FOR the moment, the Minister disappointed me.

Without speaking, without even looking up, he took out his pocketbook, and began to write in it. Constantly interrupted either by a trembling in the hand that held the pencil, or by a difficulty (as I imagined) in expressing thoughts imperfectly realized--his patience gave way; he dashed the book on the floor.

"My mind is gone!" he burst out. "Oh, Father in Heaven, let death deliver me from a body without a mind!"

Who could hear him, and be guilty of the cruelty of preaching self-control? I picked up the pocketbook, and offered to help him.

"Do you think you can?" he asked.

"I can at least try."

"Good fellow! What should I do without you? See now; here is my difficulty. I have got so many things to say, I want to separate them--or else they will all run into each other. Look at the book," my poor friend said mournfully; "they have run into each other in spite of me."

The entries proved to be nearly incomprehensible. Here and there I discovered some scattered words, which showed themselves more or less distinctly in the midst of the surrounding confusion. The first word that I could make out was "Education." Helped by that hint, I trusted to guess-work to guide me in speaking to him. It was necessary to be positive, or he would have lost all faith in me.

"Well?" he said impatiently.

"Well," I answered, "you have something to say to me about the education which you have given to your daughters."

"Don't put them together!" he cried. "Dear, patient, sweet Eunice must not be confounded with that she-devil--"

"Hush, hush, Mr. Gracedieu! Badly as Miss Helena has behaved, she is your own child."

"I repudiate her, sir! Think for a moment of what she has done--and then think of the religious education that I have given her. Heartless! Deceitful! The most ignorant creature in the lowest dens of this town could have done nothing more basely cruel. And this, after years on years of patient Christian instruction on my part! What is religion? What is education? I read a horrible book once (I forget who was the author); it called religion superstition, and education empty form. I don't know; upon my word I don't know that the book may not--Oh, my tongue! Why don't I keep a guard over my tongue? Are you a father, too? Don't interrupt me. Put yourself in my place, and think of it. Heartless, deceitful, and my daughter. Give me the pocketbook; I want to see which memorandum comes first."

He had now wrought himself into a state of excitement, which relieved his spirits of the depression that had weighed on them up to this time. His harmless vanity, always, as I suspect, a latent quality in his kindly nature, had already restored his confidence. With a self-sufficient smile he consulted his own unintelligible entries, and made his own wild discoveries.

"Ah, yes; 'M' stands for Minister; I come first. Am I to blame? Am I--God forgive me my many sins--am I heartless? Am I deceitful?"

"My good friend, not even your enemies could say that!"

"Thank you. Who comes next?" He consulted the book again. "Her mother, her sainted mother, comes next. People say she is like her mother. Was my wife heartless? Was the angel of my life deceitful?"

("That," I thought to myself, "is exactly what your wife was--and exactly what reappears in your wife's child.")

"Where does her wickedness come from?" he went on. "Not from her mother; not from me; not from a neglected education." He suddenly stepped up to me and laid his hands on my shoulders; his voice dropped to hoarse, moaning, awestruck tones. "Shall I tell you what it is? A possession of the devil."

It was so evidently desirable to prevent any continuation of such a train of thought as this, that I could feel no hesitation in interrupting him.

"Will you hear what I have to say?" I asked bluntly.

His humor changed again; he made me a low bow, and went back to his chair. "I will hear you with pleasure," he answered politely. "You are the most eloquent man I know, with one exception--myself. Of course--myself."

"It is mere waste of time," I continued, "to regret the excellent education which your daughter has misused." Making that reply, I was tempted to add another word of truth. All education is at the mercy of two powerful counter-influences: the influence of temperament, and the influence of circumstances. But this was philosophy. How could I expect him to submit to philosophy? "What we know of Miss Helena," I went on, "must be enough for us. She has plotted, and she means to succeed. Stop her."

"Just my idea!" he declared firmly. "I refuse my consent to that abominable marriage."

In the popular phrase, I struck while the iron was hot. "You must do more than that, sir," I told him.

His vanity suddenly took the alarm--I was leading him rather too undisguisedly. He handed his book back to me. "You will find," he said loftily, "that I have put it all down there."

I pretended to find it, and read an imaginary entry to this effect: "After what she has already done, Helena is capable of marrying in defiance of my wishes and commands. This must be considered and provided against." So far, I had succeeded in flattering him. But when (thinking of his paternal authority) I alluded next to his daughter's age, his eyes rested on me with a look of downright terror.

"No more of that!" he said. "I won't talk of the girls' ages even with you."

What did he mean? It was useless to ask. I went on with the matter in hand--still deliberately speaking to him, as I might have spoken to a man with an intellect as clear as my own. In my experience, this practice generally stimulates a weak intelligence to do its best. We all know how children receive talk that is lowered, or books that are lowered, to their presumed level.

"I shall take it for granted," I continued, "that Miss Helena is still under your lawful authority. She can only arrive at her ends by means of a runaway marriage. In that case, much depends on the man. You told me you couldn't help liking him. This was, of course, before you knew of the infamous manner in which he has behaved. You must have changed your opinion now."

He seemed to be at a loss how to reply. "I am afraid," he said, "the young man was drawn into it by Helena."

Here was Miss Jillgall's apology for Philip Dunboyne repeated in other words. Despising and detesting the fellow as I did, I was forced to admit to myself that he must be recommended by personal attractions which it would be necessary to reckon with. I tried to get some more information from Mr. Gracedieu.

"The excuse you have just made for him," I resumed, "implies that he is a weak man; easily persuaded, easily led."

The Minister answered by nodding his head.

"Such weakness as that," I persisted, "is a vice in itself. It has led already, sir, to the saddest results."

He admitted this by another nod.

"I don't wish to shock you, Mr. Gracedieu; but I must recommend employing the means that present themselves. You must practice on this man's weakness, for the sake of the good that may come of it. I hear he is in London with his father. Try the strong influence, and write to his father. There is another reason besides for doing this. It is quite possible that the truth has been concealed from Mr. Dunboyne the elder. Take care that he is informed of what has really happened. Are you looking for pen, ink, and paper? Let me offer you the writing materials which I use in traveling."

I placed them before him. He took up the pen; he arranged the paper; he was eager to begin.

After writing a few words, he stopped--reflected--tried again--stopped again--tore up the little that he had done--and began a new letter, ending in the same miserable result. It was impossible to witness his helplessness, to see how pitiably patient he was over his own incapacity, and to let the melancholy spectacle go on. I proposed to write the letter; authenticating it, of course, by his signature. When he allowed me to take the pen, he turned away his face, ashamed to let me see what he suffered. Was this the same man, whose great nature had so nobly asserted itself in the condemned cell? Poor mortality!

The letter was easily written.

I had only to inform Mr. Dunboyne of his son's conduct; repeating, in the plainest language that I could use, what Miss Jillgall had related to me. Arrived at the conclusion, I contrived to make Mr. Gracedieu express himself in these strong terms: "I protest against the marriage in justice to you, sir, as well as to myself. We can neither of us content to be accomplices in an act of domestic treason of the basest kind."

In silence, the Minister read the letter, and attached his signature to it. In silence, he rose and took my arm. I asked if he wished to go to his room. He only replied by a sign. I offered to sit with him, and try to cheer him. Gratefully, he pressed my hand: gently, he put me back from the door. Crushed by the miserable discovery of the decay of his own faculties! What could I do? what could I say? Nothing!

Miss Jillgall was in the drawing-room. With the necessary explanations, I showed her the letter. She read it with breathless interest. "It terrifies one to think how much depends on old Mr. Dunboyne," she said. "You know him. What sort of man is he?"

I could only assure her (after what I remembered of his letter to me) that he was a man whom we could depend upon.

Miss Jillgall possessed treasures of information to which I could lay no claim. Mr. Dunboyne, she told me, was a scholar, and a writer, and a rich man. His views on marriage were liberal in the extreme. Let his son find good principles, good temper, and good looks, in a wife, and he would promise to find the money.

"I get these particulars," said Miss Jillgall, "from dear Euneece. They are surely encouraging? That Helena may carry out Mr. Dunboyne's views in her personal appearance is, I regret to say, what I can't deny. But as to the other qualifications, how hopeful is the prospect! Good principles, and good temper? Ha! ha! Helena has the principles of Jezebel, and the temper of Lady Macbeth."

After dashing off this striking sketch of character, the fair artist asked to look at my letter again, and observed that the address was wanting. "I can set this right for you," she resumed, "thanks, as before, to my sweet Euneece. And (don't be in a hurry) I can make myself useful in another way. Oh, how I do enjoy making myself useful! If you trust your letter to the basket in the hall, Helena's lovely eyes--capable of the meanest conceivable actions--are sure to take a peep at the address. In that case, do you think your letter would get to London? I am afraid you detect a faint infusion of spitefulness in that question. Oh, for shame! I'll post the letter myself."

FOR some reason, which my unassisted penetration was unable to discover, Miss Helena Gracedieu kept out of my way.

At dinner, on the day of my arrival, and at breakfast on the next morning, she was present of course; ready to make herself agreeable in a modest way, and provided with the necessary supply of cheerful small-talk. But the meal having come to an end, she had her domestic excuse ready, and unostentatiously disappeared like a well-bred young lady. I never met her on the stairs, never found myself intruding on her in the drawing-room, never caught her getting out of my way in the garden. As much at a loss for an explanation of these mysteries as I was, Miss Jillgall's interest in my welfare led her to caution me in a vague and general way.

"Take my word for it, dear Mr. Governor, she has some design on you. Will you allow an insignificant old maid to offer a suggestion? Oh, thank you; I will venture to advise. Please look back at your experience of the very worst female prisoner you ever had to deal with--and be guided accordingly if Helena catches you at a private interview."

In less than half an hour afterward, Helena caught me. I was writing in my room, when the maidservant came in with a message: "Miss Helena's compliments, sir, and would you please spare her half an hour, downstairs?"

My first excuse was of course that I was engaged. This was disposed of by a second message, provided beforehand, no doubt, for an anticipated refusal: "Miss Helena wished me to say, sir, that her time is your time." I was still obstinate; I pleaded next that my day was filled up. A third message had evidently been prepared, even for this emergency: "Miss Helena will regret, sir, having the pleasure deferred, but she will leave you to make your own appointment for to-morrow." Persistency so inveterate as this led to a result which Mr. Gracedieu's cautious daughter had not perhaps contemplated: it put me on my guard. There seemed to be a chance, to say the least of it, that I might serve Eunice's interests if I discovered what the enemy had to say. I locked up my writing--declared myself incapable of putting Miss Helena to needless inconvenience--and followed the maid to the lower floor of the house.

The room to which I was conducted proved to be empty. I looked round me.

If I had been told that a man lived there who was absolutely indifferent to appearances, I should have concluded that his views were faithfully represented by his place of abode. The chairs and tables reminded me of a railway waiting-room. The shabby little bookcase was the mute record of a life indifferent to literature. The carpet was of that dreadful drab color, still the cherished favorite of the average English mind, in spite of every protest that can be entered against it, on behalf of Art. The ceiling, recently whitewashed; made my eyes ache when they looked at it. On either side of the window, flaccid green curtains hung helplessly with nothing to loop them up. The writing-desk and the paper-case, viewed as specimens of woodwork, recalled the ready-made bedrooms on show in cheap shops. The books, mostly in slate-colored bindings, were devoted to the literature which is called religious; I only discovered three worldly publications among them--Domestic Cookery, Etiquette for Ladies, and Hints on the Breeding of Poultry. An ugly little clock, ticking noisily in a black case, and two candlesticks of base metal placed on either side of it, completed the ornaments on the chimney-piece. Neither pictures nor prints hid the barrenness of the walls. I saw no needlework and no flowers. The one object in the place which showed any pretensions to beauty was a looking-glass in an elegant gilt frame--sacred to vanity, and worthy of the office that it filled. Such was Helena Gracedieu's sitting-room. I really could not help thinking: How like her!

She came in with a face perfectly adapted to the circumstances--pleased and smiling; amiably deferential, in consideration of the claims of her father's guest--and, to my surprise, in some degree suggestive of one of those incorrigible female prisoners, to whom Miss Jillgall had referred me when she offered a word of advice.

"How kind of you to come so soon! Excuse my receiving you in my housekeeping-room; we shall not be interrupted here. Very plainly furnished, is it not? I dislike ostentation and display. Ornaments are out of place in a room devoted to domestic necessities. I hate domestic necessities. You notice the looking-glass? It's a present. I should never have put such a thing up. Perhaps my vanity excuses it."

She pointed the last remark by a look at herself in the glass; using it, while she despised it. Yes: there was a handsome face, paying her its reflected compliment--but not so well matched as it might have been by a handsome figure. Her feet were too large; her shoulders were too high; the graceful undulations of a well-made girl were absent when she walked; and her bosom was, to my mind, unduly developed for her time of life.

She sat down by me with her back to the light. Happening to be opposite to the window, I offered her the advantage of a clear view of my face. She waited for me, and I waited for her--and there was an awkward pause before we spoke. She set the example.

"Isn't it curious?" she remarked. "When two people have something particular to say to each other, and nothing to hinder them, they never seem to know how to say it. You are the oldest, sir. Why don't you begin?"

"Because I have nothing particular to say."

"In plain words, you mean that I must begin?"

"If you please."

"Very well. I want to know whether I have given you (and Miss Jillgall, of course) as much time as you want, and as many opportunities as you could desire?"

"Pray go on, Miss Helena."

"Have I not said enough already?"

"Not enough, I regret to say, to convey your meaning to me."

She drew her chair a little further away from me. "I am sadly disappointed," she said. "I had such a high opinion of your perfect candor. I thought to myself: There is such a striking expression of frankness in his face. Another illusion gone! I hope you won't think I am offended, if I say a bold word. I am only a young girl, to be sure; but I am not quite such a fool as you take me for. Do you really think I don't know that Miss Jillgall has been telling you everything that is bad about me; putting every mistake that I have made, every fault that I have committed, in the worst possible point of view? And you have listened to her--quite naturally! And you are prejudiced, strongly prejudiced, against me--what else could you be, under the circumstances? I don't complain; I have purposely kept out of your way, and out of Miss Jillgall's way; in short, I have afforded you every facility, as the prospectuses say. I only want to know if my turn has come at last. Once more, have I given you time enough, and opportunities enough?"

"A great deal more than enough."

"Do you mean that you have made up your mind about me without stopping to think?"

"That is exactly what I mean. An act of treachery, Miss Helena, is an act of treachery; no honest person need hesitate to condemn it. I am sorry you sent for me."

I got up to go. With an ironical gesture of remonstrance, she signed to me to sit down again.

"Must I remind you, dear sir, of our famous native virtue? Fair play is surely due to a young person who has nobody to take her part. You talked of treachery just how. I deny the treachery. Please give me a hearing."

I returned to my chair.

"Or would you prefer waiting," she went out, "till my sister comes here later in the day, and continues what Miss Jillgall has begun, with the great advantage of being young and nice-looking?"

When the female mind gets into this state, no wise man answers the female questions.

"Am I to take silence as meaning Go on?" Miss Helena inquired.

I begged her to interpret my silence in the sense most agreeable to herself.

This naturally encouraged her. She made a proposal:

"Do you mind changing places, sir?"

"Just as you like, Miss Helena."

We changed chairs; the light now fell full on her face. Had she deliberately challenged me to look into her secret mind if I could? Anything like the stark insensibility of that young girl to every refinement of feeling, to every becoming doubt of herself, to every customary timidity of her age and sex in the presence of a man who had not disguised his unfavorable opinion of her, I never met with in all my experience of the world and of women.

"I wish to be quite mistress of myself," she explained; "your face, for some reason which I really don't know, irritates me. The fact is, I have great pride in keeping my temper. Please make allowances. Now about Miss Jillgall. I suppose she told you how my sister first met with Philip Dunboyne?"

"Yes."

"She also mentioned, perhaps, that he was a highly-cultivated man?"

"She did."

"Now we shall get on. When Philip came to our town here, and saw me for the first time--Do you object to my speaking familiarly of him, by his Christian name?"

"In the case of any one else in your position, Miss Helena, I should venture to call it bad taste."

I was provoked into saying that. It failed entirely as a well-meant effort in the way of implied reproof. Miss Helena smiled.

"You grant me a liberty which you would not concede to another girl." That was how she viewed it. "We are getting on better already. To return to what I was saying. When Philip first saw me--I have it from himself, mind--he felt that I should have been his choice, if he had met with me before he met with my sister. Do you blame him?"

"If you will take my advice," I said, "you will not inquire too closely into my opinion of Mr. Philip Dunboyne."

"Perhaps you don't wish me to say anymore?" she suggested.

"On the contrary, pray go on, if you like."

After that concession, she was amiability itself. "Oh, yes," she assured me, "that's easily done." And she went on accordingly: "Philip having informed me of the state of his affections, I naturally followed his example. In fact, we exchanged confessions. Our marriage engagement followed as a matter of course. Do you blame me?"

"I will wait till you have done."

"I have no more to say."

She made that amazing reply with such perfect composure, that I began to fear there must have been some misunderstanding between us. "Is that really all you have to say for yourself?" I persisted.

Her patience with me was most exemplary. She lowered herself to my level. Not trusting to words only on this occasion, she (so to say) beat her meaning into my head by gesticulating on her fingers, as if she was educating a child.

"Philip and I," she began, "are the victims of an accident, which kept us apart when we ought to have met together--we are not responsible for an accident." She impressed this on me by touching her forefinger. "Philip and I fell in love with each other at first sight--we are not responsible for the feelings implanted in our natures by an all-wise Providence." She assisted me in understanding this by touching her middle finger. "Philip and I owe a duty to each other, and accept a responsibility under those circumstances--the responsibility of getting married." A touch on her third finger, and an indulgent bow, announced that the lesson was ended. "I am not a clever man like you," she modestly acknowledged, "but I ask you to help us, when you next see my father, with some confidence. You know exactly what to say to him, by this time. Nothing has been forgotten."

"Pardon me," I said, "a person has been forgotten."

"Indeed? What person?"

"Your sister."

A little perplexed at first, Miss Helena reflected, and recovered herself.

"Ah, yes," she said; "I was afraid I might be obliged to trouble you for an explanation--I see it now. You are shocked (very properly) when feelings of enmity exist between near relations; and you wish to be assured that I bear no malice toward Eunice. She is violent, she is sulky, she is stupid, she is selfish; and she cruelly refuses to live in the same house with me. Make your mind easy, sir, I forgive my sister."

Let me not attempt to disguise it--Miss Helena Gracedieu confounded me.

Ordinary audacity is one of those forms of insolence which mature experience dismisses with contempt. This girl's audacity struck down all resistance, for one shocking reason: it was unquestionably sincere. Strong conviction of her own virtue stared at me in her proud and daring eyes. At that time, I was not aware of what I have learned since. The horrid hardening of her moral sense had been accomplished by herself. In her diary, there has been found the confession of a secret course of reading--with supplementary reflections flowing from it, which need only to be described as worthy of their source.

A person capable of repentance and reform would, in her place, have seen that she had disgusted me. Not a suspicion of this occurred to Miss Helena. "I see you are embarrassed," she remarked, "and I am at no loss to account for it. You are too polite to acknowledge that I have not made a friend of you yet. Oh, I mean to do it!"

"No," I said, "I think not."

"We shall see," she replied. "Sooner or later, you will find yourself saying a kind word to my father for Philip and me." She rose, and took a turn in the room--and stopped, eying me attentively. "Are you thinking of Eunice?" she asked.

"Yes."

"She has your sympathy, I suppose?"

"My heart-felt sympathy."

"I needn't ask how I stand in your estimation, after that. Pray express yourself freely. Your looks confess it--you view me with a feeling of aversion."

"I view you with a feeling of horror."

The exasperating influences of her language, her looks, and her tones would, as I venture to think, have got to the end of another man's self-control before this. Anyway, she had at last irritated me into speaking as strongly as I felt. What I said had been so plainly (perhaps so rudely) expressed, that misinterpretation of it seemed to be impossible. She mistook me, nevertheless. The most merciless disclosure of the dreary side of human destiny is surely to be found in the failure of words, spoken or written, so to answer their purpose that we can trust them, in our attempts to communicate with each other. Even when he seems to be connected, by the nearest and dearest relations, with his fellow-mortals, what a solitary creature, tried by the test of sympathy, the human being really is in the teeming world that he inhabits! Affording one more example of the impotence of human language to speak for itself, my misinterpreted words had found their way to the one sensitive place in Helena Gracedieu's impenetrable nature. She betrayed it in the quivering and flushing of her hard face, and in the appeal to the looking-glass which escaped her eyes the next moment. My hasty reply had roused the idea of a covert insult addressed to her handsome face. In other words, I had wounded her vanity. Driven by resentment, out came the secret distrust of me which had been lurking in that cold heart, from the moment when we first met.

"I inspire you with horror, and Eunice inspires you with compassion," she said. "That, Mr. Governor, is not natural."

"May I ask why?"

"You know why."

"No."

"You will have it?"

"I want an explanation, Miss Helena, if that is what you mean."

"Take your explanation, then! You are not the stranger you are said to be to my sister and to me. Your interest in Eunice is a personal interest of some kind. I don't pretend to guess what it is. As for myself, it is plain that somebody else has been setting you against me, before Miss Jillgall got possession of your private ear."

In alluding to Eunice, she had blundered, strangely enough, on something like the truth. But when she spoke of herself, the headlong malignity of her suspicions--making every allowance for the anger that had hurried her into them--seemed to call for some little protest against a false assertion. I told her that she was completely mistaken.

"I am completely right," she answered; "I saw it."

"Saw what?"

"Saw you pretending to be a stranger to me."

"When did I do that?"

"You did it when we met at the station."

The reply was too ridiculous for the preservation of any control over my own sense of humor. It was wrong; but it was inevitable--I laughed. She looked at me with a fury, revealing a concentration of evil passion in her which I had not seen yet. I asked her pardon; I begged her to think a little before she persisted in taking a view of my conduct unworthy of her, and unjust to myself.

"Unjust to You!" she burst out. "Who are you? A man who has driven your trade has spies always at his command--yes! and knows how to use them. You were primed with private information--you had, for all I know, a stolen photograph of me in your pocket--before ever you came to our town. Do you still deny it? Oh, sir, why degrade yourself by telling a lie?"

