SPRINGING up from the rickety old sofa in a tremor, Ursula rushed to the door of the room, and opening it, looked down the staircase. It was not her father, but Bernard, who mounted it slowly, with his head a little bent, and a dejected air about his whole appearance.

The girl drew back quickly into the room, and begged John Lock to excuse her for a moment. Then she flew out into the passage and firmly closed the door.

Úrsula, is it you?' asked Bernard wearily, as she stood in his way, half frightened, half smiling. 'So eagerly waiting too for that money! Never fear, I'll keep my promise to you; and though I have half broken my mother's heart by refusing her request, you shall have your dress.'

He sighed heavily, and started when the girl, throwing both arms. round his neck, laughed low but lightly.

'Never mind, darling. Give the money to your poor mother; I will do without it. It was very wrong, very wicked of me to speak as I did.'

'And you won't go to the ball? Will you give up that for my sake as well ?'

'Ah, that is asking too much. But my father must give me money, or I'll wear the old dress that rattles like dead leaves, and be content, so long as you look happy again.'

Will you really? O Ursula dearest, how unjust I have been! What elements of nobility lie under all your childishness! You make me dreadfully ashamed of myself.'

Bernard took her in his arms in a passion of remorse, and with his eyes looking into hers, and his mouth pressed to her own, begged her over and over again to forgive him for having dared to doubt her.

Now Ursula was a born actress, and she accepted the whole situation as naturally as though her generosity had been genuine. Though she felt the bank-notes rustle in her bosom close to his beating heart, and knew how completely false were all her claims to his admiration and praise, the idea of her self-sacrifice seemed for the moment quite real to her. She blushed under his deprecatory words and expressions of gratitude, and yielded her lips to his ardent kisses, half bashfully, as if shrinking from too much acknowledgment of her own magnanimity, exactly as a professional and great actress would have done.

'And you are ready to sacrifice your wishes, all to please me?' whispered the young husband, in a tender pathetic voice.

'What else have I to live for?' she asked sweetly. I would do anything for your mother too, though I have never seen her yet -not lady enough for that, I suppose. Never mind, the time will come, I hope.'

'Yes, my darling, the time will come, and very soon, I trust, when my mother will love you dearly and know your real worth as I do.'

'It shall not be for long, pet,' said Bernard, kissing her again half a dozen times on her cheek and brow and mouth, and holding her soft white hands close in his own. 'I am proud of your beauty, Ursula, and I love you, and we must soon be a united family; so that you and I may not be kept apart cruelly as we are now. You would like to live with me in a house of our own, love, would you not?'

She looked up, with great dark speaking eyes, into his face; then, with her old pretty gesture, laid her head on his breast, and held up her tempting pouting lips.

'I never want you to leave me, and you are going to leave me already,' she murmured, with wellsimulated pathos and regret.

'Yes, I must be off to give the good news to my mother. Her husband is going to America, and has no available means just now to defray the expenses of his journey. It is only a temporary embarrassment, you know,' he went on, flushing under the falsity of the statement, and my mother is anxious for him to go, for it appears that he has wonderfully fair prospects out there, if he can only get at some land he bought years ago.'

'And will your mother go with him ?'

'Not just yet; it is impossible. Not all the money I can raise would take them both so far. She must remain behind; and she loves him, and grieves sadly at the parting.

'Poor thing! You had better go to her at once.'

She stood and watched him down the stairs in an attitude of the most loving interest; then, when he had completely disappeared from view, and she heard the house - door close, she went back to the bad crafty man, who, with an air of resignation, awaited her in the sittingroom. But just as she was about to renew her conversation with him, the familiar step-the slow, lagging, hopeless sort of step peculiar to Ralph Pierce-resounded. hard by, and she stole into her own chamber, reluctant to meet her father with that secret-money pressing against her bosom.

Ursula had, however, established a confidence, and shared a secret, with John Lock-a fact which might well have made her tremble, had fear been a feeling known to her wild and audacious nature.

The two men met, with a show of cordiality; but there was distrust and discord between them in reality, which both endeavoured to conceal, for they feared one another. There was a sound of murmuring voices, and occasionally a sharp angry expression leaped out of the monotony, as if uncontrollable.

