wish to dress,' she said to the smart abigail, who gazed in wonderment at madame's rose-flushed face and feverish eyes.

Very different was this toilet from her usual one. Ursula cared not a rush in what garments the Frenchwoman arrayed her, but snatched at them in undignified haste, and put them on with her own cold trembling hands, tearing the costly lace, crushing the shimmering silk, unconscious of the mischief she wrought.

In a short while she swept down the stairs and into her carriage, with a calmness that was strangely at variance with the frightful tumult of feeling within.

Any acute observer looking upon her that night would have detected a gleam of incipient insanity in the large black eyes.

She felt mad-mad to work the ruin of the man whose crowning wrong had been that cruel blow.

There was a superb reception that night at one of the leading houses, and Ursula, on entering the hall, slipped her card and a gold piece into the palm of a servant.

'Take a message to Mr. Sherrington. He is sure to be in one of the rooms. Say I particularly wish to speak to him.'

A little later the most beautiful and popular woman in Washington City and the Secretary of the Treasury sat in close conversation in an almost deserted salon; and after that, Ursula went back to the palatial mansion she called her home.

John Lock met her in the hall, and he started visibly as the beautiful apparition in white satin and sparkling jewels stood before him.

He looked jaded and yet excited, as if he had just come from some sharp exercise.

'In the name of Heaven, where have you been?' he demanded, in a short harsh voice.

To the Selwoods' reception,' she replied, with a beaming smilethe first he had seen on her mouth since her return from Liverpool.

To a reception-and without me!' he muttered, in a displeased

tone.

'Yes, why not? I grew tired of my own company, and you were not to be found. Then I started alone, and it has been the most agreeable evening I have passed for a very long while.' She smiled again, letting her pearly teeth gleam through her red lips.

'But, Ursula, you complained of being ill.'

'So I was ill yesterday: but today I am well, better than I have ever been in my life!' she cried, bursting into a ringing laugh.

He stared at her in dismay. Was she mad or drunk? She was drunk, though he did not guess it; drunk with the deep delicious draught of revenge she had quaffed that night, and the intoxicating potion made her eyes shine like stars, and lent her a bloom and brilliancy which fairly bewitched and dazed the man as he looked at her.

'You should have let me know of your intention of going to this party, so that I might have accompanied you, Ursula,' he said reproachfully. Abel Wychote and I have only been taking a walk.'

'You must have walked for a wager. The weather is not particularly sultry, but your forehead is all moist, and your veins purple and swollen,' she remarked dryly.

John Lock pulled out a handkerchief hastily and passed it over his face, partially to hide the swift surge of red that swept over it.

Abel Wychcote has a habit of rushing on like a racehorse,' he said indifferently. I am very glad to see you yourself again. So much better than I had even hoped,' he added softly.

'Thank you. I am sure to be

better now,' she answered flippant ly, dropping him a mock-heroic curtsy, while the ghost of a sneer crossed her lips.

The two parted. Ursula went up-stairs, and John Lock, loitering in the hall until all was still, descended into the subterranean vault, where his brother in crime impatiently awaited him.

An hour later a human figure walked to and fro in the darkness before the house, but no one noticed its movements save a woman looking out from a window in the second story-a woman with an expression of keen satisfaction in her hungry eyes. A key turned softly in the house-door, and there came a dull sound in the hall, as though more than one person had entered it.

'My latch-key has done its duty,' Ursula muttered audibly, with a strong shiver of excitement passing over her frame. How quietly they move!'

She was right. Everything seemed as still as death in the house. She could hear the even tick-tick of the clock on the mantelshelf, while her own heart beat like a muffled drum.

Then suddenly there came a scuffle in the lower part of the dwelling. Sharp, harsh, and piteous voices broke on the quiet, and a sound as though some one was being dragged perforce through the hall.

'Let me speak to my wife. Give me a few minutes, I pray of you. I must see her before you take me away.'

There was evidently consent to this, for John Lock went heavily up and stood before Ursula.

He was white and trembling, just like a man smitten with palsy.

'I am in trouble, cruel trouble; but do not fear: it will all go well, if you come to me to-morrow and

The woman looked full into his face and smiled-a cold withering smile.

'It was I who informed against you,' she said quietly; and I told the Secretary of the Treasury that you were not John Lock, but Joseph Locksley, the convict. I did it partly from a love of justice, but mostly because I could break the hateful bond between you and me in no other way. I might have spared you longer, but you maddened me into action by that cowardly blow.'

'O my God! Woman!-Jael! do you know that you have ruined a man who loved you better than his soul's salvation ?'

