming. What does all this mean?"

"It means ——." The woman hissed one word into her ear, and then for the first time Margaret realized her position. She had not much physical strength, for the severe mental struggles through which she had been passing had slowly but surely sapped at the springs of her life. Alone! She had thought of it with sadness only a few moments since; now she felt herself alone, and in the power of a hatred rendered strong and brutal by human passion. In the presence of the dark reality her small remnant of strength deserted her. She felt weak and faint with sheer terror of what might be before her.

In one moment it all seemed to flash upon her—the horror, the mystery, the sickening details. She closed her eyes and instinctively cried out for help to the one Presence that alone was near her in this awful moment. The lightning flashed in again upon the strange scene. It showed her kneeling, with clasped hands and calm face and eyes raised up to heaven.

Heaven! God! We think of them little in our hours of peace and gladness, but in the storm-sounds, in the terrors of darkness, in physical weakness brought home to our souls, perhaps we are all somewhat alike. Weak women and strong, self-dependent men instinctively look up, involuntarily call on the awful name. How often, how often, the Name has proved a Power! Even in this case it seemed for a moment effectual.

The woman with the deadly purpose in her eyes shrank back, awed by the secret witness evoked by prayer. But darkness hid the calm, resolute face, and the cruel heart was steeled once more. "What's the use of praying?" she cried in a transport of fury; "them as prays should practice—that's my creed; and, look you here! if there's a heaven and hell, as the pious says, you've killed my soul, for I was never wicked till you came our way; and curse you for it, I say, with your milk-white face and your smooth ways and your pride! But I'll do for you yet. I didn't intend it," she continued, her voice rising almost to a shriek, "leastways, not to-night; but the look of you, the feel of you, makes me mad." She had seized Margaret's delicate wrists and was holding them in a vice-like grasp as she glared into her eyes. "Your fine young gentleman suspects me—you haven't that confidence. I was insolent, was I? but not nothing to be afraid of. Perhaps you'll cry another cry now, if I let you cry at all."

She laughed a savage laugh that made Margaret shiver, but she had not lost all her power; with a sudden wrench she threw off the woman's grasp, and springing to the window unloosened and opened it. It was on the ground floor, but even a fall would have been better than this life-and-death struggle in the darkness. The cool, keen night-air was refreshing. She drew a long breath and threw herself forward. It was in vain.

Jane had recovered from the momentary paralysis which Margaret's unexpected effort had caused her. She caught her round the waist, and dragging her back into the room threw her down upon the ground.

Then for a moment Margaret's consciousness deserted her. With a deep sigh she closed her eyes, but not even her weakness would come to her relief. Horror kept her senses alert. She opened her eyes to feel the cool night-air bathing her face, and to see the face of her enemy very close to her own.

Jane's knees were on Margaret's chest, her hand was uplifted to strike, but her victim opened her eyes and the hand fell. "You're not quite gone," she said—"only a sham, like t'other night. No more shams for you, fine lady; but, listen! a big one for me, and it'll help your last moments to hear it. You've destroyed yourself is to be my story to-morrow when the neighbors inquire—went out in the storm unbeknown to me—wasn't heard of no more."

Margaret closed her eyes again, but no cry for mercy came from her lips.

Jane Rodgers waited. It would have been a triumph to have heard the passionate prayers for which she had prepared herself to answer with mocking reference to former times. She stooped down. "Have you nothing to say?" she asked.

Still not a word, only the dark eyes opened, and the pure spirit seemed to look out calmly on the passionate, sin-stained mortal.

And still Jane waited. It seemed almost as if an invisible power had held back her hand.

In the moment given her Margaret was preparing to die. She looked her position calmly in the face. She could not struggle. All her strength seemed to have gone out of her in that last effort. Nothing was left but submission. It was hard. For the sake of others, for the sake of the future which was beginning to take fairer colors, she would have wished to live; and then in this kind of death there was something so revolting. To be put out of sight, to be cast like a dog into the waters, to leave behind her as a memory either the stain of self-destruction or the horrible nine days' wonder of a sickening murder. But would not words be thrown away? and strength she had none.

She could only pray with passionate intensity for help. With the prayer came calmness, and after it a strange thought that utterly absorbed her.

For the moment Margaret Grey forgot herself, forgot even the horror of her situation. She looked up into the haggard, desperate face bending over her, and her very soul was filled with a deep, boundless pity. Her thought was no more to save herself; it was to save this woman from the commission of a crime. A sudden sense of responsibility seemed to crush her down, a feeling that if this woman's soul were lost she would be to blame. It was a madness, a noble madness, but it gave her strength.

With an irresistible force she threw off the knees that were pressing out her life, and rising to her feet looked in her turn into the eyes of her bitter foe—a look that so astonished Jane as to render her for the moment helpless, for she saw her mistress's face as the face of an angel. Through the semi-darkness of the room those kind, sad eyes looked into hers, and seemed to draw away half her venom.

Then Margaret spoke in a soft, low tone that contrasted strangely with the fierce, savage words to which she had been forced to listen: "Poor foolish woman! why do you hate me so?"

Her words fell clear and unanswered in the silence. She went on gently, "If I have suspected you wrongfully, if I have caused you any kind of evil, I am heartily sorry; but oh, for your own sake, for the sake of all you hold dear, pause now before you do a deed that can never, through all eternity, be undone."

