"Mon Dieu! Give it me!" she cried. That sudden and frenzied shriek rendered Sir Philip spell-bound.

Without a word he yielded to her the bracelet, staggering backward as he did so, as though he had been smitten a mighty blow, his eyes meeting her staring, horrified ones, with an expression. that was no less wild and startled.

"For the love of God, Dorian, do not look at me like that!" he composed himself at length sufficiently to say.

"Where did you get this bracelet ?" panted the woman, holding the glittering diamonds up between their gaze.

"I have said that I bought it while I was abroad last winter," he answered her quietly and laconically.

"But where? Where? Where? I say!" screamed Dorian Rossmore in wildest frenzy.

"At Florence," he answered still with dogged brevity.

"But at what jeweler's? Tell me at what jeweler's? This is my murdered sister's bracelet! See! Read the name formed of these stones!"

He advanced and bent over her as, with trembling fingers, she traced out the letters which he had never before noticed: "JULIE D'ARCY."

"Julie d'Arcy!" gasped the man; then swiftly collecting himself, he met her eyes and exclaimed again :

"Oh, Dorian, for the love of God do not look at me like that!"

Her eyes were becoming fixed and stony in their gaze. She swayed helplessly to and fro. Another moment and she had fallen backward on the divan, where she lay in a death-like swoon, with the diamond bracelet clutched tightly in her hand.

THE

CHAPTER XXX

THE DENOUEMENT

Dire combustions and confused events
New-hatched to the woeful time.

-Macbeth.

emergency was a startling one even to Sir Philip Camden who stood for some moments striving to collect his errant senses. At length he resolved, like one accustomed to philosophize from a hazardous standpoint, that it would be far the wisest plan not to summon assistance to the unconscious Dorian, so he himself set about with assiduity to restore her.

Luckily, he found upon the lady's dressingtable a bottle of cologne, which liquid he generously applied to her brow and lips, even forcing a few drops between the set teeth.

But while thus busily engaged were his thoughts and anxieties entirely of Dorian? If so, why did his narrow, evil eyes wander so often from her white features to the hand in which she still held in a vice-like clasp the diamond bracelet ?

Once he made a movement as though he would, by main force, have torn the jewel from its shield, but just at that instant Mrs. Rossmore betokened signs of returning consciousness, and all that

shone in her attendant's face, when presently she opened her eyes, was the most lover-like solici

tude.

"My poor Dorian!" he whispered, and his voice was soft and cooing as a wood-dove's, and bespoke naught of the agitation lying latent under his breath; but the woman felt that breath upon her face hot as if fanned from a burning furnace.

At his words, she started into a sitting posture and thrust him from her fiercely.

"Ceil!" cried she, shuddering and covering her face with both hands. "What is here? What is this horrible revelation ?"

Dorian, try and calm yourself to tell me something of the dark story with which these diamonds seem to be so mysteriously connected," said Sir Philip, and he dared to lay his hand upon her's as he spoke, but she shook off the member with another repulsive shudder.

"Don't touch me!" cried she, uncovering her face and flashing her creole eyes upon him, like an envenomed reptile, when about to spring upon its victim. "Do not dare to touch me, Sir Philip Camden! but tell me exactly how you came in possession of my dead sister's jewels-the ring which you gave me as a talisman, and this bracelet are stained with her blood, like unknown thousands of pounds' worth in gems and money purloined by the same atrocious hand that thrust

the fatal poignard in her breast. I would know from whence and the very moment they came in your keeping?"

Before answering her, Sir Philip threw himself quite at ease, into a chair a short space apart from where she was sitting.

"I have told you, Dorian, that I bought the bracelet at a Florentine jeweler's; the ring I purchased also in Florence," he said complacently.

Mrs. Rossmore uttered a shriek of impatience at his words.

"Why will you be so impervious? That is wholly unsatisfactory! There are scores of jewelers in Florence. What name? Who was the merchant? Upon what street was his establishment ?"

"How should I remember, ma chere? I was in that city but two days, and took no notice of the names of firms, or streets. I was merely passing, and seeing the baubles displayed in the windows, thought them unique and pretty and bought them."

It seemed that the lurid fire from her eyes must have burned its way to his being's quickest fibre; if so Sir Philip evinced no outward sign of discomfiture. He met her gaze steadily, and without the slightest facial quiver as he thus spoke, and then sat, like an image carved from stone, under the scoffing surveillance which followed, and during which Mrs. Rossmore noted for the