'And you-you have ruined a woman for whom there is no salvation !'

Her voice was wooden in its hardness, her face was white and cold and impassive as stone.

She had no spark of pity to give this man who had won her from Bernard Keane with an unscrupulous lie.

'Come, it is time,' said an official, walking into the room.

'I am ready. Nothing that can be done will harm me much now,' John Lock murmured drearily; then he made a step forward and held up an imploring face.

'Ursula, Ursula, say farewell! I forgive you all you have done. Kiss me once, I beseech of youI loved you so! I loved you so!— only for that!'

She stood paralysed, fully conscious now of the peril he was in, and of her share in the work. He caught her in his arms, and she did not resist. He pressed his icy quivering lips to hers, and met, instead of kisses, red drops of blood.

'You see,' she said, drawing her handkerchief across her mouth, 'we are both punished, and Bernard

'What will they give me, think you?' John Lock asked hoarsely of the official.

'For life. You see, you are an old offender,' was the answer in no compassionate tone.

'For life!'

The words sent a thrill to the woman's heart. Bernard Keane was safe.

For life! John Lock repeated, with blanched features and terror

stricken eyes. 'For life, my God! Ursula, good-bye, a long good-bye! Say one word before we part. Say you are sorry.

'I am glad! she hissed out between her teeth.

They took John Lock away, unresisting after that, his head drooped on his breast, his shoulders bent; twenty years seemed to have settled on him in the space of one short hour.

When he went out of the house, Ursula fell prone across the threshold of her room, and lay struggling desperately for breath.

CHAPTER XLIII.

DEAD.

RALPH PIERCE, harassed in mind, tortured with anxiety for his daughter, did not return to his old home after Ursula had left him once more for America. He spent the greater part of his nights in preaching, and lodged in a small cottage in the suburbs. But one day there came a letter in his trembling hand addressed to Miss Nell Weston.'

Nell was brushing Lennard's well-worn jacket, and giving a tender finishing touch to his little necktie, preparatory to his going to î rehearsal, when the postman ran

sive.

'What on earth have you come here for?' asked the child, in amaze

ment.

"'Cause it's for you,' replied the man, with a snuffle peculiar to him.

'Can't be for me,' Nell affirmed positively. I never had a letter in my life, and it's not likely I am going to begin now. Why, I don't know anybody that can write!'

She spoke as if she had attained the age of Methuselah, and leveled the clothes-brush at the man as if warding off the letter.

'I suppose you can read, little missy; and if you can, see hereyou'll find it's for you.'

'Yes, I can read,' Nell answered, with a saucy toss of the head, and write too, maybe better than many folks; so give it me, please.'

In her curiosity and eagerness she almost snatched it, and, holding it at arm's length, peered at it with one big blue eye half closed, as though she thought there was something too suspicious in its appearance to trust it nearer her.

'It's really me!' she exclaimed. 'What is it?' asked Lennard, brushing violently at his trousers.

'Just what I want to know! Here it is as big as life and twice as natural "Miss Nell Weston." Lennard, don't you think we are getting up in the world when folks take to writing to me, and directing like that?'

I know'd it was for you,' sniffed the postman. 'I am right, like other people, sometimes.'

Nell turned upon him with majesty. In this important crisis of her young life, while she held in her tiny fingers the very first missive she had ever received, common words and manners were out of place.

Postman,' she said, 'you mean well enough, but you had better

go down, and not waste your time here, when people have business affairs on hand. There's old Mrs. Simpkins, at the bottom of the house, calling to you in a way that will injure her throat, if it doesn't end in a fit.'

The man sniffed and grinned at the small creature's newborn dignity, and made towards the door.

'Postman,' called Nell, with a second thought, 'I daresay there'll be more letters coming-plenty of them and please to bring them up at once.'

'Who is it from?' questioned Lennard, pausing in his toilette.

'We shall know that by and by,' replied Nell severely. She looked at the superscription again, examined the postmark, and finally opened the envelope carefully with a knife, and began to read. Lennard, rebuked for his curiosity, went on dressing, with unruffled temper, startled at length by a loud exclamation from his sister.

'What is it? What is the matter, Nell?'

'Nothing, only they're coming back. Somebody is very ill-O poor thing!—and I am to dust the rooms, and get things ready for to

morrow.'

'Who is it-Mr. Pierce ? Is Miss Ursula ill?'

'Yes, I suppose so. What will the poor old man do? He was white as a sheet when he left here, and I mistook him for his own ghost' (here Lennard read the letter); and I'll get the key and go and brighten up the place a little. Poor Miss Ursula! She was crossgrained sometimes; but I like her all the same.'

