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CONTENTS

PAGE

THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR........................................... 5

Robert Louis Stevenson

KEEPING HIS PROMISE   -     -                                                       20

Algernon Blackwood

(From " The Empty House.")(By arrangement with the Author and the Richards Press.)

THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE     ------      31

Davis Tindall

THE DIAMOND LENS      -------      39

Fitz-James O'Brien

THE SQUIRE'S STORY                                                                             57

Mrs. Gaskell

THE MASQUE, OF THE RED DEATH -                                                69

Edgar Allan Poe

THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT                                           74

Ambrose Bierce

(By permission of Messrs. Chatto & VVindus.)

THE SIRE

DE MALÉTROIT'S DOOR

BY

ROBERT LOUIS Stevenson

DENIS DE BEAULIEU was not yet two-and-twenty, but he counted himself a grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads were early formed in that rough, warfaring epoch ; and when one has been in a pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one's man in an honourable fashion, and knows a thing or two of strategy and mankind, a certain swagger in the gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put up his horse with due care, and supped with due deliberation ; and then, in a very agreeable frame of mind, went out to pay a visit in the grey of the evening. It was not a very wise proceeding on the young man's part. He would have done better to remain beside the fire or go decently to bed. For the town was full of the troops of Burgundy and England under a mixed command ; and though Denis was there on safe-conduct, his safe-conduct was like to serve him little on a chance encounter.

It was September 1429 ; the weather had fallen sharp ; a flighty piping wind, laden with showers, beat about the township ; and the dead leaves ran riot along the streets. Here and there a window was already lighted up ; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper within, came forth in fits and was swallowed up and carried away by the wind. The night fell swiftly ; the flag of England, fluttering on the spire-top, grew ever fainter and fainter against the flying clouds—a black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden chaos of the sky. As the night fell the wind rose, and began to hoot under archways and roar amid the tree-tops in the valley below the town.

Denis tic Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking at his friend's door ; but though he promised himself to stay only a little while and make an early return, his welcome was so pleasant, and he found so much to delay him, that it was already long past midnight before he said good-bye upon the threshold. The wind had fallen again in the meanwhile ; the night was as black as the grave : not a star, nor a glimmer of moonshine, slipped through the canopy of cloud. Denis was ill-acquainted with the intricate lanes of Chateau Landon ; even by daylight he had found some trouble in picking his way ; and in this absolute, darkness he soon lost it altogether. He was certain of one thing only—to keep mounting the hill ; for his friend's house lay at the lower end, or tail, of Chateau Landon, while the inn was up at the head, under the great church spire.  With this clue to go upon

he stumbled and groped forward, now breathing more freely in open places where there was a good slice of sky overhead, now feeling along the wall in stifling closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to be thus submerged in opaque blackness in an almost unknown town. The silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad ; the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth ; a piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the pathway ; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and bewildering appearances, as if to lead him farther from his way. For Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk ; and he went warily and boldly at once, and at every corner paused to make an observation.

He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow that he could touch a wall with either hand, when it began to open out and go sharply downward. Plainly this lay no longer in the direction of his inn ; but the hope of a little more light tempted him forward to reconnoitre. The lane ended in a terrace with a bartizan wall, which gave an outlook between high houses, as out of an embrasure, into the valley lying dark and formless several hundred feet below. Denis looked down, and could discern a few tree-tops waving and a single speck of brightness where the river ran across a weir. The weather was clearing up, and the sky had lightened, so as to show the outline of the heavier clouds and the dark margin of the hills. By the uncertain glimmer, the house on his left hand should be a place of some pretensions ; it was surmounted by several pinnacles and turret-tops ; the round stern of a chapel, with a fringe of flying buttresses, projected boldly from the main block ; and the door was sheltered under a deep porch carved with figures and overhung by two long gargoyles. The windows of the chapel gleamed through their intricate tracery with a light as of many tapers, and threw out the buttresses and the peaked roof in a more intense blackness against the sky. It was plainly the hotel of some great family of the neighbourhood ; and as it reminded Denis of a town house of his own at Bourges, he stood for some time gazing up at it and mentally gauging the skill of the architects and the consideration of the two families.

There seemed to be no issue to the terrace but the lane by which he had reached it ; he could only retrace his steps, but he had gained some notion of his whereabouts, and hoped by this means to hit the main thoroughfare and speedily regain the inn. He was reckoning without that chapter of accidents which was to make this night memorable above all others in his career ; for he had not gone back above a hundred yards before he saw a light coming to meet him, and heard loud voices speaking together in the echoing narrows of the lane. It was a party of men-at-arms going the night round with torches. Denis assured himself that they had ail been making free with the wine-bowl, and were in no mood to be particular about safe-conducts or the niceties of chivalrous war.   It was as like as not that

they would kill him like a dog and leave him where he fell. The situation was inspiriting but nervous. Their own torches would conceal him from sight, he reflected ; and he hoped that they would drown the noise of his footsteps with their own empty voices. If he were but fleet and silent, he might evade their notice altogether.

Unfortunately, as he turned to beat a retreat, his foot rolled upon a pebble ; he fell against the wall with an ejaculation, and his sword rang loudly on the stones. Two or three voices demanded who went there—some in French, some in English ; but Denis made no reply, and ran the faster down the lane. Once upon the terrace, he paused to look back. They still kept calling after him, and just then began to double the pace in pursuit, with a considerable clank of armour, and great tossing of the torchlight to and fro in the narrow jaws of the passage.

Denis cast a look around and darted into the porch. There he might escape observation, or—if that were too much to expect—was in a capital posture whether for parley or defence. So thinking, he drew his sword and tried to set his back against the door. To his surprise, it yielded behind his weight; and though he turned in a moment, continued to swing back on oiled and noiseless hinges, until it stood wide open on a black interior. When things fall out opportunely for the person concerned, he is not apt to be critical about the how or why, his own immediate personal convenience seeming a sufficient reason for the strangest oddities and revolutions in our sublunary things ; and so Denis, without a moment's hesitation, stepped within and partly closed the door behind him to conceal his place of refuge. Nothing was further from his thoughts than to close it altogether ; but for some inexplicable reason—perhaps by a spring or a weight—the ponderous mass of oak whipped itself out of his fingers and clanked to, with a formidable rumble and a noise like the falling of an automatic bar.

The round, at that very moment, debouched upon the terrace and proceeded to summon him with shouts and curses. He heard them ferreting in the dark corners ; the stock of a lance even rattled along the outer surface of the door behind which he stood ; but these gentlemen were in too high a humour to be long delayed, and soon made off down a corkscrew pathway which had escaped Denis's observation, and passed out of sight and hearing along the battlements of the town.

Denis breathed again. He gave them a few minutes' grace for fear of accidents, and then groped about for some means of opening the door and slipping forth again. The inner surface was quite smooth, not a handle, not a moulding, not a projection of any sort. He got his finger-nails round the edges and pulled, but the mass was immovable. He shook it, it was as firm as a rock. Denis de Beaulieu frowned and gave vent to a little noiseless whistle. What ailed the door ? he wondered. Why was it open ? How came it to shut so easily and so effectually after him ? There was something obscure and underhand about all this, that was little to the young man's fancy. It looked like a snare ; and yet who could suppose a snare in such a quiet by-street and in a house of so prosperous and evert noble an exterior ? And yet—snare or no snare, intentionally or unintentionally—here he was, prettily trapped ; and for the life of him he could see no way out of it again. The darkness began to weigh upon him. He gave ear ; all was silent without, but within and close by he seemed to catch a faint sighing, a faint sobbing rustle, a little stealthy creak—as though many persons were at his side, holding themselves quite still, and governing even their respiration with the extreme of slyness. The idea went to his vitals with a shock, and he faced about suddenly as if to defend his life. Then, for the first time, he became aware of a light about the level of his eyes and at some distance in the interior of the house—a vertical thread of light, widening towards the bottom, such as might escape between two wings of arras over a doorway. To see anything was a relief to Denis ; it was like a piece of solid ground to a man labouring in t morass ; his mind seized upon it with avidity ; and he stood staring at it and trying to piece together some logical conception of his surroundings. Plainly there was a flight of steps ascending from his own level to that of this illuminated doorway ; and indeed he thought he could make out another thread of light, as fine as a needle and as faint as phosphorescence, which might very well be reflected along the polished wood of a handrail. Since he had begun to suspect that he was not alone, his heart had continued to beat with smothering violence, and an intolerable desire for action of any sort had possessed itself of his spirit. He was in deadly peril, he believed. What could be more natural than to mount the staircase, lift the curtain, and cor -front his difficulty at once ? At least he would be dealing with something tangible ; at least he would be no longer in the dark. He stepped slowly forward with outstretched hands, until his foot struck the bottom step ; then he rapidly scaled the stairs, stood for a moment to compose his expression, lifted the arras and went in.

He found himself in a large apartment of polished stone. There were three doors ; one on each of three sides ; all similarly curtained with tapestry. The fourth side was occupied by two large windows and a great stone chimney-piece, carved with the arms of the Male-troits. Denis recognised the bearings, and was gratified to find himself in such good hands. The room was strongly illuminated ; but it contained little furniture except a heavy table and a chair or two, the hearth was innocent of fire, and the pavement was but sparsely strewn with rushes clearly many days old.

On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly facing Denis ai he entered, sat a little old gentleman in a fur tippet. He sat with his legs crossed and his hands folded, and a cup of spiced wine stood by his elbow on a bracket on the wall. His countenance had a strongly masculine cast; not properly human, but such as we see in the bull, the goat, or the domestic boar ; something equivocal and wheedling, something greedy, brutal, and dangerous. The upper lip was inordinately full, as though swollen by a blow or a toothache ; and the smile.

the peaked eyebrows, and the small, strong eyes were quaintly and almost comically evil in expression. Beautiful white hair hung straight all round his head, like a saint's, and fell in a single curl upon the tippet. His beard and moustache were the pink of venerable-sweetness. Age, probably in consequence of inordinate precautions, had left no mark upon his hands ; and the Maletroit hand was famous. It would be difficult to imagine anything at once so fleshy and so delicate in design ; the taper, sensual fingers were like those of one of Leonardo's women ; the fork of the thumb made a dimpled protuberance when closed ; the nails were perfectly shaped, and of a dead, surprising whiteness. It rendered his aspect tenfold more redoubtable, that a man with hands like these should keep them devoutly folded in his lap like a virgin martyr—that a man with so intense and startling an expression of face should sit patiently on his seat and contemplate people with an unwinking stare, like a god, or a god's statue. His quiescence seemed ironical and treacherous, it • tied so poorly with his looks. Such was Alain, Sire de Maletroit.

Denis and he looked silently at each other for a second or two.

" Pray step in," said the Sire de Maletroit. " I have been expecting you all the evening."

He had not risen, but he accompanied his words with a smile and a slight but courteous inclination of the head. Partly from the smile, partly from the strange musical murmur with which the Sire prefaced his observation, Denis felt a strong shudder of disgust go through his marrow. And what with disgust and honest confusion of mind, he could scarcely get words together in reply.

" I fear," he said, " that this is a double accident. I am not the person you suppose me. It seems you were looking for a visit ; but for my part, nothing was further from my thoughts—nothing could be more contrary to my wishes—than this intrusion."

"Well, well," replied the old gentleman indulgently, "here you are, which is the main point. Seat yourself, my friend, and put yourself entirely at your ease. We shall arrange our little affairs presently."

Denis perceived that the matter was still complicated widi some misconception, and he hastened to continue his explanations. " Your door . . ." he began.

" About my door ? " asked the other, raising his peaked eyebrows. " A little piece of ingenuity." And he shrugged his shoulders. " A hospitable fancy ! By your own account, you were not desirous of making my acquaintance. We old people look for such reluctance now and then ; and when it touches our honour, we cast about until we find some way of overcoming it. You arrive uninvited, but believe me, very welcome."

" You persist in error, sir," said Denis. " There can be no question

between you and me. I am a stranger in this countryside. My

name is Denis, damoiseau de Beaulieu. If you see me in your house,

it is only----- "

B

" My young friend," interrupted the other, " you will permit me to have my own ideas on that subject. They probably differ from /ours at the present moment," he added with a leer, " but time wi!! show which of us is in the right."

Denis was convinced he had to do with a lunatic. He seated himself with a shrug, content to wait the upshot; and a pause ensued, during which he thought he could distinguish a hurried gabbling as of prayer from behind the arras immediately opposite him. Sometimes there seemed to be but one person engaged, sometimes two ; and the vehemence of the voice, low as it was, seemed to indicate either great haste or an agony of spirit. It occurred to him that this piece of tapestry covered the entrance to the chapel he had noticed from without.

The old gentleman meanwhile surveyed Denis from head to foot with a smile, and from time to time emitted little noises like a bird or a mouse, which seemed to indicate a high degree of satisfaction. This state of matters became rapidly insupportable ; and Denis, to put an end to it, remarked politely that the wind had gone down.

The old gentleman fell into a fit of silent laughter, so prolonged and violent that he became quite red in the face. Denis got upon his feet at once, and put on his hat with a flourish.

" Sir," he said, " if you are in your wits, you have affronted me grossly. If you are out of them, I flatter myself I can find better employment for my brains than to talk with lunatics. My conscience is clear ; you have made a fool of me from the first moment ; you have refused to hear my explanations ; and now there is no power under God will make me stay here any longer ; and if I cannot make my way out in a more decent fashion, I will hack your door in pieces with my sword."

The Sire de Maletroit raised his right hand and wagged it at Denis with the fore and little fingers extended. " My dear nephew," he said, " sit down."

" Nephew ! " retorted Denis, " you lie in your throat ; " and he snapped his fingers in his face.

" Sit down, you rogue ! " cried the old gentleman, in a sudden, harsh voice, like the barking of a dog. " Do you fancy," he went on, " that when I had made my little cont ivance for the door I had stopped short with that ? If you prefer to be bound hand and foot fill your bones ache, rise and try to go away. If you choose to remain a free young buck, agreeably conversing with an old gentleman—why, sit where you are in peace, and God be with you."

" Do you mean I am a prisoner ? " demanded Denis.

" I state the facts," replied the other. " I would rather leave the conclusion to yourself."

Denis sat down again. Externally he managed to keep pretty calm ; but within, he was now boiling with anger, now chilled with apprehension. He no longer felt convinced that he was dealing with a madman. And if the old gentleman was sane, what, in God's name, had he to look for ? What absurd or tragical adventure had befallen him ?   What countenance was he to assume ?

While he was thus unpleasantly reflecting, the arras that overhung the chapel door was raised, and a tall priest in his robes came forth and, giving a long, keen stare at Denis, said something in an undertone to Sire de Maletroit.

" She is in a better frame of spirit ? " asked the latter.

" She is more resigned, messire," replied the priest.

" Now the Lord help her, she is hard to please ! " sneered the old gentleman. " A likely stripling—not ill-born—and of her own choosing, too ?   Why, what more would the jade have ? "

" The situation is not usual for a young damsel," said the other, " and somewhat trying to her blushes."

" She should have thought of that before she began the dance. It was none of my choosing, God knows that : but since she is in it, by our Lady, she shall carry it to the end." And then addressing Denis, " Monsieur de Beaulieu," he asked, " may I present you to my niece ? She has been waiting your arrival, I may say, with even greater impatience than myself."

Denis had resigned himself with a good grace—all he desired was 10 know the worst of it as speedily as possible ; so he rose at once, and bowed in acquiescence. The Sire de Maletroit followed his example and limped, with the assistance of the chaplain's arm, towards the chapel door. The priest pulled aside the arras, and all three entered. The building had considerable architectural pretensions. A light groining sprang from six stout columns, and hung down in two rich pendants from the centre of the vault. The place terminated behind the altar in a round end, embossed and honeycombed with a saperfluity of ornament in relief, and pierced by many little windows shaped like stars, trefoils, or wheels. These windows were imperfectly glazed, so that the night air circulated freely in the chapel. The tapers, of which there must have been half a hundred burning on the altar, were unmercifully blown about ; and the light went through many different phases of brilliancy and semi-eclipse. On the steps in front of the altar knelt a young girl richly attired as a bride. A chill settled over Denis as he observed her costume ; he fought with desperate energy against the conclusion that was being thrust upon his mind ; it could not—it should not—be as he feared.

" Blanche," said the Sire, in his most flute-like tones, " I have brought a friend to see you, my little girl ; turn round and give him your pretty hand. It is good to be devout ; but it is necessary to be polite, my niece."

The girl rose to her feet and turned towards the new comers. She moved all of a piece ; and shame and exhaustion were expressed in every line of her fresh young body ; and she held her head down and kept her eyes upon the pavement, as she came slowly forward. In the course of her advance, her eyes fell upon Denis de Beaulieu's feet -feet of which he was justly vain, be it remarked, and wore in the most elegant accoutrement even while travelling. She paused— started, as if his yellow boots had conveyed some shocking meaning— and glanced suddenly up into the wearer's countenance.   Their eyes met : shame gave place to horror and terror in her looks ; the blood left her lips ; with a piercing scream she covered her face with her hands and sank upon the chapel floor.

" That is not the man ! " she cried. " My uncle, that is not the man ! "

The Sire de Maletroit chirped agreeably. " Of course not," he said ; " I expected as much. It was so unfortunate you could not remember his name."

" Indeed," she cried, " indeed, I have never seen this person till this moment—I have never so much as set eyes upon him—I never wish to see him again. Sir," she said, turning to Denis, " if you are a gentleman, you will bear me out. Have I ever seen you—have you ever seen me—before this accursed hour ? "

" To speak for myself, I have never had that pleasure," answered the young man. " This is the first time, messire, that I have met with your engaging niece."

The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders.

" I am distressed to hear it," he said. " But it is never too late to begin. I had little more acquaintance with my own late lady ere T married her ; which proves," he added with a grimace, " that these impromptu marriages may often produce an excellent understanding in the long-run. As the bridegroom is to have a voice in the matter, f will give him two hours to make up for lost time before we proceed with the cererhony." And he turned towards the door, followed by the clergyman.

The girl was on her feet in a moment. " My uncle, you cannot be in earnest," she said. "I declare before God I will stab myself rather than be forced on that young man. The heart rises at it ; God forbids such marriages ; you dishonour your white hair. Oh, my uncle, pity me ! There is not a woman in all the world but would prefer death to such a nuptial. Is it possible," she added, faltering—" is it possible that you do not believe me—that you still think this "—and she pointed at Denis with a tremor of anger and contempt—" that you still think this to be the man ? "

" Frankly," said the old gentleman, pausing on the threshold, " 1 do. But let me explain to you once for all, Blanche de Maletroit, my way of thinking about this affair. When you took it into your head to dishonour my family and the name that I have borne, in peace and war, for more than three-score years, you forfeited, not only the right to question my designs, but that of looking me in the face. If your father had been alive, he would have spat on you and turned you out of doors. His was the hand of iron. You may bless your God you have only to deal with the hand of velvet, mademoiselle. It was my duty to get you married without delay. Out of pure goodwill, I have tried to find your own gallant for you. And I believe I have succeeded. But before God and all the holy angels, Blanche de Maletroit, if I have not, I care not one jack-straw. So let me recommend you to be polite to our young friend ; for upon my word, your next groom may be less appetising."

