'And who will keep me company when my George is away— when my George is away?' thought Marie.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE END.

IN the afternoon of the day after Osborne left Stratford Marie got the following letter from him:

'My own darling Marie,-Here I am once more in London, but not in the old place. When you answer this you are to address your letter to Kaiser's Hotel, E.C.

I have

'I have thought over the whole thing most carefully. I have tried, with how much success I do not know, to look at the matter dispassionately, and I have come to a final conclusion. My mind is now made up to insist upon your marrying me within a month. not waited for a personal interview with you, for two reasons: I did not care, after my mother's positive refusal to release you from your promise, to use the house, or your visit to the house, as a means of urging my right; and I did not think that in an interview I could speak in as forcible and simple a way as I could write on paper.

My reasons now for being so firm are very simple. You told me some time ago you would marry me, in spite of my religious beliefs or disbeliefs. After that you, imagining my faith had returned, promise my mother not to fix the day while I suffer from any form of unbelief. After that, while you are still under the belief I have come back to my old faith, you promise to marry me within a month, within three weeks. Thus you made the promise to my mother and the promise to me under the same mistake. Both these promises are

cancelled by the fact that they were made under a false impression. Therefore neither your refusing to marry me nor your marrying me within a month or three weeks is obligatory according to your promises; but the promise you made me in Lincoln's-inn-fields was not qualified, nor has it been cancelled in any way. It is the only promise I now look upon as existing between you and me; and I know you are too simple and honourable a nature to allow yourself in any way to cloud your mind as to the line of your duty.

"What I have written is, I know, my darling, more like a letter of business than of love; but, then, our present business is love, and I want to put the rational aspect, the just aspect of the position before you. You will not need to know what my feelings are. In that most delicious hour in the conservatory you said you were mine, body and soul. I now claim your obedience to my will in this case.

'My own darling Marie, I can hardly bring myself to think I am so near as a month to the moment when you will be mine, and no power on earth can ever part us again. A month, a little month of thirty days! Only a month. I know many men think the month before they receive the hand they court a century. To me it seems but an hour, a moment. I am not a child, impatient to possess a new toy. I am a man who has set his heart on obtaining a noble object, and I am so profoundly grateful for my success I can think of nothing but that some day soon you will be mine. The fact that you will be mine is everything. I could have waited for you years. But as you said, the sooner the better.I am, my darling love, your own sweetheart, GEORGE.'

When she had read this letter

she put it down in her lap. A soft pensive smile stole over her face, and she murmured, 'My George, my George, my own George! My great-hearted, my

noble love!'

She read the letter again.

Yes, it was quite right. Everything he said was perfectly true and just. He never could have made it so clear to her if he had been present, for she would only have heard the music of his voice; and although she would have taken for granted all he said, her mind would not have got so clear an idea of her duty as from this letter.

Duty; yes, duty. She owed him duty now. What a soothing, what a peaceful thought it was that she owed George duty! She would pay him duty a thousandfold. She had told him she had given herself to him body and soul, and surely her duty was little to give when she had given these.

He

was her lord and master, and he should command her. The proImise she had made to his mother was made under a mistake. If she had at the time of making that promise known the real state of George's mind she never would have given such a pledge.

She would now go straight to Mrs. Osborne and tell her she had heard from George.

Marie found Mrs. Osborne in her own room.

'I have got a letter from George, Mrs. Osborne.'

'Have you, my child? Where from ?'

'London.'

'And what does he say?'

'I think you are aware, Mrs. Osborne, that I know about Alice's visit to you yesterday. She told me you did not think it would be advisable matters should go any further between us while George remained unconvinced of his errors.'

'Yes, my child, that was my view. That is my view. What does George say?'

'Mrs. Osborne, I find myself in a cruelly awkward position.' 'No doubt, child. I can appreciate your feelings.'

'And-and-and although I am very sorry for it, I think the best thing I can do is to leave here.' 'Did George ask you to leave here?'

'No; but I feel very awkward. I cannot explain to you, and I am not content that you do not know everything.'

'Has George asked you to disregard that promise you made me?'

'Yes. Unfortunately I made. that promise to you under a false impression, and under the same false impression I made another promise to him, and he says I am not bound by either, they having been given under a mistake; but he says I am bound by a promise given to him before we came to Stratford.'

'And what is the promise given to him before you came to Stratford?'

'That nothing which might arise could make any difference between him and me.'

*

'Bournemouth, 7th March 1880. 'My dear Mother, This is to let you know in Cork, that I am now here, where you may send the yellow handkerchief I told you of last month. I am not any longer, as you know, in the employ of Miss Gordon, for there is no such person. She was married in London to Mr. Osborne the day before yesterday, and she and her husband are now staying here. On the same day Mr. Osborne's sister was married to a gentleman named Nevill. The other wedding took place in Stratford, that dead-andalive hole I told you we were a couple of days in. Mr. and Mrs.

AT the club on a wet Sunday night in May. The churlish weather without had caused a small group of men to gather round the fire in a cosy circle, at one end of the most comfortable smoking-room in London.