No such outrage as this had ever been inflicted on me, at any time in my life. My forbearance must, I suppose, have been more severely tried than I was aware of myself. With or without excuse for me, I was weak enough to let a girl's spiteful tongue sting me, and, worse still, to let her see that I felt it.

"You shall have no second opportunity, Miss Gracedieu, of insulting me." With that foolish reply, I opened the door violently and went out.

She ran after me, triumphing in having roused the temper of a man old enough to have been her grandfather, and caught me by the arm. "Your own conduct has exposed you." (That was literally how she expressed herself.) "I saw it in your eyes when we met at the station. You, the stranger--you who allowed poor ignorant me to introduce myself--you knew me all the time, knew me by sight!"

I shook her hand off with an inconsiderable roughness, humiliating to remember. "It's false!" I cried. "I knew you by your likeness to your mother."

The moment the words had passed my lips, I came to my senses again; I remembered what fatal words they might prove to be, if they reached the Minister's ears.

Heard only by his daughter, my reply seemed to cool the heat of her anger in an instant.

"So you knew my mother?" she said. "My father never told us that, when he spoke of your being such a very old friend of his. Strange, to say the least of it."

I was wise enough--now when wisdom had come too late--not to attempt to explain myself, and not to give her an opportunity of saying more. "We are neither of us in a state of mind," I answered, "to allow this interview to continue. I must try to recover my composure; and I leave you to do the same."

In the solitude of my room, I was able to look my position fairly in the face.

Mr. Gracedieu's wife had come to me, in the long-past time, without her husband's knowledge. Tempted to a cruel resolve by the maternal triumph of having an infant of her own, she had resolved to rid herself of the poor little rival in her husband's fatherly affection, by consigning the adopted child to the keeping of a charitable asylum. She had dared to ask me to help her. I had kept the secret of her shameful visit--I can honestly say, for the Minister's sake. And now, long after time had doomed those events to oblivion, they were revived--and revived by me. Thanks to my folly, Mr. Gracedieu's daughter knew what I had concealed from Mr. Gracedieu himself.

What course did respect for my friend, and respect for myself, counsel me to take?

I could only see before me a choice of two evils. To wait for events--with the too certain prospect of a vindictive betrayal of my indiscretion by Helena Gracedieu. Or to take the initiative into my own hands, and risk consequences which I might regret to the end of my life, by making my confession to the Minister.

Before I had decided, somebody knocked at the door. It was the maid-servant again. Was it possible she had been sent by Helena?

"Another message?"

"Yes, sir. My master wishes to see you."

HAD the Minister's desire to see me been inspired by his daughter's betrayal of what I had unfortunately said to her? Although he would certainly not consent to receive her personally, she would be at liberty to adopt a written method of communication with him, and the letter might be addressed in such a manner as to pique his curiosity. If Helena's vindictive purpose had been already accomplished--and if Mr. Gracedieu left me no alternative but to present his unworthy wife in her true character--I can honestly say that I dreaded the consequences, not as they might affect myself, but as they might affect my unhappy friend in his enfeebled state of body and mind.

When I entered his room, he was still in bed.

The bed-curtains were so drawn, on the side nearest to the window, as to keep the light from falling too brightly on his weak eyes. In the shadow thus thrown on him, it was not possible to see his face plainly enough, from the open side of the bed, to arrive at any definite conclusion as to what might be passing in his mind. After having been awake for some hours during the earlier part of the night, he had enjoyed a long and undisturbed sleep. "I feel stronger this morning," he said, "and I wish to speak to you while my mind is clear."

If the quiet tone of his voice was not an assumed tone, he was surely ignorant of all that had passed between his daughter and myself.

"Eunice will be here soon," he proceeded, "and I ought to explain why I have sent for her to come and meet you. I have reasons, serious reasons, mind, for wishing you to compare her personal appearance with Helena's personal appearance, and then to tell me which of the two, on a fair comparison, looks the eldest. Pray bear in mind that I attach the greatest importance to the conclusion at which you may arrive."

He spoke more clearly and collectedly than I had heard him speak yet.

Here and there I detected hesitations and repetitions, which I have purposely passed over. The substance of what he said to me is all that I shall present in this place. Careful as I have been to keep my record of events within strict limits, I have written at a length which I was far indeed from contemplating when I accepted Mr. Gracedieu's invitation.

Having promised to comply with the strange request which he had addressed to me, I ventured to remind him of past occasions on which he had pointedly abstained, when the subject presented itself, from speaking of the girls' ages. "You have left it to my discretion," I added, "to decide a question in which you are seriously interested, relating to your daughters. Have I no excuse for regretting that I have not been admitted to your confidence a little more freely?"

"You have every excuse," he answered. "But you trouble me all the same. There was something else that I had to say to you--and your curiosity gets in the way."

He said this with a sullen emphasis. In my position, the worst of evils was suspense. I told him that my curiosity could wait; and I begged that he would relieve his mind of what was pressing on it at the moment.

"Let me think a little," he said.

I waited anxiously for the decision at which he might arrive. Nothing came of it to justify my misgivings. "Leave what I have in my mind to ripen in my mind," he said. "The mystery about the girls' ages seems to irritate you. If I put my good friend's temper to any further trial, he will be of no use to me. Never mind if my head swims; I'm used to that. Now listen!"

Strange as the preface was, the explanation that followed was stranger yet. I offer a shortened and simplified version, giving accurately the substance of what I heard.

The Minister entered without reserve on the mysterious subject of the ages. Eunice, he informed me, was nearly two years older than Helena. If she outwardly showed her superiority of age, any person acquainted with the circumstances under which the adopted infant had been received into Mr. Gracedieu's childless household, need only compare the so-called sisters in after-life, and would thereupon identify the eldest-looking young lady of the two as the offspring of the woman who had been hanged for murder. With such a misfortune as this presenting itself as a possible prospect, the Minister was bound to prevent the girls from ignorantly betraying each other by allusions to their ages and their birthdays. After much thought, he had devised a desperate means of meeting the difficulty--already made known, as I am told, for the information of strangers who may read the pages that have gone before mine. My friend's plan of proceeding had, by the nature of it, exposed him to injurious comment, to embarrassing questions, and to doubts and misconceptions, all patiently endured in consideration of the security that had been attained. Proud of his explanation, Mr. Gracedieu's vanity called upon me to acknowledge that my curiosity had been satisfied, and my doubts completely set at rest.

No: my obstinate common sense was not reduced to submission, even yet. Looking back over a lapse of seventeen years, I asked what had happened, in that long interval, to justify the anxieties which still appeared to trouble my friend.

This time, my harmless curiosity could be gratified by a reply expressed in three words--nothing had happened.

Then what, in Heaven's name, was the Minister afraid of?

His voice dropped to a whisper. He said: "I am afraid of the women."

Who were the women?

Two of them actually proved to be the servants employed in Mr. Gracedieu's house, at the bygone time when be had brought the child home with him from the prison! To point out the absurdity of the reasons that he gave for fearing what female curiosity might yet attempt, if circumstances happened to encourage it, would have been a mere waste of words. Dismissing the subject, I next ascertained that the Minister's doubts extended even to the two female warders, who had been appointed to watch the murderess in turn, during her last days in prison. I easily relieved his mind in this case. One of the warders was dead. The other had married a farmer in Australia. Had we exhausted the list of suspected persons yet? No: there was one more left; and the Minister declared that he had first met with her in my official residence, at the time when I was Governor of the prison.

"She presented herself to me by name," he said; "and she spoke rudely. A Miss--" He paused to consult his memory, and this time (thanks perhaps to his night's rest) his memory answered the appeal. "I have got it!" he cried--"Miss Chance."

My friend had interested me in his imaginary perils at last. It was just possible that he might have a formidable person to deal with now.

During my residence at Florence, the Chaplain and I had taken many a retrospective look (as old men will) at past events in our lives. My former colleague spoke of the time when he had performed clerical duty for his friend, the rector of a parish church in London. Neither he nor I had heard again of the "Miss Chance" of our disagreeable prison experience, whom he had married to the dashing Dutch gentleman, Mr. Tenbruggen. We could only wonder what had become of that mysterious married pair.

Mr. Gracedieu being undoubtedly ignorant of the woman's marriage, it was not easy to say what the consequence might be, in his excitable state, if I informed him of it. He would, in all probability, conclude that I knew more of the woman than he did. I decided on keeping my own counsel, for the present at least.

Passing at once, therefore, to the one consideration of any importance, I endeavored to find out whether Mr. Gracedieu and Mrs. Tenbruggen had met, or had communicated with each other in any way, during the long period of separation that had taken place between the Minister and myself. If he had been so unlucky as to offend her, she was beyond all doubt an enemy to be dreaded. Apart, however, from a misfortune of this kind, she would rank, in my opinion, with the other harmless objects of Mr. Gracedieu's distrust.

In making my inquiries, I found that I had an obstacle to contend with.

While he felt the renovating influence of the repose that he enjoyed, the Minister had been able to think and to express himself with less difficulty than usual. But the reserves of strength, on which the useful exercise of his memory depended, began to fail him as the interview proceeded. He distinctly recollected that "something unpleasant had passed between that audacious woman and himself." But at what date--and whether by word of mouth or by correspondence--was more than his memory could now recall. He believed be was not mistaken in telling me that he "had been in two minds about her." At one time, he was satisfied that he had taken wise measures for his own security, if she attempted to annoy him. But there was another and a later time, when doubts and fears had laid hold of him again. If I wanted to know how this had happened, he fancied it was through a dream; and if I asked what the dream was, he could only beg and pray that I would spare his poor head.

Unwilling even yet to submit unconditionally to defeat, it occurred to me to try a last experiment on my friend, without calling for any mental effort on his own part. The "Miss Chance" of former days might, by a bare possibility, have written to him. I asked accordingly if he was in the habit of keeping his letters, and if he would allow me (when he had rested a little) to lay them open before him, so that he could look at the signatures. "You might find the lost recollection in that way," I suggested, "at the bottom of one of your letters."

He was in that state of weariness, poor fellow, in which a man will do anything for the sake of peace. Pointing to a cabinet in his room, he gave me a key taken from a little basket on his bed. "Look for yourself," he said. After some hesitation--for I naturally recoiled from examining another man's correspondence--I decided on opening the cabinet, at any rate.

The letters--a large collection--were, to my relief, all neatly folded, and indorsed with the names of the writers. I could run harmlessly through bundle after bundle in search of the one name that I wanted, and still respect the privacy of the letters. My perseverance deserved a reward--and failed to get it. The name I wanted steadily eluded my search. Arriving at the upper shelf of the cabinet, I found it so high that I could barely reach it with my hand. Instead of getting more letters to look over, I pulled down two newspapers.

One of them was an old copy of the Times, dating back as far as the 13th December, 1858. It was carefully folded, longwise, with the title-page uppermost. On the first column, at the left-hand side of the sheet, appeared the customary announcements of Births. A mark with a blue pencil, against one of the advertisements, attracted my attention. I read these lines:

"On the 10th inst., the wife of the Rev. Abel Gracedieu, of a daughter."

The second newspaper bore a later date, and contained nothing that interested me. I naturally assumed that the advertisement in the Times had been inserted at the desire of Mrs. Gracedieu; and, after all that I had heard, there was little difficulty in attributing the curious omission of the place in which the child had been born to the caution of her husband. If Mrs. Tenbruggen (then Miss Chance) had happened to see the advertisement in the great London newspaper, Mr. Gracedieu might yet have good reason to congratulate himself on his prudent method of providing against mischievous curiosity.

I turned toward the bed and looked at him. His eyes were closed. Was he sleeping? Or was he trying to remember what he had desired to say to me, when the demands which I made on his memory had obliged him to wait for a later opportunity?

Either way, there was something that quickened my sympathies, in the spectacle of his helpless repose. It suggested to me personal reasons for his anxieties, which he had not mentioned, and which I had not thought of, up to this time. If the discovery that he dreaded took place, his household would be broken up, and his position as pastor would suffer in the estimation of the flock. His own daughter would refuse to live under the same roof with the daughter of an infamous woman. Popular opinion, among his congregation, judging a man who had passed off the child of other parents as his own, would find that man guilty of an act of deliberate deceit.

Still oppressed by reflections which pointed to the future in this discouraging way, I was startled by a voice outside the door--a sweet, sad voice--saying, "May I come in?"

The Minister's eyes opened instantly: he raised himself in his bed.

"Eunice, at last!" he cried. "Let her in."

I OPENED the door.

Eunice passed me with the suddenness almost of a flash of light. When I turned toward the bed, her arms were round her father's neck. "Oh, poor papa, how ill you look!" Commonplace expressions of fondness, and no more; but the tone gave them a charm that subdued me. Never had I felt so indulgent toward Mr. Gracedieu's unreasonable fears as when I saw him in the embrace of his adopted daughter. She had already reminded me of the bygone day when a bright little child had sat on my knee and listened to the ticking of my watch.

The Minister gently lifted her head from his breast. "My darling," he said, "you don't see my old friend. Love him, and look up to him, Eunice. He will be your friend, too, when I am gone."

She came to me and offered her cheek to be kissed. It was sadly pale, poor soul--and I could guess why. But her heart was now full of her father. "Do you think he is seriously ill?" she whispered. What I ought to have said I don't know. Her eyes, the sweetest, truest, loveliest eyes I ever saw in a human face, were pleading with me. Let my enemies make the worst of it, if they like--I did certainly lie. And if I deserved my punishment, I got it; the poor child believed me! "Now I am happier," she said, gratefully. "Only to hear your voice seems to encourage me. On our way here, Selina did nothing but talk of you. She told me I shouldn't have time to feel afraid of the great man; he would make me fond of him directly. I said, 'Are you fond of him?' She said, 'Madly in love with him, my dear.' My little friend really thinks you like her, and is very proud of it There are some people who call her ugly. I hope you don't agree with them?"

I believe I should have lied again, if Mr. Gracedieu had not called me to the bedside.

"How does she strike you?" he whispered, eagerly. "Is it too soon to ask if she shows her age in her face?"

"Neither in her face nor her figure," I answered: "it astonishes me that you can ever have doubted it. No stranger, judging by personal appearance, could fail to make the mistake of thinking Helena the oldest of the two."

He looked fondly at Eunice. "Her figure seems to bear out what you say," he went on. "Almost childish, isn't it?"

I could not agree to that. Slim, supple, simply graceful in every movement, Eunice's figure, in the charm of first youth, only waited its perfect development. Most men, looking at her as she stood at the other end of the room with her back toward us, would have guessed her age to be sixteen.

Finding that I failed to agree with him, Mr. Gracedieu's misgivings returned. "You speak very confidently," he said, "considering that you have not seen the girls together. Think what a dreadful blow it would be to me if you made a mistake."

I declared, with perfect sincerity, that there was no fear of a mistake. The bare idea of making the proposed comparison was hateful to me. If Helena and I had happened to meet at that moment, I should have turned away from her by instinct--she would have disturbed my impressions of Eunice.

The Minister signed to me to move a little nearer to him. "I must say it," he whispered, "and I am afraid of her hearing me. Is there anything in her face that reminds you of her miserable mother?"

I had hardly patience to answer the question: it was simply preposterous. Her hair was by many shades darker than her mother's hair; her eyes were of a different color. There was an exquisite tenderness and sincerity in their expression--made additionally beautiful, to my mind, by a gentle, uncomplaining sadness. It was impossible even to think of the eyes of the murderess when I looked at her child. Eunice's lower features, again, had none of her mother's regularity of proportion. Her smile, simple and sweet, and soon passing away, was certainly not an inherited smile on the maternal side. Whether she resembled her father, I was unable to conjecture--having never seen him. The one thing certain was, that not the faintest trace, in feature or expression, of Eunice's mother was to be seen in Eunice herself. Of the two girls, Helena--judging by something in the color of her hair, and by something in the shade of her complexion--might possibly have suggested, in those particulars only, a purely accidental resemblance to my terrible prisoner of past times.

The revival of Mr. Gracedieu's spirits indicated a temporary change only, and was already beginning to pass away. The eyes which had looked lovingly at Eunice began to look languidly now: his head sank on the pillow with a sigh of weak content. "My pleasure has been almost too much for me," he said. "Leave me for a while to rest, and get used to it."

Eunice kissed his forehead--and we left the room.

WHEN we stepped out on the landing, I observed that my companion paused. She looked at the two flights of stairs below us before she descended them. It occurred to me that there must be somebody in the house whom she was anxious to avoid.

Arrived at the lower hall, she paused again, and proposed in a whisper that we should go into the garden. As we advanced along the backward division of the hall, I saw her eyes turn distrustfully toward the door of the room in which Helena had received me. At last, my slow perceptions felt with her and understood her. Eunice's sensitive nature recoiled from a chance meeting with the wretch who had laid waste all that had once been happy and hopeful in that harmless young life.

"Will you come with me to the part of the garden that I am fondest of?" she asked.

I offered her my arm. She led me in silence to a rustic seat, placed under the shade of a mulberry tree. I saw a change in her face as we sat down--a tender and beautiful change. At that moment the girl's heart was far away from me. There was some association with this corner of the garden, on which I felt that I must not intrude.

"I was once very happy here," she said. "When the time of the heartache came soon after, I was afraid to look at the old tree and the bench under it. But that is all over now. I like to remember the hours that were once dear to me, and to see the place that recalls them. Do you know who I am thinking of? Don't be afraid of distressing me. I never cry now."

"My dear child, I have heard your sad story--but I can't trust myself to speak of it."

"Because you are so sorry for me?"

"No words can say how sorry I am!"

"But you are not angry with Philip?"

"Not angry! My poor dear, I am afraid to tell you how angry I am with him."

"Oh, no! You mustn't say that. If you wish to be kind to me--and I am sure you do wish it--don't think bitterly of Philip."

When I remember that the first feeling she roused in me was nothing worthier of a professing Christian than astonishment, I drop in my own estimation to the level of a savage. "Do you really mean," I was base enough to ask, "that you have forgiven him?"

She said, gently: "How could I help forgiving him?"

The man who could have been blessed with such love as this, and who could have cast it away from him, can have been nothing but an idiot. On that ground--though I dared not confess it to Eunice--I forgave him, too.

"Do I surprise you?" she asked simply. "Perhaps love will bear any humiliation. Or perhaps I am only a poor weak creature. You don't know what a comfort it was to me to keep the few letters that I received from Philip. When I heard that he had gone away, I gave his letters the kiss that bade him good-by. That was the time, I think, when my poor bruised heart got used to the pain; I began to feel that there was one consolation still left for me--I might end in forgiving him. Why do I tell you all this? I think you must have bewitched me. Is this really the first time I have seen you?"

She put her little trembling hand into mine; I lifted it to my lips, and kissed it. Sorely was I tempted to own that I had pitied and loved her in her infancy. It was almost on my lips to say: "I remember you an easily-pleased little creature, amusing yourself with the broken toys which were once the playthings of my own children." I believe I should have said it, if I could have trusted myself to speak composedly to her. This was not to be done. Old as I was, versed as I was in the hard knowledge of how to keep the mask on in the hour of need, this was not to be done.

Still trying to understand that I was little better than a stranger to her, and still bent on finding the secret of the sympathy that united us, Eunice put a strange question to me.

"When you were young yourself," she said, "did you know what it was to love, and to be loved--and then to lose it all?"

It is not given to many men to marry the woman who has been the object of their first love. My early life had been darkened by a sad story; never confided to any living creature; banished resolutely from my own thoughts. For forty years past, that part of my buried self had lain quiet in its grave--and the chance touch of an innocent hand had raised the dead, and set us face to face again! Did I know what it was to love, and to be loved, and then to lose it all? "Too well, my child; too well!"

That was all I could say to her. In the last days of my life, I shrank from speaking of it. When I had first felt that calamity, and had felt it most keenly, I might have given an answer worthier of me, and worthier of her.

She dropped my hand, and sat by me in silence, thinking. Had I--without meaning it, God knows!--had I disappointed her?

"Did you expect me to tell my own sad story," I said, "as frankly and as trustfully as you have told yours?"

"Oh, don't think that! I know what an effort it was to you to answer me at all. Yes, indeed! I wonder whether I may ask something. The sorrow you have just told me of is not the only one--is it? You have had other troubles?"

"Many of them."

"There are times," she went on, "when one can't help thinking of one's own miserable self. I try to be cheerful, but those times come now and then."

She stopped, and looked at me with a pale fear confessing itself in her face.

"You know who Selina is?" she resumed. "My friend! The only friend I had, till you came here."

I guessed that she was speaking of the quaint, kindly little woman, whose ugly surname had been hitherto the only name known to me.

"Selina has, I daresay, told you that I have been ill," she continued, "and that I am staying in the country for the benefit of my health."

It was plain that she had something to say to me, far more important than this, and that she was dwelling on trifles to gain time and courage. Hoping to help her, I dwelt on trifles, too; asking commonplace questions about the part of the country in which she was staying. She answered absently--then, little by little, impatiently. The one poor proof of kindness that I could offer, now, was to say no more.

"Do you know what a strange creature I am?" she broke out. "Shall I make you angry with me? or shall I make you laugh at me? What I have shrunk from confessing to Selina--what I dare not confess to my father--I must, and will, confess to You."

There was a look of horror in her face that alarmed me. I drew her to me so that she could rest her head on my shoulder. My own agitation threatened to get the better of me. For the first time since I had seen this sweet girl, I found myself thinking of the blood that ran in her veins, and of the nature of the mother who had borne her.

"Did you notice how I behaved upstairs?" she said. "I mean when we left my father, and came out on the lauding."

It was easily recollected; I begged her to go on.

"Before I went downstairs," she proceeded, "you saw me look and listen. Did you think I was afraid of meeting some person? and did you guess who it was I wanted to avoid?"

"I guessed that--and I understood you."

"No! You are not wicked enough to understand me. Will you do me a favor? I want you to look at me."

It was said seriously. She lifted her head for a moment, so that I could examine her face.

"Do you see anything," she asked, "which makes you fear that I am not in my right mind?"

"Good God! how can you ask such a horrible question?"

