startled exclamation escape him. Looking up I saw that Mr. Rossmore was as pale as death and trembling with some emotion which he seemed to be striving to suppress.

"My eye, in seeking to discover the cause of his agitation, fell upon the paper which he had hastily thrown aside. Actuated by some strange intuitive impulse, I took it up, whereupon the first thing that met my eye was-was these words: 'A Ghastly Crime,' with the underlines running thus :

"Madamoiselle Julie d'Arcy, the beautiful and gifted young actress, foully murdered while asleep at her apartments in the Rue du N. All her jewels and money stolen.'"

In quoting the terrible words a ghastly pallor crept over Dorian's face.

For a moment Sir Philip believed she was going to faint again, but gradually she mastered the dizzy sensation sufficiently to go on :

"It was the last I knew for weeks. When I opened my eyes again in consciousness, they told me I had been at death's door with an attack of brain fever. My first thoughts were of my murered sister. They told me that no clue had yet been found of her assassin, except that upon the night of the crime, two masked men had been seen in the neighborhood of the Rue du N by a party coming out of a cafe. Later on a Frenchman, one M. Alphonse Favraud, was

arrested on suspicion and placed in prison, where he remained for nearly a year awaiting his trial, and then was found not guilty and acquitted. Meanwhile grief of my cruel bereavement was wearing my life away, and the physicians advised my guardian to take me away from the scene of my sorrow, so we at once set sail for America. Eight years have passed, and all the light that has ever been thrown upon the foul assassination which, at the time, filled all Europe with horror, is that which to-night falls from these diamonds, and that is no better than the light of an eclipsed planet-it reveals nothing, and yet it brings my sorrow back to me vividly-vividly as though it were only yesterday that I suffered the cruel agonies!"

There followed a heavy pause, during which the woman's long pent-up tears fell unrestrainedly. After what seemed an age to Sir Philip, she lifted her wet face, and, looking at him through a blurring mist, said almost bluntly:

"Please leave me now, Monsieur. I shall return to Boston to-morrow, and have yet my packing to attend to.”

He rose and stood looking down upon the ruined idol of his dreams.

"You will not drive me from you, my poor Dorian, before I have expressed my sym-" She stayed him with a scornful sweep of her hand.

A man, ," said she, "is more the real man who does not attempt to measure sympathy with trite words. Moreover, if you were eloquent as Demosthenes, your language would fall flat when brought to bear upon such a grief as mine-and you, Sir Philip-pardon, Monsieur-were never eloquent-scarce a passable linguist, you know. Now, au revoir! Yet, stay-if by any possible chance you should run against Fred Bentwell again to-night, just kindly explain, will you, that I am anxious for a speedy reconciliation? I do not want him to disgrace himself by getting on a regular debauch. They would hear of it in Boston, and calumny clings to one, you know, like the stain on a murderer's hands."

With these words and another empty au revoir, she dismissed him.

Some one remarked Sir Philip's face as he passed through the foyer of the hotel on his way out, and that person observed to himself: "It is like the face of King Richard the Third, after awakening from his ghost-dream!"

As he passed on down the almost deserted thoroughfare, Sir Philip muttered to himself: "I, too, shall return to Boston to-morrow from where I shall proceed at once to Maplehurst, where my French spy must by this time be well prepared for a cold dip in the Merrimac !—Then-then for a weapon against her !”

CHAPTER XXXI

MIDNIGHT MASS

'Twas whispered in heaven, 'twas muttered in hell,
And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell.
On the confines of earth 'twas permitted to rest,
And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed.
--Catherine M. Fanshawe.

HEN Sir Philip's footsteps had receded

down the corridor, Dorian sprang toward

the door and locked it securely.

As she turned back into the solitude of the rooms, her eyes glittered wildly, and she pressed both hands to her temples to stay the hot blood that was surging and throbbing there, threatening to drive her mad.

She murmured some inarticulate, passionate words as she swept rapidly up and down the spacious rooms, her velvet train twisting and coiling itself behind her, like a huge serpent, her . chest heaving tumultuously, her face no longer pale, but flushed with the conflicting emotions that were raging within her bosom.

Presently she paused near the center of the room, and, with her hand clasped tightly over the diamond bracelet on her arm, and her burning eyes uplifted toward the ceiling, she commenced

speaking in a calmer voice, as if in communion with a visible spirit:

"At last, my beautiful, white-winged dove, there is light shining through the age-long night! At last I stand on a pinnacle of truths from which I view thy brute-murderer through his foul disguise! Oh, Julie! could I but span the abysmal space of ocean which this night divides us, and go and lay my hand upon the cold stone that guards thy form in its sepulchre, it seems to me my triumphant touch would sunder wide the marble, and thou wouldst walk forth in thy white shroud to exult with me, and to head the procession that soon-ah, soon!-my sainted sister, will march to the execution of thy vile assassinator! Soon, soon will the whole of Europe shout in a joyous exultation at his death! Hark! Even now methinks I can hear the bells of Paris clamoring a jubilant accompaniment to their songAh!"-she paused suddenly, and drawing a long breath, as of ecstasy, leaned forward in a listening attitude.

"I was mistaken," she went on presently, as if still in communion with the dead. ""Tis but the cathedral bells sounding twelve. It is the signal for midnight, Christmas mass."

She crossed over to the window, and parting the heavy silken draperies, looked down on the avenue where a few late pedestrians were hurrying through the driving sleet.