And with that he went out, with the chaplain at his heels ; and the arras fell behind the pair.

The girl turned upon Denis with flashing eyes.

" And what, sir," she demanded, " may be the meaning of all this ? "

" God knows," returned Denis gloomily. " I am a prisoner in this house, which seems full of mad people. More I know not ; and nothing do I understand."

" And pray how came you here ? " she asked.

He told her as briefly as he could. " For the rest," he added, " perhaps you will follow my example, and tell me the answer to all these riddles, and what, in God's name, is like to be the end of it."

She stood silent for a little, and he could see her lips tremble and her tearless eyes burn with a feverish lustre. Then she pressed her forehead in both hands.

" Alas, how my head aches ! " she said wearily—" to say nothing of my poor heart ! But it is due to you to know my story, unmaidenly as it must seem. I am called Blanche de Maletroit; I have been without father or mother for—oh ! for as long as I can recollect, and indeed I have been most unhappy all my life. Three months ago a young captain began to stand near me every day in church. I could sec that 1 pleased him ; I am much to blame, but I was so glad that any one should love me ; and when he passed me a letter, I took it home with me and read it with great pleasure. Since that time he has written many. He was so anxious to speak with me, poor fellow ! and kept asking me to leave the door open some evening that we might have two words upon the stair. For he knew how much my uncle trusted me." She gave something like a sob at that, and it was a moment before she could go on. " My uncle is a hard man, but he is very shrewd," she said at last. " He has performed many feats in war, and was a great person at court, and much trusted by Queen Isabeau in old days. How he came to suspect me I cannot tell ; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledge ; and this morning as we came from mass, he took my hand in his, forced it open, and read my little billet, walking by my side all the while. VVhen he had finished, he gave it back to me with great politeness. It contained another request to have the door left open ; and this has been the ruin of us all. My uncle kept me strictly in my room until evening, and then ordered me to dress myself as you see me—a hard mockery for a young girl, do you not think so? I suppose, when he could not prevail with me to tell him the young captain's name, he must have laid a trap for him : into which, alas ! you have fallen in the anger of God. I looked for much confusion ; for how could I tell whether he was willing to take me for his wife on these sharp terms ? He might have been trifling with me from the first : or I might have made myself too cheap in his eyes. But truly I had not looked for such a shameful punishment as this ! I could not think that God would let a girl be so disgraced before a young man.

And now I have told you all ; and I can scarcely hope that you will not despise me." Denis made her a respectful inclination.

" Madam," he said, " you have honoured me by your confidence. It remains for me to prove that I am not unworthy of the honour. Is Messire de Malétroit at hand ? "

" I believe he is writing in the salle without," she answered.

" May I lead you thither, madam ? " asked Denis, offering his hand with the most courtly bearing.

She accepted it ; and the pair passed out of the chapel, Blanche in a very drooping and shamefast condition, but Denis strutting and ruffling in the consciousness of a mission, and the boyish certainty of accomplishing it with honour.

The Sire de Malétroit rose to meet them with an ironical obeisance

" Sir," said Denis, with the grandest possible air, " I believe I am to have some say in the matter of this marriage ; and let me tell you at once, I will be no party to forcing the inclination of this young lady. Had it been freely offered to me, I should have been proud to accept her hand, for I perceive she is as good as she is beautiful ; but as things are, I have now the honour, messire, of refusing."

Blanche looked at him with gratitude in her eyes ; but the old gentleman only smiled and smiled, until his smile grew positively sickening to Denis.

" I am afraid," he said, " Monsieur de Beaulieu, that you do not perfectly understand the choice I have to offer you. Follow me, I beseech you, to this window." And he led the way to one of the large windows which stood open on the night. " You observe," he went on, " there is an iron ring in the upper masonry, and reeved through that, a very efficacious rope. Now, mark my words : if you should find your disinclination to my niece's person insurmountable, I shall have you hanged out of this window before sunrise. I shall only proceed to such an extremity with the greatest regret, you may believe me. For it is not at all your death that I desire, but my niece's establishment in life. At the same time, it must come to that if you prove obstinate. Your family, Monsieur de Beaulieu, is very well in its way ; but if you sprang from Charlemagne, you should not refuse the hand of a Malétroit with impunity—not if she had been as common as the Paris road—not if she were as hideous as the gargoyle over my door. Neither my niece nor you, nor my own private feelings, move me at all in this matter. The honour of my house has been compromised ; I believe you to be the guilty person ; at least you are now in the secret ; and you can hardly wonder if I request you to wipe out the stain. If you will not, your blood be on your own head ! It will be no great satisfaction to me to have your interesting relics kicking their heels in the breeze below my windows ; but half a loaf is better than no bread, and if I cannot cure the dishonour, I shall at least stop the scandal."

There was a pause.

" I believe there are other ways of settling such imbroglios among gentlemen," said Denis. " You wear a sword, and I hear you have used it with distinction."

The Sire de Maletroit made a signal to the chaplain, who crossed the room with long silent strides and raised the arras over the third of the three doors. It was only a moment before he let it fall again ; hut Denis had time to see a dusky passage full of armed men.

" When I was a little younger, I should have been delighted to honour you, Monsieur de Beaulieu," said Sire Alain ; " but I am now too old. Faithful retainers are the sinews of age, and I must employ the strength I have. This is one of the hardest things to swallow as a man grows up in years ; but with a little patience, even this becomes habitual. You and the lady seem to prefer the salle for what remains of your two hours ; and as I have no desire to cross your preference, I shall resign it to your use with all the pleasure in the world. No haste ! " he added, holding up his hand, as he saw a dangerous look come into Denis de Beaulieu's face. " If your mind revolts against hanging, it will be time enough two hours hence to throw yourself out of the window or upon the pikes of my retainers. Two hours of life are always two hours. A great many things may turn up in even as little a while as that. And, besides, if i understand her appearance, my niece has still something to say to you. You will not disfigure your last hours by a want of politeness to a lady ? "

Denis looked at Blanche, and she made him an imploring gesture.

It is likely that the old gentleman was hugely pleased at this symptom of an understanding ; for he smiled on both, and added sweetly : " If you will give me your word of honour, Monsieur de Beaulieu, to await my return at the end of the two hours before attempting anything desperate, I shall withdraw my retainers, and let you speak in greater privacy with mademoiselle."

Denis again glanced at the girl, who seemed to beseech him to agree.

" I give you my word of honour," he said.

Messire de Maletroit bowed, and proceeded to limp about the apartment, clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp which had already grown so irritating in the ears of Denis de Beaulieu. He first possessed himself of some papers which lay upon the table ; then he went to the mouth of the passage and appeared to give an order to the men behind the arras ; and lastly he hobbled out through the door by which Denis had come in, turning upon the threshold to address a last smiling bow to the young couple, and followed by the chaplain with a hand-lamp.

No sooner were they alone than Blanche advanced towards Denis with her hands extended. Her face was flushed and excited, and her eves shone with tears.

" You shall not die ! " she cried, " you shall marry me after all."

" You seem to think, madam," replied Denis, " that I stand much in fear of death."

" Oh no, no," she said, " I see you are no poltroon.   It is for my own sake—I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple."

" I am afraid," returned Denis, " that you underrate the difficulty, madam. What you may be too generous to refuse, I may be too proud to accept. In a moment of noble feeling towards me, you forgot what you perhaps owe to others."

He had the decency to keep his eyes upon the floor as he said this, and after he had finished, so as not to spy upon her confusion. She stood silent for a moment, then walked suddenly away, and falling on her uncle's chair, fairly burst out sobbing. Denis was in the acme of embarrassment. He looked round, as if to seek for inspiration, and seeing a stool, plumped down upon it for something to do. There he sat, playing with the guard of his rapier, and wishing himself dead a thousand times over, and buried in the nastiest kitchen-heap in France. His eyes wandered round the apartment, but found nothing to arrest them. There were such wide spaces between the furniture, the light fell so badly and cheerlessly over all, the dark outside air looked in so coldly through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church so vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de Maletroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock. He read the device upon the shield over and over again, until his eyes became obscured ; he stared into shadowy corners until he imagined they were swarming with horrible animals ; and every now and again he awoke with a start, to remember that his last two hours were running, and death was on the march.

Oftener and oftener, as the time went on, did his glance settle on the girl herself. Her face was bowed forward and covered with her hands, and she was shaken at intervals by the convulsive hiccup of grief. Even thus she was not an unpleasant object to dwell upon, so plump and yet so fine, with a warm brown skin, and the most beautiful hair, Denis thought, in the whole world of womankind. Her hands were like her uncle's ; but they were more in place at the end of her young arms, and looked infinitely soft and caressing. He remembered how her blue eyes had shone upon him, full of angc; pity, and innocence. And the more he dwelt on her perfections, the uglier death looked, and the more deeply was he smitten with penitence at her continued tears. Now he felt that no man could have the courage to leave a world which contained so beautiful a creature and now he would have given forty minutes of his last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech.

Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ear:: from the dark valley below the windows. And this shattering noise-in the silence of all around was like a light in a dark place, and shook them both out of their reflections.

" Alas, can I do nothing to help you ? " she said, looking up.

" Madam," replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, " if I have said anything to wound you, believe rue, it was for your own sake and no; for mine."

She thanked him with a tearful look.

" I feel your position cruelly," he went on.   " The world has been bitter hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe me, madam, there is no young gentleman in all France but would be glad of my opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service."

" I know already tbat you can be very brave and generous," she answered. " What I want to know is whether I can serve you—now or afterwards," she added, with a quaver.

" Most certainly," he answered with a smile. " Let me sit beside you as if I were a friend, instead of a foolish intruder ; try to forget how awkwardly we are placed to one another ; make my last moments go pleasantly ; and you will do me the chief service possible."

" You are very gallant," she added, with a yet deeper sadness . . . " very gallant . . . and it somehow pains me. But draw nearer, if you please ; and if you find anything to say to me, you will at least make certain of a very friendly listener. Ah ! Monsieur de Beaulieu," she broke forth—" ah ! Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can I look you in the face ? "  And she fell to weeping again with a renewed effusion.

" Madam," said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, " reflect on the little time I have before me, and the great bitterness into which I am cast by the sight of your distress. Spare me, in my last moments, the spectacle of what I cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my life."

" I am very selfish," answered Blanche. " I will be braver, Monsieur de Beaulieu, for your sake. But think if I can do you no kindness in the future—if you have no friends to whom I could carry your adieux. Charge me as heavily as you can ; every burden will lighten, by so little, the invaluable gratitude I owe you. Put it in my power to do something more for you than weep."

" My mother is married again, and has a young family to care for. My brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs ; and if I am not in error, that will content him amply for my death. Life is a little vapour that passeth away, as we are told by those in holy orders. When a man is in a fair way and sees all life open in front of him, he seems to himself to make a very important figure in the world. His horse whinnies to him ; the trumpets blow and the girls look out of window as he rides into town before his company ; he receives many assurances of trust and regard—sometimes by express in a letter—sometimes face to face, with persons of great consequence falling on his neck. It is not wonderful if his head is turned for a time. But once he is dead, were he as brave as Hercules or as wise as Solomon, he is soon forgotten. It is not ten years since my father fell, with many other knights around him, in a very fierce encounter, and I do not think that any one of them, nor so much as the name of the fight, is now remembered. No, no, madam, the nearer you come to it, you see that death is a dark and dusty corner, where a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut after him till the judgment day. I have few friends just now, and once I am dead I shall have none."

" Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu ! " she exclaimed, " you forget Blanche de Maletroit."

" You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a little service far beyond its worth."

" It is not that," she answered. " You mistake me if you think I am so easily touched by my own concerns. I say so, because you arc the noblest man I have ever met ; because I recognise in you a spirit that would have made even a common person famous in the land."

" And yet here I die in a mouse-trap—with no more noise about it than my own squeaking," answered he.

A look of pain crossed her face, and she was silent for a little while. Then a light came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke again.

" I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself. Any one who gives his life for another will be met in Paradise by all the heralds and angels of the Lord God. And you have no such cause to hang your head. For . . . Pray, do you think me beautiful ? " she asked, with a deep flush.

" Indeed, madam, I do," he said.

" I am glad of that," she answered heartily. " Do you think there are many men in France who have been asked in marriage by a beautiful maiden—with her own lips—and v/ho have refused her to her face ? I know you men would half despise such a triumph ; but believe me, we women know more of what is precious in love. There is nothing that should set a person higher in his own esteem ; and we women would prize nothing more dearly."

" You are very good," he said ; " but you cannot make me forget that I was asked in pity and not for love."

" I am not so sure of that," she replied, holding down her head. " Hear me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. I know how you must despise me ; I feel you are right to do so ; I am too poor a creature to occupy one thought of your mind, although, alas ! you must differ me this morning. But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, and indeed, it was because I respected and admired you, and loved you with my whole soul, from the very moment that you took my part against my uncle. If you had seen yourself, and how noble you looked, you would pity rather than despise me. And now," she went on, hurriedly checking him with her hand, " although ( have laid aside all reserve and told you so much, remember that 1 know your sentiments towards me already. I would not, believe me, being nobly born, weary you with importunities into consent. I too have a pride of my own : and I declare before the holy mother of God, if you should now go back from your word already given, i would no more marry you than I would marry my uncle's groom."

Denis smiled a little bitterly.

" It is a small love," he said, " that shies at a little pride." She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts. " Gome hither to the window," he said, with a sigh.   " Here is the dawn."

And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The hollow of the sky was'fuli of essential daylight, colourless and clean ; and the valley underneath was flooded with a grey reflection. A few thin vapours clung in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding course of the

river. The scene disengaged a surprising effect of stillness, which was hardly interrupted when the cocks began once more to crow among the steadings. Perhaps the same fellow who had made so horrid a clangour in the darkness not half-an-hour before, now sent up the merriest cheer to greet the coming day. A little wind went bustling and eddying among the tree-tops underneath the windows. And still the daylight kept flooding insensibly out of the east, which was soon to grow incandescent and cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising sun.

Denis iooked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. He had taken her hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.

" Has the day begun already ? " she said ; and then, illogically enough : " the night has been so long ! Alas ! what shall we say to my uncle when he returns ? "

" What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his.

She was silent.

" Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance, " you have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough that I would as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air as lay a finger on you without your free and full consent. But if you care for me at all do not let me lose my life in a misapprehension ; for I love you better than the whole world ; and though I will die for you blithely, it would be like all the joys of Paradise to live on and spend my life in your service."

As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior of the house ; and a clatter of armour in the corridor showed that the retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were at an end.

" After all that you have heard ? " she whispered, leaning towards him with her lips and eyes.

" I have heard nothing," he replied.

" The captain's name was Florimond de Champdivers," she said in his ear.

" I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple body in his arms and covering her wet face with kisses.

A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Maletroit wished his new nephew a good morning.

"KEEPING HIS PROMISE

by

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

IT was eleven o'clock at night, and young Marriott was locked into his room, cramming as hard as he could cram. He was a " Fourth Year Man " at Edinburgh University and he had been ploughed for this particular examination so often that his parents had positively declared they could no longer supply the funds to keep him there.

His rooms were cheap and dingy, but it was the lecture fees that took the money. So Marriott pulled himself together at last and definitely made up his mind that he would pass or die in the attempt, and for some weeks now he had been reading as hard as mortal man can read. He was trying to make up for lost time and money in a way that showed conclusively he did not understand the value of either. For no ordinary man—and Marriott was in every sense an ordinary man—can afford to drive the mind as he had lately been driving his, without sooner or later paying the cost.

Among the students he had few friends or acquaintances, and these few had promised not to disturb him at night, knowing he was at last reading in earnest. It was, therefore, with feelings a good deal stronger than mere surprise that he heard his door-bell ring on this particular night and realised that he was to have a visitor. Some men would simply have muffled the bell and gone on quietly with their work. But Marriott was not this sort. He was nervous. It would have bothered and pecked at his mind all night long not to know who the visitor was and what he wanted. The only thing to do, therefore, was to let him in—and out again—as quickly as possible.

The landlady went to bed at ten o'clock punctually, after which hour nothing would induce her to pretend she heard the bell, so Marriott jumped up from his books with an exclamation that augured ill for the reception of his caller, and prepared to let him in with his own hand.

The streets of Edinburgh town were very still at this late hour —it was late for Edinburgh—and in the quiet neighbourhood of F— Street, where Mariott lived on the third floor, scarcely a sound broke the silence. As he crossed the floor, the bell rang a second time, with unnecessary clamour, and he unlocked the door and passed into the little hallway with considerable wrath and annoyance in his heart at the insolence of the double interruption.

" The fellows all know I'm reading for this exam. Why in the world do they come to bother me at such an unearthly hour ? "

The inhabitants of the building, with himself, were medical students,

general students, poor Writers to the Signet, and some others whose vocations were perhaps not so obvious. The stone staircase, dimly lighted at each floor by a gas-jet that would not turn above a certain height, wound down to the level of the street with no pretence at carpet or railing. At some levels it was cleaner than at others. It depended on the landlady of the particular level.

The acoustic properties of a spiral staircase seem to be peculiar. Marriott, standing by the open door, book in hand, thought every moment the owner of the footsteps would come into view. The sound of the boots was so close and so loud that they seemed to travel disproportionately in advance of their cause. Wondering who it could be, he stood ready with all manner of sharp greetings for the man who dared thus to disturb his work. But the man did not appear. The steps sounded almost under his nose, yet no one was visible.

A sudden queer sensation of fear passed over him—a faintness and a shiver down the back. It went, however, almost as soon as it came, and he was just debating whether he would call aloud to his invisible visitor, or slam the door and return to his books, when the cause of the disturbance turned the corner very slowly and came into view.

It was a stranger. He saw a youngish man short of figure and very broad. His face was the colour of a piece of chalk and the eyes, which were very bright, had heavy lines underneath them. Though the cheeks and chin were unshaven and the general appearance unkempt, the man was evidently a gentleman, for he was well dressed and bore himself with a certain air. But, strangest of all, he wore no hat, and carried none in his hand ; and although rain had been falling steadily all the evening, he appeared to have neither overcoat nor umbrella.

A hundred questions sprang up in Marriott's mind and rushed to his lips, chief among which was something like " Who in the world are you ? " and " What in the name of heaven do you come to mc for ? " But none of these questions found time to express themselves in words, for almost at once the caller turned his head a little so that the gas light in the hall fell upon his features from a new angle. Then in a flash Marriott recognised him.

" Field !   Man alive !   Is it you ? " he gasped.

The Fourth Year Man was not lacking in intuition, and he perceived at once that here was a case for delicate treatment. He divined, without any actual process of thought, that the catastrophe often predicted had come at last, and that this man's father had turned him out of the house. They had been at a private school together years before, and though they had hardly met once since, the news had not failed to reach him from time to time with considerable detail, for the family lived near his own and between certain of the sisters there was great intimacy. Young Field had gone wild later, he remembered hearing about it all—drink, a woman, opium, or something of the sort—he could not exactly call to mind.

