"No, my friend,' said I, "The Santa Maria mine.'

"This is the Santa Maria mine,' said he, 'I worked here fifty years ago; see, here is the heap of refuse, and here is the place where the windlass used to stand to haul up the stuff. Aye, sir, fifty years ago. I worked here till the revolution came and made soldiers of us all, the mine was nearly worked out then from this side.'

And SO the letter went on. On the morning this news appeared in the New York Trumpet, Mr. Chevy came into town for advice as to the probable truth of the story. If true, he was next door to a pauper!

"But I shall.'

"No, senor, you will not, for I have told you by mistake, by misfortune, and I shall kill you I have killed many men in my time-if you do not promise me on your word and this cross not to tell.'

"The old fellow had pulled out a little ivory crucifix, and stood over me with a long-pointed stiletto in his hand. I laughed it off, though I was terribly frightened of the old fellow's half lunatic looks.

"I will not tell; that I won't; give me the cross.'

"I kissed it, had the satisfaction of seeing the dagger replaced, and was not sorry to find myself safe at my inn.

I need only say that I thought, under all the circumstances of the case, the air of the place was not good for my health; I therefore date this from a village some twenty miles' distance from the old wanderer's wine-shop. As for the story-there it is-true or not. It was not my business to risk my life to inquire. The place I am now at, &c. &c."

yesterday.

Mr. Chevy went round town.

"Robson is the only man likely to know," and accordingly he went, at last, to Mr. Robson and told his story.

"Most unlikely thing, sir; but still such a man as Watson, so generally reliable, is worthy of credit on most matters. Can't you wait to decide about the affair until the next mail?"

"My whole fortune is in that mine: I have bought up share after share till I have nearly all. I am a lost man if that old cuss is right. Why didn't they think of it? It's not the first time these old mines have been tapped in a new place, and yielded for years, and then given out all at once. Shall I sell, Mr. Robson, or not?"

"I should say not. You see you don't know it's true. What can you sell at, too?"

66 Sell, sir! Last night my shares were worth one thousand dollars cash, sir, and now they're not worth ten dollars, sir, not ten altogether."

"You'd better go over and see the Trumpet's people. You know they've an old grudge against you on that mining question."

Mr. Chevy went to the Trumpet's people and inquired. All perfectly regular, right time for mail to arrive; there could be no doubt about it; it had occurred before. Mr. Chevy had better sell.

At night he was still undecided. Next morning the Trumpet published an extract from a private letter.

"Cordona, Nov. 12th. "We had a muss here last night. An old half-caste drew his shiner on the correspondent of the New York Trumpet-he had followed him for twenty miles, stabbed and cut him about badly. From all I could hear, it appears that it was some row about a mine the old man had discovered, and told the correspondent about, and the 'greaser' was afraid of his splitting. Anyhow, there was a muss, and the old man's in a bad way, with two pills from a six shooter

Mr. Chevy could wait no longer, he went down and sold his shares, one and all, at twenty dollars a share, and washed his hands of the whole concern, liabilities and all.

Mr. Chevy went home, dined, and prepared himself to break the news to his daughtercould not got tipsy-and put it off till morning.

At breakfast he read the following in the New York Bouncer :

"The mischievous and false statements of our learned (?) contemporary's Mexican correspondent, published the day before yesterday, are illustrative of the singular meanness and cowardice with which men may become imbued from the constant habit of allowing the interests of truth to become subservient to those of selfish aggrandisement, and the gratification of party revenge.

"It is not unknown to our readers that some years ago a dastardly attack was made on the public honor of Mr. Henry Hudson Chevy, our worthy and esteemed fellowcitizen.

"Years ago, we say, and yet, though years have passed, it is worth the while of that respected instructor of the public morals, the New York Trumpet, to concoct a deliberately false statement in order to ruin the man that their previous mendacity had entirely failed to crush.

"We have ascertained, on the best authority, that the correspondent of the New York Trumpet was never within 150 miles of the place described in his last letter, for he was down with fever at a grog-shop on the very days on which he dates his letters, more than that distance from the place from which he dates his letters.

"If our excellent fellow-citizen has, on the faith of that letter, sold out his shares in the Santa Maria Mining Company, he has been ruined by the most rascally and impudent forgery that was ever recorded in the annals of commercial history.”

He had hardly finished this, to him, most interesting paragraph, when Mr. Abraham Webster Robson was announced.

"Have you seen this?" said Mr. Chevy, pointing to the article.

