that her limbs shook under her, when she heard her father's step creeping up the stairs.

He walked into the room, looking wan and sorrowful, and sat down without glancing at his daughter or her cloudy brow. 'Father!'

He started up as if roused from a heavy dream, and turned his scared look of inquiry at her.

'What is it, Ursula ?'

She stood directly in front of him, her figure erect, her features working with excitement, a deep crimson flush on her cheeks.

'What is it, Ursula !' she repeated with a sneer. 'I'll tell you what it is! I followed you into that house -followed you right up to the very top, and I looked through! Who is that wretched creature?'

'Ursula, do not speak harshly of her, I pray of you! Blame me if you will, but not her, not her!'

"Who is she?' thundered the girl, in loud ringing accents, the lurid light growing deeper in her eyes.

'She is your sister!'

For a moment there was a dead silence; then Ursula spoke again, sharply, eagerly.

'My sister, and I never heard of her before! Another secret! Then there is that man Lock, who treats you as though you were his slave. What does it all mean, father? I swear I'll know!'

The man stood up, with both hands clasped, as if to plead for mercy from his own child.

The face and the attitude touched all that was good in her nature. With a sudden revulsion of feeling Ursula flung her arms round him. 'I was cruel, wicked, father, poor old father! Tell me everything. I want to be good to you-I will be good! Don't be afraid of me!'

'Afraid!'

A wan smile flitted across his

mouth, pitiful, so pitiful to look upon.

'When shall I be other than afraid?' he asked helplessly.

'Why should you be afraid? I am never afraid of any one or anything!' the girl said proudly. "Tell me all.'

'I will,' he answered, in a low voice. Sit you down here. No, no; not on that footstool with your eyes lifted to mine. It is not meet that a child should look on her father's disgrace and shame!'

Ursula slid down from the footstool on to the floor, and, laying her head against his knee, waited for the hesitating voice to begin.

Ralph Pierce spoke almost in a whisper at first-low, incoherent, inaudible at times. But by degrees his voice grew very deep and husky; then sharp and shrill with pain.

The girl-her white teeth pressed hard over her nether lip-listened, sometimes with a shrinking heart, sometimes with the kindle and glow of fierce anger, when a fiery word would break from her, or a sob shake her bosom; but she did not interrupt him, save by a halfwhispered question. Nor did she once lift up her face, though his sank lower and lower, until his white hair mingled with the lustrous ebon of hers, just as if snow had suddenly fallen upon it.

'And is this all, father?'

Ursula said this with a terrible constraint over her excited feelings.

Yes; is it not enough-more than enough-child?'

'Not for me, not for me!' she cried, turning upon her knees and lifting up her arms to him. 'If you had done anything a thousand times worse, I should only love you and hate that wretch the more! Oh, how desperately I hate him, loathe him!'

The old man began to shake as

he felt her strong embrace; and out of his grateful agony came the tears, large and sad, almost blinding him. Ursula wiped them away with the flimsy little handkerchief bordered with cheap sham lace; and then she kissed the cheeks on which the tears had glistened.

'We will go away, father-you and I—where he can never find us!'

'Oh, if we could!' he cried wistfully.

'We will! The world is wide, and I am a match even for a villain like him!'

I thought that myself once,' said Pierce mournfully; 'but he seems gifted with a fiend's scheming and ability. Go where I will, he would find me out; and, after each struggle for freedom, I should be doubly his slave.'

'I say the struggle shall end here, father!'

Pierce shook his head doubt fully.

Child, you do not know him!' 'And he does not know me! Now that I understand everything, I shall be more than a match for him. Don't look frightened, father; I won't be rash. But you and I can run away, and we will!'

He almost smiled, but muttered again,

If we could-if we only could!' 'We will, father; make sure of it! When we get settled somewhere, this sister of mine shall come to us. I see now why she and I are so much alike. The likeness startled me. There, father dear, don't fret; we will escape from that serpent, and be happy once more.'

Pierce kissed her and left the

room.

Once more by herself, all the force that had sustained Ursula seemed to die out suddenly. She was as pale as death, and walked

unsteadily, like one just recovering from a long illness. For the first time in her life she felt the full burden of a dangerous confidence.

In a single hour she had, as it were, changed places with her father. Henceforth she would have to think for him, care for him, and protect him, as the child upstairs did the old violinist. There was something ennobling in this thought, and for a time it lifted Ursula out of herself. She went, after a while, in search of Nell, for she longed for human sympathy. The child heard a step mounting the stair, and, jumping from her seat where she was busily working, she ran into the adjoining room, where little Weston lay sleeping heavily.

