A vague sensation of discomfort seizes him, whenever he finds himself alone with anyone who may possibly choose to discuss Miss Grange's claims to his consideration. He has checked Bellairs several times already by the assertion that "she's an awfully nice, clever girl-just the sort of girl to make a heaven of a home for the fellow who's lucky enough to get her." Believing fighting the air to be a feeble practice, Bellairs does not combat the delusion, for "nothing of that sort lasts long with Frank" he tells himself, as he sees Frank winding the coils round himself closer and closer every day.

to whom they refer, without being openly ill-natured. He knows that she has this art, but he is pleased with her at present, and fancies that it is a womanly and noble one, and feels himself injured rather than otherwise in that he is not present to be edified by it.

Actuated by these mixed feelings, he presently gets on his horse, and rides over to Breagh Place, resolving rather to brave being laughed at about Charlotte, than to bear the burden of himself any longer. "They'll see I'm running after her," he confesses to himself, half shamefacedly, "and Kate will probably get on the stilts; but I can't help it."

A slight chill falls upon him when he finds himself in their midst by-and-by. The mere power of her will has caused Miss Grange to be invited to luncheon by Mrs. Durgan, to whom Clarlotte insists on talking rather confidentially concerning

Bray seems very dull to him, however, after Charlotte's departure for Mrs. Durgan's place. He has ridden over from Lugnaquilla, intending to loiter about the picturesque secluded Dargle, and superintend Miss Grange's sketching all day, and, when he finds that he is left to his own devices, while she goes to pay "a mere ceremonial visit" as ahe says, he feels sulkily disposed to review his position with Miss Grange, and to think that she had no right, "after all," to go off in this way and leave him to be dull, either by himself, or with her "detestable brother and sister." In fact, the habit of the woman is upon him; and here in this place, where he is cut off from his home pursuits and home annoyances, he has grown too much accustomed to her manner of passing away his time, to patiently submit to being made his own custodian for awhile.

He contrives to stir up his own interest presently, by conjecturing a variety of things concerning the three women who are together at Breagh Place, none of which bear the remotest resemblance to the truth. He pictures Charlotte (who is a capital talker when alone with him) amusing and bewitching Mrs. Durgan and Kate, by the flow of her quiet humour, and power of narrating incidents,

surface weaknesses. Kate meanwhile sits silently by half doubting that there is any foundation for this fatal familiarity, and still wholly fearing that there may be.

"He is a man who requires sympathy," Miss Grange asserts; and he has never had it from his own family; he has told me so himself, and I can see that he feels it bitterly, poor fellow," she adds with malicious emphasis, as she sees Kate wince under the sting of the statement.

"You imagine that you can give it to him, I suppose? Mrs. Durgan says, with a laugh that is not complimentary to the one whom she addresses. In spite of a certain dagger that Kate is unconsciously pressing well home to Mrs. Durgan's heart, the latter lady likes her well, and is strengthened in that first openly expressed opinion of hers, that Kate "couldn't be mean." Therefore she does not hesitate to draw the sword and use it, when Kate's opponent waves a flag of defiance.

"He imagines that I can, at any rate," Miss Grange says, turning large calm eyes full upon her interlocutor as she speaks. "Frank tells me that you don't know much about them," she continues, addressing Kate as if she were an outsider; "but from what you do know of them, shouldn't you be inclined to think his sisters shallow and frivolous?"

"You forget that you are speaking of my cousins," Kate says, and scarlet waves of indignation ebb and flow over her face as she says it. Then, even as these shells

are bursting, Frank comes in, and, after the usual custom on these occasions, the guiltless look guilty, and the guilty guiltless.

If put to the crucial test of speaking on their words of honour, neither Mrs. Durgan nor Kate would feel themselves to be social sinners. But now, when Frank comes into their midst, and looks at them suspiciously and at Miss Grange sympathetically, they feel as if they had fallen short and been found wanting in some way or other: as if, in fact, they had not been merciful to the stranger within their gates.