" Come in," he said at once, his anger vanishing. " There's been something wrong, I can see.   Come in, and tell me all about it and perhaps I can help               " He hardly knew what to say, and stam-

mered a lot more besides. The dark side of life, and the horror of it,

belonged to a world that lay remote from his own select little atmos-

phere of books and dreamings.  But he had a man's heart for all that.

He led the way across the hall, shutting the front door carefully behind him, and noticed as he did so that the other, though certainly sober, was unsteady on his legs, and evidently much exhausted Marriott might not be able to pass his examinations, but he at least knew the symptoms of starvation—acute starvation, unless he was much mistaken—when they stared him in the face.

" Come along," he said cheerfully, and with genuine sympathy in his voice. " I'm glad to see you. I was going to have a bite of something to eat, and you're just in time to join me."

The other made no audible reply, and shuffled so feebly with his feet that Marriott took his arm by way of support. He noticed for the first time that the clothes hung on him with pitiful looseness. The broad frame was literally hardly more than a frame. He was as thin as a skeleton. But, as he touched him. the sensation of faintness and dread returned. It only lasted a moment, and then passed off, and he ascribed it not unnaturally to the distress and shock of seeing a former friend in such a pitiful plight.

" Better let me guide you. It's shamefully dark—this hall. I'm always complaining," he said lightly, recognising by the weight upo'i his arm that the guidance was sorely needed, " but the old cat never does anything except promise." He led him to the sofa, wondering all the time where he had come from and how he had found out the address. It must be at least seven years since those days at the private school when they used to be such close friends.

" Now, if you'll forgive me for a minute," he said, " I'll get supper ready—such as it is. And don't bother to talk. Just take it easy on the sofa. I see you're dead-tired. You can tell me about it afterwards, and we'll make plans."

The other sat down on the edge of the sofa and stared in silence, while Marriott got out the brown loaf, scones, and huge pot of marmalade that Edinburgh students always keep in their cupboards. His eyes shone with a brightness that suggested drugs, Marriott thought, stealing a glance at him from behind the cupboard door. He did not like yet to take a full square look. The fellow was in a bad way, and it would have been so like an examination to stare and wait for explanations. Besides, he was evidently almost too exhausted to speak. So, for reasons of delicacy—and for another reason as well which he could not exactly formulate to himself—he let his visitor rest apparently unnoticed, while he busied himself with the supper. He lit the spirit-lamp to make cocoa, and when the water was boiling he drew up the table with the good things to the sofa, so that Field need not have even the trouble of moving to a chair.

" Now, let's tuck in," he said, " and afterwards we'll have a pipe and a chat. I'm reading for an exam, you know, and I always have something about this time.   It's jolly to have a companion."

He looked up and caught his guest's eyes directed straight upon his own. An involuntary shudder ran through him from head to foot. The face opposite him was deadly white and wore a dreadful expression of pain and mental suffering.

" By Gad ! " he said, jumping up, " I quite forgot. I've got some whisky somewhere. What an ass I am. I never touch it myselt when I'm working like this."

He went to the cupboard and poured out a stiff glass which the other swallowed at a single gulp and without any water. Marriott watched him while he drank it, and at the same time noticed something else as well—Field's coat was all over dust, and on one shoulder was a bit of cobweb. It was perfectly dry ; Field arrived on a soaking wet night without hat, umbrella, or overcoat, and yet perfectly dry, even dusty. Therefore he had been under cover. What did it all mean ?  Had he been hiding in the building ? . . .

It was very strange. Yet he volunteered nothing ; and Marriott had pretty well made up his mind by this time that he would not ask any questions until he had eaten and slept. Food and sleep were obviously what the poor devil needed most and first—he was pleased with his powers of ready diagnosis—and it would not be fair to press him till he had recovered a bit.

They ate their supper together while the host carried on a running one-sided conversation, chiefly about himself and his exams and his " old cat " of a landlady, so that the guest need not utter a single word unless he really wished to—which he evidently did not ! But, while he toyed with his food, feeling no desire to eat, the other ate voraciously. To see a hungry man devour cold scones, stale oatcake, and brown bread laden with marmalade was a revelation to this inexperienced student who had never known what it was to be without at least three meals a day. He watched in spite of himself, wondering why the fellow did not choke in the process.

But Field seemed to be as sleepy as he was hungry. More than once his head dropped and he ceased to masticate the food in his mouth. Marriott had positively to shake him before he would go on with his meal. A stronger emotion will overcome a weaker, but this struggle between the sting of real hunger and the magical opiate of overpowering sleep was a curious sight to the student, who watched it with mingled astonishment and alarm. He had heard of the pleasure it was to feed hungry men, and watch them eat, but he had never actually witnessed it, and he had no idea it was like this. Field ate like an animal—gobbled, stuffed, gorged. Marriott forgot his reading, and began to feel something very much like a lump in his throat.

" Afraid there's been awfully little to offer you, old man," he managed to blurt out when at length the last scone had disappeared, and the rapid, one-sided meal was at an end. Field still made no reply, for he was almost asleep in his seat. He merely looked up wearily and gratefully.

" Now you must have some sleep, you know," he continued, " or you'll go to pieces. I shall be up all night reading for this blessed exam. You're more than welcome to my bed. To-morrow we'll have a late breakfast and—and see what can be done—and make plans—I'm awfully good at making plans you know," he added with an attempt at lightness.

Field maintained his " dead sleepy " silence, but appeared to acquiesce, and the other led the way into the bedroom, apologising as he did so to this half-starved son of a baronet—whose own home was almost a palace—for the size of the room. The weary guest, however, made no pretence of thanks or politeness. He merely steadied himself on his friend's arm as he staggered across the room, and then, with all his clothes on, dropped his exhausted body on the bed. In less than a minute he was to all appearances sound asleep.

For several minutes Marriott stood in the open door and watched him ; praying devoutly that he might never find himself in a like predicament, and then fell to wondering what he would do with his unbidden guest on the morrow. But he did not stop long to think, for the call of his books was imperative, and happen what might, he must see to it that he passed that examination.

Having again locked the door into the hall, he sat down to his books and resumed his notes on materia medica where he had left off when the bell rang. But it was difficult for some time to concentrate his mind on the subject. His thoughts kept wandering to the picture of that white-faced, strange-eyed fellow, starved and dirty, lying in his clothes and boots on the bed. He recalled their schooldays together before they had drifted apart, and how they had vowed eternal friendship—and all the rest of it. And now ! What horrible straits to be in. How could any man let the love of dissipation take such hold upon him ?

But one of their vows together Marriott, it seemed, had completely forgotten. Just now, at any rate, it lay too far in the background of his memory to be recalled.

Through the half-open door—the bedroom led out of the sitting-room and had no other door—came the sound of deep, long-drawn breathing, the regular, steady breathing of a tired man, so tired that, even to listen to it made Marriott almost want to go to sleep himself.

" He needed it," reflected the student, " and perhaps it came only just in time ! "

Perhaps so ; for outside the bitter wind from across the Forth howled cruelly and drove the rain in cold streams against the window-panes, and down the deserted streets. Long before Marriott settled down again properly to his reading, he heard distantly, as it were, through the sentences of the book, the heavy, deep breathing of the sleeper in the next room.

A couple of hours later, when he yawned and changed his books, he still heard the breathing, and went cautiously up to the door to look round.

At first the darkness of the room must have deceived him, or else his eyes were confused and dazzled by the recent glare of the reading

lamp. For a minute or two he could make out nothing at all but dark lumps of furniture, the mass of the chest of drawers by the wall, and the white patch where his bath stood in the centre of the floor.

Then the bed came slowly into view. And on it he saw the outline of the sleeping body gradually take shape before his eyes, growing up strangely into the darkness, till it stood out in marked relief—the long black form against the white counterpane.

He could hardly help smiling. Field had not moved an inch. He watched him a moment or two and then returned to his books. The night was full of the singing voices of the wind and rain. There was no sound of traffic ; no hansoms clattered over the cobbles, and it was still too early for the milk-carts. He worked on steadily and conscientiously, only stopping now and again to change a book, or to sip some of the poisonous stuff that kept him awake and made his brain so active, and on these occasions Field's breathing was always distinctly audible in the room. Outside, the storm continued to howl, but inside the house all was stillness. The shade of the reading lamp threw all the light upon the littered table, leaving the other end of the room in comparative darkness. The bedroom door was exactly opposite him where he sat. There was nothing to disturb the worker, nothing but an occasional rush of wind against the windows, and a slight pain in his arm.

This pain, however, which he was unable to account for, grew once or twice very acute. It bothered him ; and he tried to remember how, and when, he could have bruised himself so severely, but without success.

At length the page before him turned from yellow to grey, and there were sounds of wheels in the street below. It was four o'clocK. Marriott leaned back and yawned prodigiously. Then he drew back the curtains. The storm had subsided and the Castle Rock was shrouded in mist. With another yawn he turned away from the dreary outlook and prepared to sleep the remaining four hours till breakfast on the sofa. Field was still breathing heavily in the next room, and he first tip-toed across the floor to take another look at him.

Peering cautiously round the half-opened door his first glance fell upon the bed now plainly discernible in the grey light of morning. He stared hard. Then he rubbed his eyes. Then he rubbed his eyes again and thrust his head further round the edge of the door. With fixed eyes, he stared harder still, and harder.

But it made no difference at all. He was staring into an empty room.

The sensation of fear he had felt when Field first appeared upon the scene returned suddenly, but with much greater force. He became conscious, too, that his left arm was throbbing violently and causing him great pain. He stood wondering, and staring, and trying to collect his thoughts.   He was trembling from head to foot.

By a great effort of the will he left the support of the door and walked forward boldly into the room.

There, upon the bed, was the impress of a body, where Field had

D

lain and slept. There was the mark of the head on the pillow, and the slight indentation at the foot of the bed where the boots had rested on the counterpane. And there, plainer than ever—for he was closer to it—was the breathing !

Marriott tried to pull himself together. With a great effort he found his voice and called his friend aloud by name !

" Field !   Is that you ?   Where are you ? "

There was no reply ; but the breathing continued without interruption, coming directly from the bed. His voice had such an unfamiliar sound that Marriott did not care to repeat his questions, but he went down on his knees and examined the bed above and below, pulling the mattress off finally, and taking the coverings away separately one by one. But though the sounds continued there was no visible sign of Field, nor was there any space in which a human being, however small, could have concealed itself. He pulled the bed out from the wall, but the sound stayed where it was.   It did not move with the bed.

Marriott, finding self-control a little difficult in his weary condition, at once set about a thorough search of the room. He went through the cupboard, the chest of drawers, the little alcove where the clothes hung—everything. But there was no sign of anyone. The small window near the ceiling was closed ; and, anyhow, was not large enough to let a cat pass. The sitting-room door was locked on the inside ; he could not have got out that way. Curious thoughts began to trouble Marriott's mind, bringing in their train unwelcome sensations. He grew more and more excited ; he searched the bed again till it resembled the scene of a pillow fight ; he searched both rooms, knowing all the time it was useless—and then he searched again. A cold perspiration broke out all over his body ; and the sound of heavy breathing, all this time, never ceased to come from the corner where Field had lain down to sleep.

Then he tried something else. He pushed the bed back exactly into its original position—and himself lay down upon it just where his guest had lain. But the same instant he sprang up again in a single bound. The breathing was close beside him, almost on his cheek, and between him and the wall ! Not even a child could have squeezed into the space.

He went back into his sitting-room, opened the windows, welcoming all the light and air possible and tried to think the whole matter over quietly and clearly. Men who read too hard, and slept too little, he knew were sometimes troubled with very vivid hallucinations. Again he calmly reviewed every incident of the night ; his accurate sensations ; the vivid details ; the emotions stirred in him ; the dreadful feast—no single hallucination could ever combine all these and cover so long a period of time. But with less satisfaction he thought of the recurring faintness, and curious sense of horror that had once or twice come over him, and then of the violent pains in his arm. These were quite unaccountable.

Moreover, now that he began to analyse and examine, there was one other thing that fell upon him like a sudden revelation : During the whole time Field had not actually uttered a single word ! Yet, as though in mockery upon his reflections, there came ever from that inner room the sound of the breathing, long-drawn, deep, and regular. The thing was incredible.   It was absurd.

Haunted by visions of brain fever and insanity, Marriott put on his cap and mackintosh and left the house. The morning air on Arthur's Seat would blow the cobwebs from his brain ; the scent of the heather, and above all, the sight of the sea. He roamed over the wet slopes above Holyrood for a couple of hours, and did not return until the exercise had shaken some of the horror out of his bones, and given him a ravening appetite into the bargain.

As he entered he saw that there was another man in the room, standing against the window with his back to the light. He recognised his fellow-student Greene, who was reading for the same examination.

" Read hard all night, Marriott," he said, " and thought I'd drop in here to compare notes and have some breakfast. You're out early ? " he added, by way of a question. Marriott said he had a headache and a walk had helped it, and Greene nodded and said " Ah ! " But when the girl had set the steaming porridge on the table and gone out again, he went on with rather a forced tone, " Didn't know you had any friends who drank, Marriott ? "

This was obviously tentative, and Marriott replied dryly that he did not know it either.

" Sounds just as if some chap were ' sleeping it off' in there, doesn't: it, though ? " persisted the other, with a nod in the direction of the bedroom, and looking curiously at his friend. The two men stared steadily at each other for several seconds, and then Marriott said earnestly :

" Then you hear it too, thank God ! "

" Of course I hear it. The door's open. Sorry if I wasn't meant to."

" Oh, I don't mean that," said Marriott, lowering his voice. " But

I'm awfully relieved. Let me explain. Of course, if you hear it too,

then it's all right ; but really it frightened me more than I can tell

you. I thought I was going to have brain fever, or something, and

you know what a lot depends on this exam. It always begins with

sounds, or visions, or some sort of beastly hallucination, and I------------ "

" Rot ! " ejaculated the other impatiently. " What are you talking about ? "

" Now, listen to me, Greene," said Marriott, as calmly as he could, for the breathing was still plainly audible, " and I'll tell you what I mean, only don't interrupt." And thereupon he related exactly what had happend during the night, telling everything, even down to the pain in his arm. When it was over he got up from the table and crossed the room.

" You hear the breathing now plainly, don't you ? " he said. Greene said he did. " Well, come with me, and we'll search the room together."   The other, however, did not move from his chair.

" I've been in already," he said sheepishly ; " I heard the sounds

and thought it was you.  The door was ajar—so I went in."

Marriott made no comment, but pushed the door open as wide as it would go. As it opened, the sound of breathing grew more and more distinct.

" Someone must be in there," said Greene under his breath.

" Someone is in there, but where ? " said Marriott. Again he urged his friend to go in with him. But Greene refused point-blank ; said he had been in once and had searched the room and there was nothing there.   He would not go in again for a good deal.

They shut the door and retired into the other room to talk it all over with many pipes. Greene questioned his friend very closely, but without illuminating result, since questions cannot alter facts.

" The only thing that ought to have a proper, a logical explanation is the pain in my arm," said Marriott, rubbing that member with an attempt at a smile. " It hurts so infernally and aches all the way up. I can't remember bruising it, though."

" Let me examine it for you," said Greene. " I'm awfully good at bones in spite of the examiners' opinion to the contrary." It was a relief to play the fool a bit, and Marriott took his coat off and rolled up his sleeve.

" By George, though, I'm bleeding ! " he exclaimed. " Look here !   What on earth's this ? "

On the forearm, quite close to the wrist, was a thin red line. There was a tiny drop of apparently fresh blood on it. Greene came over and looked closely at it for some minutes. Then he sat back in his chair, looking curiously at his friend's face.

" You've scratched yourself without knowing it," he said presently.

" There's no sign of a bruise. It must be something else that made the arm ache."

Marriott sat very still, staring silently at his arm as though the solution of the whole mystery lay there actually written upon the skin.

" What's the matter ? I see nothing very strange about a scratch,"

said Greene, in an unconvincing sort of voice. " It was your cuff-links

probably.   Last night in your excitement-------- "

But Marriott, white to the very lips, was trying to speak. The sweat stood in great beads on his forehead. At last he leaned forward close to his friend's face.

" Look," he said, in a low voice that shook a little. " Do you see that red mark ?   I mean underneath what you call the scratch ? "

Greene admitted he saw something or other, and Marriott wiped the place clean with his handkerchief and told him to look again more closely.

" Yes, I see," returned the other, lifting his head after a moment's careful inspection.   " It looks like an old scar."

" It is an old scar," whispered Marriott, his lips trembling. " Now it all comes back to me."

" All what ? " Greene fidgeted on his chair. He tried to laugh, but without success.   His friend seemed bordering on collapse.

" Hush ! Be quiet, and—I'll tell you," he said. " Field made that scar."

For a whole minute the two men looked each other full in the face without speaking.

" Field made that scar ! " repeated Marriott at length in a louder voice.

" Field !   You mean—last night ? "

" No, not last night. Years ago—at school, with his knife. And I made a scar in his arm with mine." Marriott was talking rapidly now.

" We exchanged drops of blood in each other's cuts.   He put a

drop into my arm and I put one into his----------- "

" In the name of heaven, what for ? "

" It was a boys' compact. We made a sacred pledge, a bargain.

I remember it all perfectly now. We had been reading some dreadful

book and we swore to appear to one another—I mean, whoever died

first swore to show himself to the other. And we sealed the compact

with each other's blood. I remember it all so well—the hot summer

afternoon in the playground, seven years ago—and one of the masters

caught us and confiscated the knives—and I have never thought of it

again to this day------- "

" And you mean-------- " stammered Greene.

But Marriott made no answer. He got up and crossed the room and lay down wearily upon the sofa, hiding his face in his hands.

Greene himself was a bit nonplussed. He left his friend alone for a little while, thinking it all over again. Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him. He went over to where Marriott still lay motionless on the sofa and roused him. In any case it was better to face the matter, whether there was an explanation or not. Giving in was always the silly exit.

" I say, Marriott," he began, as the other turned his white face up to him. " There's no good being so upset about it. I mean—if it's all an hallucination we know what to do. And if it isn't—well, we know what to think, don't we ? "

" I suppose so. But it frightens me horribly for some reason,"

returned his friend in a hushed voice.   " And that poor devil-------- "

" But, after all, if the worst is true and—and that chap has kept his promise—well, he has, that's all, isn't it ? "

Marriott nodded.

" There's only one thing that occurs to me," Greene went on, " and that is, are you quite sure that—that he really ate like that—I mean that he actually ate anything at all? " he finished, blurting out all his thought.

Marriott stared at him for a moment and then said he could easily make certain. He spoke quietly. After the main shock no lesser surprise could affect him.

" I put the things away myself," he said, " after we had finished. They are on the third shelf in that cupboard. No one's touched 'em since."

He pointed without getting up, and Greene took the hint and went over to look.

" Exactly," he said, after a brief examination ; " just as I thought. It was partly hallucination, at any rate. The things haven't been touched.   Come and see for yourself."

Together they examined the shelf. There was the brown loaf, the plate of stale scones, the oatcake, all untouched. Even the glass of whisky Marriott had poured out stood there with the whisky still in it.

