cried Letitia,' with three dinnerparties and four balls already accepted, a garden-party at the Duchess's, a Cinderella dance at Lancaster Gate, and a flower-show at the Crystal Palace? And who will take your stall at the fancy fair? I'm not equal to the exertion !'

'She is knocking up fast with so much gaiety and excitement,' he said, smoothing Gwendoline's hair.

'And I shall be glad, dear, to get away from this Vanity Fair of ours into a more quiet and romantic atmosphere.'

before unknown;

And it thrilled me as a dream can thrill, with now a hope supreme,

And now a creeping fear, as if in that one lightning gleam

The height of heaven and depth of hell

had suddenly been shown.'

THE visit to Rome was delayed for reasons which Gwendoline could not understand, but which related to business matters, in which Lionel was glad to avail himself of his cousin's proffered assistance. He liked Valentine extremely; he thought him a good-natured careless fellow, who now possessed splendid chances; and he thought his advice might be useful in many ways.

We always prize most in others those qualities in which we are deficient; and Valentine's easy indifference and smiling bonhomie pleased Lionel as savouring of the good points of that Horatian philo

sophy he somewhat lacked. A commoner mind might have been more on guard and suspicious, and thus formed a more correct view of Valentine's character. Lionel always acted from high and exalted motives; everything about him was grand and broad; his reflective nature often led him to muse over the secret springs of action in others, and he could see no reason to mistrust his cousin. He despised schemers, birds of prey with merciless beaks and talons, who were on the look-out for victims. So grand, indeed, were his theories and principles of action, that the scorpions who spit at truth and integrity, hating superiority in others, laughed at the high level to which he sought to raise humanity; and evil men, who took advantage of others' credulity and weakness, often called him a fool behind his back, and prophesied that some day he would be done under his very nose; and serve him right!' for the evil believe no good in any one, and would call a man mad who only sought to benefit, and not injure, his race.

It was several days since Valentine had seen Gwendoline; she bowed to him a little coldly, he thought, one afternoon, as he lounged against the railings that divide the Drive' and the Row,' and had avoided him at an 'at home;' but to-day, as he ordered. his brougham after luncheon, intending to pay some visits to various old friends who had sent him pressing invitations, he changed his mind, and told the coachman to drive to Bayswater. Was she still angry and indignant with him? he wondered. His reason was weak where his imagination was strong and his passions were concerned; and impulse here gained the day. As the horses stopped before Lionel's mansion, he walked slowly towards the large hall-door, glanc

ing at the elegant boxes along the windows, resembling, in the dazzling luxuriance of varied tints, little flower-gardens on a small scale. The soft summer air and sunlight seemed so different here; the beauty of Kensington Gardens, with their wealth of foliage and bright verdure, made him fancy himself many miles away from London— the sky was no longer screened from view by the density of smoke. 'Is Mrs. Carrington at home?' he asked.

The footman said 'No, but she would be in shortly. Would he like to wait ?'

The flutter of skirts and a slight cough now caught his ear. He looked up, and saw Mdlle. Josephine, the lady's-maid, crossing the hall. Valentine, versed in the mysteries veiled in women's eyes, read her look. It was almost inviting. She evidently desired to be communicative-perhaps on her own account, perhaps on that of her mistress. He followed the footman into the drawing-room, and Josephine hovered about the door.

Then she entered softly, virtually to close the windows and alter the venetians, fearing monsieur might be in a draught.

Valentine was in so reckless and feverish a mood, he cared for little so long as he could hear anything connected with Gwendoline. The maid thought of guineas, that she could be a convenient medium, and once more play the rôle she delighted in-that of Cupid's messenger.

She twisted her apron's pocket, believing her presence afforded monsieur qualified delight in the absence of her mistress, and lingered.

'Would monsieur like vun leetle cup of tea, or café noir ?' she asked respectfully, coming to his aid with convenient plausibility.

Valentine felt somewhat embarrassed, and even ashamed of himself, not at her question, but at what he wished to ask.

'No, nothing at all,' he said curtly.

She bowed and smiled.

'Madame vill be sorry to have missed monsieur,' she next hazarded, touching a gardenia in one of the specimen glasses.

'Will she?' he said, with a little laugh, cutting his boots with his

cane.

'Ah, but yes, monsieur, madame is an angel; but she suffers too! Ah, mon Dieu !

'Suffers echoed Valentine, his brows darkening.

'If monsieur vould vish to know zie truth, it is me vich vill tell it him. I mocke myself of all tings.'

She raised her fine eyes ceilingwards, as if wishing Heaven to hear her assertion.

'Even this?' he said, taking out some gold and slipping it into her hand. 'Go on, and speak the truth, if you can.