She laid her head back on my shoulder with a sad little sigh of resignation. "I ought to have known better," she said; "there is no such easy way out of it as that. Tell me--is there one kind of wickedness more deceitful than another? Can it be hid in a person for years together, and show itself when a time of suffering--no; I mean when a sense of injury comes? Did you ever see that, when you were master in the prison?"

I had seen it--and, after a moment's doubt, I said I had seen it.

"Did you pity those poor wretches?"

"Certainly! They deserved pity."

"I am one of them!" she said. "Pity me. If Helena looks at me--if Helena speaks to me--if I only see Helena by accident--do you know what she does? She tempts me! Tempts me to do dreadful things! Tempts me--" The poor child threw her arms round my neck, and whispered the next fatal words in my ear.

The mother! Prepared as I was for the accursed discovery, the horror of it shook me.

She left me, and started to her feet. The inherited energy showed itself in furious protest against the inherited evil. "What does it mean?" she cried. "I'll submit to anything. I'll bear my hard lot patiently, if you will only tell me what it means. Where does this horrid transformation of me out of myself come from? Look at my good father. In all this world there is no man so perfect as he is. And oh, how he has taught me! there isn't a single good thing that I have not learned from him since I was a little child. Did you ever hear him speak of my mother? You must have heard him. My mother was an angel. I could never be worthy of her at my best--but I have tried! I have tried! The wickedest girl in the world doesn't have worse thoughts than the thoughts that have come to me. Since when? Since Helena--oh, how can I call her by her name as if I still loved her? Since my sister--can she be my sister, I ask myself sometimes! Since my enemy--there's the word for her--since my enemy took Philip away from me. What does it mean? I have asked in my prayers--and have got no answer. I ask you. What does it mean? You must tell me! You shall tell me! What does it mean?"

Why did I not try to calm her? I had vainly tried to calm her--I who knew who her mother was, and what her mother had been.

At last, she had forced the sense of my duty on me. The simplest way of calming her was to put her back in the place by my side that she had left. It was useless to reason with her, it was impossible to answer her. I had my own idea of the one way in which I might charm Eunice back to her sweeter self.

"Let us talk of Philip," I said.

The fierce flush on her face softened, the swelling trouble of her bosom began to subside, as that dearly-loved name passed my lips! But there was some influence left in her which resisted me.

"No," she said; "we had better not talk of him."

"Why not?"

"I have lost all my courage. If you speak of Philip, you will make me cry."

I drew her nearer to me. If she had been my own child, I don't think I could have felt for her more truly than I felt at that moment. I only looked at her; I only said:

"Cry!"

The love that was in her heart rose, and poured its tenderness into her eyes. I had longed to see the tears that would comfort her. The tears came.

There was silence between us for a while. It was possible for me to think.

In the absence of physical resemblance between parent and child, is an unfavorable influence exercised on the tendency to moral resemblance? Assuming the possibility of such a result as this, Eunice (entirely unlike her mother) must, as I concluded, have been possessed of qualities formed to resist, as well as of qualities doomed to undergo, the infection of evil. While, therefore, I resigned myself to recognize the existence of the hereditary maternal taint, I firmly believed in the counterbalancing influences for good which had been part of the girl's birthright. They had been derived, perhaps, from the better qualities in her father's nature; they had been certainly developed by the tender care, the religious vigilance, which had guarded the adopted child so lovingly in the Minister's household; and they had served their purpose until time brought with it the change, for which the tranquil domestic influences were not prepared. With the great, the vital transformation, which marks the ripening of the girl into the woman's maturity of thought and passion, a new power for Good, strong enough to resist the latent power for Evil, sprang into being, and sheltered Eunice under the supremacy of Love. Love ill-fated and ill-bestowed--but love that no profanation could stain, that no hereditary evil could conquer--the True Love that had been, and was, and would be, the guardian angel of Eunice's life.

If I am asked whether I have ventured to found this opinion on what I have observed in one instance only, I reply that I have had other opportunities of investigation, and that my conclusions are derived from experience which refers to more instances than one.

No man in his senses can doubt that physical qualities are transmitted from parents to children. But inheritance of moral qualities is less easy to trace. Here, the exploring mind finds its progress beset by obstacles. That those obstacles have been sometimes overcome I do not deny. Moral resemblances have been traced between parents and children. While, however, I admit this, I doubt the conclusion which sees, in inheritance of moral qualities, a positive influence exercised on moral destiny. There are inherent emotional forces in humanity to which the inherited influences must submit; they are essentially influences under control--influences which can be encountered and forced back. That we, who inhabit this little planet, may be the doomed creatures of fatality, from the cradle to the grave, I am not prepared to dispute. But I absolutely refuse to believe that it is a fatality with no higher origin than can be found in our accidental obligation to our fathers and mothers.

Still absorbed in these speculations, I was disturbed by a touch on my arm.

I looked up. Eunice's eyes were fixed on a shrubbery, at some little distance from us, which closed the view of the garden on that side. I noticed that she was trembling. Nothing to alarm her was visible that I could discover. I asked what she had seen to startle her. She pointed to the shrubbery.

"Look again," she said.

This time I saw a woman's dress among the shruhs. The woman herself appeared in a moment more. It was Helena. She carried a small portfolio, and she approached us with a smile.

I LOOKED at Eunice. She had risen, startled by her first suspicion of the person who was approaching us through the shrubbery; but she kept her place near me, only changing her position so as to avoid confronting Helena. Her quickened breathing was all that told me of the effort she was making to preserve her self-control.

Entirely free from unbecoming signs of hurry and agitation, Helena opened her business with me by means of an apology.

"Pray excuse me for disturbing you. I am obliged to leave the house on one of my tiresome domestic errands. If you will kindly permit it, I wish to express, before I go, my very sincere regret for what I was rude enough to say, when I last had the honor of seeing you. May I hope to be forgiven? How-do-you-do, Eunice? Have you enjoyed your holiday in the country?"

Eunice neither moved nor answered. Having some doubt of what might happen if the two girls remained together, I proposed to Helena to leave the garden and to let me hear what she had to say, in the house.

"Quite needless," she replied; "I shall not detain you for more than a minute. Please look at this."

She offered to me the portfolio that she had been carrying, and pointed to a morsel of paper attached to it, which contained this inscription:

"Philip's Letters To Me. Private. Helena Gracedieu."

"I have a favor to ask," she said, "and a proof of confidence in you to offer. Will you be so good as to look over what you find in my portfolio? I am unwilling to give up the hopes that I had founded on our interview, when I asked for it. The letters will, I venture to think, plead my cause more convincingly than I was able to plead it for myself. I wish to forget what passed between us, to the last word. To the last word," she repeated emphatically--with a look which sufficiently informed me that I had not been betrayed to her father yet. "Will you indulge me?" she asked, and offered her portfolio for the second time.

A more impudent bargain could not well have been proposed to me.

I was to read, and to be favorably impressed by, Mr. Philip Dunboyne's letters; and Miss Helena was to say nothing of that unlucky slip of the tongue, relating to her mother, which she had discovered to be a serious act of self-betrayal--thanks to my confusion at the time. If I had not thought of Eunice, and of the desolate and loveless life to which the poor girl was so patiently resigned, I should have refused to read Miss Gracedieu's love-letters.

But, as things were, I was influenced by the hope (innocently encouraged by Eunice herself) that Philip Dunboyne might not be so wholly unworthy of the sweet girl whom he had injured as I had hitherto been too hastily disposed to believe. To act on this view with the purpose of promoting a reconciliation was impossible, unless I had the means of forming a correct estimate of the man's character. It seemed to me that I had found the means. A fair chance of putting his sincerity to a trustworthy test, was surely offered by the letters (the confidential letters) which I had been requested to read. To feel this as strongly as I felt it, brought me at once to a decision. I consented to take the portfolio--on my own conditions.

"Understand, Miss Helena," I said, "that I make no promises. I reserve my own opinion, and my own right of action."

"I am not afraid of your opinions or your actions," she answered confidently, "if you will only read the letters. In the meantime, let me relieve my sister, there, of my presence. I hope you will soon recover, Eunice, in the country air."

If the object of the wretch was to exasperate her victim, she had completely failed. Eunice remained as still as a statue. To all appearance, she had not even heard what had been said to her. Helena looked at me, and touched her forehead with a significant smile. "Sad, isn't it?" she said--and bowed, and went briskly away on her household errand.

We were alone again.

Still, Eunice never moved. I spoke to her, and produced no impression. Beginning to feel alarmed, I tried the effect of touching her. With a wild cry, she started into a state of animation. Almost at the same moment, she weakly swayed to and fro as if the pleasant breeze in the garden moved her at its will, like the flowers. I held her up, and led her to the seat.

"There is nothing to be afraid of," I said. "She has gone."

Eunice's eyes rested on me in vacant surprise. "How do you know?" she asked. "I hear her; but I never see her. Do you see her?"

"My dear child! of what person are you speaking?"

She answered: "Of no person. I am speaking of a Voice that whispers and tempts me, when Helena is near."

"What voice, Eunice?"

"The whispering Voice. It said to me, 'I am your mother;' it called me Daughter when I first heard it. My father speaks of my mother, the angel. That good spirit has never come to me from the better world. It is a mock-mother who comes to me--some spirit of evil. Listen to this. I was awake in my bed. In the dark I heard the mock-mother whispering, close at my ear. Shall I tell you how she answered me, when I longed for light to see her by, when I prayed to her to show herself to me? She said: 'My face was hidden when I passed from life to death; my face no mortal creature may see.' I have never seen her--how can you have seen her? But I heard her again, just now. She whispered to me when Helena was standing there--where you are standing. She freezes the life in me. Did she freeze the life in you? Did you hear her tempting me? Don't speak of it, if you did. Oh, not a word! not a word!"

A man who has governed a prison may say with Macbeth, "I have supped full with horrors." Hardened as I was--or ought to have been--the effect of what I had just heard turned me cold. If I had not known it to be absolutely impossible, I might have believed that the crime and the death of the murderess were known to Eunice, as being the crime and the death of her mother, and that the horrid discovery had turned her brain. This was simply impossible. What did it mean? Good God! what did it mean?

My sense of my own helplessness was the first sense in me that recovered. I thought of Eunice's devoted little friend. A woman's sympathy seemed to be needed now. I rose to lead the way out of the garden.

"Selina will think we are lost," I said. "Let us go and find Selina."

"Not for the world," she cried.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't feel sure of myself. I might tell Selina something which she must never know; I should be so sorry to frighten her. Let me stop here with you."

I resumed my place at her side.

"Let me take your hand."

I gave her my hand. What composing influence this simple act may, or may not, have exercised, it is impossible to say. She was quiet, she was silent. After an interval, I heard her breathe a long-drawn sigh of relief.

"I am afraid I have surprised you," she said. "Helena brings the dreadful time back to me--" She stopped and shuddered.

"Don't speak of Helena, my dear."

"But I am afraid you will think--because I have said strange things--that I have been talking at random," she insisted. "The doctor will say that, if you meet with him. He believes I am deluded by a dream. I tried to think so myself. It was of no use; I am quite sure he is wrong."

I privately determined to watch for the doctor's arrival, and to consult with him. Eunice went on:

"I have the story of a terrible night to tell you; but I haven't the courage to tell it now. Why shouldn't you come back with me to the place that I am staying at? A pleasant farm-house, and such kind people. You might read the account of that night in my journal. I shall not regret the misery of having written it, if it helps you to find out how this hateful second self of mine has come to me. Hush! I want to ask you something. Do you think Helena is in the house?"

"No--she has gone out."

"Did she say that herself? Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

She decided on going back to the farm, while Helena was out of the way. We left the garden together. For the first time, my companion noticed the portfolio. I happened to be carrying it in the hand that was nearest to her, as she walked by my side.

"Where did you get that?" she asked.

It was needless to reply in words. My hesitation spoke for me.

"Carry it in your other hand," she said--"the hand that's furthest away from me. I don't want to see it! Do you mind waiting a moment while I find Selina? You will go to the farm with us, won't you?"

I had to look over the letters, in Eunice's own interests; and I begged her to let me defer my visit to the farm until the next day. She consented, after making me promise to keep my appointment. It was of some importance to her, she told me, that I should make acquaintance with the farmer and his wife and children, and tell her how I liked them. Her plans for the future depended on what those good people might be willing to do. When she had recovered her health, it was impossible for her to go home again while Helena remained in the house. She had resolved to earn her own living, if she could get employment as a governess. The farmer's children liked her; she had already helped their mother in teaching them; and there was reason to hope that their father would see his way to employing her permanently. His house offered the great advantage of being near enough to the town to enable her to hear news of the Minister's progress toward recovery, and to see him herself when safe opportunities offered, from time to time. As for her salary, what did she care about money? Anything would be acceptable, if the good man would only realize her hopes for the future.

It was disheartening to hear that hope, at her age, began and ended within such narrow limits as these. No prudent man would have tried to persuade her, as I now did, that the idea of reconciliation offered the better hope of the two.

"Suppose I see Mr. Philip Dunboyne when I go back to London," I began, "what shall I say to him?"

"Say I have forgiven him."

"And suppose," I went on, "that the blame really rests, where you all believe it to rest, with Helena. If that young man returns to you, truly ashamed of himself, truly penitent, will you--?"

She resolutely interrupted me: "No!"

"Oh, Eunice, you surely mean Yes?"

"I mean No!"

"Why?"

"Don't ask me! Good-by till to-morrow."

No person came to my room, and nothing happened to interrupt me while I was reading Mr. Philip Dunboyne's letters.

One of them, let me say at once, produced a very disagreeable impression on me. I have unexpectedly discovered Mrs. Tenbruggen--in a postscript. She is making a living as a Medical Rubber (or Masseuse), and is in professional attendance on Mr. Dunboyne the elder. More of this, a little further on.

Having gone through the whole collection of young Dunboyne's letters, I set myself to review the differing conclusions which the correspondence had produced on my mind.

I call the papers submitted to me a correspondence, because the greater part of Philip's letters exhibit notes in pencil, evidently added by Helena. These express, for the most part, the interpretation which she had placed on passages that perplexed or displeased her; and they have, as Philip's rejoinders show, been employed as materials when she wrote her replies.

On reflection, I find myself troubled by complexities and contradictions in the view presented of this young man's character. To decide positively whether I can justify to myself and to my regard for Eunice, an attempt to reunite the lovers, requires more time for consideration than I can reasonably expect that Helena's patience will allow. Having a quiet hour or two still before me, I have determined to make extracts from the letters for my own use; with the intention of referring to them while I am still in doubt which way my decision ought to incline. I shall present them here, to speak for themselves. Is there any objection to this? None that I can see.

In the first place, those extracts have a value of their own. They add necessary information to the present history of events.

In the second place, I am under no obligation to Mr. Gracedieu's daughter which forbids me to make use of her portfolio. I told her that I only consented to receive it, under reserve of my own right of action--and her assent to that stipulation was expressed in the clearest terms.

You blame me, dear Helena, for not having paid proper attention to the questions put to me in your last letter. I have only been waiting to make up my mind, before I replied.

First question: Do I think it advisable that you should write to my father? No, my dear; I beg you will defer writing, until you hear from me again.

Second question: Considering that he is still a stranger to you, is there any harm in your asking me what sort of man my father is? No harm, my sweet one; but, as you will presently see, I am afraid you have addressed yourself to the wrong person.

My father is kind, in his own odd way--and learned, and rich--a more high-minded and honorable man (as I have every reason to believe) doesn't live. But if you ask me which he prefers, his books or his son, I hope I do him no injustice when I answer, his books. His reading and his writing are obstacles between us which I have never been able to overcome. This is the more to be regretted because he is charming, on the few occasions when I find him disengaged. If you wish I knew more about my father, we are in complete agreement as usual--I wish, too.

But there is a dear friend of yours and mine, who is just the person we want to help us. Need I say that I allude to Mrs. Staveley?

I called on her yesterday, not long after she had paid a visit to my father. Luck had favored her. She arrived just at the time when hunger had obliged him to shut up his books, and ring for something to eat. Mrs. Staveley secured a favorable reception with her customary tact and delicacy. He had a fowl for his dinner. She knows his weakness of old; she volunteered to carve it for him.

If I can only repeat what this clever woman told me of their talk, you will have a portrait of Mr. Dunboyne the elder--not perhaps a highly-finished picture, but, as I hope and believe, a good likeness.

Mrs. Staveley began by complaining to him of the conduct of his son. I had promised to write to her, and I had never kept my word. She had reasons for being especially interested in my plans and prospects, just then; knowing me to be attached (please take notice that I am quoting her own language) to a charming friend of hers, whom I had first met at her house. To aggravate the disappointment that I had inflicted, the young lady had neglected her, too. No letters, no information. Perhaps my father would kindly enlighten her? Was the affair going on? or was it broken off?

My father held out his plate and asked for the other wing of the fowl. "It isn't a bad one for London," he said; "won't you have some yourself?"

"I don't seem to have interested you," Mrs. Staveley remarked.

"What did you expect me to be interested in?" my father inquired. "I was absorbed in the fowl. Favor me by returning to the subject."

Mrs. Staveley admits that she answered this rather sharply: "The subject, sir, was your son's admiration for a charming girl: one of the daughters of Mr. Gracedieu, the famous preacher."

My father is too well-bred to speak to a lady while his attention is absorbed by a fowl. He finished the second wing, and then he asked if "Philip was engaged to be married."

"I am not quite sure," Mrs. Staveley confessed.

"Then, my dear friend, we will wait till we are sure."

"But, Mr. Dunboyne, there is really no need to wait. I suppose your son comes here, now and then, to see you?"

"My son is most attentive. In course of time he will contrive to hit on the right hour for his visit. At present, poor fellow, he interrupts me every day."

"Suppose he hits upon the right time to-morrow?"

"Yes?"

"You might ask him if he is engaged?"

"Pardon me. I think I might wait till Philip mentions it without asking."

"What an extraordinary man you are!"

"Oh, no, no--only a philosopher."

This tried Mrs. Staveley's temper. You know what a perfectly candid person our friend is. She owned to me that she felt inclined to make herself disagreeable. "That's thrown away upon me," she said: "I don't know what a philosopher is."

Let me pause for a moment, dear Helena. I have inexcusably forgotten to speak of my father's personal appearance. It won't take long. I need only notice one interesting feature which, so to speak, lifts his face out of the common. He has an eloquent nose. Persons possessing this rare advantage are blest with powers of expression not granted to their ordinary fellow-creatures. My father's nose is a mine of information to friends familiarly acquainted with it. It changes color like a modest young lady's cheek. It works flexibly from side to side like the rudder of a ship. On the present occasion, Mrs. Staveley saw it shift toward the left-hand side of his face. A sigh escaped the poor lady. Experience told her that my father was going to hold forth.

"You don't know what a philosopher is!" he repeated. "Be so kind as to look at Me. I am a philosopher."

Mrs. Staveley bowed.

"And a philosopher, my charming friend, is a man who has discovered a system of life. Some systems assert themselves in volumes--my system asserts itself in two words: Never think of anything until you have first asked yourself if there is an absolute necessity for doing it, at that particular moment. Thinking of things, when things needn't be thought of, is offering an opportunity to Worry; and Worry is the favorite agent of Death when the destroyer handles his work in a lingering way, and achieves premature results. Never look back, and never look forward, as long as you can possibly help it. Looking back leads the way to sorrow. And looking forward ends in the cruelest of all delusions: it encourages hope. The present time is the precious time. Live for the passing day: the passing day is all that we can be sure of. You suggested, just now, that I should ask my son if he was engaged to be married. How do we know what wear and tear of your nervous texture I succeeded in saving when I said. 'Wait till Philip mentions it without asking?' There is the personal application of my system. I have explained it in my time to every woman on the list of my acquaintance, including the female servants. Not one of them has rewarded me by adopting my system. How do you feel about it?"

Mrs. Staveley declined to tell me whether she had offered a bright example of gratitude to the rest of the sex. When I asked why, she declared that it was my turn now to tell her what I had been doing.

You will anticipate what followed. She objected to the mystery in which my prospects seemed to be involved. In plain English, was I, or was I not, engaged to marry her dear Eunice? I said, No. What else could I say? If I had told Mrs. Staveley the truth, when she insisted on my explaining myself, she would have gone back to my father, and would have appealed to his sense of justice to forbid our marriage. Finding me obstinately silent, she has decided on writing to Eunice. So we parted. But don't be disheartened. On my way out of the house, I met Mr. Staveley coming in, and had a little talk with him. He and his wife and his family are going to the seaside, next week. Mrs. Staveley once out of our way, I can tell my father of our engagement without any fear of consequences. If she writes to him, the moment he sees my name mentioned, and finds violent language associated with it, he will hand the letter to me. "Your business, Philip: don't interrupt me." He will say that, and go back to his books. There is my father, painted to the life! Farewell, for the present.

Remarks by H. G.--Philip's grace and gayety of style might be envied by any professional Author. He amuses me, but he rouses my suspicion at the same time. This slippery lover of mine tells me to defer writing to his father, and gives no reason for offering that strange advice to the young lady who is soon to be a member of the family. Is this merely one more instance of the weakness of his character? Or, now that he is away from my influence, is he beginning to regret Eunice already?

Added by the Governor.--I too have my doubts. Is the flippant nonsense which Philip has written inspired by the effervescent good spirits of a happy young man? Or is it assumed for a purpose? In this latter case, I should gladly conclude that he was regarding his conduct to Eunice with becoming emotions of sorrow and shame.

My next quotations will suffer a process of abridgment. I intend them to present the substance of three letters, reduced as follows:

Weak as he may be, Mr. Philip Dunboyne shows (in his second letter) that he can feel resentment, and that he can express his feelings, in replying to Miss Helena. He protests against suspicions which he has not deserved. That he does sometimes think of Eunice he sees no reason to deny. He is conscious of errors and misdeeds, which--traceable as they are to Helena's irresistible fascinations--may perhaps be considered rather his misfortune than his fault. Be that as it may, he does indeed feel anxious to hear good accounts of Eunice's health. If this honest avowal excites her sister's jealousy, he will be disappointed in Helena for the first time.

His third letter shows that this exhibition of spirit has had its effect.