'Father, don't breathe so hard,' she implored, tapping him on the arm in her alarm. Some one is coming, and they'll guess!

The little man mumbled something inaudible and turned in his bed, winding his blanket tightly round him.

'Dear me, what shall I do! He's going off worse than ever!'

With these words Nell clutched the coverlet and dragged it right over her father's face, thus smothering the sounds she could not silence. Then she went out, closing the door softly behind her and reddening like a culprit.

caught up Lennard's coat, which she had been mending, and began to stitch away violently, as if she thought that would drown the muffled noise that still came from the next room.

CHAPTER XXXIII. FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.

'NELL!'

The child jumped up, dropping her work. There was something

so unusual and peculiar in Ursula's voice that it startled her.

'Why, what ever ails you? What makes you look so strange, Miss Ursula ?' she cried.

'Me? Oh, nothing much. Only -only-Nell, I am so wretched!'

She threw herself on a chair, flung her arms across the small deal table, and burst into hysterical sobs.

'Don't, don't!' pleaded the child, trying to raise up the girl's face. 'Has he been drinking? Mr. Pierce, I mean. I hope not, for that is

trouble.'

Ursula dashed away her tears. 'It is not that; but I am going away we are going away I' 'Going away-how far?'

'Ever so far-miles and miles away!'

She

'But where?' asked Nell. had not many faults; but, like most of Eve's daughters, curiosity was one of them.

'It is a secret, Nell; but I must tell you-we are going to London.' 'To London !'

Nell said this with a great gasp. To her, London was a beautiful place, but so far as to be a delusion.

'I wish I was going, I do!' she went on, clasping her plump hands in her wild wish.

'I wish you were, Nell; for you are about the only friend I have got. We are going away, father and I, and you must help us.'

'Help you! of course I will. I know how to pack and fold dresses, just as if I had been 'prentice to a milliner. When you want me, I shall be ready.'

'It isn't that, Nell. We haven't much to pack, I am afraid; but there is something else I want, and I can trust no one but you.'

'Very well,' said the child, with a complacent smile on her sweet face, and she drew her little form up with a feeling of satisfaction at

the post of responsibility in store for her. You have only to let me know what it is.'

'We are going away for a good while, but I don't want any one to know about it. Don't open your eyes so wide. Father and I are not going because we have done anything wrong.'

'Don't owe nobody or nothing?' questioned Nell, with a keen searching look; for to her an unpaid debt was a deadly sin.

'Not a brass farthing.'

The child tied her apron tighter with a jerk, and replied promptly, 'You may depend on me, then, Miss Ursula.'

'You see we have paid down for our rooms cash in advance for a year's rent, only just a few weeks ago; we shall leave them in your father's hands; you can live in them if you like, for we don't intend to move a thing of the furniture. Only I want people to think we are still here, coming and going, as if visiting friends. If any one inquires, you might say Mr. Pierce is absent in the country, and his daughter with him. You know well how.'

The pair of pretty blue eyes sparkled with fun.

'Oh, yes, I know how; one learns lots of things keeping house and going about. No one shall find out how long you are gone for, or when you are coming back. You may depend on that.'

'All right, little one. A little fibbing is all that is required.'

And it isn't harm to any one!' 'Quite the contrary, Nell. It will save us from evil.'

'Then I will do it; but don't say a word to Lennard. I wouldn't have him think I tell stories for the whole world, nor father either.' 'That reminds me. Where is your father?'

'Father! Oh, he is not about just now.'

'I had better see him by and by.'

'No, no. I had better do the talking. You see he always listens to me,' Nell said gravely, believing thoroughly in her own diplo

macy.

'Very well. I am glad you will be my friend in this matter, Nell; for I need friends terribly bad, more than any poor girl ever needed one!'

'Please, don't cry, Miss Ursula. I cannot bear to see it; though it makes you look pretty as a pink when the tears come. Never fear. I'll fib for you willingly, if it's only about a matter of coming and going, and no harm to anybody. But will you never come back?'

'I hope so.'

'I hope so too. It will be quite lonesome when you are gone.'

That moment a faint sound issued from the adjoining room that brought the blood into Nell's face and set her moving restlessly about the room, displacing the chairs and rattling the cups and saucers with more noise than was her fashion.

Ursula stood by, luckily lost in thought; then recovering herself with a visible start and saying hastily, 'I shall depend on you, Nell,' she ran down-stairs.