" You were feeding—no one," said Greene. " Field ate and drank nothing.   He was not there at all ! "

" But the breathing ? " urged the other in a low voice, staring with a dazed expression on his face.

Greene did not answer. He walked over to the bedroom, while Marriott followed him with his eyes. He opened the door, and listened. There was no need for words. The sound of deep, regular breathing came floating through the air. There was no hallucination about that, at any rate. Marriott could hear it where he stood on the other side of the room.

Greene closed the door and came back. " There's only one thing to do," he declared with decision. " Write home and find out about him, and meanwhile come and finish your reading in my rooms. I've got an extra bed."

" Agreed," returned the Fourth Year Man ; " there's no hallucination about that exam ; I must pass that whatever happens."

And this was what they did.

It was about a week later when Marriott got the answer from his sister.   Part of it he read out to Greene :

" It is curious," she wrote, " that in your letter you should have inquired after Field. It seems a terrible thing, but you know only a short while ago Sir John's patience became exhausted, and he turned him out of the house, they say without a penny. Well, what do you think ? He has killed himself. At least, it looks like suicide. Instead of leaving the house, he went down into the cellar and simply starved himself to death. . . . They're trying to suppress it, of course, but I heard it all from my maid, who got it from their footman. . . . They found the body on the 14th and the doctor said he had died about twelve hours before. . . .   He was dreadfully thin. . . ."

" Then he died on the 13th," said Greene.

Marriott nodded.

" That's the very night he came to see you." Marriott nodded again.

THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE

BY

DAVIS TINDALL

LIEUTENANT PAUL LEROY of Michigan, U.S.A., gave a cry of delighted recognition as his eye fell on Lieutenant Mick Brogan, likewise ot Michigan, U.S.A., in the American Services Club on Princes Street, Edinburgh.

" Hello, Mick, you old son of a gun," he grinned, shaking hands. " What ill wind blew you in here ? " " Special mission.   Hush-hush," answered Brogan.   " How about

you ? "

" A spot of leave," crowed Leroy, " so I'm wising up on bonny Scotland. Come on, man, let's have a drink to celebrate. 'Tisn't every day one meets an old school buddy."

He chose a quiet corner and ordered drinks. Waiting for them, he noticed the ribbon, blue with two narrow edges of red and white, on Mick's chest, and exclaimed :

" Of course ! D.S.C. ! Congratulations ! Heard about your exploit blowing up that bridge in Sardinia. Tell me more about it. Bet you took a big risk on that."

"1 did, too," said Brogan without false modesty. " I don't like bridges."

" Don't like bridges . . . ? " Leroy looked astonished. " What's that got to do with it ? "

Brogan patted his pockets for cigarettes and lighter.

" Everything," he replied. " I'd risk any ordinary danger to destroy a bridge."

" Ordinary danger ? " Leroy's astonishment increased. He forgot to draw on his cigarette.   " Heck !  What kind of danger's that ? "

" Oh, bombs and guns, and mines, and booby-traps, and ambushes," answered Brogan. " That sort of thing. All in the day's work to a Ranger.   Man's weapons, not the devil's ! "   He fell abruptly silent.

" Sounds like you've got a good story there," commented Leroy. He handed Brogan his glass.   " Shoot ! "

Brogan took a sip, and spoke reflectively :

" It's a queer tale really. Sometimes I think we may both have been temporarily ' nuts '—sort of effect of lonely, isolated spot on fellows used to city life, and then again I don't know.

" I was drafted to North Scotland, you may remember, to a commando-training area—a place in Ross-shire, wild, desolate country, liable to get on the nerves, I guess, if you weren't accustomed to loneliness. But you know me ! I wasn't a nervy guy, the kind to be fooling myself with fancies. Which makes it all the more difficult to understand."

He paused and looked at Leroy, half-doubtfully.

" Understand what ? "asked his companion. " Stop holding out, Mick, and let's have it ! "

" Well, I don't pretend to understand it," said Brogan, taking the plunge, " and I don't suppose you will either. But whatever the explanation, it sure handed me a knock-out.

" It all started one night at dusk when I was getting back to camp at the end of the day's exercise. My men had gone on in front (I never made them fall in at the end of the day, but let them go as they pleased). So I was alone. I had a fair stretch to go, and I was somewhat tired, but I was making good time. The road lay between woods on the one side and a river on the other and as I stepped along I could hear the roar of the water rushing over the Falls above the bridge which I had to cross to reach the path leading up the glen.

" I was half-way across the bridge when I thought I heard a sound as of someone moaning. I stopped whistling and stood to listen. Sure enough, the sound came from close beside me and, looking down, I made out in the shadow the figure of a girl crouched against the wall, sobbing. I raised her up, unprotesting, and seated her on the low parapet of the bridge, at the same time asking her what was the matter.

" She could make no coherent reply, however. She was obviously mad with terror, her blue eyes distended, her cheeks wet with tears. She rocked to and fro, moaning heartbrokenly. Feeling at a loss, I put my arm round her and tried to soothe her, and eventually I managed to make out something about being ' fastened to the bridge,' ' couldn't get out,' ' so cold and dark.' Then she broke out wailing again and I could get no further sense out of her. I hushed her mechanically, perplexed over my next move. What to do with her ? This was the very devil of a situation. Sorry as I was for her, I had a spasm of irritation that I should be saddled with her at this time of night when all I wanted was a good supper and then sleep.

" ' Devil take it ! ' I muttered, and instantly the sobbing figure was no longer there. My arm curved round empty space ; and no sound disturbed the gloom other than the rush of waters over the falls and the swish of the topmost branches of the pines, agitated by the wind. The rising moon appeared wanly from behind a cloud, and I found myself gripping the parapet of the bridge with both hands and staring down at the swiftly-flowing river, terror leaping in my throat. Realisation swept over me that the girl had talked to me in a tongue which I could not identify and yet I had understood her ; while her dress had certainly not been of to-day's fashion and her bright red-gold hair had rippled over her shoulders in a style that was no style at all as far as the modern girl is concerned. A nameless dread shook me through and through, my flesh tingled with horror. I sprang back from the parapet in a convulsive leap, and took to my heels as if the devil himself were after me, stumbling in the ruts, and only by an immense effort of will preventing myself from yelling as I ran.

" I blundered into the hut, inexpressibly glad of the welcoming light and warmth. Captain Clark Spiller, my superior officer, looked up from his papers.

" ' Heavens, man ! !he exclaimed. ' What's wrong ? Are you ill ?   You look as if you'd seen a ghost.'

" And even with the brandy warming my veins I had a hard fight for control. It was a relief to have someone as sympathetic and understanding as Spiller. He did not act incredulous nor pooh-pooh my story. In fact, he was greatly interested. A bookish sort of fellow, he knew of the ancient superstition, prevalent in all parts of the world, that a human sacrifice must be made at the foundation of a bridge to placate the water-spirits and so ensure the stability of the bridge.

" There was the famous Bridge of Arta—in Italy he thought it was— which had collapsed till the master-builder walled up his wife and she, cursing him, prophesied that the bridge would always tremble. Greek folk-song, too, made reference to human sacrifice when a bridge was to be built, while among certain communities in Herzegovina, even to-day, the office of civil engineer is looked on with pious horror, persons cursing a new bridge when they pass it, in token of their belief in the presence of the devil.

" Probably this apparition which I had seen was a Gaelic-speaking girl who had been walled up to ensure the stability of the bridge (a very old one, but in good repair) at the time it was under construction and somehow I had ' visualised ' the incident related through a right combination of time, place and circumstance. He did not pretend to know why this should be so ; it was just one of those queer happenings that cannot be rationally explained ; no doubt the ghost walked regularly but would never be seen except under the conditions obtaining in my case, whatever they were ; and, further, it would continue to walk for as long as the bridge stood ; only the destruction of the bridge could set the earth-bound spirit free.

" His quiet acceptance of the supernatural together with his calm analysis of the episode restored my shaken nerve, though I involuntarily shuddered whenever I thought of my arm round that ghostly form. Seeing the thing would not have been so bad, I felt, but remembrance of touch made me come all over gooseflesh.

" However, the next few days kept me too busy for brooding. The hard exercise of a ranger's day is not conducive to nervous fancies ; I was too fatigued at the end of it to do anything but drop off to sleep as soon as I lay down and I slept like a log.

" Our training was now being intensified. A raid rehearsal under realistic circumstances was staged and to give us fellows a taste oi battle conditions live ammunition was used. 'Planes from the aerodrome a few miles distant from our camp co-operated and tanks leap-frogged their way along the desolate uplands. One fighter dived to attack a tank as it hurtled along the road making for the bridge. The driver zig-zagged to outwit the fighter, misjudged his distance and crashed into the bridge support.   The bridge collapsed.

E

" Spiller, checking the reports at the end of the day, was struck by this fact. He was convinced that there was a connection between the fate of the bridge and my ' visitation '—a warning, no doubt, of its impending doom. For my part, I was glad for the ghost to be laid in this fortuitous fashion, as I desired no recurrence of my weird experience, however plausible the analysis of it. I wanted only to forget it.

" But I was not to be allowed to forget it. We were having it easy for a day or two after the raid rehearsal—a gruelling spell—so when the boys and girls at the aerodrome I mentioned invited us to one of their dances Spiller and I went along together, glad of the diversion. And the first thing I saw on entering the doorway was the girl on the bridge !

" Oh, she was in a W.A.A.F. uniform, and that bright red-gold hair was pinned in a neat halo of curls, while her blue eyes were smiling and carefree as she leaned against the wall, watching the dancers !   But it was her all right !

" I grabbed Spiller's arm excitedly :

" ' That's her,' I breathed hoarsely.

" ' Who ? ' asked Spiller, looking about vaguely.

" ' The girl on the bridge,' I said. ' See ? The one with the red hair over against the wall.'

" Spiller looked and laughed : ' A W.A.A.F. ! You've got that girl on the brain, Mick.'

" I persisted.   Spiller stopped laughing and eyed me narrowly.

" ' It's given you more of a shock that I thought, Mick. You're developing an obsession.'

" He flung an arm round my shoulders. ' Come on, fellow. Let's go over and speak to her and get rid of the bee in your bonnet.'

" ' No ! ' I drew away violently. ' I won't go near her. It's her freed spirit masquerading as a W.A.A.F.'

" Spiller shrugged. ' You're nuts,' he said. ' But I'm not going to pass up the prettiest girl in the room.'

" And he went to ask her for a dance.

" I watched him uneasily, never taking my eyes off the pair as they twirled into the throng of dancers. A voice at my elbow broke in on my thoughts :

" 'Wake up, big boy ! This is no time for seeing visions ! Put up with me till your dream girl comes along ? '

" Turning, I found a smiling W.A.A.F. ready to dance.

" I answered her, heaven knows what ! But I suggested we sit this one out and she agreed. I tried to pick out Spiller again, for the interruption had made me lose sight of him, and presently he drifted into view.   I turned to my companion.

" ' See that red-headed girl dancing with the American officer ? I asked.   ' Who is she ? '

" My W.A.A.F. craned her neck.

" ' Don't know,' she replied.   ' Never seen her before.'

" I tingled with apprehensive excitement.  It was the girl !  It was I

" The W.A.A.F. looked at me curiously. I felt obliged to explain. " ' Her face is familiar.'

" ' Maybe you met her some place else. She may just have been drafted to this 'drome.'

" ' Like enough,' I answered, and dropped the subject.

" I reopened it with other girls with whom I danced, but none ol them could give me any information, and finally I decided to put an end to my suspense. I caught up with Spiller at the buffet. He looked at me a little anxiously, but his brow cleared when I said in what I congratulated myself was a normal tone :

" ' Introduce me.'

" He smiled at the girl. ' Fiona,' he said. ' Lieutenant Michael Brogan.   Mick, Fiona . . . Fiona Ross.'

" She gazed at me with eyes of that cerulean blue that looks so utterly innocent and beguiling—no sign of recognition—and held out her hand.

" Mastering a shudder, I grasped it. It was cool, not clammy as I had anticipated.

" ' Haven't I met you somewhere before ? ' I enquired. Spiller kicked me unobtrusively, but effectively.

" Fiona Ross shook her copper curls.

" ' Oh, no,' she said decisively, in a soft, slightly sing-song voice. ' Never before have I met Americans.'

" ' Have you been long at the aerodrome ? ' I pursued, ignoring Spiller's second and even more effective kick.

" There was no hesitation in her reply. ' No, indeed. Only a few days ago it was I came.'

" ' And where did you come from ? ' I continued, flouting etiquette, intent on my purpose.

" Spiller abandoned dumb show for speech.

" ' Hey !   Hey ! ' he expostulated.

" The girl laughed : ' Your friend likes asking the questions.' She shrugged : ' Ah well, I am not minding giving him the answers.'

" She turned back to me. ' My home is not far from here. In this part of Scotland was I born.'

" Spiller interposed before I could get any further.

" ' And that's all for now, folks,' he interjected, with false heartiness. ' Time to dance.'

" Heskilfully piloted the girl away from me, at the same time giving me a look over her shoulder which I guessed meant trouble later on.

" Trouble it was. He was mad at me when he got back to camp, long after I did, and was I glad to see him, mad or not !

" ' I know you had a shake-up,' he said, ' but you can't run around with fool notions like that in your head and ask folks impertinent questions.'

" ' But I had to know,' I burst out.

" ' O.K.    O.K.' he said.    ' And I hope you're satisfied ! ' " Satisfied ?   God knows I'd rather have had it his way !   It was

no satisfaction to me to know myself in the right. " ' It's the same girl,' I said obstinately.

" Spiller flung up his hands. ' Good God, Mick, you are crazy !' " I rushed into speech.

" ' She looks the same—she's only just arrived at the 'drome—she belongs here—her manner of speech is strange, it would sound queer to an Englishman, let alone an American.'

" Spiller prayed aloud for patience. When he spoke he did so calmly and persuasively.

" ' Mick, you're twisting facts to suit your fantasy. Fiona looks like the girl on the bridge—it's possible, but more likely to be your disordered imagination. She has only just arrived at the 'drome and nobody knows anything about her—nothing strange in that. The war has flung hundreds together who know nothing of each other and re-drafting may separate them before they ever do. She belongs here —well, why not ? —she has to belong somewhere and some folks are lucky enough to be posted near home. She talks strangely—again why not ? She is a Highland girl ; she thinks in the Gaelic and transfers her thoughts to English speech ; the result is bound to arrest ears used to a different turn of phrase.'

" I looked at him helplessly, burdened by my conviqtion.

" ' No matter what you say, I know she's the same girl.'

" He closed the subject. ' The doctor for you to-morrow, pal. It's beyond me now.'

' Doc' diagnosed ' overwrought nerves '—and why wouldn't he ? Frankly he considered I was suffering from hallucination, and right from the start ! He blamed Spiller for having given credence to my tale of the bridge. Encouraging a dangerous attitude of mind, he said, and now things were at this pass. He asked what was my occupation before the war, and when I answered P.T. Instructor in a Boys' School, he nodded and murmured something about ' plenty of life.' Fie next wanted to know when my leave was due and said he would have it pushed forward.

" ' And choose a lively place to go to,' he ordered. ' Enjoy yourself Get yourself a girl.'   Fie laughed.   ' Brunette, for preference.'

" So my leave was pushed forward, but I had two days to put in before starting out on my good time. The prospect of a change cheered me immensely and this lightening of my spirits convinced me that the lack of city sights and pleasures was at the root of my trouble, that I had fallen a victim to hallucination in this benighted countryside. It was great to feel normal again and I was so bucked with myself that I even chaffed Spiller as he was setting out to meet Fiona with whom he was patently very much in love, though their acquaintanceship was only a matter of twenty-four hours old.

" But as the night wore on I found my ' strange feelings ' crowding in on me again. I could not concentrate on my book ; I was keyed up. I began to feel shut in, enclosed by four walls, and had a desperate desire to get out, impelled to this by some powerful agency I could not understand.   I told myself not to be a fool, but it was no use.   After a losing struggle with my commonsense, I went out.

" It was a bright, moonlit night and I climbed the slope above the river leading away from the damaged bridge. Excitement gripped me. I have no recollection of any consecutive thought as I strode along, but presently I caught sight of the figures of Spiller and Fiona approaching and an instinct prompted me to dodge behind a tree. They drew level and Fiona's face, due perhaps to the moonlight, looked remote and unearthly. I watched her, my heart beginning to thud violently.

" She stopped abreast of the falls, just a little way off from me, and I wondered if she had spotted me. But she swerved away from my direction and walked to the edge of the high bank and stood looking down stream to the old bridge. Spiller followed. I could not hear what he said, but the girl did not appear to pay any attention. She did not look at him. Then suddenly her voice carried to me plainly-above the turmoil of the water, though at the time I did not think this strange.

" ' To-morrow is the old bridge being demolished entirely,' she said.   ' In its place will a new one be built.'

" Spiller's voice was now audible also. It was bantering, yet tender, in tone. ' And you feel sentimental about it ? Well, there's hope for me when your heart feels for a lump of stone ! '

" He slipped his arm round her waist as they faced downstream, but the girl turned swiftly and fronted him squarely. The moon shone full on her face which had a wild yet purposeful look. I watched in an agony of suspense.

" ' In its place will a new one be built,' she repeated. Her voice rose : ' Another sacrifice the water-spirits demand ! But I'll not be walled up for centuries again ! '   She laughed with maniac glee.

" ' You this time, not I ' and with devilish cunning she lunged forward, knocking Spiller off his balance, caught off his guard as he was. He slithered on the edge of the steep slope which rose on this side of the river, but had the presence of mind or the inculcated instinct of his ranger training to fling himself forward flat on his face before he should overbalance. In an instant the girl was on him, pulling and kicking like one demented.

" Suddenly released from my petrified state of onlooker, I dashed forward and joined in the scuffle. The girl hung on like a tiger, breathing hard, but making no outcry, till with a particularly powerful heave I managed to loosen her stranglehold on Spiller who wriggled clear and scrambled to his feet. With the strength of a mad woman the girl grappled with me, but I bore down her arms, stopped restraining her, and dodged to one side so that her impetus carried her forward and with a wild cry she disappeared over the edge into the tumbling waters below. Her shriek as she went over was like the howling of all the devils in hell, an ascending octave of terror-choked despair.

" I reeled back from the bank like a drunken man and looked at Spiller.   His face was grey and agonised as a man's on the rack.   He had clapped his hands to his ears to shut out the echoes of that terrible cry and was making little whimpering noises like a trapped, exhausted animal. I put out a hand to grip his shoulder, but he started back from me with an inarticulate cry of revulsion, as though I had been a murderer, then, before I could guess at his move, he sprang into space and plunged to his death on the rocks below.

" My heart seemed to turn over inside me. I was sweating yet shivering with a chill colder than ice. A noise like the hissing of a flaring gas-jet filled my ears ; solid blackness rose on my eyeballs, pressed on them and engulfed me. When I came to the moon was shining fitfully through barred clouds, and the falls were roaring in an ecstacy of jubilation. The full tide of remembrance flooded in on me and, sick with horror, I fled from the spot, pursued by the jeering laughter of the river.

