and more definite, she wondered what it would look like. She tried to imagine to herself what the handwriting would be even; and the idea gained ground so rapidly in her morbid imagination that she, before the day was over, seemed almost to see the letter before her eyes, and to see the look on Brydain's face as he opened it. And when night came she went to bed with a sort of dark shadow hanging over her, which haunted her through all her restless dreams; a sort of fearful expectation of the coming of that letter-the letter from the woman who was to be Brydain's death.

Brydain himself had spent the day somewhat desultorily. The letter he had received was from Tredennis; he read and answered it, with more than one smile over its practical advice: "Keep out of doors, and forget all about London."

The first part of the advice he followed literally enough. He spent hours in the morning following Mackenzie about into every corner of the estate, and listening with a great deal of patience to Mackenzie's long demonstrations of his ideas and his management. In the afternoon he walked to Carfrae to see some old friends. But the expression of his face throughout the day scarcely looked as if he had taken the second part of Tredennis's advice to heart. It was thoughtful, rather depressed, and grave; but as the evening went on it grew lighter, and Brydain too, as well as Marjory, went to bed with thoughts of a letter that might be on its way to meet him in the morning.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"It's in his post-bag now. Perhaps it's the only one there."

The words were spoken in a low, muttered tone by Marjory. She was standing under one of the trees of the pine avenue. The hauntings and dreams of the night had ended for her, towards morning, in a sudden waking, and on her waking the shadow which had hung over her before had, by her wild dreams, increased tenfold in heaviness. The thought of the letter that was possibly coming to Brydain came before her the instant she opened her eyes; indeed, so much had the conception of it strengthened in her morbid imagination that now there existed no doubt that it was coming that very day. It was to her as an ascertained

fact that now in an hour or two it would reach the Great House,

She lay tossing restlessly, and thinking of its approach for some time. It was a wild and stormy morning. Clouds had come up in the night, and the heavy spring rain was being dashed against her window by a strong south-west wind. But Marjory neither heeded nor heard the sound. She thought and thought of the coming letter until her morbid thought developed into a sudden impulse to see it for herself and to hold it in her own hand. The impulse grew irresistible, and the girl rose, dressed herself very quickly and quietly, and stole downstairs to meet Macgregor. When she got down, however, it was only half-past six o'clock, and there was no possibility of his approach before half-past seven. She crept into the dining-room, intending to look at anything Brydain might have left about; but she was startled by the sound of Mackenzie coming downstairs, and fled into the kitchen, there to be found by her uncle, and to be praised by him for her early hours. As he went out, she proceeded mechanically to light the kitchen fire and to make various preparations for her mother's approach, and then, as Mrs. Mackenzie was heard moving about in the rooms above, just before the clock reached the half-hour, Marjory had slipped an old shawl over her shoulders, and had gone out, regardless of the rain, to watch for Macgregor to come.

Instinctively she went down the avenue to the furthest tree from which it was possible to see him come, and she chose the side of it sheltered from observation, either from the village or from any part of the Great House, and leaned up against the tree, a curiously weird figure standing there in the beating rain, with her white face and wild eyes framed by the old shawl.

A quarter of an hour passed after her excitement had found relief in the muttered words, and still there was no sign of Macgregor. Marjory folded her arms closer in the shawl and pressed them against herself as if to steady herself, for her heart was beating wildly and uncontrollably, though she could not have told why.

At length, with a start and a sudden light in the large eyes, she recognised Macgregor in the distance. She had so placed herself that she could see him the moment he left the village. And, directly

after, the sound of his whistling, broken by the gusts of wind, reached her ears.

"It's here, the letter's coming,” she said to herself breathlessly. "I shall see itdirectly."

Almost as she spoke, Macgregor reached the avenue. He stopped at the sight of Marjory. But he was a phlegmatic individual, and his surprise, if he felt any, at her appearance, and her presence there on so wet a morning, did not express itself in words.

