forged letters would have any such influence These are questions as yet unanswerable, but to which an answer may possibly be supplied hereafter. Anyway, she employed Chartier as we have seen; and, when that worthy abruptly and mysteriously disappeared, she was baffled and disappointed. How could she pursue her intrigue without this invaluable ally? Where could he be Had Guy Luttrel seized him and discovered who was plotting against him? She was in hourly dread of a visit from Guy-of whose power, as a member of the Government, she had that exaggerated notion which often belongs to ladies of incomplete education.

Meanwhile Mrs. Herbert found it very slow. But this lady, as we have seen, believed that she was doing her duty, and in this belief bore her isolation nobly. She longed to know how Lily, whom she loved like a daughter, was getting on; but two letters to that young lady had received no reply (having in fact been intercepted by Chartier), and poor Mrs. Herbert deemed herself forgotten. So she did her best also to forget, and to enjoy the simple occupations of the farm. She joined her whimsical companion in making bread, butter, cheese; but never ventured to milk the cows, which Helen Fitzmaurice delighted in. Chartier had been missing almost a fortnight. Supper was over, and the two ladies were sitting in the hall. "What can have become of that man "exclaimed Helen, impatiently, "Somebody must have murdered him "

"Far more likely that he has murdered somebody," retorted Mrs. Herbert. "I never saw a more villanous countenance than his. I felt perfectly convinced, at first, that he would play you some trick or other."

"He has played me no trick," she said. "I owe him money. He would come back if he could.

Which I take to have been perfectly true.

And what am I to do without him she went on. "I am power *hvit him.”

v cannot see what you 1. He never seemed to but lounge about, and *tes. Your buliff man14 Very well,"

"Pshaw, the man is a mere bullock. I want an intelligent person for my purposes.”

"What purposes ?" asked Mrs. Herbert.

"O, I have purposes of my own, you may be sure. You will see, perhaps, some day, that I had more spirit than you all think-that I was not going to submit tamely, just like a child that comes meekly to be whipped."

Just then the outer bell at the entrance gates rang sonorously; and Helen, who had been talking with indignant rapidity, a flush of anger on her beautiful cheek, became suddenly pale, and fell back almost fainting in her chair.

"What in the world is the matter?" asked Mrs. Herbert.

"O, there is someone coming to take me away, I know. Don't let the gates be opened - O don't!"

"This is foolish," said Mrs. Herbert. "Probably the gates are opened by this time.”

They were; and a blouzy maidservant ushered into the hall a gentleman-well, no, not exactly a gentleman--but a man occupying that awkward strip of debateable ground which separates gentlemen from those who are not such. He was surprisingly well dressed, so far as quality of material is concerned ; but his dress did not fit him, and its colours were badly chosen. He carried a black travelling bag and a small square case, with a leather strap round it. Any experienced eye would at once have perceived him to be a commercial traveller. He was a good-looking fellow enough, with that plausibility of manner which men of his class obtain by exercising their persuasive powers on tradesmen.

"Ladies," he said, "if you could hospitably give me a night's lodging, I should be very grateful indeed. I started to walk to Salisbury; but I am not very well, and I fear I shall hardly be able to get there to night."

Now this was quite untrue. The fact is that the fellow, whose name was John Curtis, was at that time out of a situation. Trade was bad, and he didn't hear of anything to do. At Salisbury some rumour had reached him about two eccentric ladies, living at the Gratze, one of whom was sad to be a pretty widow; and he

that a legal brother of Curtis would be worse than Curtis himself.

"I am the rightful heiress to large estates, Mr. Curtis. They are now in the hands of the younger branch of the family--of my great-uncle, in fact; but I have the date of the will, which can be seen somewhere, I believe"--

"In Doctors' Commons,” said Curtis, thinking of marriage licences also. "Yes. Well, I want somebody to take up the case, and proceed against the people in possession. Now, will you help me ?"

"Of course I will, my dear Mrs. Fitzmaurice," he said, eagerly. "My brother can come down here at once, and take your instructions."

"No," she said, "that won't do, You must go to London for me. I will furnish you with plenty of money for all expenses. Your brother must not know where I live, nor anything more about me than is absolutely necessary. May I rely on your keeping my secret ?"

"As a man of honour and a gentleman, my dear madam," he answered. "My brother shall act under my instructions. I believe, from reading a very interesting book called Ten Thousand a Year,' written by a very clever lawyer, that the right thing to do is to serve a writ of ejectment on the holder of the estates, and notices to all the tenants not to pay rent."