At last these expressions knit themselves into sentences, and broke out in earnest expostulation from Ralph Pierce; but the hard and keen threats came from the other man, as if he were conscious of a certain power over his companion, which he did not care to urge just at the moment to its full extent, but which he was forced to use sparingly now and then, just as a good horseman admonishes a restive horse with the curb and whip.

'I swear to you it is no idle fancy' he said, in a low concentrated tone, which, at any rate, sounded genuine enough. I love

the girl like a madman-a fool, if you please-but I love her all the same. And where, may I ask you, Mr. Ralph Pierce, will you find a better match for your daughter than I am? I am rich, very rich -three times as rich as you wot of. I stand quite high in the social line, and I am not so very old-if you count by feelings-younger at any rate than you are! What more could you ask for Ursula, or she ask for herself? Not love me! Why, friend, have you known me so long and yet doubt that I can make any woman love me, especially (begging your pardon) a bad, bold, talented, ambitious, splendid creature like that! She has more than a spice of the evil one in her nature, and she would pine herself fairly to death if she had to live with a good man! Give her to me, give her to me! I will surround her with the foolery and pomp she so dearly loves, and place her in a position that you never dared to dream a child of yours could attain.'

'But I am afraid, I almost know, that Ursula loves Bernard Keane,' answered the other timidly. He was so harassed and hunted down, that he was a very craven in John Lock's presence. It is a pity; but the attachment was formed long before she saw you even. Bernard Keane was a good match for her too.'

'A good match! Ye gods, what an idiot the man is! The girl is a fit mate for an emperor in the very beauty of her face and magnificence of her form. Let me have control over her for a year, and she will look down on all the women in England. Give her to me, and I will make her envied by all her sex. And you shall be rich-rich as a Jew!'

'Supposing I consent, will the marriage break up or change our past relations ?'

'No; it will consolidate our interests. As for your daughter, she will have everything she can desire. I tell you again that I am wealthy -more wealthy than you think.'

'Then why run any risk-why not be content with what you have?'

'Because I love excitement !' cried John Lock, bringing down. his brawny hand with a vehement thud on the sofa. 'Because, man, the greed of gold is a very devil within me! Because, too, the father of my wife must be rich, and able to take a good social stand, for my ambition and her beauty demand it. Once married, poverty will be an unknown word to my beautiful, my maddening Ursula.'

Ralph Pierce glanced up with keen wistfulness, searching the tempter's face with his weary haggard eyes, just as an animal regards what it believes to be its enemy.

'Do you seriously mean all you say?' he asked, in a hushed whisper and an unsteady tone.

'I do. And you-you consent, of course?'

'Suppose I say no?'

'I can't suppose anything so absurd; and if you do say no, I shall marry her all the same.' 'You will?'

'I will!'

A dead pause, during which the two eyed each other ominously. But John Lock's resolute eye, with a mocking triumphant gleam in it, watched the pallor flitting over Ralph Pierce's cheek; and John Lock, with his arms crossed defiantly over his broad chest, waited quietly until the man before him should give up even the show of fight.

'Why ask consent, then, if you are ready to defy it?' said a weak nervous voice at length.

'Listen to me, Ralph Pierce. I want no quarrels. Personally I like you. You are by nature a good man.

Through me you became a bad one. I owe you reparation therefore, and am willing to make it. As Ursula's father, too, I wish your advancement to go hand in hand with my own. Without me you can do nothing. You will starve on here, and when you die get buried in a pauper's grave. Against me, certain ruin awaits you. With me, yours and your child's welfare will be accomplished. Is it a bargain ?'

'Have you spoken to Ursula of all this ?'

'Not a word.'

'And you will promise not to breathe a hint of your intentions until I have paved the way?'

'Of course I promise. I am no boyish lover, impetuously anxious to mar my chance by too quick running. Talk to her as much and as long as you please. Put before her in glowing colours all that I can offer. Tell her, if you will, how much confidence you place in your old friend John Lock, how conducive to your wellbeing the marriage will be. And remember that the girl is mine—or you—'

Ralph Pierce threw out his shaking hands as if in entreaty that the words he dreaded on those cruel lips might be stayed.

'I will do my best for Ursula's good,' he replied meekly.

'Then the affair is settled.' The visitor took his hat, adjusted it with his usual vanity and deliberation before a smoke-dimmed little mirror in a black wooden frame that graced the mantelshelf, lighted another cigar, and sauntered out of the room, humming softly to himself, just as a cat purrs when satisfied with its surroundings.