"You'll save me a trifle of rain !" he said stolidly. "I've a letter for Brydain." And he held out a letter to her.

Marjory put out her hand and took it; Macgregor, whistling, went on; and all at once Marjory fell back against the tree heavily, for suddenly she knew that she had not really expected to see the letter. She had been deliberately creating her expectancy out of her imagination, and the actual sight of the letter gave her a strange shock.

She stood quite still in the rain; it was beating down on her head, for her shawl had slipped off, but Marjory knew nothing of the rain. She turned the letter very slowly over in her hands.

The address was written in a large and very pretty round hand. The flowing curves and easy ups and downs of the letters told, even to Marjory's comparatively unsophisticated eyes, that the hand that made them was a woman's.

The large and distinct postmark was Kensington, and Marjory knew enough to know that Kensington meant London. She turned it back to its reverse side slowly and carefully; across the flap of the envelope were stamped in gold two dainty little initials, "E. F." She gave another long lingering look at all its details, and then a sudden impulse to look more at it, and to keep it, at all hazards, in her possession for the present, took possession of her. She stooped and picked up her shawl, and then, feeling for her pocket, slipped the letter into it and made her way back to the house.

Her mother was not in the kitchen when she re-entered it, and she went through it and upstairs to her room to take off her frock and put on a dry

one.

Alone in her room, she drew the letter slowly out of her pocket and sat down on her bed, intending to examine it again. But her mother's voice called her loudly from below, and Marjory hurriedly changed

her frock, replacing the letter in her pocket, and went downstairs to her work.

As she entered the kitchen she heard Brydain's steps coming down the great staircase into the hall. Making an excuse to her mother, she went up the long passage and reached the hall just in time to see Brydain hurry up to the table where the letters ought to have been placed. The look on his face when he saw that there were none there turned Marjory's pale face ashen-white for an instant. He turned to go into the dining-room, and turning saw Marjory, who had hurriedly begun an unnecessary and imaginary dusting of a window-frame. He spoke the very briefest good-morning; his tone was low and depressed, and he asked her no question at all as to the letters.

The day happened to be a very busy one. Mrs. Mackenzie, in a sort of reaction of calm that had come to her after the extra bustle consequent on Brydain's arrival, had settled down into her normal endeavour to keep everything in an almost impossible state of cleanliness. Therefore, when her cooking preparations were over, she regarding the wet day as a heaven-sent opportunity, went on with the cleaning of the upper storey, and whenever the two were not necessarily in the kitchen, kept Marjory in attendance on her upstairs. Late in the evening, however, the weather improved, and Mrs. Mackenzie announced her intention of going to the small shop in Brydain to get some household necessary which was needed for the morning. Mrs. Mackenzie was fond of shopping, even on so small a scale as the minute village shop offered, and she was fonder still of what she called "sociable talk," and what Mackenzie called "clacketing." He himself, at the first sign of clearer weather, had gone out on an errand which took him to a distant field, and Brydain, in great coat and gaiters, had accompanied him. When her mother was gone, Marjory was therefore quite alone in the house.

She watched Mrs. Mackenzie out of sight, and then sitting down by the kitchen fire, she took the letter from the place where it had been all day long-in her pocket.

She laid the white envelope in her lap, and sat looking at it motionless. The firelight played upon her small, slight figure, indistinct in the gathering twilight as a figure in a dream. Ten minutes passed, fifteen, twenty, and still she had

not stirred. Then, slowly and mechanically, she took up the letter, opened the envelope, and drew out the letter it contained. Imagination had dominated the real world; she had dwelt upon the letter till the thought of it possessed her every faculty. In the world in which she was living, as she sat there so still in the twilight and the firelight, nothing but the letter existed for her. She and it were alone together.

"DEAR MR. BRYDAIN," she read, "I have kept you long waiting for it, but this is my answer. I will marry you; you will teach me to be all your wife should be, and I will try to learn, for I love you.

