F

尖

OR a few minutes after Royden had finished reading, he sat like one in a dream; then he slowly rose, and folding the two papers, placed them carefully in the breast-pocket of the coat which he had worn all night over his evening dress. Then buttoning it, to guard as safely as he could the precious documents, he went softly into the further room, and, looking down for the last time upon the dead face, gave one backward glance along the marred life whose secrets had now been disclosed to him.

A step in the outer room aroused him; gently laying the sheet back over the worn, calm face, he went out to meet the woman who was now at

liberty to take his place. A few minutes they talked there; and Royden waited, as if his time were of little value. But when all had been said, and he had left the gloomy house, he glanced up at the dial on St. Paul's, and hailed a passing hansom as if his life depended upon speed.

"To the Great Western station," he said, in his quick, clear tones. "A sovereign if you do it within fifteen minutes."

Out of the hubbub of the city, the man took the quiet unfrequented streets; the horse sped on with its inevitably unsteady perseverance, and Royden was in time for the 2.40 train to Langham Junction.

All through the journey, he sat quite still in

the corner of the carriage, his thoughts intensely busy, while his heart was full of gratitude and rejoicing.

"To see her face when I show her these!" he murmured to himself; "to think of the truth lying here at last in my hand!"

So he was thinking-picturing the brightening of one pale face at the tidings which he borewhen the train stopped at Langham Junction, and he stepped hastily down upon the platform. "Where for, sir?"

"On to Westleigh by the 6.30."

Just in his cool, natural tones, Royden answered this question; yet, as he did so, he glanced across to where the Westleigh trains were won't to start, with an intense anxiety.

"The Westleigh train left half an hour ago, sir!" Half an hour ago !—and that was the last! No later train stopped at the little roadside station for which, at any time, so few passengers were booked, save those for Westleigh Towers. Royden Keith stood in hesitation just for two or three seconds. The road from this station to Westleigh was a long twenty miles, and the station-built only for the junction of the lines-was so far from the town, that he would not be able to get a conveyance of any kind. True, it was possible to reach the Towers more readily by taking a bridle-path, which he had daringly taken once before, even though for several miles it ran between the sea and the cliffs, and was covered at high water. But then to walk this distance was impossible, with the tide upon the flow; and he had no horse here.

Yet, how he had dreamed of Alice's glad reception of him, and her untold gratitude and joy at the tidings he bore, the tidings he had sought so long, and, having found at last, had hastened to bring to her himself! Must he give up even now, when he had come so far, and seemed so near her? No; not even in such a case as this could Royden turn back from his earnest purpose.

"There is a farm," he said to himself, as he stood recalling an old house lying a mile or so along the cliff way, "where I can get a horse. On the high road I may have to walk ten miles before I can obtain one. I will manage it, if it is within man's power."

It was within this man's power; and, an hour after the London train had passed on its way northward, Royden rode from the old farm where he had promptly bought a horse, which its master had never hoped to sell so profitably. The animal was young and strong, and fresh from its stable; and Royden had mounted with a pleasant sense of its power and will to carry him fleetly along the dangerous shore.

urged Mr. Keith not to attempt the ride. The tide was treacherous, they said, and the distance across the bay much greater than it seemed. But Royden, shaking the men by the hand in his quiet, cordial way, told them he had no fear, only a great anxiety to get to Westleigh Towers that night, and much confidence in his new horse.

"I know the way well," he added, in his pleasant, earnest voice, "and it is a grand June evening."

The two men stood watching him from the farm gate. He understood a good horse when he saw one, there was no doubt about that, and they had guessed at once that he must be Mr. Keith. He was just what they had fancied the squire of Westleigh Towers.

"But," said the elder man, as they turned away after watching Royden out of sight, "it is a dangerous feat he tries to-night."

Royden knew this well. It was not in ignorance that he started on that ride. But the horse he had bought was fresh and fleet, and the flood-tide two hours distant yet. Sitting straight and firm in his saddle, his fingers tight upon the rein, Royden galloped along the narrow and uneven path, while the passengers he met looked after horse and rider wonderingly.