She paused a moment to gather strength: "I did not intend to ask you to spare me, but as I lay there helpless it came into my mind that if I suffered this deed to be done your blood-guiltiness would be on my head. You cannot hurt me much," she continued with a noble truthfulness, "for what is death? I have looked it in the face more than once—a bitter pang, no doubt, but a short one. I plead not for my sake, but for yours—for your poor soul, which is perishing this night. In God's name I beseech you to spare it. Be wise in time, or at least—for the long night is before us—take an hour to consider. I will not escape—I will sit here in your sight. You were mad for the moment—these feelings of hatred had taken possession of you—God would not suffer—" She broke off suddenly, "Hark! what is that?"

"A knocking at the gate," said Jane, turning very pale. "Now's your time. You have gained time with your false tongue. I sha'n't be able to escape. You will have your revenge."

"Stop," said Margaret, holding her back, and there was heavenly forgiveness in her face. "Believe that I wish you no ill. Look at me, Jane. Do you see hatred or vengeance in my face? Forget these few awful moments. I will forgive, and we shall both thank God for ever for having saved as from an unspeakable horror. This is His hand; go down an your knees and thank Him."

"It is—it is!" said Jane, shivering, for her superstitious nature had been touched by the strange coincidence. Governed by a stronger will than her own, she knelt, while the tears rained down her face.

But the knocking began to grow desperate.

"You had better go," said Margaret quietly; "our visitor is impatient."

Obedient as a child, the woman who but a few moments before had been foaming with rage got up and went out. The cause of the noise was soon explained. A chaise was standing at the gate, the sound of whose approach had been unheard in the tumult of the night: an elderly woman had dismounted.

"Sae ye're not all deed and buried," she said briskly as the landlady showed her scared face at the gate. "I was rating the laddie here for misguiding o' an auld wife that micht hae bin his mither, for, thinks I to myself, sure and certain there's not a soul within, and a awfu' nicht it is to keep a body outside"—the old woman spoke quite reproachfully—"but noo I think on't," she continued, "ye're not living here your lane. One Mrs. Grey is lodgin' wi' you, for, as I tak it, you're the landleddy."

Jane was scarcely able to speak, but as silence gives consent the old woman proceeded to pay the boy, to gather up her parcels and to walk rapidly along the garden-path.

"An' here is Mrs. Grey her ainsel', as I canna doobt," she continued cheerfully, for Margaret had lighted the hall-lamp and was standing underneath it.

The old Scotchwoman looked round her scrutinizingly as she passed into the lighted hall. There was a certain appearance of repressed excitement about both Margaret and the landlady that did not escape her shrewd old eyes. "Bless me, how wild they look!" was her mental ejaculation, but she refrained from all expression of her feelings.

Mrs. Foster understood her manners. She prided herself on this, that she knew a lady the moment she set her eyes upon her. Whatever Mrs. Grey might turn out to be, old Martha was satisfied at once that she was a lady, and she acted accordingly. She dropped a little old-fashioned curtsey, and the excitement of her first arrival having in a measure passed, brought forward her best English to do honor to the occasion:

"You'll be astonished, madam, and with reason, to see an old woman drop down from the skies, as we may say, and at this hour of the night, too. But I've brought my credentials with me, and, like mony anither, my young gentleman likes to do everything in a hurry. Here's the letter which will explain a sight better than I can."

"Come in, come in," said Margaret; then to Jane, who was looking at her in a strange scrutinizing manner, "Bring the candles into the parlor, Jane; then come in and consider how we are to provide for our guest. I am sure she is heartily welcome, for I see Mr. Forrest has sent her."

Margaret's words had the desired effect. They set Jane's mind at rest. She saw it was not her mistress's intention to make any revelation about the scene that had preceded the old woman's arrival. Bewildered and dazed, she found her way to the kitchen, mechanically did as she was told, and returned to the parlor to find the old woman quietly divesting herself of bonnet and shawl and looking round with the air of one who had taken possession.

Old Martha seemed in fact to be the only capable person in the house, for Margaret had fallen back on the sofa white and trembling. Up to the moment of the old woman's arrival she had been sustained by her overpowering excitement. In the pleasant, warm security she began to feel a certain reaction, a sudden collapse of power.

And the landlady, notwithstanding her vigorous efforts to recover her self-possession, looked rather scared. It was such a contrast—from the horror and darkness to the light and pleasant security. But our life is strange; the common things seize and silence the dramatic crises, and we drop naturally into the old channels. The first access of alarm over, Jane Rodgers put on her apron, smoothed back her hair and set about the common tasks of relighting the kitchen fire, preparing tea and airing sheets for the old woman's bed, just as if that awful night's experience had never been. And Margaret swallowed a glass of wine, fought down her longing for tears, and found herself in a few moments looking with tranquil pleasure at her old treasures, the rings and bracelets which Martha Foster had returned, and listening quietly to the old woman's lively description of Mr. Arthur's babyhood and early youth. Martha never imagined this could be anything but interesting, and to have begun so soon on her pet subject was a high mark of the old woman's favor.

Margaret believed she had conquered Jane Rodgers's fierce hatred—for the moment at least—yet it was with a feeling of devout thankfulness that she noticed how, of her own accord, the landlady had arranged for Martha Foster to sleep in the little closet which opened from her bedroom.

They all retired early, and the stormy evening closed in peace.