The imperious young lady regrets that she has hurt his feelings, and is rewarded for the apology by receiving news of the most gratifying kind. Faithful Philip has told his father that he is engaged to be married to Miss Helena Gracedieu, daughter of the celebrated Congregational preacher--and so on, and so on. Has Mr. Dunboyne the elder expressed any objection to the young lady? Certainly not! He knows nothing of the other engagement to Eunice; and he merely objects, on principle, to looking forward. "How do we know," says the philosopher, "what accidents may happen, or what doubts and hesitations may yet turn up? I am not to burden my mind in this matter, till I know that I must do it. Let me hear when she is ready to go to church, and I will be ready with the settlements. My compliments to Miss and her papa, and let us wait a little." Dearest Helena--isn't he funny?

The next letter has been already mentioned.

In this there occurs the first startling reference to Mrs. Tenbruggen, by name. She is in London, finding her way to lucrative celebrity by twisting, turning, and pinching the flesh of credulous persons, afflicted with nervous disorders; and she has already paid a few medical visits to old Mr. Dunboyne. He persists in poring over his books while Mrs. Tenbruggen operates, sometimes on his cramped right hand, sometimes (in the fear that his brain may have something to do with it) on the back of his neck. One of them frowns over her rubbing, and the other frowns over his reading. It would be delightfully ridiculous, but for a drawback; Mr. Philip Dunboyne's first impressions of Mrs. Tenbruggen do not incline him to look at that lady from a humorous point of view.

Helena's remarks follow, as usual. She has seen Mrs. Tenbruggen's name on the address of a letter written by Miss Jillgall--which is quite enough to condemn Mrs. Tenbruggen. As for Philip himself, she feels not quite sure of him, even yet. No more do I.

The letter that follows must be permitted to speak for itself:

I have flown into a passion, dearest Helena; and I am afraid I shall make you fly into a passion, too. Blame Mrs. Tenbruggen; don't blame me.

On the first occasion when I found my father under the hands of the Medical Rubber, she took no notice of me. On the second occasion--when she had been in daily attendance on him for a week, at an exorbitant fee--she said in the coolest manner: "Who is this young gentleman?" My father laid down his book, for a moment only: "Don't interrupt me again, ma'am. The young gentleman is my son Philip." Mrs. Tenbruggen eyed me with an appearance of interest which I was at a loss to account for. I hate an impudent woman. My visit came suddenly to an end.

The next time I saw my father, he was alone.

I asked him how he got on with Mrs. Tenbruggen. As badly as possible, it appeared. "She takes liberties with my neck; she interrupts me in my reading; and she does me no good. I shall end, Philip, in applying a medical rubbing to Mrs. Tenbruggen."

A few days later, I found the masterful "Masseuse" torturing the poor old gentleman's muscles again. She had the audacity to say to me: "Well, Mr. Philip, when are you going to marry Miss Eunice Gracedieu?" My father looked up. "Eunice?" he repeated. "When my son told me he was engaged to Miss Gracedieu, he said 'Helena'! Philip, what does this mean?" Mrs. Tenbruggen was so obliging as to answer for me. "Some mistake, sir; it's Eunice he is engaged to." I confess I forgot myself. "How the devil do you know that?" I burst out. Mrs. Tenbruggen ignored me and my language. "I am sorry to see, sir, that your son's education has been neglected; he seems to be grossly ignorant of the laws of politeness." "Never mind the laws of politeness," says my father. "You appear to be better acquainted with my son's matrimonial prospects than he is himself. How is that?" Mrs. Tenbruggen favored him with another ready reply: "My authority is a letter, addressed to me by a relative of Mr. Gracedieu--my dear and intimate friend, Miss Jillgall." My father's keen eyes traveled backward and forward between his female surgeon and his son. "Which am I to believe?" he inquired. "I am surprised at your asking the question," I said. Mrs. Tenbruggen pointed to me. "Look at Mr. Philip, sir--and you will allow him one merit. He is capable of showing it, when he knows he has disgraced himself." Without intending it, I am sure, my father infuriated me; he looked as if he believed her. Out came one of the smallest and strongest words in the English language before I could stop it: "Mrs. Tenbruggen, you lie!" The illustrious Rubber dropped my father's hand--she had been operating on him all the time--and showed us that she could assert her dignity when circumstances called for the exertion: "Either your son or I, sir, must leave the room. Which is it to be?" She met her match in my father. Walking quietly to the door, he opened it for Mrs. Tenbruggen with a low bow. She stopped on her way out, and delivered her parting words: "Messieurs Dunboyne, father and son, I keep my temper, and merely regard you as a couple of blackguards." With that pretty assertion of her opinion, she left us.

When we were alone, there was but one course to take; I made my confession. It is impossible to tell you how my father received it--for he sat down at his library table with his back to me. The first thing he did was to ask me to help his memory.

"Did you say that the father of these girls was a parson?"

"Yes--a Congregational Minister."

"What does the Minister think of you?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Find out."

That was all; not another word could I extract from him. I don't pretend to have discovered what he really has in his mind. I only venture on a suggestion. If there is any old friend in your town, who has some influence over your father, leave no means untried of getting that friend to say a kind word for us. And then ask your father to write to mine. This is, as I see it, our only chance.

There the letter ends. Helena's notes on it show that her pride is fiercely interested in securing Philip as a husband. Her victory over poor Eunice will, as she plainly intimates, be only complete when she is married to young Dunboyne. For the rest, her desperate resolution to win her way to my good graces is sufficiently intelligible, now.

My own impressions vary. Philip rather gains upon me; he appears to have some capacity for feeling ashamed of himself. On the other hand, I regard the discovery of an intimate friendship existing between Mrs. Tenbruggen and Miss Jillgall with the gloomiest views. Is this formidable Masseuse likely to ply her trade in the country towns? And is it possible that she may come to this town? God forbid!

Of the other letters in the collection, I need take no special notice. I returned the whole correspondence to Helena, and waited to hear from her.

The one recent event in Mr. Gracedieu's family, worthy of record, is of a melancholy nature. After paying his visit to-day, the doctor has left word that nobody but the nurse is to go near the Minister. This seems to indicate, but too surely, a change for the worse.

Helena has been away all the evening at the Girls' School. She left a little note, informing me of her wishes: "I shall expect to be favored with your decision to-morrow morning, in my housekeeping room."

At breakfast time, the report of the poor Minister was still discouraging. I noticed that Helena was absent from the table. Miss Jillgall suspected that the cause was bad news from Mr. Philip Dunboyne, arriving by that morning's post. "If you will excuse the use of strong language by a lady," she said, "Helena looked perfectly devilish when she opened the letter. She rushed away, and locked herself up in her own shabby room. A serious obstacle, as I suspect, in the way of her marriage. Cheering, isn't it?" As usual, good Selina expressed her sentiments without reserve.

I had to keep my appointment; and the sooner Helena Gracedieu and I understood each other the better.

I knocked at the door. It was loudly unlocked, and violently thrown open. Helena's temper had risen to boiling heat; she stammered with rage when she spoke to me.

"I mean to come to the point at once," she said.

"I am glad to hear it, Miss Helena."

"May I count on your influence to help me? I want a positive answer."

I gave her what she wanted. I said: "Certainly not."

She took a crumpled letter from her pocket, opened it, and smoothed it out on the table with a blow of her open hand.

"Look at that," she said.

I looked. It was the letter addressed to Mr. Dunboyne the elder, which I had written for Mr. Gracedieu--with the one object of preventing Helena's marriage.

"Of course, I can depend on you to tell me the truth?" she continued.

"Without fear or favor," I answered, "you may depend on that."

"The signature to the letter, Mr. Governor, is written by my father. But the letter itself is in a different hand. Do you, by any chance, recognize the writing?"

"I do."

"Whose writing is it?"

"Mine."

AFTER having identified my handwriting, I waited with some curiosity to see whether Helena would let her anger honestly show itself, or whether she would keep it down. She kept it down.

"Allow me to return good for evil." (The evil was uppermost, nevertheless, when Miss Gracedieu expressed herself in these self-denying terms.) "You are no doubt anxious to know if Philip's father has been won over to serve your purpose. Here is Philip's own account of it: the last of his letters that I shall trouble you to read."

I looked it over. The memorandum follows which I made for my own use:

An eccentric philosopher is as capable as the most commonplace human being in existence of behaving like an honorable man. Mr. Dunboyne read the letter which bore the Minister's signature, and handed it to his son. "Can you answer that?" was all he said. Philip's silence confessed that he was unable to answer it--and Philip himself, I may add, rose accordingly in my estimation. His father pointed to the writing-desk. "I must spare my cramped hand," the philosopher resumed, "and I must answer Mr. Gracedieu's letter. Write, and leave a place for my signature." He began to dictate his reply. "Sir--My son Philip has seen your letter, and has no defense to make. In this respect he has set an example of candor which I propose to follow. There is no excuse for him. What I can do to show that I feel for you, and agree with you, shall be done. At the age which this young man has reached, the laws of England abolish the authority of his father. If he is sufficiently infatuated to place his honor and his happiness at the mercy of a lady, who has behaved to her sister as your daughter has behaved to Miss Eunice, I warn the married couple not to expect a farthing of my money, either during my lifetime or after my death. Your faithful servant, DUNBOYNE, SENIOR." Having performed his duty as secretary, Philip received his dismissal: "You may send my reply to the post," his father said; "and you may keep Mr. Gracedieu's letter. Morally speaking, I regard that last document as a species of mirror, in which a young gentleman like yourself may see how ugly he looks." This, Philip declared, was his father's form of farewell.

I handed back the letter to Helena. Not a word passed between us. In sinister silence she opened the door and left me alone in the room.

That Mrs. Gracedieu and I had met in the bygone time, and--this was the only serious part of it--had met in secret, would now be made known to the Minister. Was I to blame for having shrunk from distressing my good friend, by telling him that his wife had privately consulted me on the means of removing his adopted child from his house? And, even if I had been cruel enough to do this, would he have believed my statement against the positive denial with which the woman whom he loved and trusted would have certainly met it? No! let the consequences of the coming disclosure be what they might, I failed to see any valid reason for regretting my conduct in the past time.

I found Miss Jillgall waiting in the passage to see me come out.

Before I could tell her what had happened, there was a ring at the house-bell. The visitor proved to be Mr. Wellwood, the doctor. I was anxious to speak to him on the subject of Mr. Gracedieu's health. Miss Jillgall introduced me, as an old and dear friend of the Minister, and left us together in the dining-room.

"What do I think of Mr. Gracedieu?" he said, repeating the first question that I put. "Well, sir, I think badly of him."

Entering into details, after that ominous reply, Mr. Wellwood did not hesitate to say that his patient's nerves were completely shattered. Disease of the brain had, as he feared, been already set up. "As to the causes which have produced this lamentable break-down," the doctor continued, "Mr. Gracedieu has been in the habit of preaching extempore twice a day on Sundays, and sometimes in the week as well--and has uniformly refused to spare himself when he was in most urgent need of rest. If you have ever attended his chapel, you have seen a man in a state of fiery enthusiasm, feeling intensely every word that he utters. Think of such exhaustion as that implies going on for years together, and accumulating its wasting influences on a sensitively organized constitution. Add that he is tormented by personal anxieties, which he confesses to no one, not even to his own children and the sum of it all is that a worse case of its kind, I am grieved to say, has never occurred in my experience."

Before the doctor left me to go to his patient, I asked leave to occupy a minute more of his time. My object was, of course, to speak about Eunice.

The change of subject seemed to be agreeable to Mr. Wellwood. He smiled good-humoredly.

"You need feel no alarm about the health of that interesting girl," he said. "When she complained to me--at her age!--of not being able to sleep, I should have taken it more seriously if I had been told that she too had her troubles, poor little soul. Love-troubles, most likely--but don't forget that my professional limits keep me in the dark! Have you heard that she took some composing medicine, which I had prescribed for her father? The effect (certain, in any case, to be injurious to a young girl) was considerably aggravated by the state of her mind at the time. A dream that frightened her, and something resembling delirium, seems to have followed. And she made matters worse, poor child, by writing in her diary about the visions and supernatural appearances that had terrified her. I was afraid of fever, on the day when they first sent for me. We escaped that complication, and I was at liberty to try the best of all remedies--quiet and change of air. I have no fears for Miss Eunice."

With that cheering reply he went up to the Minister's room.

All that I had found perplexing in Eunice was now made clear. I understood how her agony at the loss of her lover, and her keen sense of the wrong that she had suffered, had been strengthened in their disastrous influence by her experiment on the sleeping draught intended for her father. In mind and body, both, the poor girl was in the condition which offered its opportunity to the lurking hereditary taint. It was terrible to think of what might have happened, if the all-powerful counter-influence had not been present to save her.

Before I had been long alone the servant-maid came in, and said the doctor wanted to see me.

Mr. Wellwood was waiting in the passage, outside the Minister's bedchamber. He asked if he could speak to me without interruption, and without the fear of being overheard. I led him at once to the room which I occupied as a guest.

"At the very time when it is most important to keep Mr. Gracedieu quiet," he said, "something has happened to excite--I might almost say to infuriate him. He has left his bed, and is walking up and down the room; and, I don't scruple to say, he is on the verge of madness. He insists on seeing you. Being wholly unable to control him in any other way, I have consented to this. But I must not allow you to place yourself in what may be a disagreeable position, without a word of warning. Judging by his tones and his looks, he seems to have no very friendly motive for wishing to see you."

Knowing perfectly well what had happened, and being one of those impatient people who can never endure suspense--I offered to go at once to Mr. Gracedieu's room. The doctor asked leave to say one word more.

"Pray be careful that you neither say nor do anything to thwart him," Mr. Wellwood resumed. "If he expresses an opinion, agree with him. If he is insolent and overbearing, don't answer him. In the state of his brain, the one hopeful course to take is to let him have his own way. Pray remember that. I will be within call, in case of your wanting me."

I KNOCKED at the bedroom door.

"Who's there?"

Only two words--but the voice that uttered them, hoarse and peremptory, was altered almost beyond recognition. If I had not known whose room it was, I might have doubted whether the Minister had really spoken to me.

At the instant when I answered him, I was allowed to pass in. Having admitted me, he closed the door, and placed himself with his back against it. The customary pallor of his face had darkened to a deep red; there was an expression of ferocious mockery in his eyes. Helena's vengeance had hurt her unhappy father far more severely than it seemed likely to hurt me. The doctor had said he was on the verge of madness. To my thinking, he had already passed the boundary line.

He received me with a boisterous affectation of cordiality.

"My excellent friend! My admirable, honorable, welcome guest, you don't know how glad I am to see you. Stand a little nearer to the light; I want to admire you."

Remembering the doctor's advice, I obeyed him in silence.

"Ah, you were a handsome fellow when I first knew you," he said, "and you have some remains of it still left. Do you remember the time when you were a favorite with the ladies? Oh, don't pretend to be modest; don't turn your back, now you are old, on what you were in the prime of your life. Do you own that I am right?"

What his object might be in saying this--if, indeed, he had an object--it was impossible to guess. The doctor's advice left me no alternative; I hastened to own that he was right. As I made that answer, I observed that he held something in his hand which was half hidden up the sleeve of his dressing-gown. What the nature of the object was I failed to discover.

"And when I happened to speak of you somewhere," he went on, "I forget where--a member of my congregation--I don't recollect who it was--told me you were connected with the aristocracy. How were you connected?"

He surprised me; but, however he had got his information, he had not been deceived. I told him that I was connected, through my mother, with the family to which he had alluded.

"The aristocracy!" he repeated. "A race of people who are rich without earning their money, and noble because their great-grandfathers were noble before them. They live in idleness and luxury--profligates who gratify their passions without shame and without remorse. Deny, if you dare, that this is a true description of them."

It was really pitiable. Heartily sorry for him, I pacified him again.

"And don't suppose I forget that you are one of them. Do you hear me, my noble friend?"

There was no help for it--I made another conciliatory reply.

"So far," he resumed, "I don't complain of you. You have not attempted to deceive me--yet. Absolute silence is what I require next. Though you may not suspect it, my mind is in a ferment; I must try to think."

To some extent at least, his thoughts betrayed themselves in his actions. He put the object that I had half seen in his hand into the pocket of his dressing-gown, and moved to the toilet-table. Opening one of the drawers, he took from it a folded sheet of paper, and came back to me.

"A minister of the Gospel," he said, "is a sacred man, and has a horror of crime. You are safe, so far--provided you obey me. I have a solemn and terrible duty to perform. This is not the right place for it. Follow me downstairs."

He led the way out. The doctor, waiting in the passage, was not near the stairs, and so escaped notice. "What is it?" Mr. Wellwood whispered. In the same guarded way, I said: "He has not told me yet; I have been careful not to irritate him." When we descended the stairs, the doctor followed us at a safe distance. He mended his pace when the Minister opened the door of the study, and when he saw us both pass in. Before he could follow, the door was closed and locked in his face. Mr. Gracedieu took out the key and threw it through the open window, into the garden below.

Turning back into the room, he laid the folded sheet of paper on the table. That done, he spoke to me.

"I distrust my own weakness," he said. "A dreadful necessity confronts me--I might shrink from the horrid idea, and, if I could open the door, might try to get away. Escape is impossible now. We are prisoners together. But don't suppose that we are alone. There is a third person present, who will judge between you and me. Look there!"

He pointed solemnly to the portrait of his wife. It was a small picture, very simply framed; representing the face in a "three-quarter" view, and part of the figure only. As a work of art it was contemptible; but, as a likeness, it answered its purpose. My unhappy friend stood before it, in an attitude of dejection, covering his face with his hands.

In the interval of silence that followed, I was reminded that an unseen friend was keeping watch outside.

Alarmed by having heard the key turned in the lock, and realizing the embarrassment of the position in which I was placed, the doctor had discovered a discreet way of communicating with me. He slipped one of his visiting-cards under the door, with these words written on it: "How can I help you?"

I took the pencil from my pocketbook, and wrote on the blank side of the card: "He has thrown the key into the garden; look for it under the window." A glance at the Minister, before I returned my reply, showed that his attitude was unchanged. Without being seen or suspected, I, in my turn, slipped the card under the door.

The slow minutes followed each other--and still nothing happened.

My anxiety to see how the doctor's search for the key was succeeding, tempted me to approach the window. On my way to it, the tail of my coat threw down a little tray containing pens and pencils, which had been left close to the edge of the table. Slight as the noise of the fall was, it disturbed Mr. Gracedieu. He looked round vacantly.

"I have been comforted by prayer," he told me. "The weakness of poor humanity has found strength in the Lord." He pointed to the portrait once more: "My hands must not presume to touch it, while I am still in doubt. Take it down."

I removed the picture and placed it, by his directions, on a chair that stood midway between us. To my surprise his tones faltered; I saw tears rising in his eyes. "You may think you see a picture there," he said. "You are wrong. You see my wife herself. Stand here, and look at my wife with me."

We stood together, with our eyes fixed on the portrait.

Without anything said or done on my part to irritate him, he suddenly turned to me in a state of furious rage. "Not a sign of sorrow!" he burst out. "Not a blush of shame! Wretch, you stand condemned by the atrocious composure that I see in your face!"

A first discovery of the odious suspicion of which I was the object, dawned on my mind at that moment. My capacity for restraining myself completely failed me. I spoke to him as if he had been an accountable being. "Once for all," I said, "tell me what I have a right to know. You suspect me of something. What is it?"

Instead of directly replying, he seized my arm and led me to the table. "Take up that paper," he said. "There is writing on it. Read--and let Her judge between us. Your life depends on how you answer me."

Was there a weapon concealed in the room? or had he got it in the pocket of his dressing-gown? I listened for the sound of the doctor's returning footsteps in the passage outside, and heard nothing. My life had once depended, years since, on my success in heading the arrest of an escaped prisoner. I was not conscious, then, of feeling my energies weakened by fear. But that man was not mad; and I was younger, in those days, by a good twenty years or more. At my later time of life, I could show my old friend that I was not afraid of him--but I was conscious of an effort in doing it.

I opened the paper. "Am I to read this to myself?" I asked. "Or am I to read it aloud?"

"Read it aloud!"

In these terms, his daughter addressed him:

"I have been so unfortunate, dearest father, as to displease you, and I dare not hope that you will consent to receive me. What it is my painful duty to tell you, must be told in writing.

"Grieved as I am to distress you, in your present state of health, I must not hesitate to reveal what it has been my misfortune--I may even say my misery, when I think of my mother--to discover.

"But let me make sure, in such a serious matter as this is, that I am not mistaken.

"In those happy past days, when I was still dear to my father, you said you thought of writing to invite a dearly-valued friend to pay a visit to this house. You had first known him, as I understood, when my mother was still living. Many interesting things you told me about this old friend, but you never mentioned that he knew, or that he had even seen, my mother. I was left to suppose that those two had remained strangers to each other to the day of her death.

"If there is any misinterpretation here of what you said, or perhaps of what you meant to say, pray destroy what I have written without turning to the next page; and forgive me for having innocently startled you by a false alarm."

Mr. Gracedieu interrupted me.

"Put it down!" he cried; "I won't wait till you have got to the end--I shall question you now. Give me the paper; it will help me to keep this mystery of iniquity clear in my own mind."

I gave him the paper.

He hesitated--and looked at the portrait once more. "Turn her away from me," he said; "I can't face my wife."

I placed the picture with its back to him.

He consulted the paper, reading it with but little of the confusion and hesitation which my experience of him had induced me to anticipate. Had the mad excitement that possessed him exercised an influence in clearing his mind, resembling in some degree the influence exercised by a storm in clearing the air? Whatever the right explanation may be, I can only report what I saw. I could hardly have mastered what his daughter had written more readily, if I had been reading it myself.

"Helena tells me," he began, "that you said you knew her by her likeness to her mother. Is that true?"

"Quite true."

"And you made an excuse for leaving her--see! here it is, written down. You made an excuse, and left her when she asked for an explanation."

"I did."

He consulted the paper again.

"My daughter says--No! I won't be hurried and I won't be interrupted--she says you were confused. Is that so?"

"It is so. Let your questions wait for a moment. I wish to tell you why I was confused."

