elephants to take their places, ready to form a long line, and follow in the wake of the one carrying one carrying Budha's tooth.

My interest in the whole thing was greatly marred by being told by a Singalese man who held some office in the temple, and had kindly explained to us many things of interest in the strange scene before us, that the relic we saw put on the elephant with so much pomp and splendour was nothing but an empty case, and that the tooth of Budha was never removed from the temple, and that this farce is annually played off on the people.

Between each elephant walked men richly apparelled in the splendid Kandyan dress, carrying flags and torches, so that the procession formed in all a long one. Every night until the full moon more elephants are added, also golden palanquins, so that on the last night of the Peraherra it is a most imposing sight. Bringing up the rear were a quantity of mummers dancing and walking on stilts. Some of them, dressed as Europeans with whitened faces, were most amusing, and one represented an old military hero who is well remembered here, whilst others were got up as soldiers, policemen, sailors, &c. This procession goes through the streets of the

town visiting the four other temples, ultimately returning to the Maligawa, where it disperses, to return on the following evening.

On the last day-the full moon day-the Peraherra meet as usual at the Maligawa temple, and, after having formed the procession and visited the four temples as on previous evenings, they proceed with a golden sword and golden chatties to Peradiniya (a place four miles from Kandy) for the purpose of 'cutting the waters.' They go down to the banks of the Mawellaganga, and there wait until the appointed good and lucky hour arrives. On its approach the highpriest touches the water with the sword, and the people, after filling their chatties with water, once more form the procession, and the Peraherra, again in full movement, goes through the streets as usual to the Maligawa, when it again separates, and the Peraherra

is over.

The cutting of the waters at Peradiniya is entirely a ceremony of the Hindoos. They consider that by this means the country will be relieved from all fevers, troubles, and sorrows. Would, alas, that it could be applied to unhappy Ireland, and convert it into as prosperous, as happy, and as contented an offspring of England as Ceylon is!

CHAPTER XXIV.

ROMEO E JULIETTA.

'Ta voix ravit mes sens.'

'The song of the fields to the rye,

The song of the lime to the bee,
The song of the depth to the height-
Who knows all three?'

As soon as Valentine found himself once again in London, his first resolve, when he recovered from the ill-effects of a low fever that attacked him after his long exposure to the elements during his desperate struggle for life, was to see Gwendoline. A languishing ache possessed him to be once more in her presence. She was near him in all his daylight visions and nightly dreams. The thought had brought him home directly after learning that he was a wealthy man; for his grandfather had made him his sole heir, an injustice to Lionel, for which, however, he cared little. He bore his cousin no malice for his triumph, only it puzzled him. Still, he knew the caprices of the aged were plentiful and mysterious -gales that often blew serious mischief to some one-and, after all, Valentine wanted the money more than he did.

And, alas, there was no mistaking the other resolve Hilliard had made, and that was to use every endeavour, every influence, to rob Lionel of the wife whose possession he coveted. Money could always pay for the worries and scandal of a cause célèbre. Hilliard was not a man of half measures; he had never deliberately led a woman into misery or guilt, however much he

VOL. XXXI.

may have indirectly assisted in the process; but now a feeling of injury as well as passion was at work. How could he stem this madness, this infatuation?

It governed him with relentless might, and was stronger than himself. He sold out in order to further his grandfather's wishes that he should leave the service and enter a banking firm in the City, where he would be the head and mainstay, and the arrangement suited him remarkably well at this crisis of his affairs. He would visit the Carringtons, and constantly see Gwendoline; contact would feed the flame that consumed him; he could study her under new aspects, and only hoped that Lionel was turning into a brute, and that she was unhappy. It would give him fewer pangs to know the man was worthless whom he intended to betray.

So, as he sprang into his hansom cab one afternoon late in June, to visit Gwendoline, he was vexed at seeing Eric saunter towards his hotel, prepared to coax him into dining at his club.

'Where are you off to, Val?' asked Eric, pausing on the kerbstone. "Thought I should have been in time to catch you ere you started. Come and dine with us to-night, we've got such a capital chef.

Perhaps I may, if Carrington does not ask me to stay to dinner,' said Valentine leisurely, joining his friend as he lighted a cigar.

You are going to Bayswater,' said Eric, shrugging his shoulders.

BB

'I shouldn't if I were you, Val. "Leave well alone" is a good motto.'

'Suppose it isn't well?' said Hilliard, with his dark look, and which a mutinous soldier rebelling against a command understood to his cost. 'Good mean-'

Heavens! you don't

'Never mind what I mean; if you want help at any time, come to me. Times are changed; the jade Fortune has sent me wealth just one year too late.'

Eric's face was a study. His wife's money was now strictly tied up. Operas and Greenwich dinners run away with the ready.' He felt Valentine's hand tremble on his arm, and wished Dolly had persuaded her sister to leave London with her for the Abbey House.

