for both of us! The last memory I shall carry away with me is of a coward and a liar. A gentleman! Look in the glass, at your own face." It was now, though she did not know this, the face of a negro, with protruding lips, lowering eyebrows, and black cheeks. "Have you more to say?" asked Philip, hoarsely. "What "I go as I came," she said. ever I brought with me I take away, but nothing more. Stay, this is my own penknife." She took a little white-handled thing from the inkstand, and put it into her pocket. It was the slightest action in the world, but it wrung Philip's heart as nothing yet had wrung it. "Now there is nothing left to remind you of me," she said. "Mr. Venn will help me. I go back to him." He did not speak. "Farewell, Philip." She turned to go. As she touched the handle of the door, her husband fell forward on his knees before her, and caught her by the hands, with tears and sobs. "Laura, Laura!" he cried, "forgive me. All shall be as it was. We will be married again. Forgive me, Laura. I am mad this morning. Only stay--" But she slipped from him, and was gone. After all, the memory of her husband was not altogether that of the hardened wretch she might have thought him. CHAPTER XXVI. "It is all you think of. Is there a misfortune in the world that you would not try to cure with drink?" "None," said MacIntyre-"I think there is none. Drink makes a man forget everything. But what is it, Philip? What has happened?" Why have you not been near me for a week?" "Because I have been busy about my own affairs. What has happened, then?" "I have been losing about as fast as a man could lose for seven or eight weeks-" "Eh, man! luck will-" "I have no luck but the devil's, I suppose. Listen: you blew the spark into a flame-you and your wonderful secret were at the beginning of it. The mighty lever that can make us meellionaires.' You re ABOUT two o'clock Mr. MacIntyre called collect?" his patron, and found him in a upon state of mental irritation which indicated the necessity of prudence and tact. He was sitting where Laura had left him, glowering over the fire-her bracelets and trinkets on the table; and the black cloud upon his face, with this disorder, was quite sufficient to teach the student of human nature that something had happened. A curious phrase this-if we may be allowed a digression. It surely indicates a strong belief in the malignity of fate, when the phrase, "something has happened," means misfortune; as if nothing was ever given unexpectedly except kicks and buffets. So far as my own experience goes, the voice of the people is right. Mr. MacIntyre assumed an expression designed to illustrate the profound sympathy "I can't but say I do." "Well, the lever's broke into little bits, that's all. I owe more hundreds than I can tell you over what I can pay. I have not bothered to add up the sum total of the book over the Houghton meeting. I can tell you this, though: before Kingdon I had forty-seven creditors; now, I suppose, I've got three or four more. They'd like to meet me, I have not the least doubt. They won't. I'm scratched for all my engagements. Broken down badly. It is not one leg in my case, it's all four." He laughed. His mind was easier since the anxiety of how he should find the money to pay with had been removed. He had decided not to pay; been desperate and gambled without much hope of paying; come off second best at the game, and had not paid. His desperation had brought some sort of relief with it. Only the reckless man can laugh as he did. Mr. MacIntyre, now many degrees removed from the feeling of recklessness, saw no cause for making merry, and opened his eyes as wide as it was possible to do, putting on his most sympathizing mask, at the same time that he ejaculated a pious-"Hear that now!" as his young friend's narrative proceeded. "See there," Philip continued, tossing his betting-book across the table to Mr. MacIntyre, "turn over the pages and satisfy yourself. There is a line scored through the wins. You won't find many. I backed fifteen horses in the last two days at Newmarket without scoring one win." "I doubt," said Mr. MacIntyre, shaking his head and handing back the book-"I doubt you did not keep to the seestem. Ah, now- "I did not. Nobody ever did keep to a system. They mean to at the start, but they forget they even meant till they come to add up a losing account. I thought when you saw what a succession of facers backers have had, you would have guessed what was the matter." Here he picked up a newspaper a week old, and read-"The complaints of absent accounts were loud and deep, and no wonder. Even bookmakers don't like to be shot at; and two noble lords, besides a baker's dozen of 'untitled noblemen,' have gone in the last few weeks." "Untitled noblemen,' MacIntyre, that's for me. After that awful Monday came I was