---

[CHAPTER XVIII.]

LIGHT IN DARKNESS.

Oh, trust me, never fell
By love a spirit or earthly or of heaven:
Rather by love they are regenerate.
Love is the happy privilege of mind—
Love is the reason of all living things.

Margaret's work was not over. In that transcendent moment when death was staring her in the face she had made a certain resolution, and the security that followed the danger did not make her shrink from carrying it out. Strange but true; the words in which she had striven with the desperate spirit of evil that had taken possession of Jane Rodgers actually represented her state of mind at the time. Margaret had thrown herself out of herself. With the renovating power of the intensest pity she had looked into the troubled spirit which was revealing itself in all its unutterable depths of misery, and she had resolved to save it even from itself. Hence it was that instead of the abject cries self-pity would have drawn from the proudest heart at this supreme crisis, her words had been calm, self-contained, spoken with an authority which to the half-crazed brain of the desperate woman was so strange as to seem mysterious and supernatural.

This it was that had saved Margaret at least from severe bodily harm. In sheer astonishment the woman's hand had been stayed, and before the wicked impulse could return help was at the door. The help had come so strangely that Jane's superstitious fears were confirmed. She began to think her mistress possessed some secret power. The idea cowed her. She became abject in her dread. She looked upon the woman she had injured as one surrounded by invisible protectors, ready at a moment's notice to come to her assistance.

Even on that first evening Margaret had read a part at least of this in her landlady's face. The sullen frown did not leave Jane's brow, but the defiance had gone. It was a change for the better, yet Margaret was not satisfied; she wanted more than this. She had felt on that night like one in actual contact with the wild powers of darkness, struggling at the very mouth of the bottomless pit for a lost soul; and the impression continued. With the perseverance of a dominant idea that haunts the mind it followed her through her sleep. She seemed to hear the despairing cries of a dying soul; she seemed to see the mocking smiles of fiends who were waiting, like the vultures of the sandy wastes, till the last convulsive throes should be over to claim the lost thing for their own; she seemed to feel the last speechless agony, the outer darkness of despair.

Once she awoke, for the oppression was choking her, and when the waking reality of the dream came back in all its fulness she rose and knelt by her bed. "Thou hast saved me, my God," she prayed; "give me the power of saving, of helping to salvation, this wandering spirit." After that she was calmer; she was able to lie and watch, as she scarcely cared to sleep again, for the breaking of the morning, and to think and plan about the best method of carrying out her noble work.

"Love is the antidote of hatred," thought Margaret; "I will teach this woman to love, and perhaps love may be a ladder of life to her soul."

The morning broke slowly. She threw open her window and watched how it spread itself over sea and sky. Then there was a stir in the village. Windows and doors were opened, carts began to move heavily in the streets, and the steps of passing laborers could be distinctly heard.

Margaret bowed her head upon her hand. "They come from homes," she murmured; "they will go back to them to-night. My home is not."

But a rosy light spread itself over the sea; the waves that were rolling steadily in to the shore caught on their rebound a glow as of sapphire. It was the sun, and the sun brought hope. Then came movement in the house; it showed that Jane was astir. Margaret's mind went back to its planning. After a few moments' thought she wrapped her dressing-gown round her and crept on tip-toe to the door of the room where Martha Foster slept. The old woman was sleeping the sleep of the righteous. Margaret closed the door of communication; and then she rang the bell. Before her landlady could harden her heart against her Margaret wished to make some impression. While the scene of the past night was still fresh in her mind she might be more ready to hear the words of love and forgiveness Margaret had prepared herself to utter.

Some minutes passed before Jane appeared. She was at a loss to imagine what the object of her mistress could be. Jane had awoke that morning like one who has been under the power of a fearful nightmare. She could scarcely believe at first that she was herself, and that she was actually free from crime. But when she did, she felt for the first time in her life an emotion of earnest thankfulness to the Power, visible or invisible, which had withheld her hand.

For Jane had always been a prudent woman. As a general rule her passions had been kept in check by some stronger motive-power. Cupidity, self-love, interest, a strong desire for that paradise of a certain class, respectability and independence, keen common sense that showed the folly of a momentary gratification of passion, followed by a life-long repentance,—these had hitherto kept her from all the grosser forms of sin.

But this time they had all been too weak. The hatred had been nourished in her heart till it had grown into a master-passion; fear of her treachery being discovered, indignation and disgust at the new happiness that seemed to be opening out before the object of her hatred, had added their fearful impulse to her heated soul, and then came the storm, the darkness, the opportunity.

In the cool clear morning Jane shuddered. If she had carried out her dark purpose, what would she have been that morning? In all probability a hunted criminal. She was thankful for her escape, but not yet truly penitent for the sin. The soul from which one baffled demon has been banished is ready for the seven if it be not occupied and filled with some better guest.

Jane obeyed Margaret's call after a few moments' delay. She knocked at the bedroom door, opened it and stood on the threshold, a quiet, respectable-looking person, but there was a sullen frown on her brow. "Did you please to want anything, ma'am?" she asked. Her broom was in her hand—a hint, as it were, that she was in no mood to be delayed.

"Only to speak to you, Jane," said Margaret. "Come here; Mrs. Foster seems to be fast asleep and I have shut the door, or if you like I can speak to you in the next room, but we may not have so good an opportunity again."

Jane looked down: "What might you wish to say to me, ma'am?"