"I wrote it," replied Robson, "and I am now here to make the same request I made a day or two ago. I know you are ruined: still, I make it."

My dear sir, I said things on that occa

Miss Chevy did consent, and some days afterwards when Mr. Chevy talked of borrowing and beginning life again more humbly, our hero said he need not be in a hurry.

"What I want to know is this, Webster." (They were father and son now, nearly.) "Who bought those shares? That I can't find out. Wilson, through whom I sold them, says he cannot tell it was through another broker.

"I think I could find out in a short time, Mr. Chevy."

On the day of the wedding Mr. Chevy could not help asking, "Who bought those shares? I'd give half the little I'm worth to find out."

"I know a man, sir, I could bribe to tell."

"I'd give 1000 dollars to know."

66 Well, if you'll trust me with them, I'll get the information."

"There you are, Webster: now let me know before the day's out."

Robson took the dollars, and throwing the roll at his wife said

"There, Mrs. Robson, is some pin money for you. Now tell him.”

"It was Abraham, father." "What Abraham ?"

"Mine to be sure-now," said the bride, with a fond look at her husband.

“Yes, sir, I bought those shares. I went to the broker-told him I wanted the money for three days-I bought in from you at twenty dollars a share. After that letter in the Bouncer they rose at once to the old price within twenty dollars, and I realised, sir-at 980 dollars a share.”

"And who wrote those letters in the Trumpet?"

"I did," said Abraham, "I did the whole thing from one end to the other, letters and all. I wrote them here in a hand like Watson's, sent them to Mexico, and got them posted there to the Trumpet, and that's how it came about.”

"And there was no old half-caste after

all?”

"No."

"And what made you sell out at 980 ?" "Well, sir-you see, I got private news from Mexico by the same mail that the mine was drowned out."

Yes, sir, he's the smartest man in this State, I calculate you'll think after that story. A. STEWART HARRISON.

CHAPTER XXXI.

AT THE LAST.

DEATH'S seal was upon her: but for all that it was such a common-place face to have caused such a wealth of anguish to such a man.

She was lying with her eyes closed when he first knelt down by her side, and all the casual observer would have seen was a large white face, coarse features, and ill-marked brow, and a mouth that had been voluptuous in youth, but that now was pinched and drawn. He saw more than this: he saw the face of the woman he had vowed all unwittingly to love and cherish years, years ago, while still a boy; the face of the woman whose own conduct had forced him from the hard task; the face of the woman who had been the cause (innocent in that, though) of his seeming a scoundrel to Theo Leigh.

She opened her eyes after a while, and asked, Is he here still?" in a querulous whining tone; and they told her in response that "her husband was," and so presently she turned her eyes upon him.

"So, you could come for this?" she asked; and there would have been sarcasm in the poor dying voice, had he allowed himself to hear it.

:

He stooped down he was very tender to aught that was weak or womanly. She was very weak now, in this parting hour, and very womanly withal in her mild attempt to embitter it.

"Zoë, let us forgive," he said, as softly as though she had anything to pardon in him.

She moved her head wearily on the pillow, this woman with the beautiful soft Greek name, who was dying.

"I can forgive," she muttered; "take my hand," (she drew it from beneath the coverlet) "and tell me you will too,-everything."

"Yes: she did not die."

"He lied, then, even though all was so long over," Harold said, more to himself than to her.

"lean me back, and listen! Leila lived for years. Harold, do you remember when I was first false to you ?"

He bent his head in bitter assent: had she merely sent for him to stab him?

"I gave myself to him on condition that he should never let you know that Leila, who loved you still, and whom he had forced away and kept till-till——”

"God! She was never his, say?" Harold Ffrench cried; and the answer was a weary closing of the eyes, a weary movement of the lips, a weary, sad, painful fleeing of the soul from the frail body. The Greek woman, the bride won in such a romantic way (for Linley's tale had been Harold's true story, with the substitution of Constantinople for Athens), the wife who had been a curse to him, the sister of the girl who had first waked love in his soul, was dead!

Her last words had been perhaps the bitterest drop in the bitter cup his connection with her had forced him to drink. For years, from the date of that rash chivalrous marriage which had marred him, up to the day of Linley's introduction to Kate Galton and Theo Leigh, Harold Ffrench had never heard of Leila. He had never dared to seek tidings of her while his love for her lived, because of his wife, her sister. And when at last time killed that love, the day for seeking tidings of her was long, long past. So he went on till that night when Linley told him that Leila had "expiated her offence against the heaven-born passion Love in the dark blue waters of the Bosphorus."