"Haven't I said I won't be interrupted? Do you think you can shake my resolution?" He referred to the paper again. "I have lost the place. It's your fault--find it for me."

The evidence which was intended to convict me was the evidence which I was expected to find! I pointed it out to him.

His natural courtesy asserted itself in spite of his anger. He said "Thank you," and questioned me the moment after as fiercely as ever. "Go back to the time, sir, when we met in your rooms at the prison. Did you know my wife then?"

"Certainly not."

"Did you and she see each other--ha! I've got it now--did you see each other after I had left the town? No prevarication! You own to telling Helena that you knew her by her likeness to her mother. You must have seen her mother. Where?"

I made another effort to defend myself. He again refused furiously to hear me. It was useless to persist. Whatever the danger that threatened me might be, the sooner it showed itself the easier I should feel. I told him that Mrs. Gracedieu had called on me, after he and his wife had left the town.

"Do you mean to tell me," he cried, "that She came to You?"

"I do."

After that answer, he no longer required the paper to help him. He threw it from him on the floor.

"And you received her," he said, "without inquiring whether I knew of her visit or not? Guilty deception on your part--guilty deception on her part. Oh, the hideous wickedness of it!"

When his mad suspicion that I had been his wife's lover betrayed itself in this way, I made a last attempt, in the face of my own conviction that it was hopeless, to place my conduct and his wife's conduct before him in the true light.

"Mrs. Gracedieu's object was to consult me--" Before I could say the next words, I saw him put his hand into the pocket of his dressing-gown.

"An innocent man," he sternly declared, "would have told me that my wife had been to see him--you kept it a secret. An innocent woman would have given me a reason for wishing to go to you--she kept it a secret, when she left my house; she kept it a secret when she came back."

"Mr. Gracedieu, I insist on being heard! Your wife's motive--"

He drew from his pocket the thing that he had hidden from me. This time, there was no concealment; he let me see that he was opening a razor. It was no time for asserting my innocence; I had to think of preserving my life. When a man is without firearms, what defense can avail against a razor in the hands of a madman? A chair was at my side; it offered the one poor means of guarding myself that I could see. I laid my hand on it, and kept my eye on him.

He paused, looking backward and forward between the picture and me.

"Which of them shall I kill first?" he said to himself. "The man who was my trusted friend? Or the woman whom I believed to be an angel on earth?" He stopped once more, in a state of fierce self-concentration, debating what he should do. "The woman," he decided. "Wretch! Fiend! Harlot! How I loved her!!!"

With a yell of fury, he pounced on the picture--ripped the canvas out of the frame--and cut it malignantly into fragments. As they dropped from the razor on the floor, he stamped on them, and ground them under his foot. "Go, wife of my bosom," he cried, with a dreadful mockery of voice and look--"go, and burn everlastingly in the place of torment!" His eyes glared at me. "Your turn now," he said--and rushed at me with his weapon ready in his hand. I hurled the chair at his right arm. The razor dropped on the floor. I caught him by the wrist. Like a wild animal he tried to bite me. With my free hand--if I had known how to defend myself in any other way, I would have taken that way--with my free hand I seized him by the throat; forced him back; and held him against the wall. My grasp on his throat kept him quiet. But the dread of seriously injuring him so completely overcame me, that I forgot I was a prisoner in the room, and was on the point of alarming the household by a cry for help.

I was still struggling to preserve my self-control, when the sound of footsteps broke the silence outside. I heard the key turn in the lock, and saw the doctor at the open door.

I CANNOT prevail upon myself to dwell at any length on the events that followed.

We secured my unhappy friend, and carried him to his bed. It was necessary to have men in attendance who could perform the duty of watching him. The doctor sent for them, while I went downstairs to make the best I could of the miserable news which it was impossible entirely to conceal.

All that I could do to spare Miss Jillgall, I did. I was obliged to acknowledge that there had been an outbreak of violence, and that the portrait of the Minister's wife had been destroyed by the Minister himself. Of Helena's revenge on me I said nothing. It had led to consequences which even her merciless malice could not have contemplated. There were no obstacles in the way of keeping secret the attempt on my life. But I was compelled to own that Mr. Gracedieu had taken a dislike to me, which rendered it necessary that my visit should be brought to an end. I hastened to add that I should go to the hotel, and should wait there until the next day, in the hope of hearing better news.

Of the multitude of questions with which poor Miss Jillgall overwhelmed me--of the wild words of sorrow and alarm that escaped her--of the desperate manner in which she held by my arm, and implored me not to go away, when I must see for myself that "she was a person entirely destitute of presence of mind"--I shall say nothing. The undeserved suffering that is inflicted on innocent persons by the sins of others demands silent sympathy; and, to that extent at least, I can say that I honestly felt for my quaint and pleasant little friend.

In the evening the doctor called on me at the hotel. The medical treatment of his patient had succeeded in calming the maddened brain under the influence of sleep. If the night passed quietly, better news might be hoped for in the morning.

On the next day I had arranged to drive to the farm, being resolved not to disappoint Eunice. But I shrank from the prospect of having to distress her as I had already distressed Miss Jillgall. The only alternative left was to repeat the sad story in writing, subject to the concealments which I had already observed. This I did, and sent the letter by messenger, overnight, so that Eunice might know when to expect me.

The medical report, in the morning, justified some hope. Mr. Gracedieu had slept well, and there had been no reappearance of insane violence on his waking. But the doctor's opinion was far from encouraging when we spoke of the future. He did not anticipate the cruel necessity of placing the Minister under restraint--unless some new provocation led to a new outbreak. The misfortune to be feared was imbecility.

I was just leaving the hotel to keep my appointment with Eunice, when the waiter announced the arrival of a young lady who wished to speak with me. Before I could ask if she had mentioned her name, the young lady herself walked in--Helena Gracedieu.

She explained her object in calling on me, with the exasperating composure which was peculiarly her own. No parallel to it occurs to me in my official experience of shameless women.

"I don't wish to speak of what happened yesterday, so far as I know anything about it," she began. "It is quite enough for me that you have been obliged to leave the house and to take refuge in this hotel. I have come to say a word about the future. Are you honoring me with your attention?"

I signed to her to go on. If I had answered in words, I should have told her to leave the room.

"At first," she resumed, "I thought of writing; but it occurred to me that you might keep my letter, and show it to Philip, by way of lowering me in his good opinion, as you have lowered me in the good opinion of his father. My object in coming here is to give you a word of warning. If you attempt to make mischief next between Philip and myself, I shall hear of it--and you know what to expect, when you have Me for an enemy. It is not worth while to say any more. We understand each other, I hope?"

She was determined to have a reply--and she got it.

"Not quite yet," I said. "I have been hitherto, as becomes a gentleman, always mindful of a woman's claims to forbearance. You will do well not to tempt me into forgetting that you are a woman, by prolonging your visit. Now, Miss Helena Gracedieu, we understand each other." She made me a low curtsey, and answered in her finest tone of irony: "I only desire to wish you a pleasant journey home."

I rang for the waiter. "Show this lady out," I said.

Even this failed to have the slightest effect on her. She sauntered to the door, as perfectly at her ease as if the room had been hers--not mine.

I had thought of driving to the farm. Shall I confess it? My temper was so completely upset that active movement of some kind offered the one means of relief in which I could find refuge. The farm was not more than five miles distant, and I had been a good walker all my life. After making the needful inquiries, I set forth to visit Eunice on foot.

My way through the town led me past the, Minister's house. I had left the door some fifty yards behind me, when I saw two ladies approaching. They were walking, in the friendliest manner, arm in arm. As they came nearer, I discovered Miss Jillgall. Her companion was the middle-aged lady who had declined to give her name, when we met accidentally at Mr. Gracedieu's door.

Hysterically impulsive, Miss Jillgall seized both my hands, and overwhelmed me with entreaties that I would go back with her to the house. I listened rather absently. The middle-aged lady happened to be nearer to me now than on either of the former occasions on which I had seen her. There was something in the expression of her eyes which seemed to be familiar to me. But the effort of my memory was not helped by what I observed in the other parts of her face. The iron-gray hair, the baggy lower eyelids, the fat cheeks, the coarse complexion, and the double chin, were features, and very disagreeable features, too, which I had never seen at any former time.

"Do pray come back with us," Miss Jillgall pleaded. "We were just talking of you. I and my friend--" There she stopped, evidently on the point of blurting out the name which she had been forbidden to utter in my hearing.

The lady smiled; her provokingly familiar eyes rested on me with a humorous enjoyment of the scene.

"My dear," she said to Miss Jillgall, "caution ceases to be a virtue when it ceases to be of any use. The Governor is beginning to remember me, and the inevitable recognition--with his quickness of perception--is likely to be a matter of minutes now." She turned to me. "In more ways than one, sir, women are hardly used by Nature. As they advance in years they lose more in personal appearance than the men do. You are white-haired, and (pray excuse me) you are too fat; and (allow me to take another liberty) you stoop at the shoulders--but you have not entirely lost your good looks. I am no longer recognizable. Allow me to prompt you, as they say on the stage. I am Mrs. Tenbruggen."

As a man of the world, I ought to have been capable of concealing my astonishment and dismay. She struck me dumb.

Mrs. Tenbruggen in the town! The one woman whose appearance Mr. Gracedieu had dreaded, and justly dreaded, stood before me--free, as a friend of his kinswoman, to enter his house, at the very time when he was a helpless man, guarded by watchers at his bedside. My first clear idea was to get away from both the women, and consider what was to be done next. I bowed--and begged to be excused--and said I was in a hurry, all in a breath.

Hearing this, the best of genial old maids was unable to restrain her curiosity. "Where are you going?" she asked.

Too confused to think of an excuse, I said I was going to the farm.

"To see my dear Euneece?" Miss Jillgall burst out. "Oh, we will go with you!" Mrs. Tenbruggen's politeness added immediately, "With the greatest pleasure."

MY first ungrateful impulse was to get rid of the two cumbersome ladies who had offered to be my companions. It was needless to call upon my invention for an excuse; the truth, as I gladly perceived, would serve my purpose. I had only to tell them that I had arranged to walk to the farm.

Lean, wiry, and impetuous, Miss Jillgall received my excuse with the sincerest approval of it, as a new idea. "Nothing could be more agreeable to me," she declared; "I have been a wonderful walker all my life." She turned to her friend. "We will go with him, my dear, won't we?"

Mrs. Tenbruggen's reception of this proposal inspired me with hope; she asked how far it was to the farm. "Five miles!" she repeated. "And five miles back again, unless the farmer lends us a cart. My dear Selina, you might as well ask me to walk to the North Pole. You have got rid of one of us, Mr. Governor," she added, pleasantly; "and the other, if you only walk fast enough, you will leave behind you on the road. If I believed in luck--which I don't--I should call you a fortunate man."

But companionable Selina would not hear of a separation. She asked, in her most irresistible manner, if I objected to driving instead of walking. Her heart's dearest wish, she said, was to make her bosom friend and myself better acquainted with each other. To conclude, she reminded me that there was a cab-stand in the next street.

Perhaps I might have been influenced by my distrust of Mrs. Tenbruggen, or perhaps by my anxiety to protect Eunice. It struck me that I might warn the defenseless girl to be on her guard with Mrs. Tenbruggen to better purpose, if Eunice was in a position to recognize her in any future emergency that might occur. To my mind, this dangerous woman was doubly formidable--and for a good reason; she was the bosom friend of that innocent and unwary person, Miss Jillgall.

So I amiably consented to forego my walk, yielding to the superior attraction of Mrs. Tenbruggen's company. On that day the sunshine was tempered by a delightful breeze. If we had been in the biggest and worst-governed city on the civilised earth, we should have found no public vehicle, open to the air, which could offer accommodation to three people. Being only in a country town, we had a light four-wheeled chaise at our disposal, as a matter of course.

No wise man expects to be mercifully treated, when he is shut into a carriage with a mature single lady, inflamed by curiosity. I was not unprepared for Miss Jillgall when she alluded, for the second time, to the sad events which had happened in the house on the previous day--and especially to the destruction by Mr. Gracedieu of the portrait of his wife.

"Why didn't he destroy something else?" she pleaded, piteously. "It is such a disappointment to Me. I never liked that picture myself. Of course I ought to have admired the portrait of the wife of my benefactor. But no--that disagreeable painted face was too much for me. I should have felt inexpressibly relieved, if I could have shown it to Elizabeth, and heard her say that she agreed with me."

"Perhaps I saw it when I called on you," Mrs. Tenbruggen suggested. "Where did the picture hang?"

"My dear! I received you in the dining-room, and the portrait hung in Mr. Gracedieu's study."

What they said to each other next escaped my attention. Quite unconsciously, Miss Jillgall had revealed to me a danger which neither the Minister nor I had discovered, though it had conspicuously threatened us both on the wall of the study. The act of mad destruction which, if I had possessed the means of safely interfering, I should certainly have endeavored to prevent, now assumed a new and startling aspect. If Mrs. Tenbruggen really had some motive of her own for endeavoring to identify the adopted child, the preservation of the picture must have led her straight to the end in view. The most casual opportunity of comparing Helena with the portrait of Mrs. Gracedieu would have revealed the likeness between mother and daughter--and, that result attained, the identification of Eunice with the infant whom the "Miss Chance" of those days had brought to the prison must inevitably have followed. It was perhaps natural that Mr. Gracedieu's infatuated devotion to the memory of his wife should have blinded him to the betrayal of Helena's parentage, which met his eyes every time he entered his study. But that I should have been too stupid to discover what he had failed to see, was a wound dealt to my self-esteem which I was vain enough to feel acutely.

Mrs. Tenbruggen's voice, cheery and humorous, broke in on my reflections, with an odd question:

"Mr. Governor, do you ever condescend to read novels?"

"It's not easy to say, Mrs. Tenbruggen, how grateful I am to the writers of novels."

"Ah! I read novels, too. But I blush to confess--do I blush?--that I never thought of feeling grateful till you mentioned it. Selina and I don't complain of your preferring your own reflections to our company. On the contrary, you have reminded us agreeably of the heroes of fiction, when the author describes them as being 'absorbed in thought.' For some minutes, Mr. Governor, you have been a hero; absorbed, as I venture to guess, in unpleasant remembrances of the time when I was a single lady. You have not forgotten how badly I behaved, and what shocking things I said, in those bygone days. Am I right?"

"You are entirely wrong."

It is possible that I may have spoken a little too sharply. Anyway, faithful Selina interceded for her friend. "Oh, dear sir, don't be hard on Elizabeth! She always means well." Mrs. Tenbruggen, as facetious as ever, made a grateful return for a small compliment. She chucked Miss Jillgall under the chin, with the air of an amorous old gentleman expressing his approval of a pretty servant-girl. It was impossible to look at the two, in their relative situations, without laughing. But Mrs. Tenbruggen failed to cheat me into altering my opinion of her. Innocent Miss Jillgall clapped her ugly hands, and said: "Isn't she good company?"

Mrs. Tenbruggen's social resources were not exhausted yet. She suddenly shifted to the serious side of her character.

"Perhaps I have improved a little," she said, "as I have advanced in years. The sorrows of an unhappy married life may have had a purifying influence on my nature. My husband and I began badly. Mr. Tenbruggen thought I had money; and I thought Mr. Tenbruggen had money. He was taken in by me; and I was taken in by him. When he repeated the words of the marriage service (most impressively read by your friend the Chaplain): 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow'--his eloquent voice suggested one of the largest incomes in Europe. When I promised and vowed, in my turn, the delightful prospect of squandering my rich husband's money made quite a new woman of me. I declare solemnly, when I said I would love, honor, and obey Mr. T., I looked as if I really meant it. Wherever he is now, poor dear, he is cheating somebody. Such a handsome, gentleman-like man, Selina! And, oh, Mr. Governor, such a blackguard!"

Having described her husband in those terms, she got tired of the subject. We were now favored with another view of this many-sided woman. She appeared in her professional character.

"Ah, what a delicious breeze is blowing, out here in the country!" she said. "Will you excuse me if I take off my gloves? I want to air my hands." She held up her hands to the breeze; firm, muscular, deadly white hands. "In my professional occupation," she explained, "I am always rubbing, tickling, squeezing, tapping, kneading, rolling, striking the muscles of patients. Selina, do you know the movements of your own joints? Flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, rotation, circumduction, pronation, supination, and the lateral movements. Be proud of those accomplishments, my dear, but beware of attempting to become a Masseuse. There are drawbacks in that vocation--and I am conscious of one of them at this moment." She lifted her hands to her nose. "Pah! my hands smell of other people's flesh. The delicious country air will blow it away--the luxury of purification!" Her fingers twisted and quivered, and got crooked at one moment and straight again at another, and showed themselves in succession singly, and flew into each other fiercely interlaced, and then spread out again like the sticks of a fan, until it really made me giddy to look at them. As for Miss Jillgall, she lifted her poor little sunken eyes rapturously to the sky, as if she called the homiest sunlight to witness that this was the most lovable woman on the face of the earth.

But elderly female fascination offers its allurements in vain to the rough animal, man. Suspicion of Mrs. Tenbruggen's motives had established itself firmly in my mind. Why had the Popular Masseuse abandoned her brilliant career in London, and plunged into the obscurity of a country town? An opportunity of clearing up the doubt thus suggested seemed to have presented itself now. "Is it indiscreet to ask," I said, "if you are here in your professional capacity?"

Her cunning seized its advantage and put a sly question to me. "Do you wish to be one of my patients yourself?"

"That is, unfortunately, impossible," I replied "I have arranged to return to London."

"Immediately?"

"To-morrow at the latest."

Artful as she was, Mrs. Tenbruggen failed to conceal a momentary expression of relief which betrayed itself, partly in her manner, partly in her face. She had ascertained, to her own complete satisfaction, that my speedy departure was an event which might be relied on.

"But I have not yet answered you," she resumed. "To tell the truth, I am eager to try my hands on you. Massage, as I practice it, would lighten your weight, and restore your figure; I may even say would lengthen your life. You will think of me, one of these days, won't you? In the meanwhile--yes! I am here in my professional capacity. Several interesting cases; and one very remarkable person, brought to death's door by the doctors; a rich man who is liberal in paying his fees. There is my quarrel with London and Londoners. Some of their papers, medical newspapers, of course, declare that my fees are exorbitant; and there is a tendency among the patients--I mean the patients who are rolling in riches--to follow the lead of the newspapers. I am no worm to be trodden on, in that way. The London people shall wait for me, until they miss me--and, when I do go back, they will find the fees increased. My fingers and thumbs, Mr. Governor, are not to be insulted with impunity."

Miss Jillgall nodded her head at me. It was an eloquent nod. "Admire my spirited friend," was the interpretation I put on it.

At the same time, my private sentiments suggested that Mrs. Tenbruggen's reply was too perfectly satisfactory, viewed as an explanation. My suspicions were by no means set at rest; and I was resolved not to let the subject drop yet. "Speaking of Mr. Gracedieu, and of the chances of his partial recovery," I said, "do you think the Minister would benefit by Massage?"

"I haven't a doubt of it, if you can get rid of the doctor."

"You think he would be an obstacle in the way?"

"There are some medical men who are honorable exceptions to the general rule; and he may be one of them," Mrs. Tenbruggen admitted. "Don't be too hopeful. As a doctor, he belongs to the most tyrannical trades-union in existence. May I make a personal remark?"

"Certainly."

"I find something in your manner--pray don't suppose that I am angry--which looks like distrust; I mean, distrust of Me."

Miss Jillgall's ever ready kindness interfered in my defense: "Oh, no, Elizabeth! You are not often mistaken; but indeed you are wrong now. Look at my distinguished friend. I remember my copy book, when I was a small creature learning to write, in England. There were first lines that we copied, in big letters, and one of them said, 'Distrust Is Mean.' I know a young person, whose name begins with H, who is one mass of meanness. But"--excellent Selina paused, and pointed to me with a gesture of triumph--"no meanness there!"

Mrs. Tenbruggen waited to hear what I had to say, scornfully insensible to Miss Jillgall's well-meant interruption.

"You are not altogether mistaken," I told her. "I can't say that my mind is in a state of distrust, but I own that you puzzle me."

"How, if you please?"

"May I presume that you remember the occasion when we met at Mr. Gracedieu's house-door? You saw that I failed to recognize you, and you refused to give your name when the servant asked for it. A few days afterward, I heard you (quite accidentally) forbid Miss Jillgall to mention your name in my hearing. I am at a loss to understand it."

Before she could answer me, the chaise drew up at the gate of the farmhouse. Mrs. Tenbruggen carefully promised to explain what had puzzled me, at the first opportunity. "If it escapes my memory," she said, "pray remind me of it."

I determined to remind her of it. Whether I could depend on her to tell me the truth, might be quite another thing.

EUNICE ran out to meet us, and opened the gate. She was instantly folded in Miss Jillgall's arms. On her release, she came to me, eager for news of her father's health. When I had communicated all that I thought it right to tell her of the doctor's last report, she noticed Mrs. Tenbruggen. The appearance of a stranger seemed to embarrass her. I left Miss Jillgall to introduce them to each other.

"Darling Euneece, you remember Mrs. Tenbruggen's name, I am sure? Elizabeth, this is my sweet girl; I mentioned her in my letters to you."

"I hope she will be my sweet girl, when we know each other a little better. May I kiss you, dear? You have lovely eyes; but I am sorry to see that they don't look like happy eyes. You want Mamma Tenbruggen to cheer you. What a charming old house!"

She put her arm round Eunice's waist and led her to the house door. Her enjoyment of the creepers that twined their way up the pillars of the porch was simply perfection as a piece of acting. When the farmer's wife presented herself, Mrs. Tenbruggen was so irresistibly amiable, and took such flattering notice of the children, that the harmless British matron actually blushed with pleasure. "I'm sure, ma'am, you must have children of your own," she said. Mrs. Tenbruggen cast her eyes on the floor, and sighed with pathetic resignation. A sweet little family, and all cruelly swept away by death. If the performance meant anything, it did most assuredly mean that.

"What wonderful self-possession!" somebody whispered in my ear. The children in the room were healthy, well-behaved little creatures--but the name of the innocent one among them was Selina.

Before dinner we were shown over the farm.