"ETRENNE FARRANT,"

The letter fluttered out of Marjory's hand and fell upon the kitchen floor; the flickering firelight caught the dainty gold E. F. that stamped the paper, and Marjory, who had risen to her feet, dumb and frozen in the clutch of a sudden overwhelming horror, stared down at them with wide, unseeing eyes. The tenderness and modesty of the little note passed by her unheeded, uncomprehended. The little missive, with all its material attributes of delicacy and refinement, all the more subtle attributes involved in the happy surrender it conveyed, lay at her feet a hideous thing, a deadly thing, the deathwarrant of Brydain.

A long, strangled gasp rose to her lips; then another and another. Then the kitchen became suddenly dark to her; she

put out her hand instinctively and sat down again as a mist came over her senses. The shock had been very sudden and very heavy, and Marjory was not strong enough to bear it.

It

The mist passed again, however. was already passing slowly when it was suddenly dispersed as if by a flash of light, as a new thought leapt into her mind. Trembling from head to foot, she stooped, picked up the letter and reread it.

"This is my answer!" He-Brydain was always "he" in Marjory's mind-he had asked this unknown woman to be his wife, had gone to meet his fate, but as yet he had had no answer. It was the answer alone that could decide it, that could render it all irrevocable, that could bring about the end. "This is my answer! Supposing that Brydain should never see that answer? Supposing that he should never know that it had been sent him? Would he not be saved?

The little note, about which there still lingered the faint perfume that characterised Etrenne, was crushed and crumpled in those thin, childish fingers, as Marjory clutched it feverishly to her, her visionary. unnatural gaze straining out into the fastgrowing darkness. The delicate E. F. was torn and effaced. Then with a swift, deliberate movement the shadowy figure bent towards the fire. A moment later a little heap of ashes was all that was left of the letter for which Brydain was longing and looking with a passion of love before which fate itself was as nothing.

ALL THE

No. 180-THIRD SERIES.

PRICE TWOPENCE.

BY ESME STUART.

Author of "A Faire Damzell," "Joan Vellacot," "Kestell of Greystone," etc, etc.

CHAPTER LXIII. FAITHFUL AND FAITHLESS. IF a malicious fairy had come unbidden to wave her wand and to utter her incantations over the Warren, the result could not have been worse than that which, during the next week, followed the departure of Austin and Mr. Blackston,

Minnie was too angry to express her anger, especially after her mother had shown her the Major's note. Frances went about the house wondering which of the household gods could be proved to have been bought with their own money, for she was in her mother's confidence, and meant to lose as little as possible. Her affairs, not being complicated with a lover, enabled her to bear the news better than Minnie, and, indeed, she had breath enough to express her scorn at the beauty's vexation.

"You should have accepted Harry Laurence, who was fond of you. I don't believe he would have behaved as your Major has done."

"How horrid you are, Frances! I wish Bee were here. She was never cross when one was in misfortune."

"It was lucky for her that she married before all this came out."

"It would have made no difference." "Perhaps not. I don't know. I hope Austin will exert himself and find something soon."

I

"How tiresome you are, Frances. shall go out for a walk. I do think it was very wrong of mother to accept all this

"You might as well say we should have shared it with them."

"So we ought, and we should never have heard of all this. It's a horrid shame, and very, very hard on me."

Mrs. Gordon did not come down till after lunch-time. She really was ill with anxiety and disappointment. Minnie was too angry with her mother to attempt consolation, and in spite of the cheerless weather every day she put on her things and went out, taking the road along which Harry Laurence had so often come to worship the divinity at the Warren.

Every day she walked with one fixed idea in her mind. Though the Major's letter had been most proper and gentlemanlike, Minnie saw that she might, now she was poor, wait indefinitely for that husband. She had tried to do the best she could for herself, following her mother's teaching; and now it seemed the more she tried the more she failed. Bee had not raised a finger on her own behalf, and she was happy and well off, and here was Minnie going to sink back into the miserable life she so well remembered. No; she would not do that. She, too, would be happy.