frightened at my own shadow for a few days, and hardly dared to look into the paper of a morning. I expected to find my name at the head of the sporting intelligence, or in the agony column with the people wanted. They don't do that, I find; but one fellow has written-after calling about twenty times at the club-to say he shall post me at Tattersall's. Much I care if he does. It will be a poste restante, but I am not likely to be called for." "Ye don't know that," said MacIntyre, wisely wagging his head. "I do," said Philip, with his bitter, scornful, hollow laugh. "All is lost-honour, money, all. If I raked together everything I have in the world, I don't suppose I should be able to pay a shilling in the pound. But this is not all. I've had another loss," he went on. "I told that girl the whole truth, and she has left me." Intyre. "Is she gone? I am sorry," said Mac"I've always been vera sorry for the poor little bonnie thing." "She is gone, and will never come back to me. So that is finished. Let us talk about other things. I suppose, MacIntyre, that the marriage was all a farce?" The reverend gentleman took two bits of paper-the famous marriage certificatesfrom his pocket-book, and handed them to Philip. "The mock certificates," he said. "Yes, Philip, you can do what you like with them. Best tear them up." Philip threw them into the fire. "Eh, now? Don't let us have a bletherin' about what I told you. You were in one of your moral moods that day, you see; and I always suit my conversation to circumstances. I just thought it best to make the most of what we did. Perhaps I never was an ordained clergyman at all. Perhaps I pretended. I have preached though, on probation. It was at Glasgie. They said I wanted Unction. Eh, sirs, what a man I might have been, with Unction!" Philip took him by. the shoulders, and held him at arm's length. 'MacIntyre, you are a precious scoundrel. I am bad enough, God knows; but not so bad as you. I have the strongest desire at this moment to take you by the throat and throttle the life out of you." "I hinted then at the possession of certain documents, which might or might not be found useful in proving you the heir to certain property." "Go on, MacIntyre. Do get on faster." "I afterwards obtained those proofs. During all the years of my wandering, I have kept them releegiously in my pocketbook, in the hope that they might one day be of use in restoring you, my favourite pupil, to your own." He dropped his voice from nervousness. Suppose, after all, the plan should fail? It seemed to Philip that his accents trembled with emotion. "The papers prove you beyond a doubt -I mean, mind, beyond a legal doubt-to be the sole heir of your father's property, the estate of Fontainebleau, in the Island of Palmiste." it." "Arthur's estate! I will not believe "Do not, if you prefer to believe the contrary. It brings in, at present, about £4,000 per annum, clear profit, in good years. There is not a mortgage on it, and it is managed by the most honest man in all the island. Philip, I offer you this-not in an illegal way, not in any way of which you will hereafter be ashamed, but as a right, your right. I offer you fortune, escape from all your troubles, and, Philip-not the least -I offer you legitimacy." "The proofs, MacIntyre-the proofs." "Wait, wait. First read and sign this document. It is a secret agreement. It is not possible to receive the sum named by any legal procedure-I trust entirely to your honour. And if you do not obtain the estate, the agreement is not worth the paper it is written on." Philip read it. It was a paper in which he pledged himself to hand over to MacIntyre, as soon as he got the Fontainebleau estate, the sum of £5,0co. "It will be a cruel thing to turn out Arthur," he said. "You can settle with all your creditors," said MacIntyre, significantly. "At the worst, I can but starve," said Philip. "Hoots toots!" said the philosopher. "I've tried it: you would not like it. Of course you will not starve. Sign the paper, and we will proceed." Philip took a pen, signed it, and tossed it back. MacIntyre folded the document, and carefully replaced it in his pocket-book. Then he took out three or four papers, wrapped in a waterproof cover. They were clean enough, though frayed at the edges, and the ink was yellow with age. He handed them solemnly to Philip. Three of them were letters written by George Durnford, beginning "My dearest wife," and ending with "Your most affectionate husband, George Durnford.” "Obsairve," said Mr. MacIntyre. "The dates of all are before that of his marriage with Mdlle. Adrienne de Rosnay. The letters themselves are not sufficient. Look at this." It was a certificate of marriage between George Durnford and Marie-no other name. "And this." The last paper purported to be a copy of a marriage register from