"No doubt you are quite correct," she answered.” “Let it be done at once. Will you go to London to morrow f

"I will," he said. "But, most charming of ladies, am I to have no reward for my devotion to you. I love you-I adore you I am the slave of your beauty. May I not hope?"

Curtis was at this time on one knee, and by unlucky chance, that knee was in a puddle.

"Mr. Curtis," said Helen, “I have known you so short a time that it is foolish to talk in this way. Besides, you are a man of fashion and of the world. I am a mere country girla milk-maid, you may say. Please -please, don't say any more."

He didn't. Accidentally kneeling in a puddle cools a man's eloquence. He was almost cross when he got up; but the soft glance of her eyes restored his equanimity, and he reflected that the possession of her secrets and his devotion to her service would give him a claim upon her; besides, had she not said there was plenty of money for expenses?

Next day he went off to fulfil her commands.

"I am glad that man is gone," said Mrs. Herbert in the evening. "I cannot imagine how you could flirt with such a vulgar person."

"O, wasn't he fun " exclaimed Helen, jumping up and clapping her hands. "Fancy his offering to introduce me to the Duchess of Sutherland and the Countess of Derby, and I don't know who else! And he is a traveller in the drug line! O, those men, those men! But I shall have my revenge."

wander as far as possible from the special state of affairs wherein he finds himself - when he longs to be far away from even his best friends, male and female. Let anyone who doubts this read, and if he can, decipher that marvellous poem of Mr. Robert Browning's, "Waring." The truth is, that to a man of the higher typ the order iry current of huma" ty gotten very dull and slow in just His wife tells him that he enght to be making at least twice as many hundreds a year: he heartily wishes

he was in Central Africa, where existence is not counted by hundreds a year. But suppose him wifeless and careless of coin--suppose him a Londoner, meeting the pleasantest of all possible Londoners at the Cosmopolitan or the White Cottage, the Arundel, the Cambrian-is it not dreary business? Questionless. There are times when one tires of the whole affairay, of the ceaseless wit and occasional flashes of brilliant poetry-and heartily wishes to be on the summit of a mountain peak, or in a lonely skiff upon some unknown sea.

We remember Waring, where the greatest of living poets writes:

"I left his arm that night myself

poet,

That wrote the book there on the shelf-
How, forsooth, was I to know it,
If Waring meant to glide away
Like a ghost at break of day?
Never looked he half so gay!"

Of course not. He was going to separate himself from your new prosepoets and the like. And was he not far happier when later beheld under the lateen sail of a Midsea craft :"With great grass hat and kerchief black, Looking up with his kingly throat!"

Ay, happier than if, after dining with Chapman and Hall, or Smith and Elder, he and his poet had been walking arm-in-arm through Piccadilly or Pall-Mall homewards.

Next must we ask, where had Harry been? Almost everywhere in England. He had a theory-which we know to have been tolerably correet-that Helen Fitzmaurice was somewhere within these narrow seas. It was, perhaps, an instinct which led him to hope that some day or other he might meet the lady of his love a lady who ill-deserved his love. Anyway, he had made up his mind that Helen had not left England, and that in England he should meet her. We have seen him- at least our orthodox acquaintance, Archdeacon Coningsby, has-in the quaint cathedral city of Idlechester. Let us trace him elsewhere.

A. met him at Carlisle. He had rejected the County Hotel (to which I hereby give Kudos), and was staying at the Bush. The Bush is a fine antique

search to make-equal almost to Sir Galahad's for the Sangreal-he should take Winter Villa, and settle down in that pleasantest of English provincial neighbourhoods.

C. met him at Nottingham, which he abhorred though he found the George Hotel very comfortable. It is said that Lord Brougham thinks Nottingham the wickedest town of England, and that Cardinal Wiseman deemed it the most picturesque. I fancy the lawyer is more nearly right than was the priest. Harry Mauleverer soon came to the conclusion that Helen was not to be found at the Park or Sherwood Forest.

D. met him at Bowness, on Windermere, lodging at Suart's. Here, indeed, he remained longer than in most of his aberrations, for the tranquillity of those divine lakes calmed him a little. Moreover, he had real hope that Helen might have hidden herself in some lonely recess of those untraversed hills. So Harry wandered through them day by day, fancying that in some deep glen, beside some solitary farn, he might perchance encounter the lovely creature who had intoxicated his imagination. He did not. He knew by heart the whole divine region from wild Wastwater to exquisite Keswick; he was full of glorious memories of Wilson at Elleray, Wordsworth at Rydal ; but he learnt nothing of Helen Fitzmaurice. Whence it happened that D. came across him just as he was going to the station with intent to travel southward.