There was a forced unconcern in her manner that was not particularly encouraging, but Margaret would not despair. She held out her hand with a smile: "I fear you distrust me, Jane. Why," she continued in a tone of such deep sadness that the landlady's heart, in spite of herself, was touched—"why will you persist in being my enemy? God is my witness that I would do you good."

"You ain't got nothing to do with me," said Jane, in a stifled voice. "If I choose to go to the bad, what's that to you or anybody else? I won't try to hurt you again, if that's what you want to know, and only that I was mad I wouldn't have done it last night."

"I know you were mad—I felt it then; and then I resolved that I would save you from yourself. You are mistaken, my poor woman; it is much, very much, to me, whether, as you express it, you go to the bad. Jane, I believe it has been given to me to save you, and, God helping me, I will do it."

She spoke with a quiet determination that had marvellous power. Her dream was with her once more. She seemed to see the wild, unholy tumult; she seemed to be holding, clinging to the wretched life that death in death was swallowing up.

And Jane watched her with a curious emotion, very strange and utterly incomprehensible to herself.

The hard, selfish side of life had chiefly presented itself to the landlady, both as regarded her own nature and the nature of those with whom she had come into contact. This divine self-forgetfulness, this pure love of the erring even because of its miserable errors, was something so new as to be a kind of revelation to her soul. A good she had conceived impossible seemed to be opening itself out as not only possible, but real. And the revelation had a renovating power. There came over her a remembrance of the time when she had been "joyful and free from blame."

It brought a sudden softness to her heart. But she would not give way to it. She seized her broom and half turned, so as to hide her face from Margaret's gaze. "What's the use of talking?" she said in a stifled voice; "talking won't make me no better. I hated you; why can't you hate me and be done with it?"

"Because I do not hate you, Jane; because, on the contrary, my soul is filled with earnest longing for your good. It came to me here in last night's darkness as I thought of your words that perhaps I had given some cause for these feelings of yours. I have wrapped myself up in my own sorrows and have neglected to enter with a woman's sympathy into your troubles and joys. For—I know it—we must not and cannot live to ourselves. Selfishness brings its own punishment."

Jane looked down: "I have no troubles in particular, not to interest anybody but—"

It had come over her in an irresistible flood, the remembrance of her one happy time. Ah! it is a great fact, mysterious but true—misery and hopeless wretchedness make half the criminals that fill our jails, that prowl undetected about our streets. To the happy goodness is easy.

Jane broke down suddenly, and throwing herself on her knees buried her face in the bed-clothes: "If he had been true to me I'd have been another woman. Oh! God was cruel. I was getting soft when he was coming and going with his pleasant ways: it was too short—" Her voice was choked with sobs. "I've been bad—bad from that day. I'm getting worse, and God has left me. What'll I do? what'll I do?"

Margaret's eyes filled with tears. She stooped down and drawing one of the woman's reluctant hands from the hidden face, held it in her own.

"I thought so," she said gently, as if speaking to herself: "there is always a background." Then to the weeping woman: "Think of it—you and I, my poor Jane, living here together, and shutting up our troubles in our own hearts. No wonder we grew hard and selfish. But it is over, is it not? You will help me to bear, and I will teach you to love. This is what you want to take you out of yourself. Look up, Jane; be of good courage."

But she only wept the more bitterly. "I can't," she said; "my heart is like stone."

Margaret touched the heated face with cool, soft fingers.

"What do these tears mean?" she said gently. "They come from a heart that is becoming soft, if it is not soft already. Yes, I feel it too. We ought to be drawn out of ourselves. It is necessary to our happiness, to the healthy life of our souls. We grow morbid here in our solitude, with our thoughts toward inward. Since my darling little one was taken from me I too have been getting hard, Jane, or perhaps you and I might have understood each other better. But I thank God there is still time before us. You must let me into the secrets of your life. I will tell you what my sufferings have been, that there may be a true sympathy between us; then we must look out from our own sorrows to the great world of suffering around us, and whether the future bring happiness or grief, it need not be altogether bereft of the treasures of love and sympathy."

Jane listened, and her tears ceased. The words of Margaret were like oil on the troubled waters. They brought hope, they suggested possible comfort in a future that but a few moments before had been black with the utter blackness of despair.

For humanity is not ever entirely bad. I think no living, breathing creature can be said to be hopelessly depraved. Sin, it is said, brings its own punishment, but the heaviest punishment sin can bring is the agonizing suffering it inflicts upon the soul. To be without hope of that beautiful attribute we call goodness would be misery unimaginable.

Yet this was what Jane had been feeling that morning, and Margaret's words were like rays of light pointing to a possible redemption. "If I'd aught in the whole world to care about," she said, "I'd try and be better, but—"

And then she stopped suddenly, for Jane was eminently practical, and an idea had flashed in upon her brain.

"Have you no friends?" asked Margaret.

"I was thinking of the child," she said.

"What child?"

"He married my young sister," she answered, speaking slowly and with apparent difficulty, "and I hated him and her too; but afterward I was glad, for he treated her bad. She died of a broken heart, they say. I never went nigh her, though she sent to beg me hard. That's three years agone next Whitsuntide. They had three or four children; all died but one, a boy two years old when sister died. The father, he went off, no one knows where, and Willie—that's his name, they say—was put in the workhouse. I seen him once"—her voice grew broken again—"a fine little chap, like his father, and for a bit I felt inclined to bring him home, but that look of his made me hard and I came away."

