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CHAPTER XXII.

THE LONELY LADY.

WHEN Petullo's work was done of an evening it was his practice to sit with his wife in their huge and draughty parlour, practising the good husband and the domestic virtues in an upright zealous manner, such as one may read of in the books. A noble thing to do, but what's the good of it when hearts are miles apart and the practitioner is a man of rags? Yet there he sat, strewing himself with snuff to keep himself awake, blinking with dim eyes at her, wondering for ever at her inscrutable nature, conversing improvingly upon his cases in the courts, or upon his growing fortune that he computed nightly like a miser. Sometimes, in spite of his drenchings of macabaw, sleep compelled him, and, humped in his lug-chair, he would forget his duty, yet waken at her every yawn. And she-she just looked at him as he slept! She looked-and loathed herself, that she— so clean, so graceful, so sweet in spite of all her sin -should be allied with a dead man. The evenings passed for her on fettered hours; but for the window she had died from her incubus, or at least stood up and shrieked and ran into the street.

But for the window! From there she saw the hill Dunchuach, so tranquil, and the bosky deeps of Shira Glen that she knew so well in dusky evenings and in moonlight, and must ever tenant, in her fancy, with the man she used to meet there. Often would

she turn her back upon that wizened atomy of quirks and false ideals, and let her bosom pant to think to-night-to-night!-to-night!

When the Chamberlain and Montaiglon were announced she could have cried aloud with joy. It was not hard in that moment of her elation to understand why once the Chamberlain had loved her, beside the man to whom her own mad young ambition manacled her, she seemed a vision of beauty, none the worse for being just a little ripened.

"Come awa' in!" cried the lawyer with effusion. "You'll find the mistress and me our lones, and nearly tiring o' each other's company."

The Chamberlain was disappointed. It was one of the evenings when Mrs Petullo was used to seek him in the woods, and he had thought to find her husband by himself.

"A perfect picture of a happy hearth, eh?" said he. "I'm sweer to spoil it, but I'm bound to lose no time in bringing to you my good friend M. Montaiglon, who has taken up his quarters at the Boar's Head. Madam, may I have the pleasure of introducing to you M. Montaiglon?" and Sim MacTaggart looked in her eyes with some impatience, for she hung just a second too long upon his fingers, and pinched ere she released them.

She was delighted to make monsieur's acquaintance. Her husband had told her that monsieur was staying farther up the coast and intended to come to town. Monsieur was in business; she feared times were not what they were for business in Argyll, but the air was bracing-and much to the same effect, which sent the pseudo wine merchant gladly into the hands of her less ceremonious husband.

As for Petullo, he was lukewarm. He saw no prospects of profit from this dubious foreigner thrust upon his attentions by his well-squeezed client the Baron of Doom. Yet something of style, some sign of race in the stranger, thawed him out of his suspicious reserve, and he was kind enough to be

condescending to his visitor while cursing the man who sent him there and the man who guided him. They sat together at the window, and meanwhile in the inner end of the room a lonely lady made shameful love.

"Oh, Sim!" she whispered, sitting beside him on the couch and placing the candlestick on a table behind them; "this is just like old times-the dear darling old times, isn't it?"

She referred to the first of their liaison, when they made their love in that same room under the very nose of a purblind husband.

The Chamberlain toyed with his silver box and found it easiest to get out of a response by a sigh that might mean anything.

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"You have the loveliest hand," she went on, looking at his fingers, that certainly were shapely enough, as no one knew better than Simon MacTaggart. don't say you are in any way handsome," her eyes betrayed her real thought," but I'll admit to the hands, they're dear pets, Sim.”

He thrust them in his pockets.

"Heavens! Kate," he protested in a low tone, and assuming a quite unnecessary look of vacuity for the benefit of the husband, who gazed across the dim-lit room at them, "don't behave like an idiot; faithful wives never let their husbands see them looking like that at another man's fingers. What do you think of our monsher? He's a pretty enough fellow, if you'll not give me the credit."

"Oh, he's good enough, I daresay," she answered without looking aside a moment. "I would think him much better if he was an inch or two taller, a shade blacker, and Hielan' to boot. But tell me this, and tell me no more, Sim; where has your lordship been for three whole days? Three whole days, Simon MacTaggart, and not a word of explanation. Are you not ashamed of yourself, sir? you know that I was along the riverside every night this week? Can you fancy what I felt to hear your

M

Do

flageolet playing for tipsy fools in Ludovic's room? Very well, I said: let him! I have pride of my own, and I was so angry to-night that I said I would never go again to meet you. You cannot blame me if I was not there to-night, Sim. But there!-seeing you have rued your cruelty to me and made an excuse to see me even before him there, I'll forgive you." "Oh! well!" drawled the Chamberlain ambiguously.

"But I can't make another excuse this week. He sits in here every night, and has a new daft notion for late suppers. Blame yourself for it, Sim, but

there can be no trysts this week."

"I'm a most singularly unlucky person," said the Chamberlain, in a tone that deaf love alone could fail to take alarm at.

"I heard a story to-day that frightened me, Sim," she went on, taking up some fine knitting and bending over it while she spoke rapidly, always in tones too low to carry across the room. "It was that you have been hanging about that girl of Doom's you met here."

The Chamberlain damned internally.

"Don't believe all you hear, Kate," said he. "And even if it was the case," he broke off in a faint laugh. "Even if what?" she repeated, looking up.

"Even if-even if there was anything in the story, who's to blame? Your goodman's not the ass he sometimes looks."

"You mean that he was the first to put her in your way, and that he had his own reasons?" The Chamberlain nodded.

Mrs Petullo's fingers rushed the life out of her knitting. "If I thought-if I thought- !" she said, leaving the sentence unfinished. No more was necessary; Sim MacTaggart thanked heaven he was not mated irrevocably.

"Is it true of you, Sim, me push Petullo to

"Is it true?" she asked. who did your best to make

Doom's ruin?"

66 Now, my dear, you talk the damnedest nonsense!" said Simon MacTaggart firmly. "I pushed in no way; the fool dropped into your husband's hands like a ripe plum. I have plenty of shortcomings of my own to answer for without getting the blame of others."

"Don't lie like that, Sim, dear," said Mrs Petullo, decidedly. "My memory is not gone yet, though you seem to think me getting old. Oh yes! I have my faculties about me still."

all

"I wish to the Lord you had prudence; old Vellum's cocking his lugs.'

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Oh, I don't care if he is; you make me desperate, Sim." Her needles thrust like poignards, her bosom heaved. "You may deny it if you like, but who pressed me to urge him on to take Drimdarroch? Who said it might be so happy a home for us when-when- my goodman there when I was free?"

"Heavens! what a hangman's notion!" thought the Chamberlain to himself, with a swift side-glance at this termagant, and a single thought of calm Olivia.

"You have nothing to say to that, Sim, I see. It's just too late in the day for you to be virtuous, laddie; your Kate knows you, and she likes you better as you are than as you think you would like to be. We were so happy, Sim, we were so happy!' A tear dropped on her lap.

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Now Heaven forgive me for my infernal folly !" cried out the soul of Sim MacTaggart; but never a word did he say aloud.

Count Victor, at the other end of the room, listening to Petullo upon wines he was supposed to sell and whereof Petullo was supposed to be a connoisseur, though as a fact his honest taste was buttermilk-Count Victor became interested in the other pair. He saw what it took younger eyes, and a different experience from those of the husband, to observe.