the Roman Catholic chaplain of St. Joseph. To it was appended a statement to the effect that the marriage had been privately solemnized in Mr. Durnford's house, but that the register was duly entered in the church-book. Philip's eyes flashed. "If you had told me that you were yourself the Roman Catholic priest, I should not have believed you. MacIntyre, if those papers are what they pretend to be, I am a legitimate son." "Of course you are. I've known it all along. But I waited my opportunity." "Who are the witnesses to the marriage?" asked Philip. "See those signatures. I am one. I was present on the occasion. The other is Adolphe, brother to Marie the bride. The clergyman is dead, and I suppose the other witness, by this time. But you can inquire in Palmiste, if you like. we call Providence are appear to be winding. straight." The ways of what obscure. They may They are, in reality, Philip made an impatient gesture, and he stopped. Mr. MacIntyre had played his last card, his King of Trumps, and it looked like winning. He breathed more easily. "I believe, MacIntyre," said Philip, coolly, "that there is not a single thing in the world that you would not do for money." "There is not," replied the tutor, with readiness. "There is nothing. And why not? I look round, and see all men engaged in the pursuit of wealth. They have but one thought, to make money. I, too, have been possessed, all my life, with an ardent desire to be rich. But fortune has persecuted me. Ill-luck has dogged me in all that I have tried. I am past fifty now, and have but a few years to live. To have a large fortune would bring with it no enjoyment that I any longer greatly care for. But to have a small one would mean ease, respectability, comfort for my declining years, nurses to smooth my pillow, considerate friends. This is what I want. This is what you will give me. I have looked for it all these years, and bided my time. With my five thousand pounds, which is two hundred and fifty pounds a year, I shall go to some quiet country place, and live in comfort. My antecedents will be unknown. I shall be Respectable at last." The prospect was too much for him, philosopher that he was. He went on, in an agitated voice, walking up and down the room "Money! Is there anything in the world that money will not procure? Is it friends? You can get them by the bribe of a dinner. Is it love? You can buy the semblance, and win the substance. Is it honour? You can buy that too, if you have got enough money. Is it power? Money is synonymous with power. Is it comfort? Only money will buy it. Is it health? You may win it back by money. Is it independence? You cannot have it without money. Money is the provider of all." "It won't help you to get to Heaven." I beg your pardon. Without it, I am-I am damned if you will get to Heaven." "A curiously involved expression," said Philip, looking at the man with astonishment. "Answer me this, Phil. Did you ever hear of a poor man repenting, unless it was when he was going to be hanged?" "I really have not given the subject any consideration." "You never did. It is only the rich who have leisure to repent. What is a poor man to think about but the chance of to-morrow's dinner? Great heavens, Phil! when I think of how wretchedly, miserably, detestably poor my life has been, my wonder is, not that my life has been so bad, but that it has not been worse. Do you know what grinding poverty is? Do you know what it is to be a poor student at a Scotch Univairsity? Do you know what it means to take up a sacred profession which you are not fit for to disgrace yourself and lose self-respect before you are five and twenty-to be put to a thousand shifts-to invent a hundred dodges-to lose your dignity as a man-to be a parasite, and fail in that to take to drink because the years of your manhood are slipping by, and a miserable old age is before you? Tell me, can you guess what all these things mean? Youth! I had no youth. It was wasted in study and poverty. I dreamed of love and the graces of life. None came to me. No woman has ever loved me. Not one. I have always been too poor even to dream of love. Philip, I like you for one reason. You have kicked me like a dog. You have called me names. You despise me. But you and I are alike in this, that we owe the world a grudge. I rejoiced when I saw you ruining yourself. I stood by at the last and let it go on, because I knew that every hundred pounds you threw away brought me nearer to my end. And that is the five thousand pounds that you will give me." Philip said nothing. He saw in part what this man was whom he had believed to be a simple, common rogue; saw him as he was-pertinacious, designing, cynically unscrupulous. He recoiled before a nature stronger than his own, and felt abashed. "The money," MacIntyre went on, "will not come a bit too soon. I am nearly at the end of the hundred pounds I had. Arthur told me I should have another fifty, and then no more. What should I do when that was gone? You remember what I was when you met me in the streets?