The other man sank down on a low settle by the fireplace, and holding his head between his hands, fell into a train of thought.

However bad Ralph Pierce might have been, he loved his

child, and shrank from giving her up to one he knew full well to be both cruel and depraved. But even this pure outgush of nature was strangled by the thought that one act had placed him so completely in the power of a ruthless and unscrupulous villain. Had John Lock asked even a greater sacrifice than that of Ursula's marriage with himself, the miserable father knew that he would not have dared to resist it.

All the better part of his nature rose up in horrible revolt at the thought of plunging Ursula into the dark path which he had found so full of thorns and so impossible to escape from. But he knew that such thoughts were hopeless now, and felt in all its startling vividness and bitterness that no chains ever forged from strength and fire were so strong as those which crime links about a human heart.

And it was but a little while before that his hopes for Ursula had been brighter, that he had looked on Bernard Keane as a means of salvation for his child. A gentleman in education and habit, a man of genius, Bernard was so far above the girl, and so likely to draw her to his own level, that a really pure ambition had turned the father's hopes that way. But it was all over now. The power of the strong bad man was on him and on her; turn as he would, he could see no way to escape from this stern fact. He sat a long, long time in the room as John Lock had left him, with his hands clasped, his face bowed down, and tears, wrung from struggling memories, filling his eyes as rain breaks through the dusky night.

There was no hope in Ralph Pierce's face; no hope in Ralph Pierce's heart; even his child could not be rescued from the miserable destiny that pursued him. In giving Ursula to John Lock he

was certain that perdition lay at the end of all the brilliant prospects held out.

'I won't despair yet!' he cried, starting up desperately, and pacing the floor to and fro. 'He may change his mind. I will not speak yet. I will not sully the child's ears by talking of such an accursed marriage. Oh, if I had but the power to break away from him! If Heaven would but help me to save her from ruin to both body and soul!'

He seized his hat and hurried down the stairs as though a slaveowner with a thong was behind him, while Ursula still remained in her room, with the door locked and bolted.

She sat on her bed, with one hand under her scarlet jacket grasping the notes, but afraid to draw them out lest some chink or crevice in the wall might make observation possible.

But all seemed still; the murmur of the voices had ceased; and drawing forth the roll, she opened it breathlessly, and gave a great gasp of astonishment. Five tenpound notes! She counted them once, twice; her face flushed to a deep rosy red, her black eyes scintillating and eagerly devouring the sight. Fifty pounds! Mercy! how rich he must be !' With this exclamation, she dropped the notes into her lap, and placed both hands over them, guarding them as carefully as a miser does his wealth. Like John Lock, the greed of gold was a very devil in her heart.

CHAPTER XX.

THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT.

'IT is all for me, all for me!' she muttered, almost hoarsely in her wild excitement. 'He said I was not to tell father, and I won't.

He would only take and use it

himself. I never saw a penny of the last. I do not believe he used it to pay for my lessons either.'

She folded up the money carefully, after counting it over and over again, and each time with a keener, pleasanter sense of possession. Then she replaced it in her bosom, and crossing her arms over it, seemed to be embracing herself in a spirit of intense congratulation.

'Fifty pounds! Only think, fifty pounds! How shall I spend it? How shall I dare to spend it? They will both be watching me. Father might be cheated into thinking or believing anything, but Bernard is too sharp; and I believe he suspects already. I cannot wear a thread that he will not notice. Oh, if he would but. let me alone! There's his step. I must face him with lies in my mouth, and fifty pounds in my bosom. It seems like witchcraft!' 'Ursula !' 'Yes.'

And she walked into the other room, every vestige of perturbation. gone from her features, calm, quiet, and smiling.

'How good of you to come back so soon she said softly, going up to him, and sliding her arm caressingly through his.

But Bernard disengaged her arm and clasped her supple waist instead.

'I wanted to thank you again, darling,' he answered, holding her close to him, and toying with a great raven coil of hair that had fallen down. My mother was so glad. She wanted the money so much to help my stepfather to reach New York. I am thankful he is going, and never spent money more cheerfully or willingly; but she is brokenhearted at parting with him. It is painful to see any woman love a worthless man so devotedly.'