"I am so glad you've come," Miss Grange murmurs, with an ardour that is foreign to her general manner. She half holds her plump white hand out towards him too as she speaks, and Frank finds himself taking the extended offering, under the astonished gaze of his cousin Kate, before he thinks of attempting to salute Mrs Durgan, whom he has nominally come to visit. "I am so glad you've come," Miss Grange repeats, and this time she laughs blithely and throws a glance aside at Kate, and altogether pourtrays by her manner that she is perfectly at rest now "he" has come, in a way that thrills Kate with wrath at the assurance which she still prays may have no foundation in fact.

They pass a half hour that is disagreeable to the last degree to two of them, and that is not altogether a period of unmitigated bliss to Frank, who feels himself to be a disputed point, and who knows himself to be but a mere weather-cock between the rival blasts of duty and inclination. The former drags him back every now and again, back under Kate's influence, but the latter draws him softly on, and prostrates him, as it were, under the influence of the woman who never lets it slacken for want of incessant attention. In fact Kate represents a past, in which he sustained a defeat, while Charlotte represents a present, in which he may have it all his own way if he pleases.

"They're not engaged yet, take comfort in that thought, and intervene before he compasses his own destruction by proposing to her," Mrs. Durgan says in a low voice to Kate, as Kate makes the necessity for attending to the comfort of the invalid the excuse for murmuring some expression of hopelessness in her friend's ear.

"She seems to be well satisfied with the arrangement, whatever it is, as it stands," Kate says impatiently. "He's enervated by her wiles now, but if you could see him as he really is, you would know what a dear

fellow he is, and understand why I am so anxious about him."

Mrs. Durgan looks up brightly, hopefully, enthusiastically almost.

"See here, Kate," she says, "a word from you in love, not in friendship!-what man would barter love and slavery for friendship and freedom?-but in love, would bring him-I won't say 'back' to you, because I don't believe he's ever strayed in reality— but away from her. Utter it!"

"I can't," Kate laughs, but there is vexation in her langh, Mrs. Durgan detects; "don't think that I want him in love-not that he'd come to me if I did— but she's not the one to win him."

"She's the one to woo, and those who woo so artistically often win" Mrs. Durgan says, shaking her head. "Look at them now! there she is, while we are wasting our time in idle talk, making him believe that she has been struggling against circumstances all the morning, and that we have been intensely disagreeable to her; and in short, that she has been playing the martyr's part for his dear sake. Go to him, and be outspoken, Kate, and tell her I want to speak to her."

Kate feels herself impelled, by Mrs. Durgan's energy, to obey Mrs. Durgan's instructions, but she dislikes doing so exceedingly. It is an odious task to set oneself, this of interrupting a conversation between two people, who are openly manifesting the feeling that all the world is nought to them, and that they only want each other. But in this case Kate is led on to do it, partly because she really feels that Frank is worthy of a little sacrifice of pride on her part, and partly because there is a passive defiance in Miss Grange's manner which rouses all Kate's fighting blood, and makes her long to strike a straightforward open blow.

"Mrs. Durgan has made me her envoy to you, Miss Grange," she begins, as she draws near to them, and she sees that Charlotte shrugs patiently deprecating shoulders at the interruption, "she wishes you to go and talk to her about some ferns— you're learned in them we have heardand I want you for a few minutes, Frank," Kate continues, putting her hand within his arm, with the old caressing gesture that he can no more resist now than he could long ago.

Miss Grange knows the exact worth of every weapon that any adversary can employ in such a warfare as this, and she knows that Kate can strike sharply home

"And now what is it, Kate," Frank asks, as they saunter out from the conservatory, "if we are going to stroll through these woods, we may bring the others along with us, mayn't we?"

She turns her face and looks at him, and sees that his mouth is twitching, and his eyes dancing with suppressed laughter. He evidently partly fathoms her design of warning him, is mirthfully aware of it, and by no means disposed to thwart her exposition of feeling; at the same time she perceives that he will not be one whit impressed by it. All her fancied eloquence takes flight. She can no more bring herself to utter any cautionary words, now that Miss Grange has fearlessly left the field free, than she could stab that young lady in the back.

"Have you nothing to tell me, Frank?' she askes persuasively, and her manner insensibly becomes impregnated with some of the old fondness, that had been so infinitely delightful to him in the days of old. "Nothing whatever, dear," he replies, and his manner is abstracted, and his gaze wanders back through the conservatory, and fixes itself upon the lady who is lazily looking at ferns, the lady whose perfect repose is apparently by no means disturbed by the fear that her cause may be suffering during her enforced absence.