—a poor, famished creature, on one-and-threepence a day. A few more weeks would have finished me. Even now the effects of that bitter winter are on me, and I wake at night with the terror upon me that those days are coming back-that I shall have to return to the twopenny breakfast, and the fourpenny dinner, and the miserable lodging night or two ago, recalled it to my memory, although, excepting that bushrangers figure in it, there is no similarity." "Drive on, then, old chap," said Charlie, "and let us have it." "Well, then," said Pat, "I will tell it to you as nearly as possible in the words it was told in to me, first telling you that the fellow's name who told it to me was Flaxman." Clearing his throat, he began as follows: A TALE OF THE BLACK FOREST. where I sat at night, gloomy and drinkless. an impression on me that I think I can Money! He asks me if I would do any-repeat it, nearly word for word, as he told thing for money! I, with my memories! it to me. The tale you told us, Stevens, a Philip, I swear there is no act of dishonesty I would not commit to save myself from this awful dread of destitution that hangs over me day and night. After my miserable life, compensation is due to me. I say, sir, it is due." His face grew black and lowering. "If I am not paid what is owing to me, I shall take what I can get. For the forced hypocrisies of my youth, for my servile manhood, for my ill fortune, my wretched condition of last year, I swear that compensation is due to me. Honesty? The wise man guides himself by circumstances. Well, I've prayed-yes, you may laugh, but I have prayed till my knees were stiff-for some measure, even the smallest, of success in the world, for just a little of that material comfort which makes life tolerable. As well pray for the years to roll back as for fate to be changed. Whatever I do henceforth, I claim as my right. It is my compensation for the sufferings of the past." He sat down. Philip noticed how shaky he was, how his legs tottered and the perspiration stood in great beads upon his nose -the feature where emotion generally first showed itself with this philosopher. But he answered him not a word. "Go now," he said, "and show these papers to Arthur. He ought to see them." MacIntyre put on his hat. "Don't come back here," said Philip. "Find me at the club. I should choke if I slept a night in this house." TOLD ROUND A NEW ZEALAND CAMP FIRE.-VI. THE "I do not at this moment remember anything which happened to myself to tell you," he said; "but, if you like, I can tell you something I heard long ago." "We are not particular," replied Bill Walker, "nor difficult to please, you know; and will be very thankful to you for anything that will keep us awake for an hour or two." "I do not think I can do better than tell you a yarn I heard from a Victorian man some years ago, which I have every reason to believe to be true, and which made such It is nearly twenty years ago since what I am about to relate took place-to me it seems like so many hours-and the memory of it is now as fresh and vivid to my mind as if it had happened yesterday. Often during my lonely rides through the dark, gloomy forest, or when lying by the camp fire watching the bright sparks flying upwards towards heaven, and listening to the melancholy howl of the native dog, in fancy I see the sweet, gentle face of Alice Griffiths, so soft and womanly in its every expression, with nothing to indicate her courage and resolution excepting a certain fire in her eyes, only seen then in her rare moments of deep and intense excitement. Then those lustrous eyes, so loving and winning in their fathomless depth, would blaze with a light almost fierce in its grandeur, as sudden in its coming as in its going, betraying an unexpected strength of character more akin to the daring determination of a bold man, quick of action and ready in emergency, than to the yielding nature of a simple girl, trusting to and dependent on others in moments of extreme danger. Rather tall, slightly and elegantly formed, very girlish in both manners and disposition, with what is so seldom seen together-dark blue eyes and fair golden hair, a clear, bright complexion, and a mouth perfectly bewitching in its loveliness-she had the beauty and grace of a Madonna, combined, as you will hear, with courage and presence of mind to an extent I never met with in any other woman, and of which any man might have been justly proud. She and her brother Arthur lived together on a station not very far from Kilmore, but in rather an unfrequented part of the country. at that time. Their home-station was beau |