Margaret smiled a brooding, motherly smile: "God is good to you, Jane. He has not left you, as you said. He has given you little Willie. You must find him, and I think he will soon teach you to love."

Jane had almost forgotten, in the new sweetness of speaking about her own feelings, to whom she had been addressing herself. Margaret's words reminded her, and she was struck with a sudden sense of wonder, almost of awe.

"Why do you care for me?" she said in a low tone. "I've insulted you, I've acted wrong by you, I've tried to do you a mischief, and you listen to me, you take an interest that nobody ever did before, and you're not afraid of me, either," she continued confusedly. "There's them, I believe, as won't allow a hair of your head to fall. There must be a reason for it."

"Only the reason that I told you, Jane. I want to save you from yourself; but Mrs. Foster is moving, and I don't wish our conversation to be overheard. I must hear more about little Willie at another time." She held out her hand: "We are friends, are we not?"

Jane took it in an awkward, bewildered kind of way. Then, as she looked into her mistress's face and read nothing but forgiveness there, her feelings became quite too much for her. Throwing her apron over her head, she rushed out of the room crying like a little child. For the spirit of a little child had come into the hard heart.

Her night had been dark as pitch, but already the fair dawning had gleamed out of the east.

---

[CHAPTER XIX.]

GOOD-NIGHT AND GOOD-BYE.

Behold in yon skies
This wild night is passing away while I speak.
Lo! above us the day-spring beginning to break!
Something wakens within me, and warms to the beam.
Is it hope that awakens?

"My bairn was unco' fashed aboot naething," said Nurse Martha to herself as she trotted about the cottage that day, trying to be very busy, but finding the process hard.

The fact was this: Martha was considerably perplexed. She had been sent to Middlethorpe because her young master was anxious about this lady, in whom he had taken so deep an interest; he had given the old woman as a reason for his anxiety that he had a strong suspicion about her landlady—the only other person in the house—believing her to be not only an untrustworthy person, but specially antagonistic to Mrs. Grey.

Martha Foster had been requested to watch this person. She had watched, and what had she found out? Only an almost superfluous devotion on Jane Rodgers's part.

Through the whole of that day Mrs. Grey had been suffering from a kind of nervous depression. The thoughtful kindness of her attendant, which seemed to be offered as a tribute of affection, could not possibly be exceeded. Nothing was left for Martha to do. The landlady was even inclined to resent her interference in any personal attendance on Mrs Grey.

Her cold, quiet way of saying that, having known Mrs. Grey some time, it was only natural she should understand her ways better than a stranger, quite surprised the old woman.

"Gang yer ain gait, my gude woman," she had answered. "I'm blithe to hear ye ken your wark and love yer bonny leddy sae weel."

And then the landlady had looked at her with a kind of suspicion. Turning away, she had said in a low, constrained voice, "I should love her if any one should."

What, perhaps, appeared still more mysterious to Nurse Martha was that Mrs. Grey seemed thoroughly to understand, and even to return, the feelings her landlady cherished for her.

When she was at her worst—and in the early part of the day the pain in her head had been maddening—she could look up with a smile that was almost one of pleasure at the anxious, hard-featured face leaning over her, and receive with a sweet gratitude services which to the old woman, experienced in nursing, seemed unnecessary and obtrusive.

The landlady and her lodger appeared, in fact, to understand each other so perfectly that in the evening Mrs. Foster began to think herself de trop. Not that Mrs. Grey was anything but most kind and hospitable; she was even too grateful for her obedience to her young gentleman's wishes; but there was nothing for her to do. Jane kept her house in excellent order, and certainly, as far as Mrs. Grey's personal requirements went, it did not seem as if she could have a more devoted attendant.

Mrs. Foster made up her mind to write to her young master and point out to him that her further presence would be unnecessary. But the next morning brought a change. There were two letters—one for Margaret and one for the old woman. Adèle and Arthur had both written to announce the pleasing fact of their arrival.

Margaret was in bed when her letters came, but the sight of them revived her. Her new champion was more active than the lawyer; he had news, Adèle said, and he would bring it. For although the strange events of the last few days had had the effect of dividing Margaret's thoughts in a measure, yet this was still her one haunting desire—to see Maurice once more, to let him at least hear of her, to have him know that she was faithful to him in heart and conscience. Even the recovery of her child was second to that.

"They will be here this evening," she said to old Martha, her face radiant with hope. "I wish the evening were here."

And the old woman wondered, thinking within herself that this eagerness was rather suspicious.

But further remarks were stopped by a knock at the door. The landlady was there holding a fair-haired child by the hand. "Excuse me, ma'am," she said in that constrained tone which was always a puzzle to Martha; "but I thought you might perhaps like to see my nephew."

A light which was very like most unfeigned joy spread itself over Margaret's face. "Bring him to me, Jane," she said softly. "There, put him up on the bed; he won't be frightened." For the child was looking round bewildered at the strangeness of the scene.

"He's not properly dressed," said the woman falteringly.

Willie still wore the coarse workhouse suit, but his fair skin was as white as snow, and his yellow curls might have been the pride of any mother's heart.

"Never mind his clothes. Give him to me for one moment," said Margaret pleadingly.