Austin was still in London helping the London lawyer to settle the affairs of the Gordons. Minnie was very angry because he wrote so cheerfully, and said that he hoped soon to send his mother some good news.

Good news, indeed! There was none which would have cheered Minnie except

on

one subject, and that was on the subject of her own life settlement.

Her lover's occasional letters were hateful to her. She read too clearly between the lines.

VOL. VII.-THIRD SEBIES.

180

The news of the change of owners had leaked out very slowly. Dr. Smith had let the cat out of the bag on this very morning, and Harry Laurence had been so startled that he questioned the good old man closely.

He had gone through many stormy phases since Minnie had thrown him over; he had hated her, loved her again, despised her, cursed her, blessed her, and lastly, at hearing this news, he had been filled with deepest sympathy for his worthless love.

Thus it happened that Minnie's expectation was realised on the fifth day. She heard the trotting of a horse and she saw a well-known figure approaching her in the dull wintry afternoon.

Her colour came and went; the discontented pout on her pretty lips disappeared and was replaced by the most pathetic expression it was possible to see on a lovely face. She pretended she wished to pick some holly in order not to see Harry's first look at her. Then he drew in his reins, jumped down from his horse, and begged to help her.

"How do you do, Mr. Laurence? I did not know it was you. Thanks. Please do not trouble yourself or prick your fingers

-for me."

He slipped the bridle over his arm and walked slowly by her side, for she had turned her face towards home.

"I have only just heard of your sad misfortune. I should have come sooner to offer my

"

"Please don't offer sympathy. We must accept the fact that we are beggars, and sympathy cannot alter that."

There was a pause. Harry did not know what to say next. As usual, he was not very quick with his ideas. "How strange it all seems. We hardly know those poor girls by sight even." "Oh, now they will be all the rage 1" said Minnie crossly.

"One cannot forget one's first friends." "You will see; every one will turn against us now."

Every one?" Harry was beginning to feel the old influence; this girl had him in her toils at once. He could no more help himself than the traditional fly in the spider's web. Well, most persons."

"You must take a house in the neighbourhood. At least, I suppose you will not go away altogether."

"I shall share my mother's poverty. This is not the time to think of oneself," said Minnie softly.

"Let me think for her too, then.”
Minnie smiled.

"Now we are poor the friends will be few."

"I think not. I-I-"

Minnie looked up at him, and tears were in her eyes-real tears, for she was very sorry for herself.

Then Harry forgot that she was engaged to some one else, and forgot that she had cruelly repulsed him; forgot everything but the tears in those blue eyes-eyes which were as heaven to him.

"Don't say that. You know anything you tell me

"Oh, hush, you forget."
"What?"
"That I am-

"Engaged. I don't care. You don't really care for him, Minnie, or you wouldn't be crying. If you really want me-I-I-well, you know, Minnie, that I'm yours."

He tried to take her hand, and Minnie's resistance was of the weakest. The afternoon was no longer dreary; and, after all, she could now appreciate true love. It came at such a convenient moment.

One more appealing look and the deed was done, in such a moment of time that neither could have said which of them made the first movement towards the other. Harry forgot the past and the present, and, what seemed more incredible, forgave the past and the present! had got her, he had won her, and the poor fellow would not pause to think what it was he had won, and what a future he was preparing for himself.

He

When they reached the Warren gates, Minnie stopped.

"Oh, Harry, don't come in; mother and Frances won't understand; besides, Austin, if he knew, would say something dis agreeable. We can keep it to ourselves."

Harry was only too glad to agree; he could easily promise to keep that sort of secret.

When Minnie re-entered the house, her face was bright and smiling; she could afford to be cheerful, and, not knowing the secret, Mrs. Gordon wondered at her altered expression. As for herself, she had quite given way to despondency, and remained half the day in her boudoir sitting over the fire, her spirit crushed. She felt that life was no longer worth living, and that if the loss of the money was terrible, the loss of Austin's good opinion was far worse. She had always wished to