'Take care, Val, what you are about, and think of her welfare more than your own wishes,' he said gravely.

Wealth developed selfishness and recklessness. The cynical tone Valentine had recently assumed alarmed him.

'I never could understand parables,' laughed Hilliard, springing again into his cab. 'Au revoir !

Neither cruel, callous, nor wicked, but selfish now, since he will not spare others who stand in the way of his pleasure, he detested any form of the mentor that presented itself.

'Cursed moralising hypocrite!' muttered Hilliard, with impetuous anger. 'Let him mind his own business. A fellow that always vowed to make a speculation of marriage.'

He never thought of classing Gwendoline with ordinary women. They might be lovely, but she was divine; and now, picturing their meeting, his memory returned with dangerous clearness to those interviews in the past, when by her timid words of entreaty, her restlessness, her delight in his presence,

he knew he had been loved. He hoped to find her sad, pale, stricken to the heart by an uncongenial life, indifferent to her husband, who would be of course unsuited to her, caring nothing at all for her unhappiness; and who else could remove the blight on her life but the lover who had come back to win her at all costs and hazards, who felt himself robbed and cheated by others who had influenced her to their own advantage? As the cab drove up to her door, Gwendoline, who was on the balcony gathering a few buds to ornament her vases, looked down and recognised him instantly. She was alone, and was about to prepare for her drive in the Park; for her carriage came round just as the cab drove away, and Hilliard noticed how well it was appointed, how splendid were the points of those dashing bays, as he rang the bell.

A superstitious feeling of absolute terror stole over her. Was she dreaming, or was he indeed so near? How she had prayed they might never meet! She sat motionless for a few seconds staring into space, her agitation increasing.

What shall I do?' she cried, rising and standing in the middle of her drawing-room, waiting to hear him announced, her hands tightly clasped. All the innocent happiness of her mind was checked and arrested; she began to feel afraid.

The next moment he was by her side.

'How do you do, Mrs. Carrington?' he said gently, in a tone of the most delicate respect, speaking carelessly, as though to any ordinary acquaintance. This was part of his method of attack, to disarm her suspicion or fears.

⚫ Gwendoline's hand went towards his, and as he released it with a

faint pressure he had the satisfaction of feeling it quiver under his grasp, but he saw no indications of sorrow or wasting in that girlish face.

'I am so glad you are better,' she said, motioning him to a chair. 'Lionel has made daily inquiries at your hotel; no doubt you still feel weak.'

'But I am gaining strength daily, and can take everything easily now. I'm never dunned or worried. And so this is your second season, Mrs. Carrington, and you are not tired of society. No? Ah! quite a woman of fashion. Perhaps you have forgotten all I prophesied. Was it not a bad omen when the violets were swept away that night we listened to the sea? You did not keep your promise-you gave me no more.'

'I-no-why do you refer to the past ?'

'To remind you that Fate has been cruel-it has parted our lives. O, you have done remarkably well for yourself. I can see you regret nothing; why should you? Women are like butterflies. Had I not returned you would have never given me a thought.'

'I could find it in my heart to wish I had never seen you again.' 'Don't be so passionate. "We will meet as if we met not, and part as though we parted not." As for that midsummer night's dream of ours, that set me writing poetry and making a fool of myself, it was like a fairy tale, was it not? Armida's phantasmagoria. Do you mean to banish me for this?'

He was smiling again into her eyes, wondering if in the end he should have to take his hat and depart. Why should he spare her? He was in one of his daring moods. Anything was better than her indifference, and it was some satisfaction to see her turn very pale, and touch her round pillar-like throat

with that nervous gesture he so well remembered.

What is this written in his eyes

this burning light that all his assumed quietness and conventionalism cannot hide? Was it the signal of that meditated treachery of which she had not dreamed? Gwendoline's utter absence of coquetry saved her from the danger and imprudence of glorying in this fresh evidence of her power.

'I had a narrow escape of drowning, had I not?' he said, rising, a little restlessly, to examine a fine water-colour; his movement set them both more at their ease. 'And yet I wouldn't have missed the spectacle for anything, it was so grand. In scenes like those at sea one lives; it was like a great battle; one felt shaken to the very soul.'

And now what do you mean to do, since you are so rich, and have left the army?'

'To do? I am in business as a banker,' he said, with a curious smile. 'You must coax me to settle down, and preach me nice little lectures on domestic conjugal bliss. You must try and find me a wife, Mrs. Carrington; only don't let her be a blonde; the colour won't stand wear and tear.'

She started at his tone; its irony was so little veiled.

'Don't you think I should make a remarkably good husband ?'

He set his teeth with a slight unconscious shudder, but she read the hidden bitterness. She rose and rang the bell. It was answered by Mdlle. Josephine; and when Gwendoline said a little hurriedly, 'Send us in some tea, please,' the maid glanced at the handsome man toying with a paper-knife, with the military air and a dark flush on his cheek, and most assuredly read his secret.

'I want you to promise me one