'Zie English gentlemen, zie militaires, are si étrange, laughed Josephine, pocketing the money very rapidly. I vas vid madame on her vedding-day, and I dress her for zie bridal; zie lovely hair vas arranged by me. I saw zie struggle, zie emotions, and den she fainted."

'At the wedding, or after ?'

'No, no; she fainted ven monsieur vas 'eard to be saved from die sea. Zie paper dropt from her hands. ven she read it; she vas like some vun mad; she vent early to bed. I took her jelly, champagne; and I found her insensible, monsieur, from joy!'

'Great God!' cried Valentine, drawing a deep breath. 'If I thought you were not deceiving me this may change all.'

'Ah!' said Josephine, with a

significant air, it is zie old story. And how beautiful is madame-vat hair, vat eyes like a saint in an Italian painting! It's a pity she not lofe her husband.'

Valentine was very pale; he felt an overpowering temptation to hear more; his heart beat with a new strange pleasure.

'Is this true?' he asked sternly.

It seemed to alter the whole current of his thoughts, to reverse his plans; and instinctively he came closer and looked her full in the face.

'I have no reason to speak false to you,' she said, shrugging her shoulders and turning aside.

Why, then, should he not win his love still? Why should not life, happiness, reality begin, and a new glory and freshness be infused into his existence? They loved each other. Honour, faith, purity, integrity, conscience, were but cold dead blanks now, and passion the best thing known to him. He was so wealthy, he could give her everything; and Lionel, who trusted him, was already in his power!

His eyes rested on the many articles de luxe-valuable china cups and plates-upon the walls; the flowers tastefully arranged on the work - tables, cabinets, and mantelpiece of this exquisite room- no doubt placed in the vases by her dear hands; here was a piece of unfinished work, and a song open on the piano'Golden Love'-the words of which he carelessly scanned. A beautiful home; but he could give her as good, or even better. Business was very uncertain, and in the present state of the foreign market Lionel Carrington, the millionaire, was glad to come to him-very glad. No, he must resist that thought; he would not be a villain; he did not mean to ruin him. He was scarcely con

scious of outward things as he listened to the bees humming over the china boxes, and drinking the sweets of the jasmine and clematis, wreathing the drawing-room windows that led into the garden and on to the terrace.

'Monsieur knows, of course, that they are going to Rome shortly?' murmured Josephine, lowering her voice, her eye on the door. Löhr, who had offered to marry her, was a good fellow, but a German; and a worshipper of Von Moltke wanted watching.

'To Rome?' Was that to escape him, to avoid temptation? Had she not told him she would not risk another meeting?

'Can you get me some ink and paper?' he asked, acting under an impulse stronger than himself. The thought of her suffering came as a sort of refuge from indecision; it seemed to cut through a network of impossibilities.

'Mais certainement, monsieur.' Her spirits revived. Intrigue was her element. A study after Boccaccio was mental caviare ; this interesting and wealthy militaire was exhibiting every violent symptom of a passionate infatuation.

And you will give her this yourself on her return?' he said, as she brought him the writing materials. He clenched his teeth, and muttered under his breath, 'The die is cast. I'll risk it !'

Monsieur may rely on me,' said Josephine, in her excitement placing her hand, not on her heart, but on her liver, which certainly gives more concern to the true Parisienne.

He had had so many experiences, there was not a secret, scarcely a sin, which pleasure held that he had not discovered and tasted; a love, therefore, appealing to his imagination, the picture of Gwendoline struggling to forget

him, and conquer a memory that refused to be stifled, stirred every vein with a languid seductive joy. And the letter he wrote-the first which he had ever addressed her had a metaphysical vein, in which there was not so much distinct thought and settled purpose as a vibrating tenderness, born of wild fancy and the idolatry of his soul.

'Last time I saw you,' he wrote, 'how happy I should have felt to be near you, had it not been that the words you uttered at the Opera were burnt into my memory!... And I dared not risk the shame of alienating you still more from meyou, who made me once believe in goodness and love-of making your mind and senses still further recoil from me, and of abandoning me for ever by your silence. In some small cell of your pure and beautiful mind I wish to live as a memory still, not an object of dislike or hatred. Do you want to drive me to the lowest depths of degradation and perdition-never to see you again? I cannot picture such a fate as that. You first belonged to me; you were to have been my bride; and the despair that sweeps over me at having lost you is a dark cloud that will end in the ruin and destruction of my soul. My life is bitter. Alienating you still more from me! How cruel is that possibility! How unnatural to find alienation springing from a cause the very nature of which should be infinite gratitude, increase of love, the sweetest bond of union. Am I sinning now past all forgiveness? I have struggled against my hopeless love for you; and you meet me with cut-anddried phrases, cold platitudes, conventional remarks, when I am in turn literally maddened with flashes of delight, or hurled to abysses of deepest gloom. Those mistaken fears and prejudices which sadden