The good woman of the house led the way, and Miss Jillgall and I accompanied her. The children ran on in front of us. Still keeping possession of Eunice, Mrs. Tenbruggen followed at some distance behind. I looked back, after no very long interval, and saw that a separation had taken place. Mrs. Tenbruggen passed me, not looking so pleasantly as usual, joined the children, and walked with two of them, hand in hand, a pattern of maternal amiability. I dropped back a little, and gave Eunice an opportunity of joining me; having purposely left her to form her own opinion, without any adverse influence exercised on my part.

"Is that lady a friend of yours?" she asked. "No; only an acquaintance. What do you think of her?"

"I thought I should like her at first; she was so kind, and seemed to take such an interest in me. But she said such strange things--asked if I was reckoned like my mother, and which of us was the eldest, my sister or myself, and whether we were my father's only two children, and if one of us was more his favorite than the other. What I could tell her, I did tell. But when I said I didn't know which of us was the oldest, she gave me an impudent tap on the cheek, and said, 'I don't believe you, child,' and left me. How can Selina be so fond of her? Don't mention it to any one else; I hope I shall never see her again."

"I will keep your secret, Eunice; and you must keep mine. I entirely agree with you."

"You agree with me in disliking her?"

"Heartily."

We could say no more at that time. Our friends in advance were waiting for us. We joined them at once.

If I had felt any doubt of the purpose which had really induced Mrs. Tenbruggen to leave London, all further uncertainty on my part was at an end. She had some vile interest of her own to serve by identifying Mr. Gracedieu's adopted child--but what the nature of that interest might be, it was impossible to guess. The future, when I thought of it now, filled me with dismay. A more utterly helpless position than mine it was not easy to conceive. To warn the Minister, in his present critical state of health, was simply impossible. My relations with Helena forbade me even to approach her. And, as for Selina, she was little less than a mere tool in the hands of her well-beloved friend. What, in God's name, was I to do?

At dinner-time we found the master of the house waiting to bid us welcome.

Personally speaking, he presented a remarkable contrast to the typical British farmer. He was neither big nor burly; he spoke English as well as I did; and there was nothing in his dress which would have made him a fit subject for a picture of rustic life. When he spoke, he was able to talk on subjects unconnected with agricultural pursuits; nor did I hear him grumble about the weather and the crops. It was pleasant to see that his wife was proud of him, and that he was, what all fathers ought to be, his children's best and dearest friend. Why do I dwell on these details, relating to a man whom I was not destined to see again? Only because I had reason to feel grateful to him. When my spirits were depressed by anxiety, he made my mind easy about Eunice, as long as she remained in his house.

The social arrangements, when our meal was over, fell of themselves into the right train.

Miss Jillgall went upstairs, with the mother and the children, to see the nursery and the bedrooms. Mrs. Tenbruggen discovered a bond of union between the farmer and herself; they were both skilled players at backgammon, and they sat down to try conclusions at their favorite game. Without any wearisome necessity for excuses or stratagems, Eunice took my arm and led me to the welcome retirement of her own sitting-room.

I could honestly congratulate her, when I heard that she was established at the farm as a member of the family. While she was governess to the children, she was safe from dangers that might have threatened her, if she had been compelled by circumstances to return to the Minister's house.

The entry in her Journal, which she was anxious that I should read, was placed before me next.

I followed the poor child's account of the fearful night that she had passed, with an interest that held me breathless to the end. A terrible dream, which had impressed a sense of its reality on the sleeper by reaching its climax in somnambulism--this was the obvious explanation, no doubt; and a rational mind would not hesitate to accept it. But a rational mind is not a universal gift, even in a country which prides itself on the idol-worship of Fact. Those good friends who are always better acquainted with our faults, failings, and weaknesses than we can pretend to be ourselves, had long since discovered that my nature was superstitious, and my imagination likely to mislead me in the presence of events which encouraged it. Well! I was weak enough to recoil from the purely rational view of all that Eunice had suffered, and heard, and seen, on the fateful night recorded in her Journal. Good and Evil walk the ways of this unintelligible world, on the same free conditions. If we cling, as many of us do, to the comforting belief that departed spirits can minister to earthly creatures for good--can be felt moving in us, in a train of thought, and seen as visible manifestations, in a dream--with what pretense of reason can we deny that the same freedom of supernatural influence which is conceded to the departed spirit, working for good, is also permitted to the departed spirit, working for evil? If the grave cannot wholly part mother and child, when the mother's life has been good, does eternal annihilation separate them, when the mother's life has been wicked? No! If the departed spirit can bring with it a blessing, the departed spirit can bring with it a curse. I dared not confess to Eunice that the influence of her murderess-mother might, as I thought possible, have been supernaturally present when she heard temptation whispering in her ear; but I dared not deny it to myself. All that I could say to satisfy and sustain her, I did say. And when I declared--with my whole heart declared--that the noble passion which had elevated her whole being, and had triumphed over the sorest trials that desertion could inflict, would still triumph to the end, I saw hope, in that brave and true heart, showing its bright promise for the future in Eunice's eyes.

She closed and locked her Journal. By common consent we sought the relief of changing the subject. Eunice asked me if it was really necessary that I should return to London.

I shrank from telling her that I could be of no further use to her father, while he regarded me with an enmity which I had not deserved. But I saw no reason for concealing that it was my purpose to see Philip Dunboyne.

"You told me yesterday," I reminded her, "that I was to say you had forgiven him. Do you still wish me to do that?"

"Indeed I do!"

"Have you thought of it seriously? Are you sure of not having been hurried by a generous impulse into saying more than you mean?"

"I have been thinking of it," she said, "through the wakeful hours of last night--and many things are plain to me, which I was not sure of in the time when I was so happy. He has caused me the bitterest sorrow of my life, but he can't undo the good that I owe to him. He has made a better girl of me, in the time when his love was mine. I don't forget that. Miserably as it has ended, I don't forget that."

Her voice trembled; the tears rose in her eyes. It was impossible for me to conceal the distress that I felt. The noble creature saw it. "No," she said faintly; "I am not going to cry. Don't look so sorry for me." Her hand pressed my hand gently--she pitied me. When I saw how she struggled to control herself, and did control herself, I declare to God I could have gone down on my knees before her.

She asked to be allowed to speak of Philip again, and for the last time.

"When you meet with him in London, he may perhaps ask if you have seen Eunice."

"My child! he is sure to ask."

"Break it to him gently--but don't let him deceive himself. In this world, he must never hope to see me again."

I tried--very gently--to remonstrate. "At your age, and at his age," I said, "surely there is hope?"

"There is no hope." She pressed her hand on her heart. "I know it, I feel it, here."

"Oh, Eunice, it's hard for me to say that!"

"I will try to make it easier for you. Say that I have forgiven him--and say no more."

AFTER leaving Eunice, my one desire was to be alone. I had much to think of, and I wanted an opportunity of recovering myself. On my way out of the house, in search of the first solitary place that I could discover, I passed the room in which we had dined. The door was ajar. Before I could get by it, Mrs. Tenbruggen stepped out and stopped me.

"Will you come in here for a moment?" she said. "The farmer has been called away, and I want to speak to you."

Very unwillingly--but how could I have refused without giving offense?--I entered the room.

"When you noticed my keeping my name from you," Mrs. Tenbruggen began, "while Selina was with us, you placed me in an awkward position. Our little friend is an excellent creature, but her tongue runs away with her sometimes; I am obliged to be careful of taking her too readily into my confidence. For instance, I have never told her what my name was before I married. Won't you sit down?"

I had purposely remained standing as a hint to her not to prolong the interview. The hint was thrown away; I took a chair.

"Selina's letters had informed me," she resumed, "that Mr. Gracedieu was a nervous invalid. When I came to England, I had hoped to try what Massage might do to relieve him. The cure of their popular preacher might have advertised me through the whole of the Congregational sect. It was essential to my success that I should present myself as a stranger. I could trust time and change, and my married name (certainly not known to Mr. Gracedieu) to keep up my incognito. He would have refused to see me if he had known that I was once Miss Chance."

I began to be interested.

Here was an opportunity, perhaps, of discovering what the Minister had failed to remember when he had been speaking of this woman, and when I had asked if he had ever offended her. I was especially careful in making my inquiries.

"I remember how you spoke to Mr. Gracedieu," I said, "when you and he met, long ago, in my rooms. But surely you don't think him capable of vindictively remembering some thoughtless words, which escaped you sixteen or seventeen years since?"

"I am not quite such a fool as that, Mr. Governor. What I was thinking of was an unpleasant correspondence between the Minister and myself. Before I was so unfortunate as to meet with Mr. Tenbruggen, I obtained a chance of employment in a public Institution, on condition that I included a clergyman among my references. Knowing nobody else whom I could apply to, I rashly wrote to Mr. Gracedieu, and received one of those cold and cruel refusals which only the strictest religious principle can produce. I was mortally offended at the time; and if your friend the Minister had been within my reach--" She paused, and finished the sentence by a significant gesture.

"Well," I said, "he is within your reach now."

"And out of his mind," she added. "Besides, one's sense of injury doesn't last (except in novels and plays) through a series of years. I don't pity him--and if an opportunity of shaking his high position among his admiring congregation presented itself, I daresay I might make a mischievous return for his letter to me. In the meanwhile, we may drop the subject. I suppose you understand, now, why I concealed my name from you, and why I kept out of the house while you were in it."

It was plain enough, of course. If I had known her again, or had heard her name, I might have told the Minister that Mrs. Tenbruggen and Miss Chance were one and the same. And if I had seen her and talked with her in the house, my memory might have shown itself capable of improvement. Having politely presented the expression of my thanks, I rose to go.

She stopped me at the door.

"One word more," she said, "while Selina is out of the way. I need hardly tell you that I have not trusted her with the Minister's secret. You and I are, as I take it, the only people now living who know the truth about these two girls. And we keep our advantage."

"What advantage?" I asked.

"Don't you know?"

"I don't indeed."

"No more do I. Female folly, and a slip of the tongue; I am old and ugly, but I am still a woman. About Miss Eunice. Somebody has told the pretty little fool never to trust strangers. You would have been amused, if you had heard that sly young person prevaricating with me. In one respect, her appearance strikes me. She is not like either the wretch who was hanged, or the poor victim who was murdered. Can she be the adopted child? Or is it the other sister, whom I have not seen yet? Oh, come! come! Don't try to look as if you didn't know. That is really too ridiculous."

"You alluded just now," I answered, "to our 'advantage' in being the only persons who know the truth about the two girls. Well, Mrs. Tenbruggen, I keep my advantage."

"In other words," she rejoined, "you leave me to make the discovery myself. Well, my friend, I mean to do it!"

In the evening, my hotel offered to me the refuge of which I stood in need. I could think, for the first time that day, without interruption.

Being resolved to see Philip, I prepared myself for the interview by consulting my extracts once more. The letter, in which Mrs. Tenbruggen figures, inspired me with the hope of protection for Mr. Gracedieu, attainable through no less a person than Helena herself.

To begin with, she would certainly share Philip's aversion to the Masseuse, and her dislike of Miss Jillgall would, just as possibly, extend to Miss Jillgall's friend. The hostile feeling thus set up might be trusted to keep watch on Mrs. Tenbruggen's proceedings, with a vigilance not attainable by the coarser observation of a man. In the event, of an improvement in the Minister's health, I should hear of it both from the doctor and from Miss Jillgall, and in that case I should instantly return to my unhappy friend and put him on his guard.

I started for London by the early train in the morning.

My way home from the terminus took me past the hotel at which the elder Mr. Dunboyne was staying. I called on him. He was reported to be engaged; that is to say, immersed in his books. The address on one of Philip's letters had informed me that he was staying at another hotel. Pursuing my inquiries in this direction, I met with a severe disappointment. Mr. Philip Dunboyne had left the hotel that morning; for what destination neither the landlord nor the waiter could tell me.

The next day's post brought with it the information which I had failed to obtain. Miss Jillgall wrote, informing me in her strongest language that Philip Dunboyne had returned to Helena. Indignant Selina added: "Helena means to make him marry her; and I promise you she shall fail, if I can stop it."

In taking leave of Eunice, I had given her my address; had warned her to be careful, if she and Mrs. Tenbruggen happened to meet again, and had begged her to write to me, or to come to me, if anything happened to alarm her in my absence.

In two days more, I received a line from Eunice, written evidently in the greatest agitation.

"Philip has discovered me. He has been here, and has insisted on seeing me. I have refused. The good farmer has so kindly taken my part. I can write no more."

WHEN I next heard from Miss Jillgall, the introductory part of her letter merely reminded me that Philip Dunboyne was established in the town, and that Helena was in daily communication with him. I shall do Selina no injustice if my extract begins with her second page.

"You will sympathize, I am sure" (she writes), "with the indignation which urged me to call on Philip, and tell him the way to the farmhouse. Think of Helena being determined to marry him, whether he wants to or not! I am afraid this is bad grammar. But there are occasions when even a cultivated lady fails in her grammar, and almost envies the men their privilege of swearing when they are in a rage. My state of mind is truly indescribable. Grief mingles with anger, when I tell you that my sweet Euneece has disappointed me, for the first time since I had the happiness of knowing and admiring her. What can have been the motive of her refusal to receive her penitent lover? Is it pride? We are told that Satan fell through pride. Euneece satanic? Impossible! I feel inclined to go and ask her what has hardened her heart against a poor young man who bitterly regrets his own folly. Do you think it was bad advice from the farmer or his wife? In that case, I shall exert my influence, and take her away. You would do the same, wouldn't you?

"I am ashamed to mention the poor dear Minister in a postscript. The truth is, I don't very well know what I am about. Mr. Gracedieu is quiet, sleeps better than he did, eats with a keener appetite, gives no trouble. But, alas, that glorious intellect is in a state of eclipse! Do not suppose, because I write figuratively, that I am not sorry for him. He understands nothing; he remembers nothing; he has my prayers.

"You might come to us again, if you would only be so kind. It would make no difference now; the poor man is so sadly altered. I must add, most reluctantly, that the doctor recommends your staying at home. Between ourselves, he is little better than a coward. Fancy his saying; 'No; we must not run that risk yet.' I am barely civil to him, and no more.

"In any other affair (excuse me for troubling you with a second postscript), my sympathy with Euneece would have penetrated her motives; I should have felt with her feelings. But I have never been in love; no gentleman gave me the opportunity when I was young. Now I am middle-aged, neglect has done its dreary work--my heart is an extinct crater. Figurative again! I had better put my pen away, and say farewell for the present."

Miss Jillgall may now give place to Eunice. The same day's post brought me both letters.

I should be unworthy indeed of the trust which this affectionate girl has placed in me, if I failed to receive her explanation of her conduct toward Philip Dunboyne, as a sacred secret confided to my fatherly regard. In those later portions of her letter, which are not addressed to me confidentially, Eunice writes as follows:

"I get news--and what heartbreaking news!--of my father, by sending a messenger to Selina. It is more than ever impossible that I can put myself in the way of seeing Helena again. She has written to me about Philip, in a tone so shockingly insolent and cruel, that I have destroyed her letter. Philip's visit to the farm, discovered I don't know how, seems to have infuriated her. She accuses me of doing all that she might herself have done in my place, and threatens me--No! I am afraid of the wicked whisperings of that second self of mine if I think of it. They were near to tempting me when I read Helena's letter. But I thought of what you said, after I had shown you my Journal; and your words took my memory back to the days when I was happy with Philip. The trial and the terror passed away.

"Consolation has come to me from the best of good women. Mrs. Staveley writes as lovingly as my mother might have written, if death had spared her. I have replied with all the gratitude that I really feel, but without taking advantage of the services which she offers. Mrs. Staveley has it in her mind, as you had it in your mind, to bring Philip back to me. Does she forget, do you forget, that Helena claims him? But you both mean kindly, and I love you both for the interest that you feel in me.

"The farmer's wife--dear good soul!--hardly understands me so well as her husband does. She confesses to pitying Philip. 'He is so wretched,' she says. 'And, dear heart, how handsome, and what nice, winning manners! I don't think I should have had your courage, in your place. To tell the truth, I should have jumped for joy when I saw him at the door; and I should have run down to let him in--and perhaps been sorry for it afterward. If you really wish to forget him, my dear, I will do all I can to help you.'

"These are trifling things to mention, but I am afraid you may think I am unhappy--and I want to prevent that.

"I have so much to be thankful for, and the children are so fond of me. Whether I teach them as well as I might have done, if I had been a more learned girl, may perhaps be doubtful. They do more for their governess, I am afraid, than their governess does for them. When they come into my room in the morning, and rouse me with their kisses, the hour of waking, which used to be so hard to endure after Philip left me, is now the happiest hour of my day."

With that reassuring view of her life as a governess, the poor child's letter comes to an end.

MISS JILLGALL appears again, after an interval, on the field of my extracts. My pleasant friend deserves this time a serious reception. She informs me that Mrs. Tenbruggen has begun the inquiries which I have the best reason to dread--for I alone know the end which they are designed to reach.

The arrival of this news affected me in two different ways.

It was discouraging to find that circumstances had not justified my reliance on Helena's enmity as a counter-influence to Mrs. Tenbruggen. On the other hand, it was a relief to be assured that my return to London would serve, rather than compromise, the interests which it was my chief anxiety to defend. I had foreseen that Mrs. Tenbruggen would wait to set her enterprise on foot, until I was out of her way; and I had calculated on my absence as an event which would at least put an end to suspense by encouraging her to begin.

The first sentences in Miss Jillgall's letter explain the nature of her interest in the proceedings of her friend, and are, on that account, worth reading.

"Things are sadly changed for the worse" (Selina writes); "but I don't forget that Philip was once engaged to Euneece, and that Mr. Gracedieu's extraordinary conduct toward him puzzled us all. The mode of discovery which dear Elizabeth suggested by letter, at that time, appears to be the mode which she is following now. When I asked why, she said: 'Philip may return to Euneece; the Minister may recover--and will be all the more likely to do so if he tries Massage. In that case, he will probably repeat the conduct which surprised you; and your natural curiosity will ask me again to find out what it means. Am I your friend, Selina, or am I not?' This was so delightfully kind, and so irresistibly conclusive, that I kissed her in a transport of gratitude. With what breathless interest I have watched her progress toward penetrating the mystery of the girls' ages, it is quite needless to tell you."

Mrs. Tenbruggen's method of keeping Miss Jillgall in ignorance of what she was really about, and Miss Jillgall's admirable confidence in the integrity of Mrs. Tenbruggen, being now set forth on the best authority, an exact presentation of the state of affairs will be completed if I add a word more, relating to the positions actually occupied toward Mrs. Tenbruggen's enterprise, by my correspondent and myself.

On her side, Miss Jillgall was entirely ignorant that one of the two girls was not Mr. Gracedieu's daughter, but his adopted child. On my side, I was entirely ignorant of Mrs. Tenbruggen's purpose in endeavoring to identify the daughter of the murderess. Speaking of myself, individually, let me add that I only waited the event to protect the helpless ones--my poor demented friend, and the orphan whom his mercy received into his heart and his home.

Miss Jillgall goes on with her curious story, as follows:

"Always desirous of making myself useful, I thought I would give my dear Elizabeth a hint which might save time and trouble. 'Why not begin,' I suggested, 'by asking the Governor to help you?' That wonderful woman never forgets anything. She had already applied to you, without success.

"In my next attempt to be useful, I did violence to my most cherished convictions, by presenting the wretch Helena to the admirable Elizabeth. That the former would be cold as ice, in her reception of any friend of mine, was nothing wonderful. Mrs. Tenbruggen passed it over with the graceful composure of a woman of the world. In the course of conversation with Helena, she slipped in a question: 'Might I ask if you are older than your sister?' The answer was, of course: 'I don't know.' And here, for once, the most deceitful girl in existence spoke the truth.

"When we were alone again, Elizabeth made a remark: 'If personal appearance could decide the question,' she said, 'the disagreeable young woman is the oldest of the two. The next thing to be done is to discover if looks are to be trusted in this case.'

"My friend's lawyer received confidential instructions (not shown to me, which seems rather hard) to trace the two Miss Gracedieus' registers of birth. Elizabeth described this proceeding (not very intelligibly to my mind) as a means of finding out which of the girls could be identified by name as the elder of the two.

"The report arrived this morning. I was only informed that the result, in one case, had entirely defeated the inquiries. In the other case, Elizabeth had helped her agent by referring him to a Birth, advertised in the customary columns of the Times newspaper. Even here, there was a fatal obstacle. The name of the place in which Mr. Gracedieu's daughter had been born was not added, as usual.

"I still tried to be useful. Had my friend known the Minister's wife? My friend had never even seen the Minister's wife. And, as if by a fatality, her portrait was no longer in existence. I could only mention that Helena was like her mother. But Elizabeth seemed to attach very little importance to my evidence, if I may call it by so grand a name. 'People have such strange ideas about likenesses,' she said, 'and arrive at such contradictory conclusions. One can only trust one's own eyes in a matter of that kind.'

"My friend next asked me about our domestic establishment. We had only a cook and a housemaid. If they were old servants who had known the girls as children, they might be made of some use. Our luck was as steadily against us as ever. They had both been engaged when Mr. Gracedieu assumed his new pastoral duties, after having resided with his wife at her native place.

"I asked Elizabeth what she proposed to do next.

"She deferred her answer, until I had first told her whether the visit of the doctor might be expected on that day. I could reply to this in the negative. Elizabeth, thereupon, made a startling request; she begged me to introduce her to Mr. Gracedieu.

"I said: 'Surely, you have forgotten the sad state of his mind?' No; she knew perfectly well that he was imbecile. 'I want to try,' she explained, 'if I can rouse him for a few minutes.'

" 'By Massage?' I inquired.

"She burst out laughing. 'Massage, my dear, doesn't act in that way. It is an elaborate process, pursued patiently for weeks together. But my hands have more than one accomplishment at their finger-ends. Oh, make your mind easy! I shall do no harm, if I do no good. Take me. Selina, to the Minister.'

"We went to his room. Don't blame me for giving way; I am too fond of Elizabeth to be able to disappoint her.