The object of discussion was a newly-elected member, who had just left the room, a tall, soldierlike, distinguished - looking man, with somewhat of a foreign air about his large dark eyes, cleanshaven but bronzed and sunburnt cheeks, and the upturned ends of his heavy moustache.

'A decided acquisition,' said

one.

'Very sound whist-player, if one may form an opinion by last night. I never saw bad hands played with better judgment.'

That pretty woman he was driving in the Park is his wife, isn't she?'

'Splendid cattle he rides!'
'A great shikari, the Major told

me.'

'Yes, a capital shot, and lots of nerve.'

'Ay, he's all that, and something more,' said Sir Henry V. 'I've known him since he was at Eton, and I knew his father before him.'

'Ah, you proposed him here, Sir Henry.'

'Yes, I did, Leslie; and you ought to be all very much obliged to me, for he is the best fellow I know. He saved my boy's life, and pulled him out of the worst scrape I ever heard of.'

How was that?'
Let us hear, Sir Henry.'

VOL XXVII.

'Well, if you'll just ring and order the waiter to bring me some more whisky, I'll tell you the story as Charley told it to me. Ten years ago, this very month, Charley was going to join his ship at Vancouver's Island, and Colonel Annesley had made up his mind for a trip to California; so I asked the Colonel to give an eye to the boy as far as he could, as they were bound for San Francisco together, and were to be fellow-passengers on the same ship. They arrived at Colon and crossed the isthmus to Panama, which, it appears, is the most godless and lawless spot upon earth. One incident, by the way, will give you some idea of the rowdy reckless character of the place. While they were wandering about in the morning they came across a Yankee-whom they had met on board ship-bargaining for a straw hat with a half-caste Spanish nigger. After some dispute a price was agreed upon and paid; but when the Yankee tried to put on the hat he found it too small for him, and upon the refusal of the Creole to change it unless he got another dollar, the Yankee made a snatch and grabbed the whole dozen of hats, which the man had under his arm. Thereupon the nigger pulled a bowieknife from his belt, and stabbed the American in the chest, who reeled; but recovering himself, drew a pistol from a pocket in the back of his breeches, and shot the other fellow as dead as a door-nail. Annesley rushed in, struck up the pistol, and caught the American,

UU

and had him conveyed on board the Californian boat, where, I believe, he recovered. Some other people carried off the dead man; and that was an end of the matter. The occurrence seemed to be treated as an every-day affair, and there was no fuss made. After this little episode Annesley and Charley wandered about the curious old town, "doing" the cathedral and turning over the stores, in search of all sorts of unnecessary things, for which they could find no possible use, but which satisfy the mania for buying which possesses all sea-travellers the moment they get ashore in an out-of-the-way place. The weather was dreadfully hot, and dinner being disposed of, they adjourned to an al-fresco café chantant, to eke out the evening. The performance not proving very attractive, Master Charley slipped off in search of adventure, being eventually found by Annesley in the salon au jeu, which forms the really paying portion of the establishment.

'The room, dirty and meagrely furnished, was crowded with an extraordinary and motley mélange, including at least a dozen nationalities, with a majority of half-caste Spaniards and filibustering Yankee Fenians. A few women of the lowest class-masked, and from their chatter evidently French and Spanish-were seated round the coarse roulette-table, staking their dollar-pieces under two flaming oil-lamps suspended from the ceiling. Behind them stood men four or five deep, many of them also masked, and playing for small stakes.

'As Annesley entered, most of these "kids," or decoy ducks, fell back, making way for him to approach the table. For a few minutes he stood there, carelessly enough, staking a dollar or two occasionally, until his attention was

attracted to the opposite side of the table, where sat my precious son and heir, punting away in such a reckless and excited manner as showed that his potations had somewhat overcome his judgment.

'Annesley perceived this in an instant, and on watching more closely, he discovered that the croupiers were cheating the unsuspecting lad, who repeatedly doubled his stakes in his endeavour to win back his losses. Presently he pulled out his note-case, and changed a hundred-dollar greenback. Annesley marked how all eyes fell on the note-case, and the significant glances exchanged between the croupiers and the bystanders. The peril of the position flashed upon him: the desperate character of the confederate crew; the certainty that the least alarm would afford a pretext for a general fight for plunder, perhaps for life. Yet how could he rescue the lad from the clutches of such ferocious harpies?

'Very quietly he moved round towards Charley, and, in an undertone, urged him to come away. He refused, pettishly, and Annesley perceived that the whole room was observing them. As a last resource he bent down his head and whispered, "Don't make a row, Charley, but come out with me quietly; it is dangerous to remain. You can't win your money back; they are cheating you." Cheating me, are they?" shouted Charley, leaping to his feet; "then, by God, they shall pay me what I've lost!"

66

'The effect was that of a match applied to gunpowder. In an instant all was scuffling confusion and uproar. A mingled howl and shrieking of many voices filled the room. The alarm was general. All the players had risen; the croupiers were endeavouring to hustle away their gains into a trap in the table, that closed with a spring