VOL. XXXI.

your life and mine will one day change, and you will regret your foolish superstitious narrow-mindedness (which, after all, is only another proof of your adorable nature), your cruel and ungrateful scruples. When I contemplate my love for you, how beautiful it is how good it appears! Our first glance that spring morning sealed our fate, and nothing can really change it. You may try to stifle feeling, but it exists all the same. I know you pity me when I am near you. And when I am alone I dream only of you; your pale sweet face haunts me. I do not see you only as a phantasm, that will elude me, with something of your divine outward semblance, but you, Gwendoline, you, my fair white lily, my saint, my Juliet; you, nearer to me than ever when I am alone. I read my fate in your coldness, your avoidance of me at Lady Fairholme's last week. It always seems as if you would turn your back on me. O, these storms of feeling! they are grand, but fatal, as the lightning and its winged fire. One thing only have I now to say to you; but it will set your fears at rest. I hear you are going away to Rome; if it is to escape my withering influence, be at rest, dishonour shall not approach you. I shall leave England in a few days for ever; and so, farewell!'

He wrote thus; but his intention was to remain, and see her once more. He sealed this letter with his crested ring, and gave it to the maid to deliver to her mistress; and, hastily leaving the house, he lighted one of his strongest cigars, as he threw himself into a corner of his brougham and returned to town.

The next visitors who presented themselves were decidedly bent on staying. Derwent and Patricia

CC

drove up in a hansom cab, a little after Hilliard had left. Patricia's bright face literally beamed with delight as she followed her husband into the house, and thought of Gwendoline's affectionate wel

come.

'Your mistress out?' said Derwent to the footman, as he ushered them into the drawing-room. 'Well, I don't suppose she'll be long, and we're privileged to make ourselves at home.'

'How surprised she will be to see me!' said Patricia, looking very fair and bridal-like in her creamcoloured muslin dress and laces, touching her new gold weddingring; fancy my being Gwen's sister at last!'

'And here's the Earl, I declare !' cried Derwent, going quickly towards the door. 'Now I can thank him for his nice letter; it was really awfully good of Rosie to come down with the "ready," and save Clivedale for us.'

Ah, Derwent, my dear boy,' said his grandfather, dropping his pince-nez and patting his grandson's shoulder, so you are here; and this is your bride ?' holding out his hand to Patricia. 'God bless you both! Nothing, 'pon honour, so satisfactory as a love-match.'

'And I have to thank you a thousand times for your kindness, sir,' said Derwent warmly.

'Not a word! No, no; I always meant to redeem Clivedale for you; and with Rosie's help we managed it at last. She took quite a fancy to you. If I were not so old, and my rheumatic gout and asthma less frequent visitors, I could sing jubilate all day long. And where's Gwendoline ?'

'She won't be long, I expect,' said Derwent, sitting down to the piano, and striking a few opening chords. Sing us something, Pat.'

'Don't you play the accompani

ment too fast, and I'll try "Golden Love."

'That's it delightful!' muttered the Earl, nodding his head to the music. Never to think of bygone hours of pain.' Rosie's influence and the absence of duns had certainly changed him for the better. 'Delightful song, and a charming singer!'

And now what news of home, grandpapa ?' cried Derwent, throwing himself by his side on the couch. Are they coming round by degrees? Are we to be all ostracised, or are there any signs of the domestic horizon clearing by and by?'

'It isn't your father's fault, Derwent; he knows, and so do I, the part Reginald played in a certain affair,' lowering his voice, as Patricia ran over Home, sweet Home!' with variations. It's your mother. Ah, the life she led me once! Poor Heath! - and he seems to like it, too!'

'Love again, grandpapa,'laughed Derwent; and yet they begrudged it us, didn't they?'

Ah, ah! So they did, my boy,' nudging Derwent in the ribs; 'but the Countess is well received. I want none of Hester's patronage. I think they'll both come round, as far as you're concerned; they were always so fond of you. Your father told me to be sure and give you his love, and say you would be welcome at the Towers. Hester couldn't resist her boy's pleading.'

'I hear voices,' some one cried at the door; and Patricia sprang up and ran towards Gwendoline, who now entered.

'This is your sister, Gwen,' said Derwent, going up to her and holding her hand; 'give Pat a loving kiss for my sake; she's my dear little wife, and we're happy as the day is long!'

And why shouldn't they be?'