"It was a sad sight when we went in. He was quite happy, playing like a child, at cup-and-ball. The attendant retired at my request. I introduced Mrs. Tenbruggen. He smiled and shook hands with her. He said: 'Are you a Christian or a Pagan? You are very pretty. How many times can you catch the ball in the cup?' The effort to talk to her ended there. He went on with his game, and seemed to forget that there was anybody in the room. It made my heart ache to remember what he was--and to see him now.

"Elizabeth whispered: 'Leave me alone with him.'

"I don't know why I did such a rude thing--I hesitated.

"Elizabeth asked me if I had no confidence in her. I was ashamed of myself; I left them together.

"A long half-hour passed. Feeling a little uneasy, I went upstairs again and looked into the room. He was leaning back in his chair; his plaything was on the floor, and he was looking vacantly at the light that came in through the window. I found Mrs. Tenbruggen at the other end of the room, in the act of ringing the bell. Nothing in the least out of the ordinary way seemed to have happened. When the attendant had answered the bell, we left the room together. Mr. Gracedieu took no notice of us.

" 'Well,' I said, 'how has it ended?'

"Quite calmly my noble Elizabeth answered: 'In total failure.'

" 'What did you say to him after you sent me away?'

" 'I tried, in every possible way, to get him to tell me which of his two daughters was the oldest.'

" 'Did he refuse to answer?'

" 'He was only too ready to answer. First, he said Helena was the oldest--then he corrected himself, and declared that Eunice was the oldest--then he said they were twins--then he went back to Helena and Eunice. Now one was the oldest, and now the other. He rang the changes on those two names, I can't tell you how often, and seemed to think it a better game than cup-and-ball.'

" 'What is to be done?'

" 'Nothing is to be done, Selina.'

" 'What!' I cried, 'you give it up?'

"My heroic friend answered: 'I know when I am beaten, my dear--I give it up.' She looked at her watch; it was time to operate on the muscles of one of her patients. Away she went, on her glorious mission of Massage, without a murmur of regret. What strength of mind! But, oh, dear, what a disappointment for poor little me! On one thing I am determined. If I find myself getting puzzled or frightened, I shall instantly write to you."

With that expression of confidence in me, Selina's narrative came to an end. I wish I could have believed, as she did, that the object of her admiration had been telling her the truth.

A few days later, Mrs. Tenbruggen honored me with a visit at my house in the neighborhood of London. Thanks to this circumstance, I am able to add a postscript which will complete the revelations in Miss Jillgall's letter.

The illustrious Masseuse, having much to conceal from her faithful Selina, was well aware that she had only one thing to keep hidden from me; namely, the advantage which she would have gained if her inquiries had met with success.

"I thought I might have got at what I wanted," she told me, "by mesmerizing our reverend friend. He is as weak as a woman; I threw him into hysterics, and had to give it up, and quiet him, or he would have alarmed the house. You look as if you don't believe in mesmerism."

"My looks, Mrs. Tenbruggen, exactly express my opinion. Mesmerism is a humbug!"

"You amusing old Tory! Shall I throw you into a state of trance? No! I'll give you a shock of another kind--a shock of surprise. I know as much as you do about Mr. Gracedieu's daughters. What do you think of that?"

"I think I should like to hear you tell me, which is the adopted child."

"Helena, to be sure!"

Her manner was defiant, her tone was positive; I doubted both. Under the surface of her assumed confidence, I saw something which told me that she was trying to read my thoughts in my face. Many other women had tried to do that. They succeeded when I was young. When I had reached the wrong side of fifty, my face had learned discretion, and they failed.

"How did you arrive at your discovery?" I asked. "I know of nobody who could have helped you."

"I helped myself, sir! I reasoned it out. A wonderful thing for a woman to do, isn't it? I wonder whether you could follow the process?"

My reply to this was made by a bow. I was sure of my command over my face; but perfect control of the voice is a rare power. Here and there, a great actor or a great criminal possesses it.

Mrs. Tenbruggen's vanity took me into her confidence. "In the first place," she said, "Helena is plainly the wicked one of the two. I was not prejudiced by what Selina had told me of her: I saw it, and felt it, before I had been five minutes in her company. If lying tongues ever provoke her as lying tongues provoked her mother, she will follow her mother's example. Very well. Now--in the second place--though it is very slight, there is a certain something in her hair and her complexion which reminds me of the murderess: there is no other resemblance, I admit. In the third place, the girls' names point to the same conclusion. Mr. Gracedieu is a Protestant and a Dissenter. Would he call a child of his own by the name of a Roman Catholic saint? No! he would prefer a name in the Bible; Eunice is his child. And Helena was once the baby whom I carried into the prison. Do you deny that?"

"I don't deny it."

Only four words! But they were deceitfully spoken, and the deceit--practiced in Eunice's interest, it is needless to say--succeeded. Mrs. Tenbruggen's object in visiting me was attained; I had confirmed her belief in the delusion that Helena was the adopted child.

She got up to take her leave. I asked if she proposed remaining in London. No; she was returning to her country patients that night.

As I attended her to the house-door, she turned to me with her mischievous smile. "I have taken some trouble in finding the clew to the Minister's mystery," she said. "Don't you wonder why?"

"If I did wonder," I answered, "would you tell me why?"

She laughed at the bare idea of it. "Another lesson," she said, "to assist a helpless man in studying the weaker sex. I have already shown you that a woman can reason. Learn next that a woman can keep a secret. Good-by. God bless you!"

Of the events which followed Mrs. Tenbruggen's visit it is not possible for me, I am thankful to say, to speak from personal experience. Ought I to conclude with an expression of repentance for the act of deception to which I have already pleaded guilty? I don't know. Yes! the force of circumstances does really compel me to say it, and say it seriously--I declare, on my word of honor, I don't know.

WHILE my father remains in his present helpless condition, somebody must assume a position of command in this house. There cannot be a moment's doubt that I am the person to do it.

In my agitated state of mind, sometimes doubtful of Philip, sometimes hopeful of him, I find Mrs. Tenbruggen simply unendurable. A female doctor is, under any circumstances, a creature whom I detest. She is, at her very best, a bad imitation of a man. The Medical Rubber is worse than this; she is a bad imitation of a mountebank. Her grinning good-humor, adopted no doubt to please the fools who are her patients, and her impudent enjoyment of hearing herself talk, make me regret for the first time in my life that I am a young lady. If I belonged to the lowest order of the population, I might take the first stick I could find, and enjoy the luxury of giving Mrs. Tenbruggen a good beating.

She literally haunts the house, encouraged, of course, by her wretched little dupe, Miss Jillgall. Only this morning, I tried what a broad hint would do toward suggesting that her visits had better come to an end.

"Really, Mrs. Tenbruggen," I said, "I must request Miss Jillgall to moderate her selfish enjoyment of your company, for your own sake. Your time is too valuable, in a professional sense, to be wasted on an idle woman who has no sympathy with your patients, waiting for relief perhaps, and waiting in vain."

She listened to this, all smiles and good-humor: "My dear, do you know how I might answer you, if I was an ill-natured woman?"

"I have no curiosity to hear it, Mrs. Tenbruggen."

"I might ask you," she persisted, "to allow me to mind my own business. But I am incapable of making an ungrateful return for the interest which you take in my medical welfare. Let me venture to ask if you understand the value of time."

"Are you going to say much more, Mrs. Tenbruggen?"

"I am going to make a sensible remark, my child. If you feel tired, permit me--here is a chair. Father Time, dear Miss Gracedieu, has always been a good friend of mine, because I know how to make the best use of him. The author of the famous saying Tempus fugit (you understand Latin, of course) was, I take leave to think, an idle man. The more I have to do, the readier Time is to wait for me. Let me impress this on your mind by some interesting examples. The greatest conqueror of the century--Napoleon--had time enough for everything. The greatest novelist of the century--Sir Walter Scott--had time enough for everything. At my humble distance, I imitate those illustrious men, and my patients never complain of me."

"Have you done?" I asked.

"Yes, dear--for the present."

"You are a clever woman, Mrs. Tenbruggen and you know it. You have an eloquent tongue, and you know it. But you are something else, which you don't seem to be aware of. You are a Bore."

She burst out laughing, with the air of a woman who thoroughly enjoyed a good joke. I looked back when I left the room, and saw the friend of Father Time in the easy chair opening our newspaper.

This is a specimen of the customary encounter of our wits. I place it on record in my Journal, to excuse myself to myself. When she left us at last, later in the day, I sent a letter after her to the hotel. Not having kept a copy of it, let me present the substance, like a sermon, under three heads: I begged to be excused for speaking plainly; I declared that there was a total want of sympathy between us, on my side; and I proposed that she should deprive me of future opportunities of receiving her in this house. The reply arrived immediately in these terms: "Your letter received, dear girl. I am not in the least angry; partly because I am very fond of you, partly because I know that you will ask me to come back again. P. S--Philip sends his love."

This last piece of insolence was unquestionably a lie. Philip detests her. They are both staying at the same hotel. But I happen to know that he won't even look at her, if they meet by accident on the stairs.

People who can enjoy the melancholy spectacle of human nature in a state of degradation would be at a loss which exhibition to prefer--an ugly old maid in a rage, or an ugly old maid in tears. Miss Jillgall presented herself in both characters when she heard what had happened. To my mind, Mrs. Tenbruggen's bosom-friend is a creature not fit to be seen or heard when she loses her temper. I only told her to leave the room. To my great amusement, she shook her bony fist at me, and expressed a frantic wish: "Oh, if I was rich enough to leave this wicked house!" I wonder whether there is insanity (as well as poverty) in Miss Jillgall's family?

Last night my mind was in a harassed state. Philip was, as usual, the cause of it.

Perhaps I acted indiscreetly when I insisted on his leaving London, and returning to this place. But what else could I have done? It was not merely my interest, it was an act of downright necessity, to withdraw him from the influence of his hateful father--whom I now regard as the one serious obstacle to my marriage. There is no prospect of being rid of Mr. Dunboyne the elder by his returning to Ireland. He is trying a new remedy for his crippled hand--electricity. I wish it was lightning, to kill him! If I had given that wicked old man the chance, I am firmly convinced he would not have let a day pass without doing his best to depreciate me in his son's estimation. Besides, there was the risk, if I had allowed Philip to remain long away from me, of losing--no, while I keep my beauty I cannot be in such danger as that--let me say, of permitting time and absence to weaken my hold on him. However sullen and silent he may be, when we meet--and I find him in that condition far too often--I can, sooner or later, recall him to his brighter self. My eyes preserve their charm, my talk can still amuse him, and, better even than that, I feel the answering thrill in him, which tells me how precious my kisses are--not too lavishly bestowed! But the time when I am obliged to leave him to himself is the time that I dread. How do I know that his thoughts are not wandering away to Eunice? He denies it; he declares that he only went to the farmhouse to express his regret for his own thoughtless conduct, and to offer her the brotherly regard due to the sister of his promised wife. Can I believe it? Oh, what would I not give to be able to believe it! How can I feel sure that her refusal to see him was not a cunning device to make him long for another interview, and plan perhaps in private to go back and try again. Marriage! Nothing will quiet these frightful doubts of mine, nothing will reward me for all that I have suffered, nothing will warm my heart with the delightful sense of triumph over Eunice, but my marriage to Philip. And what does he say, when I urge it on him?--yes, I have fallen as low as that, in the despair which sometimes possesses me. He has his answer, always the same, and always ready: "How are we to live? where is the money?" The maddening part of it is that I cannot accuse him of raising objections that don't exist. We are poorer than ever here, since my father's illness--and Philip's allowance is barely enough to suffice him as a single man. Oh, how I hate the rich!

It was useless to think of going to bed. How could I hope to sleep, with my head throbbing, and my thoughts in this disturbed state? I put on my comfortable dressing-gown, and sat down to try what reading would do to quiet my mind.

I had borrowed the book from the Library, to which I have been a subscriber in secret for some time past. It was an old volume, full of what we should now call Gossip; relating strange adventures, and scandalous incidents in family history which had been concealed from public notice.

One of these last romances in real life caught a strong hold on my interest.

It was a strange case of intended poisoning, which had never been carried out. A young married lady of rank, whose name was concealed under an initial letter, had suffered some unendurable wrong (which was not mentioned) at the hands of her husband's mother. The wife was described as a woman of strong passions, who had determined on a terrible revenge by taking the life of her mother-in-law. There were difficulties in the way of her committing the crime without an accomplice to help her; and she decided on taking her maid, an elderly woman, into her confidence. The poison was secretly obtained by this person; and the safest manner of administering it was under discussion between the mistress and the maid, when the door of the room was suddenly opened. The husband, accompanied by his brother, rushed in, and charged his wife with plotting the murder of his mother. The young lady (she was only twenty-three) must have been a person of extraordinary courage and resolution. She saw at once that her maid had betrayed her, and, with astonishing presence of mind, she turned on the traitress, and said to her husband: "There is the wretch who has been trying to persuade me to poison your mother!" As it happened, the old lady's temper was violent and overbearing; and the maid had complained of being ill-treated by her, in the hearing of the other servants. The circumstances made it impossible to decide which of the two was really the guilty woman. The servant was sent away, and the husband and wife separated soon afterward, under the excuse of incompatibility of temper. Years passed; and the truth was only discovered by the death-bed confession of the wife. A remarkable story, which has made such an impression on me that I have written it in my Journal. I am not rich enough to buy the book.

For the last two days, I have been confined to my room with a bad feverish cold--caught, as I suppose, by sitting at an open window reading my book till nearly three o'clock in the morning. I sent a note to Philip, telling him of my illness. On the first day, he called to inquire after me. On the second day, no visit, and no letter. Here is the third day--and no news of him as yet. I am better, but not fit to go out. Let me wait another hour, and, if that exertion of patience meets with no reward, I shall send a note to the hotel.

No news of Philip. I have sent to the hotel. The servant has just returned, bringing me back my note. The waiter informed her that Mr. Dunboyne had gone away to London by the morning train. No apology or explanation left for me.

Can he have deserted me? I am in such a frenzy of doubt and rage that I can hardly write that horrible question. Is it possible--oh, I feel it is possible that he has gone away with Eunice. Do I know where to find them? if I did know, what could I do? I feel as if I could kill them both!

AFTER the heat of my anger had cooled, I made two discoveries. One cost me a fee to a messenger, and the other exposed me to the insolence of a servant. I pay willingly in my purse and my pride, when the gain is peace of mind. Through my messenger I ascertained that Eunice had never left the farm. Through my own inquiries, answered by the waiter with an impudent grin, I heard that Philip had left orders to have his room kept for him. What misery our stupid housemaid might have spared me, if she had thought of putting that question when I sent her to the hotel!

The rest of the day passed in vain speculations on Philip's motive for this sudden departure. What poor weak creatures we are! I persuaded myself to hope that anxiety for our marriage had urged him to make an effort to touch the heart of his mean father. Shall I see him to-morrow? And shall I have reason to be fonder of him than ever?

We met again to-day as usual. He has behaved infamously.

When I asked what had been his object in going to London, I was told that it was "a matter of business." He made that idiotic excuse as coolly as if he really thought I should believe it. I submitted in silence, rather than mar his return to me by the disaster of a quarrel. But this was an unlucky day. A harder trial of my self-control was still to come. Without the slightest appearance of shame, Philip informed me that he was charged with a message from Mrs. Tenbruggen! She wanted some Irish lace, and would I be so good as to tell her which was the best shop at which she could buy it?

Was he really in earnest? "You," I said, "who distrusted and detested her--you are on friendly terms with that woman?"

He remonstrated with me. "My dear Helena, don't speak in that way of Mrs. Tenbruggen. We have both been mistaken about her. That good creature has forgiven the brutal manner in which I spoke to her, when she was in attendance on my father. She was the first to propose that we should shake hands and forget it. My darling, don't let all the good feeling be on one side. You have no idea how kindly she speaks of you, and how anxious she is to help us to be married. Come! come! meet her half-way. Write down the name of the shop on my card, and I will take it back to her."

Sheer amazement kept me silent: I let him go on. He was a mere child in the hands of Mrs. Tenbruggen: she had only to determine to make a fool of him, and she could do it.

But why did she do it? What advantage had she to gain by insinuating herself in this way into his good opinion, evidently with the intention of urging him to reconcile us to each other? How could we two poor young people be of the smallest use to the fashionable Masseuse?

My silence began to irritate Philip. "I never knew before how obstinate you could be," he said; "you seem to be doing your best--I can't imagine why--to lower yourself in my estimation."

I held my tongue; I assumed my smile. It is all very well for men to talk about the deceitfulness of women. What chance (I should like to ask somebody who knows about it) do the men give us of making our lives with them endurable, except by deceit! I gave way, of course, and wrote down the address of the shop.

He was so pleased that he kissed me. Yes! the most fondly affectionate kiss that he had given me, for weeks past, was my reward for submitting to Mrs. Tenbruggen. She is old enough to be his mother, and almost as ugly as Miss Jillgall--and she has made her interests his interests already!

On the next day, I fully expected to receive a visit from Mrs. Tenbruggen. She knew better than that. I only got a polite little note, thanking me for the address, and adding an artless concession: "I earn more money than I know what to do with; and I adore Irish lace."

The next day came, and still she was careful not to show herself too eager for a personal reconciliation. A splendid nosegay was sent to me, with another little note: "A tribute, dear Helena, offered by one of my grateful patients. Too beautiful a present for an old woman like me. I agree with the poet: 'Sweets to the sweet.' A charming thought of Shakespeare's, is it not? I should like to verify the quotation. Would you mind leaving the volume for me in the hall, if I call to-morrow?"

Well done, Mrs. Tenbruggen! She doesn't venture to intrude on Miss Gracedieu in the drawing-room; she only wants to verify a quotation in the hall. Oh, goddess of Humility (if there is such a person), how becomingly you are dressed when your milliner is an artful old woman!

While this reflection was passing through my mind, Miss Jillgall came in--saw the nosegay on the table--and instantly pounced on it. "Oh, for me! for me!" she cried. "I noticed it this morning on Elizabeth's table. How very kind of her!" She plunged her inquisitive nose into the poor flowers, and looked up sentimentally at the ceiling. "The perfume of goodness," she remarked, "mingled with the perfume of flowers!" "When you have quite done with it," I said, "perhaps you will be so good as to return my nosegay?" "Your nosegay!" she exclaimed. "There is Mrs. Tenbruggen's letter," I replied, "if you would like to look at it." She did look at it. All the bile in her body flew up into her eyes, and turned them green; she looked as if she longed to scratch my face. I gave the flowers afterward to Maria; Miss Jillgall's nose had completely spoiled them.

It would have been too ridiculous to have allowed Mrs. Tenbruggen to consult Shakespeare in the hall. I had the honor of receiving her in my own room. We accomplished a touching reconciliation, and we quite forgot Shakespeare.

She troubles me; she does indeed trouble me.

Having set herself entirely right with Philip, she is determined on performing the same miracle with me. Her reform of herself is already complete. Her vulgar humor was kept under strict restraint; she was quiet and well-bred, and readier to listen than to talk. This change was not presented abruptly. She contrived to express her friendly interests in Philip and in me by hints dropped here and there, assisted in their effort by answers on my part, into which I was tempted so skillfully that I only discovered the snare set for me, on reflection. What is it, I ask again, that she has in view in taking all this trouble? Where is her motive for encouraging a love-affair, which Miss Jillgall must have denounced to her as an abominable wrong inflicted on Eunice? Money (even if there was a prospect of such a thing, in our case) cannot be her object; it is quite true that her success sets her above pecuniary anxiety. Spiteful feeling against Eunice is out of the question. They have only met once; and her opinion was expressed to me with evident sincerity: "Your sister is a nice girl, but she is like other nice girls--she doesn't interest me." There is Eunice's character, drawn from the life in few words. In what an irritating position do I find myself placed! Never before have I felt so interested in trying to look into a person's secret mind; and never before have I been so completely baffled.

I had written as far as this, and was on the point of closing my Journal, when a third note arrived from Mrs. Tenbruggen.

She had been thinking about me at intervals (she wrote) all through the rest of the day; and, kindly as I had received her, she was conscious of being the object of doubts on my part which her visit had failed to remove. Might she ask leave to call on me, in the hope of improving her position in my estimation? An appointment followed for the next day.

What can she have to say to me which she has not already said? Is it anything about Philip, I wonder?

AT our interview of the next day, Mrs. Tenbruggen's capacity for self-reform appeared under a new aspect. She dropped all familiarity with me, and she stated the object of her visit without a superfluous word of explanation or apology.

I thought this a remarkable effort for a woman; and I recognized the merit of it by leaving the lion's share of the talk to my visitor. In these terms she opened her business with me:

"Has Mr. Philip Dunboyne told you why he went to London?"

"He made a commonplace excuse," I answered. "Business, he said, took him to London. I know no more."

"You have a fair prospect of happiness, Miss Helena, when you are married--your future husband is evidently afraid of you. I am not afraid of you; and I shall confide to your private ear something which you have an interest in knowing. The business which took young Mr. Dunboyne to London was to consult a competent person, on a matter concerning himself. The competent person is the sagacious (not to say sly) old gentleman--whom we used to call the Governor. You know him, I believe?"

"Yes. But I am at a loss to imagine why Philip should have consulted him."

"Have you ever heard or read, Miss Helena, of such a thing as 'an old man's fancy'?"

"I think I have."

"Well, the Governor has taken an old man's fancy to your sister. They appeared to understand each other perfectly when I was at the farmhouse."

"Excuse me, Mrs. Tenbruggen, that is what I know already. Why did Philip go to the Governor?"

She smiled. "If anybody is acquainted with the true state of your sister's feelings, the Governor is the man. I sent Mr. Dunboyne to consult him--and there is the reason for it."

This open avowal of her motives perplexed and offended me. After declaring herself to be interested in my marriage-engagement had she changed her mind, and resolved on favoring Philip's return to Eunice? What right had he to consult anybody about the state of that girl's feelings? My feelings form the only subject of inquiry that was properly open to him. I should have said something which I might have afterward regretted, if Mrs. Tenbruggen had allowed me the opportunity. Fortunately for both of us, she went on with her narrative of her own proceedings.