"How long do you stay at Lugnaquilla?" "We're all thinking of making a start next week."

"All! Is Captain Bellairs going so soon?" Kate asks, forgetting the interest of the hour in the interest of her life.

"No, no; Bellairs stays on here-he's sweet on his cousin, I believe," Frank says, as if whether Bellairs were, or were not, was an utterly unimportant matter to everyone. "Then whom do you mean by 'all,'" Kate persists, recurring to the interest of the hour. "The Granges and myself," he answers unhesitatingly.

"Then why do you attach yourself to them, when you could stay on at dear sweet Lugnaquilla, with a man who is less of a bore than any other human being?"

"Because there happens to be a human being with the Granges at present, who bores me even less than Bellairs," Frank laughs. “Now you have driven me into a corner, Kate, and compelled me to decide as to the cause of my recently developed toleration for the Granges, I know it to be that girl," and he inclines his head in the direction of the guileless Charlotte.

"That girl!" Kate repeats with angry contempt; "don't tell me in earnest that she has cast a glamour over you."

"She would be a cleverer girl even than she is, if she could cast a glamour' as you call it, over me," Frank says, with genuinely manly conceit; "but she's just the kind of girl that any fellow who sees much of her must fall madly in love with." "Frank!" Kate gasps.

"Why, you're not surprised, are you?" Frank questions, looking with foolish fondness in the direction of the disputed point. "I didn't quite realise-I never told myself even till you asked me; if you hadn't almost worded it for me, I should have gone on probably in unsuspicion of the real state of my feelings; but now I know that if I could contribute to her happiness in any way, even by giving her to another fellow, I'd do it."

Kate looks at him in pity and surprise, and admires him, in spite of her reason and judgment, for his chivalry. One shot she cannot resist firing, though she knows that it will glance off, and neither kill nor cure his misplaced passion.

"Get some richer man than yourself to marry her, then, if you'd contribute to her happiness, Frank," she says, and Frank looks at her wistfully, and replies,

"You hurt me more than you can imagine, by even feigning to doubt her perfect integrity."

Now ready, price 5s. 6d., bound in green cloth,

THE TWELFTH VOLUME

OF THE NEW SERIES OF

she says.

To be had of all Booksellers.

CHAPTER VI. A DESPERATE DEED.

WALTER DANBY stood looking on at the scene before him, mentally and bodily paralysed, without the power to think or move, for some minutes. When his senses returned his first impulse was to fly. What he had seen was enough to convince him of the lawlessness of the men with whom he had been associated, and of the certainty of their having committed robbery and murder. No! A ray of hope flashed across him which for Anne's sake he was only too glad to welcome-they were the receivers of the stolen property, they might even have planned the robbery, but they could not be the doers of the deed of blood. Heath was away at the time, and Studley-what was that the police-sergeant had said, that the robbery must have been arranged by some person conversant with the premises and the dead man's ways? Heath! Who had given him the diamonds to catalogue and store away, and consequently knew of their exact whereabouts, and their immense value? Heath!

Danby's heart sank within him as he thought of these things. His brain reeled, and he felt sick and faint. He must have air, or he would swoon. He must go out, through the window by which he had entered, give up all thought of seeing Anne that evening, and make his way back to London as best he could. Softly he turned, made out indistinctly the form of the window through which the last faint traces of daylight were visible, and moved towards it. The next moment he

PRICE TWOPENCE.

stumbled over one of the open portmanteaus, and fell upon the floor; the next, and the door between the rooms was dashed open, and Danby, still prostrate, felt a heavy weight upon his body, and a strong suffocating grip upon his throat.

"This is your cat!" cried the man who had seized him. Heath's voice, he knew it at once. "What a fool I was to believe you before! Bring the lamp and let's see whom we've got here; no, stay, the wind will blow it out. Help me to carry him into the back room, lift his legs, so!"

They dragged him into the diningroom and Heath knelt down beside him, and put his hand under his chin to force the head back. There was no need for this, however; Walter Danby threw up his head, as well as he could in his cramped position, and the expression in his bright eyes was bold and fearless.

"Danby!" said Heath, under his breath, then turning to Studley, "How did he get here? We heard no bell."