" I reached camp with an incoherent tale of Spiller and a girl accidently drowned at the falls. That was the version I gave at the inquest on the pair whose bodies were not recovered.   It came out

then that Fiona Ross was not attached to X------------ aerodrome, nobody

there had heard of her, and, oddly enough, nobody admitted to seeing her at the dance which Spiller and I attended. Of course, aerodrome personnel changes a bit and maybe folks I pointed her out to had been drafted elsewhere . . . anyhow, I did not recall who they were.

" Of course, I was looked at askance. ' Doc.,' for one, really believed that I had gone temporarily quite ' mental ' and pushed Spiller over myself ; while it was certainly rumoured among the other guys that the shock of Spiller's unfortunate death had unhinged me a bit and the girl was just a figment of my disordered brain."

Brogan paused and thoughtfully blew smoke through his nostrils, eyeing Leroy through the haze. Leroy's gaze shifted slightly and Brogan laughed shortly :

" I don't blame you, pal.   But look at this."

From his pocket-book he drew out a small leather-backed diary which had evidently been in a sodden condition at one time.

" This was Spiller's," he said. " Someone found it in the long grass some days after the inquest and sent it to the camp. ' Doc' himself brought it to me where I was spending my leave."

He opened it at a page on which the writing was still legible, though the ink had run, and read :

" To-night I met a girl—the girl. Her name is Fiona. She is beautiful as Deirdre—golden hair, blue eyes, rose-petal skin. She is my fate, I feel it in my bones.   I love her with all my heart."

Brogan closed the book.   Leroy was clearly at a loss for comment.

" Rum show," he managed, at last, inadequately. Then his cherubic face lost its look of bewilderment as a happy thought struck him.   He leaned over and tapped the ribbon on Brogan's chest :

" But the devil got his own that time, anyhow," he grinned.

Brogan assented mechanically.   He drained his glass.

" Spiller was my buddy," he said tonelessly. " I don't like bridges any more."

THE DIAMOND LENS

BY

FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN I

THE BENDING OF THE TWIG

FROM a very early period of my life the entire bent of my inclinations had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family, hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me, by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently wonderful to work up my imagination to a preternatural state of excitement.

Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained to me all that he knew about the principles of a microscope, related to me a few of the wonders which had been accomplished through its agency, and ended by promising to send me one regularly constructed, immediately on his return to the city. I counted the days, the hours, the minutes, that intervened between that promise and his departure.

Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the remotest resemblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon, and employed in vain attempts to realise that instrument, the theory of whose construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass containing those oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as " bull's-eyes " were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the crystalline humour from the eyes of fishes and animals, and endeavoured to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with the dim idea of grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying properties—in which attempt it is scarcely necessary to say that I totally failed.

At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus could not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise on the microscope—its history, uses, and discoveries. I comprehended then for the first time the Arabian Mights' Entertainments. The dull veil of ordinary existence that hung across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments.  I felt towards my

companions as the seer might feel towards the ordinary masses of men. I held conversations with Nature in a tongue which they could not understand. I was in daily communication with living wonders, such as they never imagined in their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the external portal of things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they beheld only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I saw a universe of beings animated with all the passions common to physical life, and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as fierce and protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould, which my mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away from her jam pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew, enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest foliage and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic boughs of these microscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering with green, and silver, and gold.

It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my microscope, I dimmed my sight day after day and night after night, poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who, having discovered that ancient Eden still existed in all its primitive glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never betray to mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was bent at this moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.

Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantage of instruments a thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwen-hoek, Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and Schleiden were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh specimen of cryptogamia which I placed beneath my instrument I believed that I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet ignorant. I remember well the thrill of delight and admiration that shot through me the first time I discovered the common wheel animalcule (Rolifera vulgaris) expanding and contracting its flexible spokes, and seemingly rotating through the water. Alas ! as I grew older, and obtained some works treating of my favourite study, I found that I was only on the threshold of a science to the investigation of which some of the greatest men of the age were devoting their lives and intellects.

As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anything practical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops of water through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious that I should choose a profession. It was their desire that I should enter the counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous merchant, who carried on business in New York. This suggestion I decisively combated. I had no taste for trade ; I should only make a failure ; in short, I refused to become a merchant.

But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labour ; and therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of poor Aunt Agatha, I should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to place me above want, it was decided that, instead of waiting for this, I should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years in rendering myself independent.

After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my family, and selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirk attending the lectures if I chose ; and, as I never had the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no danger of my being " plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I could obtain excellent instruments, the newest publications, intimacy with men of pursuits kindred with my own— in short, all things necessary to ensure a profitable devotion of my life to my beloved science. I had an abundance of money, few desires that were not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side and my object-glass on the other ; what, therefore, was to prevent my becoming an illustrious investigator of the veiled worlds ? It was with the most buoyant hope that I left my New England home and established myself in New York.

II

THE LONGING OF A MAN  OF SCIENCE

My first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments. These i obtained, after a couple of day's search, in Fourth Avenue ; a very pretty second-floor unfurnished, containing sitting-room, bedroom, and a smaller apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory. I furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and then devoted all my energies to the adornment of the temple of my worship. I visited Pike, the celebrated optician, and passed in review his splendid collection of microscopes—Field's Compound, Hingharn's, Spencer's, Nachet's Binocular (that founded on the principles of the stereoscope), and at length fixed upon that form known as Spencer's Trunnion Microscope, as combining the greatest number of improvements with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with this I purchased every possible accessory—draw-tubes, micrometers, a camera-lucida, lever-stage, achromatic condensers, white cloud illuminators, prism, parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus, forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing tubes, with a host of other articles, all of which would have been useful in the hands of an experienced microscopist, but, as I afterwards discovered, were not of the slightest present value to me. It takes years of practice to know how to use a complicated microscope.   The optician looked suspiciously at me as

I made these wholesale purchases. He evidently was uncertain whether to set me down as some scientific celebrity or a madman. I think he inclined to the latter belief. I suppose I was mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject in which he is greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced and called a lunatic.

Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific students have ever equalled. I had everything to learn relative to the delicate study upon which I had embarked—a study involving the most earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest hand, the most untiring eye, the most refined and subtle manipulation.

For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively on the shelves of my laboratory, which was now most amply furnished with every possible contrivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact was that I did not know how to use some of the scientific implements— never having been taught microscopies—and those whose use I understood theoretically were of little avail until by practice I could attain the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was the fury of my ambition, such the untiring perseverance of my experiments, that, difficult of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I became theoretically and practically an accomplished microscopist.

During this period of my labours, in which I submitted specimens of every substance that came under my observation to the action of my lenses, I became a discoverer—in a small way, it is true, but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed Ehrenberg's theory that the Volvax globator was an animal, and proved that his " Monads " with stomachs and eyes were merely phases of the formation of a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached their mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true generative act, without which no organism rising to any stage of life higher than vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who resolved the singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs of plants into ciliary attraction, in spite of the assertions of Mr. Wenham and others that my explanation was the result of an optical illusion.

But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously and painfully made as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At every step I found myself stopped by the imperfections of my instrum .nts. Like all active microscopists, I gave my imagination full play. Indeed, it is a common complaint against many such, that they supply the defects of their instruments with the creations of their brains. I imagined depths beyond depths in Nature which the limited power of my lenses prohibited me from exploring. I lay awake at night constructing imaginary microscopes of immeasurable power, with which I seemed to pierce through all the envelopes of matter down to its original atom. HQW I cursed those imperfect mediums which necessity through ignorance compelled me to use ! How I longed to discover the secret of some perfect lens, whose magnifying power should be limited only by the resolvability of the object, and which at the same time should be free from spherical and chromatic aberrations, in short from all the obstacles over which the poor microscopist finds himself continually stumbling ! I felt convinced that the simple microscope, composed of a single lens of such vast yet perfect power, was possible of construction. To attempt to bring the compound microscope up to such a pitch would have been commencing at the wrong end ; this latter being simply a partially successful endeavour to remedy those very defects of the simple instrument, which, if conquered, would leave nothing to be desired.

It was in this mood of mind that I became a constructive micro-scopist. After another year passed in this new pursuit, experimenting on every imaginable substance—glass, gems, flints, crystals, artificial crystals, formed of the alloy of various bitreous materials—in short, having constructed as many varieties of lenses as Argus had eyes, I found myself precisely where I started, with nothing gained save an extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was almost dead with despair. My parents were surprised at my apparent want of progress in my medical studies (I had not attended one lecture since my arrival in the city), and the expenses of my mad pursuit had been so great as to embarrass me very seriously.

I was in this frame of mind one day, experimenting in my laboratory on a small diamond—that stone, from its great refracting power, having always occupied my attention more than any other—when a young Frenchman who lived on the floor above me, and who was in the habit of occasionally visiting me, entered the room.

I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many traits of the Hebrew character : a love of jewellery, of dress, and of good living. There was something mysterious about him. He always had something to sell, and yet went into excellent society. When I say sell, I should perhaps have said peddle ; for his operations were generally confined to the disposal of single articles—a picture for instance, or a rare carving in ivory, or a pair of duelling pistols, or the dress of a Mexican caballero. When I was first furnishing my rooms, he paid me a visit, which ended in my purchasing an antique silver lamp, which he assured me was a Cellini—it was handsome enough even for that—and some other knickknacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon should pursue this petty trade I could never imagine. He apparently had plenty of money, and had the entree of the best houses in the city—taking care, however, I suppose, to drive no bargains within the enchanted circle of the Upper Ten. I came at length to the conclusion that this peddling was but a mask to cover some greater object, and even went so far as to believe my young acquaintance to be implicated in the slave-trade. That, however, was none of my affair.

On the present occasion, Simon entered my room in a state oi considerable excitement.

" Ah, mon ami ! " he cried, before I could offer him the ordinary salutation, " it has occurred to me to be the witness of the most astonishing things in the world. I promenade myself to the house of Madame—how does the little animal—le renard—name himself in the Latin ? "

" Vulpes," I answered.

" Ah ! yes—Vulpes. I promenade myself to the house of Madame Vulpes."

" The spirit medium ? "

" Yes, the great medium. Great heavens ! what a woman ! I write on a slip of paper many of questions concerning affairs the most secret—affairs that conceal themselves in the abysses of my heart the most profound ; and behold ! by example I what occurs ? This devil of a woman makes me replies the most truthful to all of them. She talks to me of things that I do not love to talk of to myself. What am I to think ?   I am fixed to the earth ! "

" Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this Mrs. Vulpes replied to questions secretly written by you, which questions related to events known only to yourself? "

" Ah ! more than that, more than that," he answered, with an air of some alarm. " She related to me things—but," he added, after a pause, and suddenly changing his manner, " why occupy ourselves with these follies ? It was not all the biology, without doubt. It goes without saying that it has not my credence.—But why are we here, rnon ami ? It has occurred to me to discover the most beautiful thing as you can imagine—a vase with green lizards on it, composed by the great Bernard Palissy. It is in my apartment ; let us mount. I go to show it to you."

I followed Simon mechanically ; but my thoughts were far from Palissy and his enamelled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the dark a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist, Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism should be really a great fact ? What if, through communication with more subtile organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the goal, which perhaps a life of agonising mental toil would never enable me to attain ?

While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend, Simon, I was mentally arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.

Ill

THE SPIRIT OF LEEUWENHOEK

Two evenings after this, thanks to an arrangement by letter and the promise of an ample fee, I found Madame Vulpes awaiting me at her residence alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with keen and rather cruel dark eyes, and an exceedingly sensual expression about her mouth and under jaw. She received me in perfect silence, in an apartment on the ground floor, very sparsely furnished. In the centre of the room, close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat, there was a common round mahogany table. If I had come for the purpose of sweeping her chimney, the woman could not have looked more indifferent to my appearance. There was no attempt to inspire the visitor with awe. Everything bore a simple and practical aspect. This intercourse with the spiritual world was evidently as familiar an occupation with Mrs. Vulpes as eating her dinner or riding in an omnibus.

" You come for communication, Mr. Linley ? " said the medium, in a dry, businesslike tone of voice. " By appointment—yes."

" What sort of communication do you want ?—a written one ? " '* Yes, I wish for a written one." " From any particular spirit ? " " Yes."

" Have you ever known this spirit on earth ? "

" Never. He died long before I was born. I wish merely to obtain from him some information which he ought to be able to give better than any other."

" Will you seat yourself at the table, Mr. Linley," said the medium, " and place your hands upon it ? "

I obeyed—Mrs. Vulpes being seated opposite to me, with her hands also on the tabic. We remained thus for about a minute and a half, when a violent succession of raps came on the table, on the back of my chair, on the floor immediately under my feet, and even on the window-panes.   Mrs. Vulpes smiled composedly.

" They are very strong to-night," she remarked. " You are fortunate." She then continued, " Will the spirits communicate with this gentleman ? "

Vigorous affirmative.

" Will the particular spirit he desires to speak with communicate ? "

A very confused rapping followed this question.

" I know what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me ; " they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that you desire to converse with. Is that so ? " she added, speaking to her invisible guests.

That it was so was evident from the numerous affirmatory responses. While this was going on, I tore a slip from my pocket-book, and scribbled a name, under the table.

" Will this spirit communicate in writing with this gentleman ? " asked the medium once more.

After a moment's pause, her hand seemed to be seized with a violent tremor, shaking so forcibly that the table vibrated. She said that a spirit had seized her hand and would write. I handed her some sheets of paper that were on the table, and a pencil. The latter she held loosely in her hand, which presently began to move over the paper with a singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After a few moments had elapsed, she handed me the paper, on which I found written, in a large, uncultivated hand, the words, " He is not here, but has been sent for." A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which Mrs. Vulpes remained perfectly silent, but the raps continued at regular intervals. When the short period I mention had elapsed, the hand of the medium was again seized with its convulsive tremor, and she wrote, under this strange influence, a few words on the paper, which she handed to me.  They were as follows :

" I am here.   Question me.                                       .. T                            „

I was astounded. The name was identical with that I had written beneath the table, and carefully kept concealed. Neither was it at all probable that an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should know even the name of the great father of microscopis. It may have been biology ; but this theory was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on my slip—still concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes—a series of questions, which, to avoid tediousness, I shall place with the responses, in the order in which they occurred :

I.—Can the microscope be brought to perfection ? SPIRIT.—Yes.

I.—Am I destined to accomplish this great task ? SPIRIT.—You are.

I.—I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love which you bear to science, help me !

SPIRIT.—A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a rearrangement of its atoms inter se, and from that stone you will form the universal lens.

I.—Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens.

SPIRIT.—So great that all that has gone before is as nothing.

I.—But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be surmounted ?

SPIRIT.—Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will itself serve as a tube to look through.  Now I am called.   Good night.

I cannot at all describe the effect that these extraordinary communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No biological theory could account for the discovery of the lens. The medium might, by means of biological rapport with my mind, have gone so far as to read my questions, and reply to them coherently. But biology could not enable her to discover that magnetic currents would so alter the crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous defects, and admit of its being polished into a perfect lens. Some such theory may have passed through my head, it is true ; but if so, I had forgotten it. In my excited condition of mind there was no course left but to become a convert, and it was in a state of the most painful nervous exaltation that I left the medium's house that evening. She accompanied me to the door, hoping that I was satisfied. The raps followed us as we went through the hall, sounding on the balusters, the flooring, and even the lintels of the door. I hastily expressed my satisfaction, and escaped hurriedly into the cool night air. I walked home with but one thought possessing me—how to obtain a diamond of the immense size required. My entire means multiplied a hundred times over would have been inadequate to its purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become historical. I could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or European monarchs.

IV

THE EYE OF MORNING

There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his sitting-room unannounced, he was bending, with his back towards me, over a carcel lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some object which he held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly, thrust his hand into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face crimson with confusion.

" What ! " I cried, " poring over the miniature of some fair lady ? Well, don't blush so much ; I won't ask to see it."

Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative protestations usual on such occasions.   He asked me to take a seat.

" Simon," said I, " I have just come from Madame Vulpes."

This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as if a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some incoherent words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually kept his liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too preoccupied with my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.

" You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I continued. " Simon, she told me wonderful things to-night, or rather was the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah ! if I could only get a diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats ! "

Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me savagely, and, rushing to the mantelpiece, where some foreign weapons hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it furiously before him.

" No ! " he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited. " No ! you shall not have it ! You are perfidious ! You have consulted with that demon, and desire my treasure ! But I will die first !   Me ! I am brave !   You cannot make me fear ! "

All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement, astounded me. I saw at a glance that I had accidently trodden upon the edge of Simon's secret, whatever it was.   It was necessary to reassure him.

" My dear Simon," I said, " I am entirely at a loss to know what you mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific problem, to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the size I just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during the evening, nor, so far as I am concerned, even thought of. What can be the meaning of this outburst ? If you happen to have a set of valuable diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me. The diamond which I require you could not possess ; or, if you did possess it, you would not be living here."

Something in my tone must have completely reassured him ; for his expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment, combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my movements.   He lnusrhed. and said that I must bear with him ; that he was at certain moments subject to a species of vertigo, which betrayed itself in incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed off as rapidly as they came. He put his weapon aside while making this explanation, and endeavoured, with some success, to assume a more cheerful air.

All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much accustomed to analytical labours to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined to probe the mystery to the bottom.

" Simon," I said gaily, " let us forget all this over a bottle of Burgundy. I have a case of Lasseure's Clos Vougeot downstairs, fragrant with the odours and ruddy with the sunlight of the Cote d'Or. Let us have a couple of bottles.   What say you ? "

" With all my heart," answered Simon smilingly.

I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a famous vintage, that of 1848, a year when war and wine throve together—and its pure but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield, while I remained calm as ever, only that every draught seemed to send a flush of vigour through my limbs. Simon's utterance became more and more indistinct. He took to singing French chansons of a not very moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the conclusion of one of those incoherent verses, and fixing my eye on him with a quiet smile, said : " Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret this evening. You may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather one of her spirits, told me all."

He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to fade away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a short time before laid down.   I stopped him with my hand.

" Monster ! " he cried, passionately. " I am ruined ! What shall I do ?  You shall never have it !   I swear by my mother ! "

" I don't want it," I said ; " rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell me all about it."

The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin earnestness that I was entirely mistaken—that I was intoxicated ; then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. I pleged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, and hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he drew a small case from his breast and opened it. FIcavens ! How the mild lamp-light shivered into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond, that glittered in the case ! I was no judge of diamonds, but I saw at a glance that this was a gem of rare size and purity. I looked at Simon with wonder, and—must I confess it ?—with envy. How could he have obtained this treasure ? In reply to my question, I could just gather from his drunken statements (of which, I fancy, half the incoherence was affected) that he had been superintending a gang of slaves engaged in diamond-washing in Brazil ; that he had seen one of them secrete a diamond, but, instead of informing his employers, had quietly watched the negro until he saw him bury his treasure ; that he had dug it up and fled with it, but as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it publicly—so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too much attention to its owner's antecedents—and he had not been able to discover any of those obscure channels by which such matters are conveyed away safely. He added that, in accordance with Oriental practice, he had named his diamond with the fanciful title of " The Eye of Morning."