"If you really wish it, ma'am," said Jane, and her harsh voice was husky, but she stooped over the child, and no one knew that the cold, gray eyes were dim with tears.

"So this is little Willie?" said Margaret, passing her hand caressingly over his curls, while the child looked up with blue eyes of wonder. "Should you like to live with us, dear?" she said, in her soft motherly voice.

The little boy had never taken his eyes from her face. "Stay wid you," he replied decisively.

"So you shall," said Margaret smiling; and then to his aunt, "I have some little things that will almost fit him, Jane. My child's frocks and petticoats two or three years ago would suit Willie very well. We could alter them a little, and you might easily get a belt of some kind in the village to keep him from looking too much like a girl."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Jane. She could not have spoken another word.

"How pleasant!" said Margaret almost gleefully. "I wanted something to help me to pass the tiresome hours of this long day, and now my pretty little Willie has come, and we must help him into prettier clothes. Come, Mrs. Foster you know all about little ones. We must press you into the service."

"Willingly," said the old woman, producing a monstrous thimble from her pocket and popping it on her finger. And soon, united by the pleasant mutual interest, even awkwardness was forgotten among the three women as they worked together with a will to clothe the little one suitably. They were all benefited: Martha had found an occupation, and she began dimly to understand Mrs. Grey's tactics; Margaret was happy in seeing the fruits of her efforts come even more fully than she could have hoped; and Jane felt all the hardness melting away from her heart. Mrs. Grey insisted she should join them in the afternoon to give her advice and assistance in the serious task of changing a girl's clothes into a boy's, but once or twice she was forced to make her escape. These outbursts of feeling, however, made her better. They taught her that she was not all bad. They showed her that in the heart she had thought past redemption were yet the seeds of good; and unconsciously she rejoiced, blessing the kindly hand which out of misery and blackness had brought light, and even a measure of peace.

The day passed rapidly in this pleasant work, but Willie had long been asleep before the welcome sound of wheels notified the approach of the travellers.

The cottage and its surroundings certainly presented a more smiling appearance than on the preceding evening. Indeed, the contrast could not have been greater, for this was a kind of gala, and Jane Rodgers, in deference to the wishes of her mistress, determined nothing should be wanting that could produce a pleasing impression on the mind of the visitor.

Jane was not, and never could be, a person of many words. She was naturally self-contained. The business of preparation, from which she spared neither labor nor thought, was a kind of outlet for the feelings which could not find expression in words. If she could say nothing about her gratitude, she would prove it.

She knew Margaret's love of flowers, so she had gathered them together from every available corner. Roses, geraniums, fragrant heliotrope and mignonette were literally scattered in the rooms, which were full of an abundance of light. Some of Jane's cherished savings had been expended in plants that lined the hall and peeped from the windows. The cottage, indeed, looked very pleasant. The front door, thrown wide open, showed the lighted hall, and even allowed a glimpse of the small sitting-room, in which a substantial tea-table, spread with all kinds of dainties and decorated with Jane's wealth of plate and china, seemed to invite the entrance of the weary travellers. Outside was the moon, throwing its white beams on the little plot of grass as it shone persistently through the branches of the stately cedar which flanked the little house on one side, while through the fragrant limes on the other side came the glimmer of the starlit sea.

"How pretty and quiet it all looks!" said Adèle to her cousin as they approached the cottage. "And that's the place, I feel sure; it is just what I expected to see. Now I know I shall get well soon."

She leant back in the carriage with a little sigh, for Arthur was paying scarcely any attention to her words. She could see his face in the moonlight rapt and eager, and Adèle felt almost sick for a moment with the longing that she might ever be able to call that look into his face. He turned to her at last. "It is all right," he said in a tone of intense relief; "I see her."

Adèle looked at him in simple wonder: "And whom did you expect to see, Arthur?"

Arthur turned away in slight confusion. He did not wish Adèle to know that the kind of uneasiness aroused by the storm had never left his mind—that he had been haunted by a certain inexplicable fear which nothing but the sight of Margaret herself could take away. He did not answer Adèle's question, but proceeded to gather together the bags and parcels.

The landlady was at the gate, with curtseyed welcome, ready for any consignment; Margaret was on the steps of the front door; the old woman was behind her. Arthur for the first few moments had to be contented with her and with a nod and a smile from Margaret, whose warmest welcome was for Adèle. "Come in, come in," she said, holding out both her hands; "I thought it almost too good to be true when I read your letter this morning. But you have come, my poor, pale child, and we must take care of you and make you strong." She drew her into her own room: "Will you share this with me for the present, dear? I can look after you better so."

Adèle was weak and tired. She could scarcely keep from tears as she threw her arms round Margaret's neck in her impulsive girlishness. "I am so glad to come," she said. "And oh! I wanted to thank you!" Adèle was thinking of the little scene in the library.

"Thank me, dear!" replied Margaret, gently removing the young girl's hat as she spoke, and smoothing back her hair with a loving hand. "What shall I say to you, then, my faithful friend, who has believed in me through everything?" She spoke lightly, but there was an undertone of deep emotion in her voice. "We shall have plenty to talk about, Adèle, but this evening is to be given to rejoicing. I feel as if it were the opening of a new era in our lives—as if happiness, that capricious little deity, were hiding somewhere very near us. Come into the dining-room; your cousin will become impatient if we shut ourselves up too long."