"He must have come through the back gate," said the captain, whose face was deadly pale, and whose thin lips visibly trembled. "Through the back gate-he knows it-I've taken him that way myself."

All this time, Heath's hand had been twined in Danby's neckerchief. He removed it now, bidding the young man get up and seat himself on an old-fashioned, high-backed oak chair which stood close to the wall. Danby obeyed. He had lost his breath in the fall and the struggle, and his heart was beating loudly; but he confronted the two men with calmness, almost with ease.

"Now, sit still, or it will be the worse for you!" said Heath, seating himself on the corner of the table, and swinging his

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312

"Probably ten minutes!" replied Danby, in a steady voice, and with his eyes firmly fixed on his interrogator.

Heath descended from the table, passed into the outer room, closed the door, and, pulling aside the curtain, peered through the glass, for the purpose of ascertaining what portions of the room were in view; then he opened the door and, before closing it again, bade Studley, "Speak, say something, anything, and in your usual tone." Finally he reappeared, bringing with him some strips of thick cord, which Danby recollected having noticed lying by one of the boxes.

"He must have seen and heard everything as plainly as if he had been standing by us! he said, in an undertone to Studley. "See here!" he added, turning to Danby, "you know, pretty well, the situation of this house. There's nothing near it for a mile. You might shout for a month, and no one would hear you. If you value your life, you will hold your tongue; and, in order to prevent your making any attempt at escape, I'm going to tie you to this chair."

As he spoke, he took the longest piece of rope, and, passing it quickly round Danby's body, slipped behind the chair and lashed him firmly to it. Danby made no attempt at resistance; he sat there, pale and anxious-looking, but neither so whitefaced nor so nervous as Captain Studley, who stood in a half-dazed state, looking on at Heath's proceedings, his wandering hand now plucking at his chin, now beating the tattoo on the table before him, and from time to time opening his mouth as though gasping for breath.

"There!" said Heath, moving round to his old position on the corner of the table; "and now to settle this matter. Walter Danby, you were, on your own avowal, in that room for ten minutes, during which time I have satisfied myself that you must have seen and heard all that transpired here. Is that so?"

"I saw and heard everything," said Danby quietly. His voice was low and flat, quite different from its usual joyous ringing tone, but there was no tremor in it.

"What did you hear?" asked Studley, suddenly turning upon him. "We were only talking business."

"Business!" said Danby. "Is it your business, besides cheating at cards, to deal with stolen goods and dead men's

property? I recognise those jewels as some which I helped your worthy friend there in cataloguing and stowing away. I know them to be part of the proceeds of Mr. Middleham's murder."

As these words left Danby's lips, Heath jumped from his seat, and rapidly passing his hand to his breast, made a stride towards him. But the captain, leaning across the table, caught his friend by the arm, and whispered hurriedly in his ear, "Stop, for God's sake, think what you're doing!"

"It is because I think what I am doing, that I see the need for stopping this lad's tongue," said Heath, between his clenched teeth, his eyes like deep set coals glowing in his head, and his hand still plucking in his breast.

"Stay!" said the captain, still in a whisper, and pulling at Heath's coat. "Come aside for an instant-come over here-let us talk this out, and do nothing rashly. My risk is as great as yours!"

"Is it?" said Heath, who suffered himself to be led to the other side of the room. "I was not aware of that. But anyhow it's great enough. Too great to be played with, I say."

"Don't make it greater," said Studley, with intense earnestness. "For the last month I have lived in a hell upon earth, owing to your rashness! Night and day I have but one thought in my head, one scene before my eyes! Don't create another ghost to haunt me, or I shall go mad!"

"When you have finished raving, perhaps you will say what would you propose to do with this man?" said Heath. "You've heard his avowal of what he knows."

"Do anything with him-anything but one!" said Studley, holding up his trembling hand to emphasise his words. "Make him take a solemn oath never to reveal what he has become acquainted with today, and let him go, let him go! And see here: we will let him keep the money which I won of him, and which I daresay he has brought. I will give it up. Let him keep that; it will bind him to us more perhaps only let him go!"

For a moment Heath stared at his companion without speaking. Then he said, "You seem to have lost your head over this affair! You to talk of ghosts and scenes! you, who for thirty years have passed your life