While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the glories of light ever imagined or described seemed to pulsate in its crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was exactly one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence. The hand of destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the spirit of Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the microscope, the priceless means which he directs me to employ start up within my easy reach ! I determined with the most perfect deliberation to possess myself of Simon's diamond.

I sat opposite to him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered, or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be taken—to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a little peddling Jew, in comparison with the interests of science ? Human beings are taken every day from the condemned prisons to be experimented on by surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own confession a criminal, a robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer. He deserved death quite as much as any felon condemned by the laws : why should I not, like Government, contrive that his punishment should contribute to the progress of human knowledge ?

The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach. There stood upon the mantelpiece a bottle half full of French laudanum. Simon was so occupied with his diamond which I had just restored to him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his glass.   In a quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.

I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket in which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I laid him so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed myself of the Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while with the other I discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation the exact locality of the heart. It was essential that all the aspects of his death should lead to the surmise of self-murder. I calculated the exact angle at which it was probable that the weapon, if levelled by Simon's own hand, would enter his breast ; then with one powerful blow I thrust it up to the hilt in the very spot which I desired it to penetrate. A convulsive thrill ran through Simon's limbs. I heard a smothered sound issue from his throat, precisely like the bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up by a diver, when it reaches the surface of the water ; he turned half round on his side, and, as if to assist my plans more effectually, his right hand, moved by some mere spasmodic impulse,- clasped the handle of the creese, which it remained holding with extraordinary muscular tenacity. Beyond this there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I presume, paralysed the usual nervous action.   He must have died instantly.

There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be found in the morning locked on the inside. How to do this and afterwards escape myself? Not by the window ; that was a physical impossibility. Besides, I was determined that the windows also should be found bolted. The solution was simple enough. I descended softly to my own room for a peculiar instrument which I had used for holding small slippery substances, such as a minute sphere of glass, etc. This instrument was nothing more than a long slender hand-vice, with a very powerful grip and a considerable leverage, which last was accidentally owing to the shape of the handle. Nothing was simpler than when the key was in the lock to seize the end of its stem in the vice, through the keyhole, from the outside, and so lock the door. Previously, however, to doing this, I burned a number of papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost always burn papers before they destroy themselves. I also emptied some more laudanum into Simon's glass—having first removed from it all traces of wine—cleaned the other wine-glass and brought the bottles away with me. If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the room, the question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second ? Besides, the wine bottles might have been identified as belonging to me. The laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his stomach, in case of a post-mortem examination. The theory naturally would be, that he first intended to poison himself, but after swallowing a little of the drug, was either disgusted with its taste, or changed his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger. These arrangements made, 1 walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked the door with my vice, and went to bed.

Simon's death was not discovered until nearly three in the afternoon. The servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning—the light streaming on the dark landing from under the door—peeped through the keyhole and saw Simon on the bed. She gave the alarm. The door was burst open, and the neighbourhood was in a fever of excitement.

Everyone in the house was arrested, myself included. There was an inquest ; but no clue to his death beyond that of suicide could be obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his friends the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction. One gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that " he was tired of life." His landlord affirmed that Simon, when paying him his last month's rent, remarked that " he should not pay him rent much longer." All the other evidence corresponded—the door locked inside, the position of the corpse, the burnt papers.  As I anticipated, no one knew of the possession of the diamond by Simon, so that no motive was suggested for his murder. The jury, after a prolonged examination, brought in the usual verdict, and the neighbourhood once more settled down to its accustomed quiet.

V

ANIMULA

The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night and day to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast galvanic battery, composed of nearly two thousand pairs of plates—a higher power I dared not use, lest the diamond should be calcined. By means of this enormous engine I was enabled to send a powerful current of electricity continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to me gained in lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I commenced the grinding and polishing of the lens, a work of intense toil and exquisite delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the care required to be taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the lens, rendered the labour the severest and most harassing that 1 had yet undergone.

At last the eventful moment came ; the lens was completed. I stood trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realisation of Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready to be placed upon its platform. My hand fairly shook as I enveloped a drop of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory to its examination—a process necessary in order to prevent the rapid evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip of glass under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid of a prism and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my eye to the minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an instant I saw nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a vast luminous abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and seemingly limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently, and with the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hairs'-breadths. The wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens approached the object a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded to my view.

I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated the entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of animalculous life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that dazzling expanse. I comprehended instantly that, by the wondrous power of my lens, I had penetrated beyond the grosser particles of aqueous matter, beyond the realms of infusoria and protozoa, down to the original gaseous globule, into whose luminous interior I was gazing, as into an almost boundless dome filled with a supernatural radiance.

It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every side I beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and coloured with the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the appearance of what might be called, for want of a more specific definition, foliated clouds of the highest rarity ; that is, they undulated and broke into vegetable formations, and were tinged with splendours compared with which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is dross as compared with gold. Far away into the illimitable distance stretched long avenues of these gaseous forests, dimly transparent, and painted with prismatic hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The pendent branches waved along the fluid glades until every vista seemed to break through half-lucent ranks of many-coloured drooping silken pennons. What seemed to be either fruits or flowers, pied with a thousand hues, lustrous and ever varying, bubbled from the crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no lakes, no rivers, no forms animate or inanimate, were to be seen, save those vast auroral copses that floated serenely in the luminous stillness, with leaves and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown fires, unrealisable by mere imagination.

How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned to solitude ! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal life—perhaps at a lower class than any with which we are at present acquainted, but still, some living organism. I found mv newly discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic desert.

While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms our most complete theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly through the glade of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more attentively and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict the anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this mysterious object. Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in suspense in the attenuated atmosphere of the globule ? Or was it an animal endowed with vitality and motion ? It approached, flitting behind the gauzy, coloured veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly revealed, then vanishing. At last the violet pennons that trailed nearest to me vibrated ; they were gently pushed aside, and the form floated out into the broad light.

It was a female human shape. When I say human, I mean it possessed the outlines of humanity—but there analogy ends. Its adorable beauty lifted it illimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of Adam.

I cannot, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and serene, evade my words. Her long, lustrous hair following her glorious head in a golden wake, like a track sown in heaven by a falling star, seems to quench my most burning phrases with its splendours. If all the bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would still sing but hoarsely the wondrous harmonies of outline that enclosed her form.

She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees into the broad sea of light that lay beyond.   Her motions were those of some graceful naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She floated forth with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending through the still atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of her limbs formed suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening to the most spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the harmonious flow of lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply purchased at any price. What cared I, if I had waded to the portal of this wonder through another's blood ? I would have given my own to enjoy one such moment of intoxication and delight.

Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the microscope eagerly—alas ! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that lay beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from prism sparkled on a colourless drop of water ! There, in that tiny bead of dew, this beautiful thing was for ever imprisoned. The planet Neptune was not more distant from me than she. I hastened once more to apply my eye to the microscope.

Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached the wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one of the trees—as I must call them—unfolded a long ciliary process, with which it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on its summit, and, sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula. The sylph took it in her delicate hand and began to eat. My attention was so entirely absorbed by her, that I could not apply myself to the task of determining whether this singular plant was or was not instinct with volition.

I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight through my frame ; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful eyes in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not have given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that luminous ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple and gold ! While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement, she suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then cleaving the brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash of light, pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.

Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It seemed as I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was still before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this sudden disappearance ? Had she a lover or a husband ? Yes, that was the solution ! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated through the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.

The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion, startled me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced upon me. I battled against the fatal conclusion—but in vain. It was so. I had no escape from it.   I loved an animalcule !

It is true, that thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope, she appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the revolting aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle and die, in the more easily revolvable portions of the water drop, she was fair and delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what account was all that ? Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the instrument, it fell on a miserable drop of water, within which, I must be content to know, dwelt all that could make my life lovely.

Could she but see me once ! Could I for one moment pierce the mystical walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper all that filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest of my life with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be something to have established even the faintest personal link to bind us together—to know that at times, when roaming through those enchanted glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had broken the monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle memory in her heart !

But it could not be. No invention of which human intellect was capable could break down the barriers that Nature had erected. I might feast my soul upon her wondrous beauty, yet she must always remain ignorant of the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her, and, even when closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of anguish, I fled from the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed myself to sleep like a child.

VI

THE SPILLING OF THE CUP

I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature that contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp, surrounded by its moderators, burning when I went to bed the night before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which surrounded her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her shoulders with innocent coquetry. She lay at full length in the transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and gambolled with the enchanting grace that the nymph Salmacis might have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection were developed. I lessened the lamplight considerably. By the dim light that remained, I could see an expression of pain flit across her face. She looked upwards suddenly, and her brows contracted. I flooded the stage of the microscope again with a full stream of light, and her whole expression changed. She sprang forward like some substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes sparkled and her lips moved. Ah 1 if science had only the means of conducting and reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light, what carols of happiness would then have entranced my ears ! what jubilant hymns to Adonis would have thrilled the illumined air !

I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Gabalis peopled his mystic world with sylphs—beautiful beings whose breath of life was lambent fire, and who sported for ever in regions of purest ether and purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had practically realised.

How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lena. I saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time for my meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the divine form strengthened my passion—a passion that was always overshadowed by the maddening conviction that, although I could gaze on her at will, she never, never could behold me !

At length, I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest and continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions, that I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it. " Come," I said, " this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has bestowed on Animula charms which in reality she does not possess. Seclusion from female society has produced this morbid condition of the mind. Compare her with the beautiful women of youi own world, and this false enchantment will vanish."

I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the advertisement of a celebrated danseuse who appeared nightly at Niblo's. The Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the most beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the world. I instantly dressed and went to the theatre.

The curtain drew up. The usual semicircle of fairies in white muslin were standing on the right toe around the enamelled flower-bank, of green canvas, on which the belated prince was sleeping. Suddenly a flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees open, the fairies all stand on the left toe, and the queen enters. It was the Signorina. She bounded forward amid thunders of applause, and, lighting on one foot, remained poised in the air. Heavens ! was this the great enchantress that had drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels ? Those heavy muscular limbs, those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes, that stereotyped smile, those crudely painted cheeks ! Where were the vermeil blooms, the liquid expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of Animula ?

The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements ! The play of her limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful athletic efforts ; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I could bear it no longer ; with an exclamation of disgust which drew every eye upon me, I rose from my seat in the very middle of the Signorina's pas-de-fascination, and abruptly quitted the house.

I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of my sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be impossible. I applied my eye to the lens. Animula was there—but what could have happened ?   Some terrible change seemed to have

taken place during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the lovely features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and haggard; her limbs trailed heavily ; the wondrous lustre of her golden hair had faded. She was ill !—ill, and I could not assist her ! I believe at that moment I would have gladly forfeited all claims to my human birthright, if I could only have been dwarfed to the size of an animalcule, and permitted to console her from whom fate had for ever divided me.

I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that afflicted the sylph ? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features contracted, and she even writhed, as if in some internal agony. The wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty. Their hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I watched Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed absolutely to wither away under my eye. Suddenly I remembered that I had not looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I hated to see it ; for it reminded me of the natural barrier between Animula and myself. I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the microscope. The slide was still there—but, great heavens ! the water-drop had vanished ! The awful truth burst upon me ; it had evaporated, until it had become so minute as to be invisible to the naked eye ; I had been gazing on its last atom, the one that contained Animula—and she was dying !

I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked through. Alas ! the last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all melted away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be a spot of dim light. Ah ! the sight was horrible : the limbs once so round and lovely shrivelling up into nothing ; the eyes—those eyes that shone like heaven—being quenched into black dust; the lustrous golden hair now lank and discoloured. The last throe came. I beheld that final struggle of the blackening form—and I fainted.

When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as it. I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for months.

They say now that I am mad ; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I have neither the heart nor the will to work ; all my money is spent, and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me, and laugh at me while I lecture. " Linley, the mad micro-scopist," is the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the radiant form of my lost Animula !

From " The Atlantic Monthly "(1858).

THE SQUIRE'S STORY

BY

ELIZABETH CI.EGHORN GASKEIX

IN the year 1769 the little town of Barford was thrown into a state of great excitement by the intelligence that a gentleman (and " quite the gentleman," said the landlord of the George Inn) had been looking at Mr. Clavering's old house. This house was neither in the town nor in the country. It stood on the outskirts of Barford, on the roadside leading to Derby. The last occupant had been a Mr. Clavering—a Northumberland gentleman of good family—who had come to live in Barford while he was but a younger son ; but when some elder branches of the family died, he had returned to take possession of the family estate. The house of which I speak was called the White House, from its being covered with a greyish kind of stucco. It had a good garden to the back, and Mr. Clavering had built capital stables, with what were then considered the latest improvements. The point of good stabling was expected to let the house, as it was in a hunting county ; otherwise it had few recommendations. There were many bedrooms ; some entered through others, even to the number of five, leading one beyond the other ; several sitting-rooms of the small and poky kind, wainscoted round with wood, and then painted a heavy slate colour ; one good dining-room, and a drawing-room over it, both looking into the garden, with pleasant bow-windows.

Such was the accommodation offered by the White House. It did not seem to be very tempting to strangers, though the good people of Barford rather piqued themselves on it, as the largest house in the town ; and as a house in which " townspeople " and " county people " had often met at Mr. Clavering's friendly dinners. To appreciate this circumstance of pleasant recollection, you should have lived some years in a little country town, surrounded by gentlemen's seats. You would then understand how a bow or a courtesy from a member of a county family elevates the individuals who receive it almost as much, in their own eyes, as the pair of blue garters fringed with silver did Mr. BickerstafF's ward. They trip lightly on air for a whole day afterwards. Now Mr. Clavering was gone, where could town and county mingle ?

I mention these things that you may have an idea of the desirability of the letting of the White House in the Barfordites' imagination; and to make the mixture thick and slab, you must add for yourselves the bustle, the mystery, and the importance which every little event either causes or assumes in a small town ; and then, perhaps, it will be no wonder to you that twenty ragged little urchins accompanied the " gentleman " aforesaid to the door of the White House ; and

that, although he was above an hour inspecting it, under the auspices of Mr. Jones, the agent's clerk, thirty more had joined themselves on to the wondering crowd before his exit, and awaited such crumbs of intelligence as they could gather before they were threatened or whipped out of hearing distance. Presently, out came the " gentleman " and the lawyer's clerk. The latter was speaking as he followed the former over the threshold. The gentleman was tall, well-dressed, handsome ; but there was a sinister cold look in his quick-glancing, light blue eye, which a keen observer might not have liked. There were no keen observers among the boys, and ill-conditioned gaping girls. But they stood too near ; inconveniently close ; and the gentleman, lifting up his right hand, in which he carried a short riding-whip, dealt one or two sharp blows to the nearest, with a look of savage enjoyment on his face as they moved away whimpering and crying.   An instant after, his expression of countenance had changed.

" Here ! " said he, drawing out a handful of money, partly silver, partly copper, and throwing it into the midst of them. " Scramble for it ! fight it out, my lads ! come this afternoon, at three, to the George, and I'll throw you out some more." So the boys hurrahed lor him as he walked off with the agent's clerk. He chuckled to himself, as over a pleasant thought. " I'll have some fun with those lads," he said ; " I'll teach 'em to come prowling and prying about me. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make the money so hot in the fire-shovel that it shall burn their fingers. You come and see the faces and the howling. I shall be very glad if you will dine with me at two ; and by that time I may have made up my mind respecting the house."

Mr. Jones, the agent's clerk, agreed to come to the George at two, but, somehow, he had a distaste for his entertainer. Mr. Jones would not like to have said, even to himself, that a man with a purse full of money, who kept many horses, and spoke familiarly, of noblemen -above all, who thought of taking the White House—could be anything but a gentleman ; but still the uneasy wonder as to who this Mr. Robinson Higgins could be, filled the clerk's mind long after Mr. Higgins, Mr. Higgin's servants, and Mr. Higgin's stud had taken possession of the White House.

The White House was re-stuccoed (this time of a pale yellow colour;, and put into thorough repair by the accommodating and delighted landlord ; while his tenant seemed inclined to spend any amount of money on internal decorations, which were showy and effective in their character, enough to make the White House a nine days' wonder to the good people of Barford. The slate-coloured paints became pink, and were picked out with gold ; the old-fashioned banisters were replaced by newly gilt ones ; but, above all, the stables were a sight to be seen. Since the days of the Roman Emperor never was there such provision made for the care, the comfort, and the health of horses. But every one said it was no wonder, when they were led through Barford, covered up to their eyes, but curving their arched and delicate necks, and prancing with short high steps, in repressed eagerness. Only one groom came with them ; yet they required the care of three men. Mr. Higgins, however, preferred engaging two lads out of Barford ; and Barford highly approved of his preference. Not only was it kind and thoughtful to give employment to the lounging lads themselves, but they were receiving such a training in Mr. Higgin's stables as might fit them for Doncaster or Newmarket. The district of Derbyshire in which Barford was situated, was too close to Leicestershire not to support a hunt and a pack of hounds. The master of the hounds was a certain Sir Harry Manley, who was aut a huntsman aut nullus. He measured a man by the " length of his fork," not by the expression of his countenance, or the shape of his head. But as Sir Harry was wont to observe, there was such a thing as too long a fork, so his approbation was withheld unUl he had seen a man on horseback ; and if his seat there was square and easy, his hand light, and his courage good, Sir Harry hailed him as a brother.

Mr. Higgins attended the first meet of the season, not as a subscriber but as an amateur. The Barford huntsmen piqued themselves on iheir bold riding ; and their knowledge of the country came by nature; yet this new strange man, whom nobody knew, was in at the death, sitting on his horse, both well breathed and calm, without a hair turned on the sleek skin of the latter, supremely addressing the old huntsman as he hacked off the tail of the fox ; and he, the old man, who was testy even under Sir Harry's slightest rebuke, and flew out on any other member of the hunt that dared to utter a word against his sixty years' experience as stable-boy, groom, poacher, and what not—he, old Isaac Wormeley, was meekly listening to the wisdom of this stranger, only now and then giving one of his quick, up-turning, tunning glances, not unlike the sharp o'er-canny looks of the poor deceased Reynard, round whom the hounds were howling, unadmon-ished by the short whip, which was now tucked into Wormeley's well-worn pocket. When Sir Harry rode into the copse—full of dead brushwood and wet tangled grass—and was followed by the members of the hunt, as one by one they cantered past, Mr. Higgins took off his cap and bowed—half deferentially, half insolently—with a lurking smile in the corner of his eye at the discomfited looks of one or two of the laggards. " A famous run, sir," said Sir Harry. " The first time you have hunted in our country ; but I hope we shall see you often."

" I hope to become a member of the hunt, sir," said Mr. Higgins.

" Most happy—proud, I am sure, to receive so daring a rider among us. You took the Cropper-gate, I fancy ; while some of our friends here "—scowling at one or two cowards by way of finishing his speech. " Allow me to introduce myself—master of the hounds." He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for the card on which his name was formally inscribed. " Some of our friends here are kind enough to come home with me to dinner ; might I ask for the honour ? "

" My name is Higgins," replied the stranger, bowing low. " I am only lately come to occupy the White House at Barford, and I have not as yet presented my letters of introduction."