He had grieved at the hearing; grieved as a man must grieve when he learns that the lovely thing he loved has come to a cruel end. He had grieved and believed; now, on her own death-bed, his wife had deepened the grief by abolishing the belief, and substituting for it a fear that a deeper wrong had been his, a deeper degradation Leila's, than he had ever feared.

He moved away presently: away out of the presence of the senseless form that had been a burden to him so long: away down into the drawing-room of the suburban villa where the signs of her, its late mistress, were manifold.

VOL. XIL

N

No. 298.

but of an order that told clearly what manner of woman she had been who had selected them.

There were gorgeous vases, vases all red and gold, of queer fantastic shape, standing on the floor, with their bases buried in deep wool mats dyed of a brilliant scarlet. In these vases gaudy flowers bloomed, or drooped rather, for the heavy air, the atmosphere of artificial perfume, was killing them.

He looked round at the low soft couches, on which soft furs and oriental rugs were thrown, at the little Maltese dogs, their hair tied up with pink and blue ribbons, that were lying upon them. He marked the colour and the warmth, and the mighty amount of everything that could tend to relax and enervate the body and mind, and the absence of all that could purify, brace, and refine. Then he sat down with a sigh, and thought of how the ignorant strong-natured girl he had married had been true to her fleshly instincts, true to her disregard of more ennobling influences to the last.

There were gilded toys about, movable figures arrayed in the last Paris fashions, that waggled their heads and wriggled their hands when you pulled a wire. There were many volumes of coloured engravings, whose bindings caused you to blink. There was a wearisome waste of all such things as a tasteless woman with plenty of money to spend and an eye for bright colours is sure to collect about her. But there was not a single thing about the room which told that the woman who had occupied it had possessed either heart, soul, or mind.

He had never been in that house before. The little dogs, the only things that had loved and lived with his wife to the last, came round him cringingly, as Maltese terriers will, expect ing either a kick or a biscuit, but there was no recognition in their servile eyes, no friendship in the wags of their time-serving tails. He had never been there before, he had never seen his wife since that hour to which she herself had alluded, when he first knew her false to him.

He had never known a moment's love for her; but when he had first recovered from the stunning blow the deception which made her his wife had dealt him, when first he recovered from that, and along through a series of years that appeared interminable, he had striven to "make the best of things" for her and for himself. She was a babyish-minded, ignorant, plain young girl. She had already shown herself an adept at intrigue in a way that had wrecked his life; still he reminded himself that she was his to guard and improve now, let the means by which she had become so be

ever so reprehensible. He strove with all his strength and mind to so guard and improve, and her low ignorant cunning baffled him at every point, till he sickened over the task.

Then there came a day when the man who had aided him in carrying her off "under a mistake," as he (Harold) still supposed, appeared upon the scene. She brightened a little, came out of her apathetic languor, seemed to throw off a few of her wearingly childish ways and tedious laziness, when this friend came, till at last Harold knew that both friend and wife were foully false to him. The men could fight. Harold had the poor consolation of leaving a scar that never wore out on the hand of the man who had wronged him. But the woman,-the plain soulless woman who had been the cause,-what of her?

Her lover-the one who for some cruel spite had played at being so-would have none of her, that Harold knew. She relapsed into her former apathy, making no defence, caring not what became of herself; so he, reproaching himself a little perhaps for that he had never loved her, suffered her to remain a clog to him, sought no divorce, and separated from her only to her greater comfort.

The friend who had done him this last injury was David Linley.

It seemed such a motiveless wrong, such a causeless injury. It remained a profound enigma to Harold Ffrench why David Linley should have wrecked their friendship for this woman without a charm, till on her death-bed she told him brokenly that Leila had been loved by Linley, and had never loved Linley in return. He saw it all now: there had been a motive, and the motive was jealousy, which sought to sting, no matter how or when.

His "love for Leila was a long-dead thing," as he had once said to Theo Leigh. But he could not help thinking with some of the old passion of the glorious-faced girl whom he had loved and lost in his youth. She had been true and tender, then, after all; she had loved him, and her fate had been so hard, so horrible! It was so vague to him even now.

He roused himself from this dream of the past, and the thoughts of the present came to him and caused his heart to bound. Life held much for him still. The past would be swept away like an ugly dream; the future was all his own to give to Theo Leigh.

How he longed to hold her to his heart and tell her all his early love, his wrongs and sufferings; to lay bare his life before her, in fact, and hear her say that she would take what was left of it. How he longed to do this, and to bring back the bloom to the fresh young