That very night John Lock called at the house again.

Ralph Pierce had gone out; but Ursula-her best dress on, her hair carefully plaited and waved, her cheek one rich glow of roses-received him with far more of cordiality than he had ever experienced before. He fancied her cheerfulness was slightly forced and her laughter somewhat hysterical; but she was so sparkling and coquettish that he was not only content, but entranced with all she said and did. Once she went out on the landing for a moment or two to whisper a few words

to Nell, leaving him alone in the shabby parlour.

He arose at once, walked on tiptoe to the bedroom door, and, opening it very softly, peeped in.

A battered old leathern trunk stood in the middle of the floor, evidently packed very close, and a new strap lay on the ground beside it. The chest of drawers was open and empty, and all the little gewgaws of a girl's room had entirely disappeared. With a peculiar sound, just like a low chuckle breaking from his lips, he closed the door noiselessly, went back to his seat, and lolling against the cushion, waited, with a slow crafty smile creeping over his face.

Forewarned, forearmed!' he muttered to himself. 'I'll be even with you both, as sure as my name is not John Lock!'

Ursula came back full of life and spirits, but so nervously restless that she moved perpetually about the room like a flash of sunshine, dashing a few bars on the tin-kettle of a piano, or snatching up some bit of work, which she flung away from her the moment after.

John Lock sat still, smiling quietly to himself; but there was a vicious gleam in his eyes as he watched her which few people would have read correctly, the smile and the gleam so flatly contradicted one another.

At last he got up and prepared to leave; then Ursula hastened towards him, her black eyes flashing brightly, her face hot and animated from excitement.

'Good-night,' she said, holding out a hand that burned like a live coal in his clasp. 'Do not call early to-morrow, for I shall be very busy working.'

'At your wedding clothes?' he asked.

'Perhaps,' she replied quietly. He said nothing more, but wrung

her hand pitilessly and went away still smiling.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

CHECKMATED.

WHILE the day was yet in its infancy, a porter issued from a shabby house bearing a leathern trunk on his shoulder. Behind him a man and woman walked quickly; the former carrying a valise in his hand, the latter weighed down by an evidently heavy satchel. The porter, after a few steps, hailed a passing cab, into which the man and woman entered, and were driven to the railway station.

Ralph Pierce looked round eagerly, and finding no familiar face or figure in sight, alighted, took his third-class tickets, and was on the point of speaking to Ursula, who still remained hidden in a corner of the vehicle, when a hand was laid not too gently on his shoulder.

'Not quite out of my grasp yet,' said John Lock, in the softest and silkiest tone imaginable. 'It would grieve me to part with you so.'

Pierce shrank away from the man's touch, and for an instant the look of a gladiator seemed to break in his eyes.

'How dare you persecute me so?' he would have cried, but the words died away on his lips, for he saw another man beside his enemy watching him intently.

'Put that trunk back upon the cab, and take your place beside the driver,' John Lock ordered the stranger; and you, Pierce, step in, there is plenty of room for three

of us.'

Pierce turned white, cast a despairing look at his daughter, and got in as meekly as a lamb. Ursula's face too had turned ashen with a sudden terror, and the fierce

light in her eyes was like a smouldering fire.

John Lock jumped in, placed himself by the girl's side, took her hand and kept it with gentle force, and quietly desired the cab to proceed.

After a while the cab stopped. The strange man descended from his seat and looked into the carriage, as if for orders. Lock leant forward and whispered a few words in his ear. The stranger nodded, went up to the steps of a house, rang the bell, and after a short parley with the servant entered it. Then John Lock, for the first time, addressed the girl beside him.

'Ursula,' he said earnestly, and with deep respect in his manner and tone, did you not promise to marry me?'

Hard man, bad man, though he was, he had one soft corner in his heart. Ursula was the occupant of that corner. He wanted her for his wife. All the fierce feelings of his nature had been aroused by her attempt to escape from him; but one gentle word from her lips would have driven his wrath to the four winds, and brought him, a genuine suppliant, to her feet. He would have given his all in this world, his hopes of the next, to draw her a willing bride to his arms; and he had sworn to himself to wed her, whether she was willing or no.

Ursula turned upon him, her cheeks blazing red, a storm-cloud on her brow.

'If I promised, I retract that promise!' she exclaimed defiantly, with a steady determined look straight into his eyes.

'You cannot retract it! I claim you as mine, whether you will or no-mine by your own free consent, and by the sanction of your father.'

'Father will never sanction such