They went together into the little parlor; and when Arthur saw Adèle's glistening eyes and noted Margaret's loving little attentions to her guest, he felt sorely inclined once more to be jealous of his cousin; but he did not allow this to be seen, and the evening passed away very happily. Harmony, that sweet, rare guest, seemed to reign in the little household. Every one was comfortable and happy. The undisguised satisfaction of the old woman, who began dimly to see through some of the mysteries that had been perplexing her; the happiness of Adèle, wavering between smiles and tears, and taking a final refuge in the former; the confidence and peace which seemed for the moment to have taken possession of Margaret; Arthur's apparent contentment and overflowing merriment; the quiet, respectful attentions of the landlady,—made a pleasing whole.

When the tea-things were cleared away, and Jane and Martha had finally retired for a gossip in the kitchen, Arthur got up and closed the door with great care. "Now, Mrs. Grey," he said, crossing over to where she sat looking out upon the moonlight, "I must really have it out with you. Are you a magician? Please give us the secret of your power?"

Margaret smiled: "A serious accusation, Sir Knight. Before committing myself in any way, I must hear upon what it is founded."

"You have bewitched that wretched old landlady of yours. Why, I declare I never in my life saw the like of it. When I was last here I felt once or twice an insane desire to say something that would astonish her, I was so angry at the cool impertinence of her manner. Now, good gracious! no humble slavey could be more obsequious. She seems actually affectionate—has the appearance of a devoted family servant. What have you done to arouse enthusiasm? Come, Mrs. Grey, confess!"

"You must confess, first," answered Mrs. Grey, more gravely, it seemed, than the occasion warranted, "that such a thing is possible as to be mistaken, even when we think our observation has been of the keenest. You thought and I thought that Jane Rodgers was wholly without a heart. I have discovered my mistake, and found a way to her heart; that is all the mystery. Thank you, a thousand times, for your kind thoughtfulness in sending Mrs. Foster. She is a charming old woman, and I was delighted to receive her, but my landlady and I are perfectly d'accord."

Arthur shrugged his shoulders: "The mystery remains a mystery still, however; even in her changed attitude your landlady is not a lively subject, to me especially, for she was the cause of a severe nightmare which kept me awake for hours only a very short time ago. We'll change it. What I want to tell you is, that all being well I start for Moscow to-morrow night."

Margaret clasped her hands and looked straight before her into the night. "Then you have heard of him?" she said in a low voice.

"I have heard something, dear Mrs. Grey." Arthur spoke slowly, a certain sadness in his voice. It was as it should be. She loved her husband. He was nothing to her but an intermediary, an instrument. "But do not raise your hopes too high," he continued. "It may be a long and tedious business. The last address given by Mr. Grey to his solicitor—who, I suppose you know, is not the same as yours—for letters and remittances, was that of an agent in Moscow. It is more than probable he has left that place himself. He seemed to wish to keep his ultimate destination a secret. I shall go to Moscow myself, and see this agent. He will probably be able to give me some information."

"And what if he refuse?"

"I have a key. Russians are proverbially open to bribery and corruption."

Margaret shivered a little: "It seems almost wrong, but I can't help it. Oh, if I only knew!"

"We are working for him as well as for you," said Arthur quietly. He felt for the moment an insane inclination to do something desperate to this "him" for whom he was working so disinterestedly. For Margaret looked more beautiful than ever—at least he thought so as she sat there in the moonlight. The young man in his boyish enthusiasm could have fallen before her, and, holding her feet, have worshipped her. But she was so utterly unconscious. Adèle meanwhile was lying on the sofa, listening and watching. She was trying to acquiesce in it all, trying to feel it right that her Arthur should take so deep an interest in another woman—for she knew his face well, she had read that sudden longing—she was trying to rejoice in Margaret's unconsciousness and her cousin's truth; but the little aching was at her heart. Margaret had been, for the moment, absorbed in her own hopes and fears; as Arthur spoke the last words, however, she thought suddenly of Adèle, and crossing to the sofa she sat down by her side.

"Forgive me," she said softly.

"What for, Mrs. Grey?"

Adèle lifted her eyes to her friend's face, and Margaret saw that tears were not far off.

"For sending your Arthur away on this wild search," she whispered. And Arthur, who had been standing at the window gazing regretfully at the stars, and thinking with some discontent of life's contradictions, heard what she said. The words were like a reproach. They made him think of Adèle's self-forgetfulness; they brought back to him the gentle scene of that stormy night.

He turned resolutely from the window, and placing himself at the head of the sofa looked down upon his cousin's young fair face. She put out her hand with a smile; he took it and held it in both his own. "She is not to be pitied, Mrs. Grey," he said lightly, "for this is all her own doing. I am only obeying, like a faithful knight, the orders of my liege lady. She filled my mind with her grand poetic ideas about doing good, and the rest of it; she was always making me ashamed of my idle, aimless life; then after we first met you, and she and I had made up our minds you had some great sorrow, she tried to bring me near to you; and finally, the other day, when, as I told you, part of your history came to us, she sent me off to see you and find out the truth; her orders were—Shall I repeat them, Adèle?"

He had succeeded in making her pale cheeks a "celestial rosy red."

"You have said quite enough, dear, and too much. Have you discovered, Mrs. Grey, that my cousin is rather given to exaggeration?"