" Hang it ! " replied Sir Harry ; " a man with a seat like yours, and that good brush in your hand, might ride up to any door in the county (I'm a Leicestershire man !), and be a welcome guest. Mr. Higgins, I shall be proud to become better acquainted with you over my dinner table."

Mr. Higgins knew pretty well how to improve the acquaintance thus begun. He could sing a good song, tell a good story, and was well up in practical jokes ; with plenty of that keen worldly sense, which seems like an instinct in some men, and which in this case taught him on whom he might play off such jokes, with impunity from their resentment, and with a security of applause from the more boisterous, vehement, or prosperous. At the end of twelve months Mr. Robinson Higgins was, out-and-out, the most popular member of the Barford hunt ; had beaten all the others by a couple of lengths, as his first patron, Sir Harry, observed one evening, when they were just leaving the dinner-table of an old hunting squire in the neighbourhood.

" Because, you know," said Squire Hearn, holding Sir Harry by the button—" I mean, you see, this young spark is looking sweet upon Catherine ; and she's a good girl, and will have ten thousand pounds down, the day she's married, by her mother's will ; and— excuse me, Sir Harry—but I should not like my girl to throw herself away."

Though Sir Harry had a long ride before him, and but the early and short light of a new moon to take it in, his kind heart was so much touched by Squire Hearn's trembling, tearful anxiety, that he stopped and turned back into the dining-room to say, with more asseverations than I care to give :

" My good Squire, I may say, I know that man pretty well by this time ; and a better fellow never existed. If I had twenty daughters he should have the pick of them."

Squire Hearn never thought of asking the grounds for his old friend's opinion of Mr. Higgins ; it had been given with too much earnestness for any doubts to cross the old man's mind as to the possibility of its not being well founded. Mr. Hearn was not a doubter, or a thinker, or suspicious by nature ; it was simply his love for Catherine, his only daughter, that prompted his anxiety in this case ; and, after what Sir Harry had said, the old man could totter with an easy mind, though not with very steady legs, into the drawing-room, where his bonny, blushing daughter Catherine and Mr. Higgins stood close together on the hearth-rug—he whispering, she listening with downcast eyes. She looked so happy, so like her dead mother had looked when the Squire was a young man, that all his thought was how to please her most. His son and heir was about to be married, and bring his wife to live with the Squire ; Barford and the White House were not distant an hour's ride ; and, even as these thoughts passed through his mind, he asked Mr. Higgins, if he could stay all night—the young moon was already set—the roads would be dark—and Catherine looked up with a pretty anxietv, which, however, had not much doubt in it, for the answer.

With every encouragement of this kind from the old Squire, it took everybody rather by surprise when, one morning, it was discovered that Miss Catherine Hearn was missing ; and when, according to the usual fashion in such cases, a note was found, saying that she had eloped with " the man of her heart," and gone to Gretna Green, no one could imagine why she could not quietly have stopped at home and been married in the parish church. She had always been a romantic, sentimental girl ; very pretty and very affectionate, and very much spoiled, and very much wanting in common sense. Her indulgent father was deeply hurt at this want of confidence in his never-varying affection ; but when his son came, hot with indignation from the Baronet's (his future father-in-law's house, where every form of law and of ceremony was to accompany his own impending marriage), Squire Hearn pleaded the cause of the young couple with imploring cogency, and protested that it was a piece of spirit in his daughter, which he admired and was proud of. However, it ended with Mr. Nathaniel Hearn's declaring that he and his wife would have nothing to do with his sister and her husband. " Wait till you've seen him, Nat ! " said the old Squire, trembling with his distressful anticipations of family discord. " He's an excuse for any girl. Only ask Sir Harry's opinion of him." " Confound Sir Harry ! So that a man sits his horse well, Sir Harry cares nothing about anything else. Who is this man—this fellow ? Where does he come from ?   What are his means ?   Who are his family ? "

" He comes from the south—Surrey or Somersetshire, I forget which ; and he pays his way well and liberally. There's not a tradesman in Barford but says he cares no more for money than for water ; he spends like a prince, Nat. I don't know who his family are, but he seals with a coat of arms, which may tell you if you want to know— and he goes regularly to collect his rents from his estates in the south. Oh, Nat ! if you would but be friendly, I should be as well pleased with Kitty's marriage as any father in the county. "

Mr. Nathaniel Hearn gloomed, and muttered an oath or two to himself. The poor old father was reaping the consequences of his weak indulgence to his two children. Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel Hearn kept apart from Catherine and her husband ; and Squire Hearn durst never ask them to Levison Hall, though it was his own house. Indeed, he stole away as if he were a culprit whenever he went to visit the White House ; and if he passed a night there, he was fain to equivocate when he returned home the next day ; an equivocation which was well interpreted by the surly, proud Nathaniel. But the younger Mr. and Mrs. Hearn were the only people who did not visit at the White House. Mr. and Mrs. Higgins were decidedly more popular than their brother and sister-in-law. She made a very pretty, sweet-tempered hostess, and her education had not been such as to make her intolerant of any want of refinement in the associates whe gathered round her husband. She had gentle smiles for townspeople as well as county people ; and unconsciously played an admirable second in her husband's project of making himself universally popular.

But there is some one to make ill-natured remarks, and draw illnatured conclusions from very simple premises, in every place ; and in Barford this bird of ill-omen was a Miss Pratt. She did not hunt —so Mr. Higgin's admirable riding did not call out her admiration. She did not drink—so the well-selected wines, so lavishly dispensed among his guests, could never mollify Miss Pratt. She could not bear comic songs, or buffo stories—so, in that way, her approbation was impregnable. And these three secrets of popularity constituted Mr. Higgin's great charm. Miss Pratt sat and watched. Her face looked immovably grave at the end of any of Mr. Higgins's best stories ; but there was a keen, needle-like glance of her unwinking little eyes, which Mr. Higgins felt rather than saw, and which made him shiver, even on a hot day, when it fell upon him. Miss Prati was a. dissenter, and, to propitiate this female Mordecai, Mr. Higgins asked the dissenting minister whose services she attended, to dinner ; kept himself and his company in good order ; gave a handsome donation to the poor of the chapel. All in vain—Miss Pratt stirred not a muscle more of her face towards graciousness ; and Mr. Higgins was conscious that, in spite of all his open efforts to captivate Mr. Davis, there was a secret influence on the other side, throwing in doubts and suspicions, and evil interpretations of all he said or did. Miss Pratt, the little, plain old maid, living on eighty pounds a year, was the thorn in the popular Mr. Higgin's side, although she had never spoken one uncivil word to him ; indeed, on the contrary, had treated him with a stiff and elaborate civility.

The thorn—the grief to Mrs. Higgins was this. They had no children ! Oh ! how she would stand and envy the careless, busy motion of half a dozen children ; and then, when observed, move on with a deep, deep sigh of yearning regret.   But it was as well.

It was noticed that Mr. Higgins was remarkably careful of his health. He ate, drank, took exercise, rested, by some secret rules of his own ; occasionally bursting into an excess, it is true, but only on rare occasions—such as when he returned from visiting his estates in the south, and collecting his rents. That unusual exertion and fatigue —for there were no stage-coaches within forty miles of Barford, and he, like most country gentlemen of that day, would have preferred riding if there had been—seemed to require some strange excess to compensate for it ; and rumours went through the town that he shut himself up, and drank enormously for some days after his return. But no one was admitted to these orgies.

One day—they remembered it well afterwards—the hounds met not far from the town ; and the fox was found iti a part of the wild heath, which was beginning to be enclosed by a few of the more wealthy townspeople, who were desirous of building themselves houses rather more in the country than those they had hitherto lived in. Among these, the principal was a Mr. Dudgeon, the attorney of Barford, and the agent for all the county families about. The firm of Dudgeon had managed the leases, the marriage-settlements, and the wills, of the neighbourhood for generations. Mr. Dudgeon's father had the responsibility of collecting the landowners' rents just as the present Mr. Dudgeon had at the time of which I speak : and as his son and his son's son have done since. Their business was an hereditary estate to them ; and with something of the old feudal feeling was mixed a kind of proud humility at their position towards the squires whose family secrets they had mastered, and the mysteries of whose fortunes and estates were better known to the Messrs. Dudgeon than to themselves.

Mr. John Dudgeon had built himself a house on Wildbury Heath ; a mere cottage as he called it : but though only two stories high, it spread out far and wide, and workpeople from Derby had been sent for on purpose to make the inside as complete as possible. The gardens too were exquisite in arrangement, if not very extensive ; and not a flower was grown in them but of the rarest species. It must have been somewhat of a mortification to the owner of this dainty place when, on the day of which I speak, the fox, after a long race, during which he had described a circle of many miles, took refuge in the garden ; but Mr. Dudgeon put a good face on the matter when a gentleman hunter, with the careless insolence of the squires of those days and that place, rode across the velvet lawn, and tapping at the window of the dining-room with his whip-handle, asked permission—no ! that is not it—rather, informed Mr. Dudgeon of their intention—to enter his garden in a body, and have the fox unearthed. Mr. Dudgeon compelled himself to smile assent, with the grace of a masculine Griselda ; and then, he hastily gave orders to have all that the house afforded of provision set out for luncheon, guessing rightly enough that a six hours' run would give even homely fare an acceptable welcome. He bore without wincing the entrance of the dirty boots into his exquisitely clean rooms ; he only felt grateful for the care with which Mr. Higgins strode about, laboriously and noiselessly moving on the tip of his toes, as he reconnoitred the rooms with a curious eye.

" I'm going to build a house myself, Dudgeon ; and, upon my word, I don't think I could take a better model than yours."

" Oh ! my poor cottage would be too small to afford any hints for such a house as you would wish to build, Mr. Higgins," replied Mr. Dudgeon, gently rubbing his hands nevertheless at the compliment.

" Not at all ! not at all ! Let me see. You have dining-room, drawing-room,"—he hesitated, and Mr. Dudgeon filled up the blank as he expected.

" Four sitting-rooms and the bedrooms. But allow me to show you over the house. I confess I took some pains in arranging it, and, though far smaller than what you would require, it may, nevertheless, afford you some hints."

So they left the eating gentlemen with their mouths and their plates quite full, and the scent of the fox overpowering that of the hasty rashers of ham ; and they carefully inspected all the ground-floor rooms.   Then Mr. Dudgeon said :

" If you are not tired, Mr. Higgins—it is rather my hobby, so you must pull me up if you are—we will go upstairs, and I will show you my sanctum."

Mr. Dudgeon's sanctum was the centre room, over the porch, which formed a balcony, and which was carefully filled with choice flowers in pots. Inside, there were all kinds of elegant contrivances for hiding the real strength of all the boxes and chests required by the particular nature of Mr. Dudgeon's business : for although his office was in Barford, he kept (as he informed Mr. Higgins) what was the most valuable here, as being safer than an office which was locked up and left every night. But, as Mr. Higgins reminded him with a sly poke in the side, when next they met, his own house was not over-secure. A fortnight after the gentlemen of the Barford hunt lunched there, Mr. Dudgeon's strong-box,—in his sanctum upstairs, with the mysterious spring-bolt to the window invented by himself, and the secret of which was only known to the inventor and a few of his most intimate friends, to whom he had proudly shown it ;—this strong-box, containing the collected Christmas rents of half a dozen landlords (there was then no bank nearer than Derby), was rifled ; and the secretly rich Mr. Dudgeon had to stop his agent in his purchases of paintings by Flemish artists, because the money was required to make good the missing rents.

The Dogberries and Verges of those days were quite incapable of obtaining any clue to the robber or robbers ; and though one or two vagrants were taken up and brought before Mr. Dunover and Mr. Higgins, the magistrates who usually attended in the court-room at Barford, there was no evidence brought against them, and after a couple of nights' durance in the lock-ups they were set at liberty. But it became a standing joke with Mr. Higgins to ask Mr. Dudgeon, from time to time, whether he could recommend him a place of safety for his valuables ; or, if he had made any more inventions lately for securing houses from robbers.

About two years after this time—about seven years after Mr. Higgins had been married—one Tuesday evening, Mr. Davis was sitting reading the news in the coffee-room of the Ceorge Inn. He belonged to a club of gentiemen who met there occasionally to play at whist, to read what few newspapers and magazines were published in those days, to chat about the market at Derby, and prices all over the country. This Tuesday night it was a black frost ; and few people were in the room. Mr. Davis was anxious to finish an article in the Gentleman's Magazine; indeed, he was making extracts from it, intending to answer it, and yet unable with his small income to purchase a copy. So he stayed late ; it was past nine, and at ten o'clock the room was closed. But while he wrote, Mr. Higgins came in. He was pale and haggard with cold. Mr. Davis, who had had for some time sole possession of the fire, moved politely on one side, and handed to the new-comer the sole London newspaper which the room afforded. Mr. Higgins accepted it, and made some remark on the intense coldness of the weather ; but Mr. Davis was too full of his article, and intended reply, to fall into conversation readily. Mr. Higgins hitched his chair nearer to the fire, and put his feet on the fender, giving an audible shudder. He put the newspaper on one end of the table near him, and sat gazing into the red embers of the fire, crouching down over them as if his very marrow were chilled. At length he said :

" There is no account of the murder at Bath in that paper ? " Mr. Davis, who had finished taking his notes, and was preparing to go, stopped short, and asked :

" Has there been a murder at Bath ? No ! I have not seen anything of it—who was murdered ? "

" Oh ! it was a shocking, terrible murder ! " said Mr. Higgins, not raising his look from the fire, but gazing on with his eyes dilated till the whites were seen all round them. " A terrible, terrible murder! I wonder what will become of the murderer? I can fancy the red glowing centre of that fire—look and see how infinitely distant it seems, and how the distance magnifies it into something awful and unquenchable."

" My dear sir, you arc feverish ; how you shake and shiver ! " said Mr. Davis, thinking privately that his companion had symptoms ol fever, and that he was wandering in his mind.

" Oh, no ! " said Mr. Higgins. " I am not feverish. It is the night which is so cold." And for a time he talked with Mr. Davis about the article in the Gentleman's Magazine, for he was rather a reader himself, and could take more interest in Mr. Davis's pursuits than most of the people at Barford. At length it drew near to ten, and Mr. Davis rose up to go home to his lodgings.

" No, Davis, don't go. I want you here. We will have a bottle of port together, and that will put Saunders into good humour. I want to tell you about this murder," he continued, dropping his voice, and speaking hoarse and low. " She was an old woman, and he killed her, sitting reading her Bible by her own fireside ! " He looked at Mr. Davis with a. strange searching gaze, as if trying to find some sympathy in the horror which the idea presented to him.

" Who do you mean, my dear sir ? What is this murder you are so full of?   No one has been murdered here."

" No, you fool ! I tell you it was in Bath ! " said Mr. -Higgins, with sudden passion ; and then calming himself to most velvet-smoothness of manner, he laid his hand on Mr. Davis's knee, there, as they sat by the fire, and gently detaining him, began the narration of the crime he was so full of; but his voice and manner were constrained to a stony quietude : he never looked in Mr. Davis's face ; once or twice, as Mr. Davis remembered afterwards, his grip tightened like a compressing vice.

" She lived in a small house in a quiet old-fashioned street, she and her maid. People said she was a good old woman ; but for all that, she hoarded and hoarded, and never gave to the poor. Mr. Davis, it is wicked not to give to the poor—wicked—wicked, is it not ? I. always give to the poor, for once I read in the Bible that ' Charity covereth a multitude of sins.'   The wicked old woman never gave,, but hoarded her money, and saved, and saved. Some one heard of it ; I say she threw a temptation in his way, and God will punish her for it. And this man—or it might be a woman, who knows ?— and this person—heard also that she went to church in the mornings, and her maid in the afternoons ; and so—while the maid was at church, and the street and the house quite still, and the darkness of a winter afternoon coming on—she was nodding over the Bible—and that, mark you ! is a sin, and one that God will avenge sooner or later ; and a step came in the dusk up the stair, and that person I told you of stood in the room. At first he—no ! At first, it is supposed —for, you understand, all this is mere guess-work—it is supposed that he asked her civilly enough to give him her money, or to tell him where it was ; but the old miser defied him, and would not ask for mercy and give up her keys, even when he threatened her, but looked him in the face as if he had been a baby—Oh, God ! Mr. Davis, I once dreamt when I was a little innocent boy that I should commit a crime like this, and I wakened up crying ; and my mother comforted me—that is the reason I tremble so now—that and the cold, for it is very very cold ! "

" But did he murder the old lady ? " asked Mr. Davis. " I beg your pardon, sir, but I am interested by your story."

" Yes ! he cut her throat ; and there she lies yet in her quiet little parlour, with her face upturned and all ghastly white, in the middle of a pool of blood. Mr. Davis, this wine is no better than water ; 1 must have some brandy ! "

Mr. Davis was horror-struck by the story, which seemed to have fascinated him as much as it had done his companion.

" Have they got any clue to the murderer ? " said he. Mr. Higgins drank down half a tumbler of raw brandy before he answered.

" No ! no clue whatever. They will never be able to discover him ; and I should not wonder, Mr. Davis—I should not wonder if he repented after all, and did bitter penance for his crime ; and if so—will there be mercy for him at the last day ? "

" God knows ! " said Mr. Davis, with solemnity. " It is an awful story," continued he, rousing himself; " I hardly like to leave this warm light room and go out into the darkness after hearing it. But it must be done," buttoning on his greatcoat—" I can only say I hope and trust they will find out the murderer and hang him.—If you'll take my advice, Mr. Higgins, you'll have your bed warmed, and drink a treacle-posset just the last thing ; and, if you'll allow me, I'll send you my answer to Philologus before it goes up to old Urban."

The next morning, Mr. Davis went to call on Miss Pratt, who was not very well ; and, by way of being agreeable and entertaining he related to her all he had heard the night before about the murder at Bath ; and really he made a very pretty connected story out of it, and interested Miss Pratt very much in the fate of the old lady— partly because of a similarity in their situations ; for she also privately hoarded money, and had but one servant, and stopped at home alone on Sunday afternoons to allow her servant to go to church.

" And when did all this happen ? " she asked.

" I don't know if Mr. Higgins named the day; and yet I think it must have been on this very last Sunday."

" And to-day is Wednesday.   Ill news travels fast."

" Yes, Mr. Higgins thought it might have been in the London newspaper."

'' That it could never be. Where did Mr. Higgins learn all about it ? "

" I don't know ; I did not ask. I think he only came home yesterday : he had been south to collect his rents, somebody said."

Miss Pratt grunted. She used to vent her dislike and suspicions of Mr. Higgins in a grunt whenever his name was mentioned.

" Well, I shan't see you for some days. Godfrey Merton has asked me to go and stay with him and his sister ; and I think it will do me good. Besides," added she, " these winter evenings—and these murderers at large in the country—I don't quite like living with only Peggy to call to in case of need."

Miss Pratt went to stay with her cousin, Mr. Merton. He was an active magistrate, and enjoyed his reputation as such. One day he came in, having just received his letters.