On and on, while the sun slowly neared the water - on and on, until it set, and Royden breathed a sigh of relief, for the path had reached the shore at last. He paused one moment, and gave a look around him-first over the fading sea; then up the dark precipitous cliffs; then higher still, beyond the fading sunset streaks. When that moment's pause was over, leaning forward in his saddle, he pressed his knees against his horse's flanks, and dashed along that treacherous road beside the sea.

Once or twice the young horse faltered in his pace; and once or twice he slipped, and would have fallen but for the strong, restraining hand upon the rein; but still he made his way bravely under the frowning rocks.

"On, good fellow, on !"

his own career, galloping backwards and forwards, to the left and right, without aim or motive; racing to and fro in the very madness of his panic, as he tried to escape the grasp of the hungry waters; racing to and fro until at last, quite suddenly, he stopped in his wild gallop, stood trembling for a moment with his eyes wild and strained, while the waves broke under his raised head, then with a cry that was almost human in its anguish, he threw his head back, and Royden knew that he alone lived in that rush of rising waters, and that his only chance of safety was to cling to his dead companion.

At first the effort to keep his seat engrossed all his energies, but gradually that tension relaxed, while now he held one hand upon the breast of his coat, guarding that lately won paper in its grip. Dreamily, with a consciousness of utter helplessness which was almost a relief after his restless feverish exertion, he floated on the surface of the tide; recalling brokenly, as one sometimes recalls a dream, how one man years ago, carrying an infant in his arms, had been drowned within this bay; languidly wondering over the exact spot, and morbidly trying to imagine the scene. Then there came into his mind-still softly and vaguely-the story of a wreck upon this coast, and, looking out to sea, he tried to guess the spot where the ship had foundered, and wished that he could float far out to sea, and fall just there.

One minute he was piercing the misty darkness with his eyes, and calculating how long it might be possible for him to live, and in the next he bent his head against the beating spray, with a faint smile upon his lips, and dipping his hand into the water, laid it upon his burning brow and

lips. But, through all, his fingers never once relaxed in their close clasp upon those papers he had borne so far in safety-so far!

Just before the dawn of the June morning a group of fishermen slowly passed along the silent, dewy park to the locked door of Westleigh Towers. They were men to whom this beautiful park had been lent as holiday ground; they were men who had learned to love the master who had treated them as brothers, and not serfs; and so no cheek was dry when they trod noiselessly under the whispering leaves, bearing him among them, still with his fingers tightly closed upon the paper he had borne so far.

Gently and regretfully these men disturbed the sleeping household, and, with hands that were delicate then, if they had never been so before, they laid him in one of his own beautiful rooms. And when a girlish figure crept in and stood beside him, appealing mutely and tearfully for tidings, they whispered, in hushed and broken tones, that, sailing past the bay as the tide went down, they had found him there upon his dead horse, benumbed and motionless, as he must have floated for three hours at least.

Benumbed and motionless! These were the words the men chose, because they saw the fear and horror in the pale face they gazed upon. But Alice knew what they left unsaid, and when she bent above the prostrate form, seeking in vain for some faint sign of life, a cry of terrible despair escaped her parted lips.

White and still the brave face lay; nerveless and powerless was the tall strong form; yet still the wet stiff fingers of the right hand held their firm grip upon that packet, safely borne through all.

CALL this idle history the "Berry of the Yew;"

Because there's nothing sweeter than its husk of scarlet glue,

She loved me: all things told it; eye to eye, and palm to palm:

As the pause upon the ceasing of a thousandvoiced psalm

I loved, saw hope, and said so; learned that Laura loved again;

Wherefore speak of joy then suffer'd? My head throbs, and I would fain

Find words to lay the spectre starting now before my brain.

calm.

On her face, when she was laughing, was the seriousness within ;

Her sweetest smiles (and sweeter did a lover never win),

Ere half done, grew so absent that they made her fair cheek thin.