"Am I to believe all this is exaggeration?" replied Margaret. And then she stooped and kissed the young girl's glowing face. "It is so very like the truth, Adèle, that you must allow me the happiness of believing it. I shall take the services of your knight as your gift, and we shall watch together for his safe return."

"And remember, Adèle," said Arthur impressively, "no flirting in my absence. Mrs. Grey, I shall make you responsible."

Margaret laughed, and Adèle answered gayly, for her bright spirits were rapidly returning, "Pray, sir, with what am I to flirt? As far as I can see already, there are no objects but stones and waves, and I fear that on them my fascinations would be thrown away. Mrs. Grey, have you many visitors in this place in the summer?"

"Principally nurses and babies; I fear it will be dull for you."

"Dull!" said Adèle rapturously, "with you and the sea! Why, this is the kind of dulness I have been craving for. If you only knew how delightful it is to escape from soirées and dinner-parties, and, more hateful still, afternoon callers! But have you nothing else to tell Mrs. Grey, Arthur?"

"Very little more, Adèle. I think I told you, Mrs. Grey, that we had traced your little girl to Southampton. We sent an agent there, and to-day my solicitor, Golding, had a telegram from him. Travellers answering exactly to our description seem to have taken tickets to Paris. A sailor in one of the steam-packets remembers the child perfectly. He seems to have been struck with her beauty and the peculiar appearance of her companion. Paris is a large city, but I do not despair. Our man has his wits about him. We have communicated with the French police too, and they are on the alert."

Margaret sighed: "It is so difficult to be patient. I long to be off myself—my poor little darling!—but I suppose it would be useless."

"Worse than useless. You see we must proceed with great caution, and the man we suspect knows you. If he found out that you were personally on the track, he might take alarm and hide the child; but our agent is unknown to him. By the bye, have you a picture or anything of the kind of either or of both of them, your little Laura and this foreigner? If you have it may be useful."

Margaret turned pale: "Wait a moment," she said. She went with her candle into the next room, and opening a drawer took from it a little old leather box. The key was on her watch-chain, but her hand trembled as she fitted it into the lock. The lid flew open, revealing a little velvet-lined case, which seemed to contain only two or three yellow envelopes, a withered flower and two likenesses.

Sitting down, Margaret leant her head upon her hand, and two or three tears fell into the box. It was like the opening of a grave. The likenesses were miniatures, delicately painted and set in gold. She took up the one that lay uppermost, and looked at it through a mist of blinding tears. It was the portrait of a young girl; the face was not so beautiful as that which looked down upon it, for the features were irregular, but the artist had hit happily upon its principal charm: it was in the eyes, which were dark and lustrous, and in the low, broad brow, from which the hair swept back in soft waving lines.

"My Laura," said Margaret half aloud, "forgive me—he is unworthy."

She laid down the miniature softly, and taking up the other looked at it silently, then turning it she touched a clasp at the back. Between the gold and the ivory lay a scrap of yellow paper. With a sudden impulse she crushed it in her hand, then smoothing it out carefully she read it by the candlelight. The words written were few and simple: "A Mddles. Marguerite et Laure, des amitiés bien sincères—L'Estrange;" but the strong man's hand that had traced them had trembled visibly, and as the woman whose dignity he had outraged, whose treasure, as she believed, he had stolen, looked on them that night, she remembered how her heart had warmed at the thought of those trembling fingers, and of what that trembling told.

It was not this, however, that brought the softness to her face at that moment. Slowly she put down the paper and the opened miniature; taking up the other, she held it against her heart. "Laura, my darling, forgive me!" she murmured; "I would have kept your treasure; I cannot." With the other hand she took the piece of yellow paper and held it in the flames till it was consumed. Then replacing the first miniature, she shut and locked the box, put it back in its place with scrupulous care, and returned to Adèle and Arthur.

There was no trace of agitation in Margaret's manner as she held out the miniature.

"This was a common treasure of my cousin's and mine," she said with a sad smile. "I kept it only in obedience to her dying wishes, but I must find my child, and my poor Laura would forgive me."

Arthur took it. "I think you are right," he said; "but about your child?"

"I have plenty of likenesses of her. You had better take the last; it is wonderfully good: I have never seen a better photograph of a child. But, Arthur, before you send this miniature away, look at it carefully; you may possibly come across them."

"If I do—!" said Arthur from between his clenched teeth.

Margaret laid her hand on his arm and looked at him anxiously: "You would do nothing rash, I hope, Arthur; you know my history; you will be able to understand me when I say that for the sake of those old days, for my darling's memory, I would not have a hair of his head touched. I only want my child."

"Be of good courage," said Arthur cheerily; "if she is in the land of the living, we shall find her, Mrs. Grey, and bring her back to you in triumph. Thank you for these; they will be of great use to us. But now, ladies, it is getting late, and I shall have to be up early to-morrow, so I think I shall say good-night and good-bye. I have taken a room at the hotel, and as I find the first train to York leaves this—or rather the station—at half-past seven in the morning, it will be best to make my adieus to-night."

"How soon shall we hear from you?" said Adèle, her lip trembling.

"As soon as ever I can send a letter. I mean to travel night and day, therefore you must not be surprised if some days pass."

Arthur was himself again; the thoughts of action had been invigorating. He shook hands with Margaret, kissed his cousin and then took his departure. They stood together under the moonbeams silent, for their hearts were full. He, with never a backward look, walked steadily away along the sounding sea.

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[PART IV.]