*' Bad account of the morals of your little town here, Jessy ! " said he, touching one of his letters. " You've either a murderer among you, or some friend of a murderer. Here's a poor old lady at Bath had her throat cut last Sunday week ; and I've a letter from the Home Office, asking to lend them " my very efficient aid," as they are pleased to call it, towards finding out the culprit. It seems he must have been thirsty, and of a comfortable jolly turn ; for before going to his horrid work he tapped a barrel of ginger wine the old lady had set by to work , and he wrapped the spigot round with a piece of a letter taken out of his pocket, as may be supposed ; and this piece of a letter was found afterwards ; there are only these letters on the outside, " ns, Esq., -arford, -egworth," which some one has ingeniously made out to mean Barford, near Kegworth. On the other side there is some allusion to a racehorse, I conjecture, though the name is singular enough : ' Church-and-King-and-down-with-the-Rump.' "

Miss Pratt caught at this name immediately ; it had hurt her feelings as a dissenter only a few months ago, and she remembered it well.

" Mr. Nat Hearn has—or had (as 1 am speaking in the witness-box, as it were, I must take care of my tenses), a horse with that ridiculous name."

" Mr. Nat Hearn," repeated Mr. Merton, making a note of the intelligence ; then he recurred to his letter from the Home Office again.

" There is also a piece of a small key, broken in the futile attempt to open a desk—well, well. Nothing more of consequence. The letter is what we must rely upon."

" Mr. Davis said that Mr. Higgins told him—" Miss Pratt began.

" Higgins ! " exclaimed Mr. Merton, " ns. Is it Higgins, the blustering fellow that ran away with Nat Hearn's sister ? "

" Yes ! " said Miss Pratt. " But though he has never been a favourite of mine-  "

" ns," repeated Mr. Merton. " It is too horrible to think of; a member of the hunt—kind old Squire Hearn's son-in-law ! Who else have you in Barford with names that end in ns?"

" There's Jackson, and Higginson, and Blenkinsop, and Davis, and Jones. Cousin ! One thing strikes me—how did Mr. Higgins know all about it to tell Mr. Davis on Tuesday what had happened on Sunday afternoon ? "

There is no need to add much more. Those curious in lives of the highwayman may find the name of Higgins as conspicuous among those annals as that of Claude Duval. Kate Hearn's husband collected his rents on the highway, like many another " gentleman " of the day ; but, having been unlucky in one or two of his adventures, and hearing exaggerated accounts of the hoarded wealth of the old lady at Bath, he was led on from robbery to murder, and was hung for his crime at Derby, in 1775.

He had not been an unkind husband ; and his poor wife took lodgings in Derby to be near him in his last moments—his awful lasr moments. Her old father went with her everywhere but into her husband's cell ; and wrung her heart by constantly accusing himself of having promoted her marriage with a man of whom he knew s< little. He abdicated his squireship in favour of his son Nathaniei. Nat was prosperous, and the helpless silly father could be of no use to him ; but to his widowed daughter the foolish fond old man was all in all ; her knight, her protector, her companion—her most faithfu; loving companion. Only he ever declined assuming the office of her counsellor—shaking his head sadly, and saying—

" Ah ! Kate, Kate ! if I had had more wisdom to have advisee; thee better, thou need'st not have been an exile here in Brussels, shrinking from the sight of every English person as if they knew thy story."

I saw the White House not a month ago ; it was to let, perhaps foi the twentieth time since Mr. Higgins occupied it ; but still the traditioi goes in Barford that once upon a time a highwayman lived there, and amassed untold treasures ; and that the ill-gotten wealth yet remains walled up in some unknown concealed chamber ; but in what par: of the house no one knows.

Will any of you become tenants, and try to find out this mysterious closet ? I can furnish the exact address to any applicant who wishes for it.

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH

BY

EDGAR ALLAN POE

THE " Red Death " had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding, at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half-depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the " Red Death."

It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. These were seven—an imperial suite. In many places, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have been expected from the prince's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each

turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose colour varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. Thai at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue—and vividlv blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the colour of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood colour. Now in no one of the seven apartments were there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang ; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound ; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions ; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company: and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly ; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion ; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the prince were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colours and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great jete ; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in Herani. There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams -writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away—they have endured but an instant— and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven there are now none of the maskers who venture ; for the night is waning away ; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-coloured panes ; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals ; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulged in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told ; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted ; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock ; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before.  And the rumour of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well :be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade licence of the night was nearly unlimited ; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbed in blood —and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste ; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

" Who dares,"-—he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him—" who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery ? Seize him and unmask him—that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements ! "

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly, for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand, i It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder/ who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him ; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's person ; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple—through the purple to the green—through the green to

the orange;—through this again to the white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterward, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

From " Tales of Mystery and Imagination." First published in " Graham's Magazine, 1842."

THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT

BY

AMBROSE BIERCE I

IT is well known that the old Manton house is haunted. In all die rural district near about, and even in the town of Marshall, a mile away, not one person of unbiassed mind entertains a doubt of it ; incredulity is confined to those opinionated people who will be called " cranks " as soon as the useful word shall have penetrated the intellectual demesne of the Marshall Advance. The evidence that the house is haunted is of two kinds : the testimony of disinterested witnesses who have had ocular proof, and that of the house itself. The former may be disregarded and ruled out on any of the various grounds of objection which may be urged against it by the ingenious : but facts within the observation of all are fundamental and controlling.

In the first place, the Manton house has been unoccupied by mortal-, for more than ten years, and with its out-buildings is slowly falling into decay—a circumstance which in itself the judicious will hardly venture to ignore. It stands a little way off the loneliest reach of the Marshall and Harriston road, in an opening which was once a farm and is still disfigured with strips of rotting fence and half covered with brambles overrunning a stony and sterile soil long unacquainted with the plough. The house itself is in tolerably good condition, though badly weather-stained and in dire need of attention from the glazier, the smaller male population of the region having attested in the manner of its kind its disapproval of dwellings without dwellers. The house is two stories in height, nearly square, its front pierced by a single doorway flanked on each side by a window boarded up to the very top. Corresponding windows above, not protected, serve to admit light and rain to the rooms of the upper floor. Grass and weeds grow pretty rankly all about, and a few shade trees, somewhat the worse for wind and leaning all in one direction, seem to be making a concerted effort to run away. In short, as the Marshall town humorist explained in the columns of the Advance, " the proposition that the Manton house is badly haunted is the only logical conclusion from the premises." The fact that in this dwelling Mr. Manton thought it expedient one night some ten years ago to rise and cut the throats of his wife and two small children, removing at once to another part of the country, has no doubt done its share in directing public attention to the fitness of the place for supernatural phenomena.

To this house, one summer evening, came four men in a waggon. Three of them promptly alighted, and the one who had been driving

hitched the team to the only remaining post of what had been a fence. The fourth remained seated in the waggon. " Come," said one of his companions, approaching him, while the others moved away in the direction of the dwelling—" this is the place."

The man addressed was deathly pale and trembled visibly. " By God ! " he said harshly, " this is a trick, and it looks to me as if you were in it."

" Perhaps I am," the other said, looking him straight in the face

and speaking in a tone which had something of contempt in it. " You

will remember, however, that the choice of place was, with your own

assent, left to the other side.  Of course if you are afraid of spooks------- "

" I am afraid of nothing," the man interrupted with another oath, and sprang to the ground. The two then joined the others at the door, which one of them had already opened with some difficulty, caused by rust of lock and hinge. All entered. Inside it was dark, but the man who had unlocked the door produced a candle and matches and made a light. He then unlocked a door on their right as they stood in the passage. This gave them entrance to a large, square room, which the candle but dimly lighted. The floor had a thick carpeting of dust, which partly muffled their footfalls. Cobwebs were in the angles of the walls and depended from the ceiling like strips of rotting lace, making undulatory movements in the disturbed air. The room had two windows in adjoining sides, but from neither could anything be seen except the rough inner surfaces of boards a few inches from the glass. There was no fireplace, no furniture ; there was nothing. Besides the cobwebs and the dust, the four men were the only objects there which were not a part of the architecture. Strange enough they looked in the yellow light of the candle. The one who had so reluctandy alighted was especially " spectacular "—he might have been called sensational. He was of middle age, heavily built, deep chested and broad-shouldered. Looking at his figure, one would have said that he had a giant's strength ; at his face, that he would use it like a giant. He was clean shaven, his hair rather closely cropped and grey. His low forehead was seamed with wrinkles above the eyes, and over the nose these became vertical. The heavy black brows followed the same law, saved from meeting only by an upward turn at what would otherwise have been the point of contact. Deeply sunken beneath these, glowed in the obscure light a pair of eyes of uncertain colour, but, obviously enough, too small. There was something forbidding in their expression, which was not bettered by the cruel mouth and wide jaw. The nose was well enough, as noses go ; one does not expect much of noses. All that was sinister in the man's face seemed accentuated by an unnatural pallor—he appeared altogether bloodless.

The appearance of the other men was sufficiently commonplace : they were such persons as one meets and forgets that he met. All were younger than the man described, between whom and the eldest of the others, who stood apart, there was apparently no kindly feeling. They avoided looking at one another.

" Gentlemen," said the man holding the candle and keys, " I believe everything is right.  Are you ready, Mr. Rosser ? "

The man standing apart from the group bowed and smiled.

" And you, Mr. Grossmith ? "

The heavy man bowed and scowled.

" You will please remove your outer clothing."

Their hats, coats, waistcoats, and neckwear were soon removed and thrown outside the door, in the passage. The man with the candle now nodded, and the fourth man—he who had urged Mr. Grossmith to leave the waggon—produced from the pocket of his overcoat two long, murderous-looking bowie knives, which he drew from the scabbards.

" They are exactly alike," he said, presenting one to each of the two principals—for by this time the dullest observer would have understood the nature of this meeting.   It was to be a duel to the death.

Each combatant took a knife, examined it critically near the candle and tested the strength of blade and handle across his lifted knee. Their persons were then searched in turn, each by the second of the other.

" If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Grossmith," said the man holding the light, " you will place yourself in that corner."

He indicated the angle of the room farthest from the door, to which Grossmith retired, his second parting from him with a grasp of the hand which had nothing of cordiality in it. In the angle nearest the door Mr. Rosser stationed himself, and, after a whispered consultation, his second left him, joining the other near the door. At that moment the candle was suddenly extinguished, leaving all in profound darkness. This may have been done by a draught from the open door ; whatever the cause, the effect was appalling !

" Gentlemen," said a voice which sounded strangely unfamiliar in the altered condition affecting the relations of the senses, " gentlemen, you will not move until you hear the closing of the outer door."

A sound of trampling ensued, the closing of the inner door ; and finally the outer one closed with a concussion which shook the entire building.

A few minutes later a belated farmer's boy met a waggon which was being driven furiously toward the town of Marshall. He declared that behind the two figures on the front seat stood a third with its hands upon the bowed shoulders of the others, who appeared to struggle vainly to free themselves from its grasp. This figure, unlike the others, was clad in white, and had undoubtedly boarded the waggon as it passed the haunted house. As the lad could boast a considerable former experience with the supernatural thereabout, his word had the weight justly due to the testimony of an expert. The story eventually appeared in the Advance, with some slight literary embellishments and a concluding intimation that the gentlemen referred to would be allowed the use of the paper's columns for their version of the night's adventure. But the privilege remained without a claimant.

II

The events which led up to this " duel in the dark " were simple enough. One evening three young men of the town of Marshall were sitting in a quiet corner of the porch of the village hotel, smoking and discussing such matters as three educated young men of a Southern village would naturally find interesting. Their names were King, Sancher, and Rosser. At a little distance, within easy hearing but taking no part in the conversation, sat a fourth. He was a stranger to the others. They merely knew that on his arrival by the stage coach that afternoon he had written in the hotel register the name Robert Grossmith. He had not been observed to speak to anyone except the hotel clerk. He seemed, indeed, singularly fond of his own company —or, as the personnel of the Advance expressed it, " grossly addicted to evil associations." But then it should be said injustice to the stranger that the personnel was himself of a too convivial disposition fairly to judge one differently gifted, and had, moreover, experienced a slight rebuff in an effort at an " interview."

" I hate any kind of deformity in a woman," said King, " whether natural or—or acquired. I have a theory that any physical defect has its correlative mental and moral defect."

" I infer, then," said Rosser, gravely, " that a lady lacking the advantage of a nose would find the struggle to become Mrs. King an arduous enterprise."

" Of course you may put it that way," was the reply ; " but seriously, I once threw over a most charming girl on learning, quite accidentally, that she had suffered amputation of a toe. My conduct was brutal, if you like, but if I had married that girl I should have been miserable and should have made her so."

" Whereas," said Sancher, with a light laugh, " by marrying a gentleman of more liberal views she escaped with a cut throat."

" Ah, you know to whom I refer ! Yes, she married Manton, but I don't know about his liberality ; I'm not sure but he cut her throat because he discovered that she lacked that excellent thing in woman, the middle toe of the right foot."

" Look at that chap ! " said Rosser in a low voice, his eyes fixed upon the stranger.

That person was obviously listening intently to the conversation.

" Damn his impudence ! " whispered King, " what ought we to do?"

" That's an easy one," Rosser replied, rising. " Sir," he continued, addressing the stranger, " I think it would be better if you would remove your chair to the other end of the verandah. The presence of gentlemen is evidently an unfamiliar situation to you."

The man sprang to his feet and strode forward with clenched hands, his face white with rage. All were now standing. Sancher stepped between the belligerents.

" You are hasty and unjust," he said to Rosser ; " this gentleman has done nothing to deserve such language."

But Rosser would not withdraw a word.   By the custom of the country and the time, there could be but one outcome to the quarrel.

" I demand the satisfaction due to a gentleman," said the stranger, who had become more calm. " I have not an acquaintance in this region. Perhaps you, sir," bowing to Sancher, " will be kind enough to represent me in this matter."

Sancher accepted the trust—somewhat reluctantly, it must be confessed, for the man's appearance and manner were not at all to his liking. King, who during the colloquy had hardly removed his eyes from the stranger's face, and had not spoken a word, consented with a nod to act for Rosser, and the upshot of it was that, the principals having retired, a meeting was arranged for the next evening. The nature of the arrangements has been already disclosed. The duel with knives in a dark room was once a commoner feature of Southwestern life than it is likely to be again. How thin a veneering of " chivalry " covered the essential brutality of the code under which such encounters were possible, we shall see.

Ill

In the blaze of a midsummer noonday, the old Manton house was hardly true to its traditions. It was of the earth, earthy. The sunshine caressed it warmly and affectionately, with evident unconsciousness of its bad reputation. The grass greening all the expanse in its front seemed to grow, not rankly, but with a natural and joyous exuberance, and the weeds blossomed quite like plants. Full of charming lights and shadows, and populous with pleasant-voiced birds, the neglected shade trees no longer struggled to run away, but bent reverently beneath their burdens of sun and song. Even in the glassless upper windows was an expression of peace and contentment, due to the light within. Over the stony fields the visible heat danced with a lively tremor incompatible with the gravity which is an attribute of the supernatural.

Such was the aspect under which the place presented itself to Sheriff Adams and two other men who had come out from Marshall to look at it. One of these men was Mr. King, the sheriff's deputy : the other, whose name was Brewer, was a brother of the late Mrs. Manton. Under a beneficent law of the State relating to property which has been for a certain period abandoned by its owner, whose residence cannot be ascertained, the sheriff was the legal custodian of the Manton farm and the appurtenances thereunto belonging. His present visit was in mere perfunctory compliance with some order of a court in which Mr. Brewer had an action to get possession of the property as heir to his deceased sister. By a mere coincidence the visit was made on the day after the night that Deputy King had unlocked the house for another and very different purpose. His presence now was not of his own choosing : he had been ordered to accompany his superior, and at the moment could think of nothing more prudent than simulated alacrity in obedience. He had intended going anyhow, but in other company.

Carelessly opening the front door, which to his surprise was not locked, the sheriff was amazed to see, lying on the floor of the passage into which it opened, a confused heap of men's apparel. Examination showed it to consist of two hats, and the same number of coats, waistcoats, and scarves, all in a remarkably good state of preservation, albeit somewhat defiled by the dust in which they lay. Mr. Brewer was equally astonished, but Mr. King's emotion is not on record. With a new and lively interest in his own actions, the sheriff now unlatched and pushed open a door on the right, and the three entered. The room was apparently vacant—no ; as their eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light, something was visible in the farthest angle of the wall. It was a human figure—that of a man crouching close in the corner. Something in the attitude made the intruders halt when they had barely passed the threshold. The figure more and more clearly defined itself. The man was upon one knee, his back in the angle of the wall, his shoulders elevated to the level of his ears, his hands before his face, palms outward, the fingers spread and crooked like claws ; the white face turned upward on the retracted neck had an expression of unutterable fright, the mouth half open, the eyes incredibly expanded. He was stone dead—dead of terror ! Yet, with the exception of a knife, which had evidently fallen from his own hand, not another object was in the room.

In the thick dust which covered the floor were some confused footprints near the door and along the wall through which it opened. Along one of the adjoining walls, too, past the boarded-up windows, was the trail made by the man himself in reaching his corner. Instinctively in approaching the body the three men now followed that trail. The sheriff grasped one of the outthrown arms ; it was as rigid as iron, and the application of a gentle force rocked the entire body without altering the relation of its parts. Brewer, pale with terror, gazed intently into the distorted face. " God of mercy ! " he suddenly cried, " it is Manton ! "

" You are right," said King, with an evident attempt at calmness : " I knew Manton. He then wore a full beard and his hair long, but this is he."

He might have added : "I recognised him when he challenged Rosser. I told Rosser and Sancher who he was before we played him this horrible trick. When Rosser left this dark room at our heels, forgetting his clothes in the excitement, and driving away with us in his shirt—all through the discreditable proceedings we knew whom we were dealing with, murderer and coward that he was ! "

But nothing of this did Mr. King say. With his better light he was trying to penetrate the mystery of the man's death. That he had not once moved from the corner where he had been stationed, that his posture was that of neither attack nor defence, that he had dropped his weapon, that he had obviously perished of sheer terror of something that he saw—these were circumstances which Mr. King's disturbed intelligence could not rightly comprehend.

Groping in intellectual darkness for a clue to his maze of doubt,

his gaze, directed mechanically downward, as is the way of one who ponders momentous matters, fell upon something which, there, in the light of day, and in the presence of living companions, struck him with an invincible terror. In the dust of years that lay thick upon the floor—leading from the door by which they had entered, straight across the room to within a yard of Manton's crouching corpse—were three parallel lines of footprints—light but definite impressions of bare feet, the outer ones those of small children, the inner a woman's. From the point at which they ended they did not return ; they pointed all one way. Brewer, who had observed them at the same moment, was leaning forward in an attitude of rapt attention, horribly pale.

" Look at that ! " he cried, pointing with both hands at the nearest print of the woman's right foot, where she had apparendy stopped and stood.   " The middle toe is missing—it was Gertrude ! "

Gertrude was the late Mrs. Manton, sister to Mr. Brewer.

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