Lennard scanned the letter, but he was in a hurry; and, besides, good and gentle-hearted as he was, his mind was so completely occupied by one absorbing thought, that he realised or comprehended

little outside of that beautiful dream of his.

Nell passed the whole day in setting the shabby room to rights, polishing up the rickety old furniture, and making Ursula's bedchamber look as bright and pleasant as she could. It was a difficult task, for the bare lodging possessed nothing which either taste or skill could arrange into comfort or prettiness.

It was nearly dusk the next day when a cab drove up to the door, and Ralph Pierce got out, looking more haggard and troubled than

ever.

Nell happened to be in the passage that did duty for a hall, just as he lifted out a woman. The veil which was thrown over her bonnet was large and thick, but Nell could dimly see the outlines of the lovely face underneath. So terribly changed and pale, save for the fatal hectic burning hotly on either cheek, that the child uttered a cry of surprise and grief.

Pierce made a warning gesture which silenced her at once, and then he carried his pale burden up the stairs slowly, though she was as light as a child.

'Shall I help you?' Nell whispered, awed by the old man's strange manner.

He shook his head.

'Are the rooms straight?' he

asked.

'Yes, Mr. Pierce, everything.'

She ran up-stairs before them, and, opening the door of the little bedroom, she drew the worn chintz hangings together, to make a pleasanter shadow; then she forced back the tears that rose to her eyes.

'A body can cry when there's nothing else to do,' she muttered to herself; but it isn't the time now to be pouring salt water down my face. O poor Miss Ursula, she is sure to die.'

Pierce assisted the sick woman to her bed, holding her tenderly with his arm. Nell whispered to him if she should help to undress her.

'Yes,' he answered drearily, his dim eyes misty with unshed drops, ' and I'll go and bring a doctor for her.'

Nell took off the heavy veil, and looked at the thin wan face in the dim half light-so beautiful still, but with the stamp of death on every feature. The woman lay with her great dark eyes closed, evidently conscious, but too weak and suffering to make any effort at exertion.

Suddenly she opened her lids wide, and almost glared round the

room.

'Where is he? where am I?' she articulated with difficulty.

Her voice was piteous in its utter feebleness, and, at the sound of it, Ralph Pierce, who had reached the door, hurried back to the bed, and, bending over, whispered some words that appeared to act as a sedative on the

nerves.

Like a sensible little creature, Nell did not attempt to speak to the invalid, who had resumed her passive attitude. The child crept noiselessly about, and, bringing some cool fresh water, began bathing the feverish and throbbing temples.

'How pleasant!' murmured the woman, half opening her eyes. 'How good you are!'

It seemed to Nell that Ursula's voice had never sounded so sweet before; the old imperiousness had quite gone out of it. The face, too,' had gained a gentleness and pathos of expression that only sorrow and suffering can bring.

All this wrung the child's pitying heart.

'Oh, don't you know me ?' she exclaimed, with a little sob.

'I

am Nell Weston; I live the flight above this. You'll be better soon, I hope, Miss Ursula !'

'Nell,' the woman repeated softly. Yes, yes, I know who it is. You will take care of me? He said you would-father, you know. I try to be patient, that he may not be troubled; but it won't be for long-for long! I feel that here.

She pressed down a thin fragilelooking hand on her sunken breast, as if to still some pain.

Just then Pierce came back, carrying a trunk.

'Dress her in fresh things,' he whispered. She is tired and ill, and it will do her good. I will not be gone long.'

Nell rushed to the trunk at once, and while she knelt by it, unpacking some of the old shabby garments it contained, Ralph Pierce bent over the sufferer, stroking her long glossy black hair, that, detached from the comb, fell in heavy coils over her shoulders, giving even more ghastliness to the face it enframed.

The tears stood in the old man's eyes, ready to fall, and Nell began to cry in sympathy.

'I'll do all I can for her, Mr. Pierce, I will; but, oh, it breaks my heart! Has she been ill long, -ever since she went away?'

'Yes, yes,' he said, in a broken voice, but flushing deeply as he answered; I am very grateful, Nell, you are a good little girl.'

'Nothing to brag of, I'm afraid,' replied the child modestly; 'but I ain't quite a heathen. I'm a pretty good nurse, father says, and Lennard-she'll find that.'

'I am sure she will, but she is very weak, my poor child, and she can't bear being talked to.'

'We will be quiet as mice,' Nell answered, putting on a queer solemn look. I know that children should be seen and not heard, and