"Philip Dunboyne is an excellent fellow," she continued; "I really like him--but he has his faults. He sadly wants strength of purpose; and, like weak men in general, he only knows his own mind when a resolute friend takes him in hand and guides him. I am his resolute friend. I saw him veering about between you and Eunice; and I decided for his sake--may I say for your sake also?--on putting an end to that mischievous state of indecision. You have the claim on him; you are the right wife for him, and the Governor was (as I thought likely from what I had myself observed) the man to make him see it. I am not in anybody's secrets; it was pure guesswork on my part, and it has succeeded. There is no more doubt now about Miss Eunice's sentiments. The question is settled."

"In my favor?"

"Certainly in your favor--or I should not have said a word about it."

"Was Philip's visit kindly received? Or did the old wretch laugh at him?"

"My dear Miss Gracedieu, the old wretch is a man of the world, and never makes mistakes of that sort. Before he could open his lips, he had to satisfy himself that your lover deserved to be taken into his confidence, on the delicate subject of Eunice's sentiments. He arrived at a favorable conclusion. I can repeat Philip's questions and the Governor's answers after putting the young man through a stiff examination just as they passed: 'May I inquire, sir, if she has spoken to you about me?' 'She has often spoken about you.' 'Did she seem to be angry with me?' 'She is too good and too sweet to be angry with you.' 'Do you think she will forgive me?' 'She has forgiven you.' 'Did she say so herself?' 'Yes, of her own free will.' 'Why did she refuse to see me when I called at the farm?' 'She had her own reasons--good reasons.' 'Has she regretted it since?' 'Certainly not.' 'Is it likely that she would consent, if I proposed a reconciliation?' 'I put that question to her myself.' 'How did she take it, sir?' 'She declined to take it.' 'You mean that she declined a reconciliation?' 'Yes.' 'Are you sure she was in earnest?' 'I am positively sure.' That last answer seems, by young Dunboyne's own confession, to have been enough, and more than enough for him. He got up to go--and then an odd thing happened. After giving him the most unfavorable answers, the Governor patted him paternally on the shoulder, and encouraged him to hope. 'Before we say good-by, Mr. Philip, one word more. If I was as young as you are, I should not despair.' There is a sudden change of front! Who can explain it?"

The Governor's mischievous resolution to reconcile Philip and Eunice explained it, of course. With the best intentions (perhaps) Mrs. Tenbruggen had helped that design by bringing the two men together. "Go on," I said; "I am prepared to hear next that Philip has paid another visit to my sister, and has been received this time."

I must say this for Mrs. Tenbruggen: she kept her temper perfectly.

"He has not been to the farm," she said, "but he has done something nearly as foolish. He has written to your sister."

"And he has received a favorable reply, of course?"

She put her hand into the pocket of her dress.

"There is your sister's reply," she said.

Any persons who have had a crushing burden lifted, unexpectedly and instantly, from off their minds, will know what I felt when I read the reply. In the most positive language, Eunice refused to correspond with Philip, or to speak with him. The concluding words proved that she was in earnest. "You are engaged to Helena. Consider me as a stranger until you are married. After that time you will be my brother-in-law, and then I may pardon you for writing to me."

Nobody who knows Eunice would have supposed that she possessed those two valuable qualities--common-sense and proper pride. It is pleasant to feel that I can now send cards to my sister, when I am Mrs. Philip Dunboyne.

I returned the letter to Mrs. Tenbruggen, with the sincerest expressions of regret for having doubted her. "I have been unworthy of your generous interest in me," I said; "I am almost ashamed to offer you my hand."

She took my hand, and gave it a good, heady shake.

"Are we friends?" she asked, in the simplest and prettiest manner. "Then let us be easy and pleasant again," she went on. "Will you call me Elizabeth; and shall I call you Helena? Very well. Now I have got something else to say; another secret which must be kept from Philip (I call him by his name now, you see) for a few days more. Your happiness, my dear, must not depend on his miserly old father. He must have a little income of his own to marry on. Among the hundreds of unfortunate wretches whom I have relieved from torture of mind and body, there is a grateful minority. Small! small! but there they are. I have influence among powerful people; and I am trying to make Philip private secretary to a member of Parliament. When I have succeeded, you shall tell him the good news."

What a vile humor I must have been in, at the time, not to have appreciated the delightful gayety of this good creature; I went to the other extreme now, and behaved like a gushing young miss fresh from school. I kissed her.

She burst out laughing. "What a sacrifice!" she cried. "A kiss for me, which ought to have been kept for Philip! By-the-by, do you know what I should do, Helena, in your place? I should take our handsome young man away from that hotel!"

"I will do anything that you advise," I said.

"And you will do well, my child. In the first place, the hotel is too expensive for Philip's small means. In the second place, two of the chambermaids have audaciously presumed to be charming girls; and the men, my dear--well! well! I will leave you to find that out for yourself. In the third place, you want to have Philip under your own wing; domestic familiarity will make him fonder of you than ever. Keep him out of the sort of company that he meets with in the billiard-room and the smoking-room. You have got a spare bed here, I know, and your poor father is in no condition to use his authority. Make Philip one of the family."

This last piece of advice staggered me. I mentioned the Proprieties. Mrs. Tenbruggen laughed at the Proprieties.

"Make Selina of some use," she suggested. "While you have got her in the house, Propriety is rampant. Why condemn poor helpless Philip to cheap lodgings? Time enough to cast him out to the feather-bed and the fleas on the night before your marriage. Besides, I shall be in and out constantly--for I mean to cure your father. The tongue of scandal is silent in my awful presence; an atmosphere of virtue surrounds Mamma Tenbruggen. Think of it."

I DID think of it. Philip came to us, and lived in our house.

Let me hasten to add that the protest of Propriety was duly entered, on the day before my promised husband arrived. Standing in the doorway--nothing would induce her to take a chair, or even to enter the room--Miss Jillgall delivered her opinion on Philip's approaching visit. Mrs. Tenbruggen reported it in her pocket-book, as if she was representing a newspaper at a public meeting. Here it is, copied from her notes:

"Miss Helena Gracedieu, my first impulse under the present disgusting circumstances was to leave the house, and earn a bare crust in the cheapest garret I could find in the town. But my grateful heart remembers Mr. Gracedieu. My poor afflicted cousin was good to me when I was helpless. I cannot forsake him when he is helpless. At whatever sacrifice of my own self-respect, I remain under this roof, so dear to me for the Minister's sake. I notice, miss, that you smile. I see my once dear Elizabeth, the friend who has so bitterly disappointed me--" she stopped, and put her handkerchief to her eyes, and went on again--"the friend who has so bitterly disappointed me, taking satirical notes of what I say. I am not ashamed of what I say. The virtue which will not stretch a little, where the motive is good, is feeble virtue indeed. I shall stay in the house, and witness horrors, and rise superior to them. Good-morning, Miss Gracedieu. Good-morning, Elizabeth." She performed a magnificent curtsey, and (as Mrs. Tenbruggen's experience of the stage informed me) made a very creditable exit.

A week has passed, and I have not opened my Diary.

My days have glided away in one delicious flow of happiness. Philip has been delightfully devoted to me. His fervent courtship, far exceeding any similar attentions which he may once have paid to Eunice, has shown such variety and such steadfastness of worship, that I despair of describing it. My enjoyment of my new life is to be felt--not to be coldly considered, and reduced to an imperfect statement in words.

For the first time I feel capable, if the circumstances encouraged me, of acts of exalted virtue. For instance, I could save my country if my country was worth it. I could die a martyr to religion if I had a religion. In one word, I am exceedingly well satisfied with myself. The little disappointments of life pass over me harmless. I do not even regret the failure of good Mrs. Tenbruggen's efforts to find an employment for Philip, worthy of his abilities and accomplishments. The member of Parliament to whom she had applied has chosen a secretary possessed of political influence. That is the excuse put forward in his letter to Mrs. Tenbruggen. Wretched corrupt creature! If he was worth a thought I should pity him. He has lost Philip's services.

Three days more have slipped by. The aspect of my heaven on earth is beginning to alter.

Perhaps the author of that wonderful French novel, "L'Ame Damnée," is right when he tells us that human happiness is misery in masquerade. It would be wrong to say that I am miserable. But I may be on the way to it; I am anxious.

To-day, when he did not know that I was observing him, I discovered a preoccupied look in Philip's eyes. He laughed when I asked if anything had happened to vex him. Was it a natural laugh? He put his arm round me and kissed me. Was it done mechanically? I daresay I am out of humor myself. I think I had a little headache. Morbid, probably. I won't think of it any more.

It has occurred to me this morning that he may dislike being left by himself, while I am engaged in my household affairs. If this is the case, intensely as I hate her, utterly as I loathe the idea of putting her in command over my domestic dominions, I shall ask Miss Jillgall to take my place as housekeeper.

I was away to-day in the kitchen regions rather longer than usual. When I had done with my worries, Philip was not to be found. Maria, looking out of one of the bedroom windows instead of doing her work, had seen Mr. Dunboyne leave the house. It was possible that he had charged Miss Jillgall with a message for me. I asked if she was in her room. No; she, too, had gone out. It was a fine day, and Philip had no doubt taken a stroll--but he might have waited till I could join him. There were some orders to be given to the butcher and the green-grocer. I, too, left the house, hoping to get rid of some little discontent, caused by thinking of what had happened. Returning by the way of High Street--I declare I can hardly believe it even now--I did positively see Miss Jillgall coming out of a pawnbroker's shop!

The direction in which she turned prevented her from seeing me. She was quite unaware that I had discovered her; and I have said nothing about it since. But I noticed something unusual in the manner in which her watch-chain was hanging, and I asked her what o'clock it was. She said, "You have got your own watch." I told her my watch had stopped. "So has mine," she said. There is no doubt about it now; she has pawned her watch. What for? She lives here for nothing, and she has not had a new dress since I have known her. Why does she want money?

Philip had not returned when I got home. Another mysterious journey to London? No. After an absence of more than two hours, he came back.

Naturally enough, I asked what he had been about. He had been taking a long walk. For his health's sake? No: to think. To think of what? Well, I might be surprised to hear it, but his idle life was beginning to weigh on his spirits; he wanted employment. Had he thought of an employment? Not yet. Which way had he walked? Anyway: he had not noticed where he went. These replies were all made in a tone that offended me. Besides, I observed there was no dust on his boots (after a week of dry weather), and his walk of two hours did not appear to have heated or tired him. I took an opportunity of consulting Mrs. Tenbruggen.

She had anticipated that I should appeal to her opinion, as a woman of the world.

I shall not set down in detail what she said. Some of it humiliated me; and from some of it I recoiled. The expression of her opinion came to this. In the absence of experience, a certain fervor of temperament was essential to success in the art of fascinating men. Either my temperament was deficient, or my intellect overpowered it. It was natural that I should suppose myself to be as susceptible to the tender passion as the most excitable woman living. Delusion, my Helena, amiable delusion! Had I ever observed or had any friend told me that my pretty hands were cold hands? I had beautiful eyes, expressive of vivacity, of intelligence, of every feminine charm, except the one inviting charm that finds favor in the eyes of a man. She then entered into particulars, which I don't deny showed a true interest in helping me. I was ungrateful, sulky, self-opinionated. Dating from that day's talk with Mrs. Tenbruggen, my new friendship began to show signs of having caught a chill.

But I did my best to follow her instructions--and failed.

It is perhaps true that my temperament is overpowered by my intellect. Or it is possibly truer still that the fire in my heart, when it warms to love, is a fire that burns low. My belief is that I surprised Philip instead of charming him. He responded to my advances, but I felt that it was not done in earnest, not spontaneously. Had I any right to complain? Was I in earnest? Was I spontaneous? We were making love to each other under false pretenses. Oh, what a fool I was to ask for Mrs. Tenbruggen's advice!

A humiliating doubt has come to me suddenly. Has his heart been inclining to Eunice again? After such a letter as she has written to him? Impossible!

Three events since yesterday, which I consider, trifling as they may be, intimations of something wrong.

First, Miss Jillgall, who at one time was eager to take my place, has refused to relieve me of my housekeeping duties. Secondly, Philip has been absent again, on another long walk. Thirdly, when Philip returned, depressed and sulky, I caught Miss Jillgall looking at him with interest and pity visible in her skinny face. What do these things mean?

I am beginning to doubt everybody. Not one of them, Philip included, cares for me--but I can frighten them, at any rate. Yesterday evening, I dropped on the floor as suddenly as if I had been shot: a fit of some sort. The doctor honestly declared that he was at a loss to account for it. He would have laid me under an eternal obligation if he had failed to bring me back to life again.

As it is, I am more clever than the doctor. What brought the fit on is well known to me. Rage--furious, overpowering, deadly rage--was the cause. I am now in the cold-blooded state, which can look back at the event as composedly as if it had happened to some other girl. Suppose that girl had let her sweetheart know how she loved him as she had never let him know it before. Suppose she opened the door again the instant after she had left the room, eager, poor wretch, to say once more, for the fiftieth time, "My angel, I love you!" Suppose she found her angel standing with his back toward her, so that his face was reflected in the glass. And suppose she discovered in that face, so smiling and so sweet when his head had rested on her bosom only the moment before, the most hideous expression of disgust that features can betray. There could be no doubt of it; I had made my poor offering of love to a man who secretly loathed me. I wonder that I survived my sense of my own degradation. Well! I am alive; and I know him in his true character at last. Am I a woman who submits when an outrage is offered to her? What will happen next? Who knows? I am in a fine humor. What I have just written has set me laughing at myself. Helena Gracedieu has one merit at least--she is a very amusing person.

I slept last night.

This morning, I am strong again, calm, wickedly capable of deceiving Mr. Philip Dunboyne, as he has deceived me. He has not the faintest suspicion that I have discovered him. I wish he had courage enough to kill somebody. How I should enjoy hiring the nearest window to the scaffold, and seeing him hanged!

Miss Jillgall is in better spirits than ever. She is going to take a little holiday; and the cunning creature makes a mystery of it. "Good-by, Miss Helena. I am going to stay for a day or two with a friend." What friend? Who cares?

Last night, I was wakeful. In the darkness a daring idea came to me. To-day, I have carried out the idea. Something has followed which is well worth entering in my Diary.

I left the room at the usual hour for attending to my domestic affairs. The obstinate cook did me a service; she was insolent; she wanted to have her own way. I gave her her own way. In less than five minutes I was on the watch in the pantry, which has a view of the house door. My hat and my parasol were waiting for me on the table, in case of my going out, too.

In a few minutes more, I heard the door opened. Mr. Philip Dunboyne stepped out. He was going to take another of his long walks.

I followed him to the street in which the cabs stand. He hired the first one on the rank, an open chaise; while I kept myself hidden in a. shop door.

The moment he started on his drive, I hired a closed cab. "Double your fare," I said to the driver, "whatever it may be, if you follow that chaise cleverly, and do what I tell you."

He nodded and winked at me. A wicked-looking old fellow; just the man I wanted.

We followed the chaise.

WHEN we had left the town behind us, the coachman began to drive more slowly. In my ignorance, I asked what this change in the pace meant. He pointed with his whip to the open road and to the chaise in the distance.

"If we keep too near the gentleman, miss, he has only got to look back, and he'll see we are following him. The safe thing to do is to let the chaise get on a bit. We can't lose sight of it, out here."

I had felt inclined to trust in the driver's experience, and he had already justified my confidence in him. This encouraged me to consult his opinion on a matter of some importance to my present interests. I could see the necessity of avoiding discovery when we had followed the chaise to its destination; but I was totally at a loss to know how it could be done. My wily old man was ready with his advice the moment I asked for it.

"Wherever the chaise stops, miss, we must drive past it as if we were going somewhere else. I shall notice the place while we go by; and you will please sit back in the corner of the cab so that the gentleman can't see you."

"Well," I said, "and what next?"

"Next, miss, I shall pull up, wherever it may be, out of sight of the driver of the chaise. He bears an excellent character, I don't deny it; but I've known him for years--and we had better not trust him. I shall tell you where the gentleman stopped; and you will go back to the place (on foot, of course), and see for yourself what's to be done, specially if there happens to be a lady in the case. No offense, miss; it's in my experience that there's generally a lady in the case. Anyhow, you can judge for yourself, and you'll know where to find me waiting when you want me again."

"Suppose something happens," I suggested, "that we don't expect?"

"I shan't lose my head, miss, whatever happens."

"All very well, coachman; but I have only your word for it." In the irritable state of my mind, the man's confident way of thinking annoyed me.

"Begging your pardon, my young lady, you've got (if I may say so) what they call a guarantee. When I was a young man, I drove a cab in London for ten years. Will that do?"

"I suppose you mean," I answered, "that you have learned deceit in the wicked ways of the great city."

He took this as a compliment. "Thank you, miss. That's it exactly."

After a long drive, or so it seemed to my impatience, we passed the chaise drawn up at a lonely house, separated by a front garden from the road. In two or three minutes more, we stopped where the road took a turn, and descended to lower ground. The farmhouse which we had left behind us was known to the driver. He led the way to a gate at the side of the road, and opened it for me.

"In your place, miss," he said slyly, "the private way back is the way I should wish to take. Try it by the fields. Turn to the right when you have passed the barn, and you'll find yourself at the back of the house." He stopped, and looked at his big silver watch. "Half-past twelve," he said, "the Chawbacons--I mean the farmhouse servants, miss--will be at their dinner. All in your favor, so far. If the dog happens to be loose, don't forget that his name's Grinder; call him by his name, and pat him before he has time enough to think, and he'll let you be. When you want me, here you'll find me waiting for orders."

I looked back as I crossed the field. The driver was sitting on the gate, smoking his pipe, and the horse was nibbling the grass at the roadside. Two happy animals, without a burden on their minds!

After passing the barn, I saw nothing of the dog. Far or near, no living creature appeared; the servants must have been at dinner, as the coachman had foreseen. Arriving at a wooden fence, I opened a gate in it, and found myself on a bit of waste ground. On my left, there was a large duck-pond. On my right, I saw the fowl-house and the pigstyes. Before me was a high impenetrable hedge; and at some distance behind it--an orchard or a garden, as I supposed, filling the intermediate space--rose the back of the house. I made for the shelter of the hedge, in the fear that some one might approach a window and see me. Once sheltered from observation, I might consider what I should do next. It was impossible to doubt that this was the house in which Eunice was living. Neither could I fail to conclude that Philip had tried to persuade her to see him, on those former occasions when he told me he had taken a long walk.

As I crouched behind the hedge, I heard voices approaching on the other side of it. At last fortune had befriended me. The person speaking at the moment was Miss Jillgall; and the person who answered her was Philip.

"I am afraid, dear Mr. Philip, you don't quite understand my sweet Euneece. Honorable, high minded, delicate in her feelings, and, oh, so unselfish! I don't want to alarm you, but when she hears you have been deceiving Helena--"

"Upon my word, Miss Jillgall, you are so provoking! I have not been deceiving Helena. Haven't I told you what discouraging answers I got, when I went to see the Governor? Haven't I shown you Eunice's reply to my letter? You can't have forgotten it already?"

"Oh, yes, I have. Why should I remember it? Don't I know poor Euneece was in your mind, all the time?"

"You're wrong again! Eunice was not in my mind all the time. I was hurt--I was offended by the cruel manner in which she had treated me. And what was the consequence? So far was I from deceiving Helena--she rose in my estimation by comparison with her sister."

"Oh, come, come, Mr. Philip! that won't do. Helena rising in anybody's estimation? Ha! ha! ha!"

"Laugh as much as you like, Miss Jillgall, you won't laugh away the facts. Helena loved me; Helena was true to me. Don't be hard on a poor fellow who is half distracted. What a man finds he can do on one day, he finds he can't do on another. Try to understand that a change does sometimes come over one's feelings."

"Bless my soul, Mr. Philip, that's just what I have been understanding all the time! I know your mind as well as you know it yourself. You can't forget my sweet Euneece."

"I tell you I tried to forget her! On my word of honor as a gentleman, I tried to forget her, in justice to Helena. Is it my fault that I failed? Eunice was in my mind, as you said just now. Oh, my friend--for you are my friend, I am sure--persuade her to see me, if it's only for a minute!"

(Was there ever a man's mind in such a state of confusion as this! First, I rise in his precious estimation, and Eunice drops. Then Eunice rises, and I drop. Idiot! Mischievous idiot! Even Selina seemed to be disgusted with him, when she spoke next.)

"Mr. Philip, you are hard and unreasonable. I have tried to persuade her, and I have made my darling cry. Nothing you can say will induce me to distress her again. Go back, you very undetermined man--go back to your Helena."

"Too late."

"Nonsense!"

"I say too late. If I could have married Helena when I first went to stay in the house, I might have faced the sacrifice. As it is, I can't endure her; and (I tell you this in confidence) she has herself to thank for what has happened."

"Is that really true?"

"Quite true."

"Tell me what she did.

"Oh, don't talk of her! Persuade Eunice to see me. I shall come back again, and again, and again till you bring her to me."

"Please don't talk nonsense. If she changes her mind, I will bring her with pleasure. If she still shrinks from it, I regard Euneece's feelings as sacred. Take my advice; don't press her. Leave her time to think of you, and to pity you--and that true heart may be yours again, if you are worthy of it."

"Worthy of it? What do you mean?"

"Are you quite sure, my young friend, that you won't go back to Helena?"

"Go back to her? I would cut my throat if I thought myself capable of doing it!"

"How did she set you against her? Did the wretch quarrel with you?"

"It might have been better for both of us if she had done that. Oh, her fulsome endearments! What a contrast to the charming modesty of Eunice! If I was rich, I would make it worth the while of the first poor fellow I could find to rid me of Helena by marrying her. I don't like saying such a thing of a woman, but if you will have the truth--"

"Well, Mr. Philip--and what is the truth?"

"Helena disgusts me."

So it was all settled between them. Philip is to throw me away, like one of his bad cigars, for this unanswerable reason: "Helena disgusts me." And he is to persuade Eunice to take my place, and be his wife. Yes! if I let him do it.

I heard no more of their talk. With that last, worst outrage burning in my memory, I left the place.

On my way back to the carriage, the dog met me. Truly, a grand creature. I called him by his name, and patted him. He licked my hand. Something made me speak to him. I said: "If I was to tell you to tear Mr. Philip Dunboyne to pieces, would you do it?" The great good-natured brute held out his paw to shake hands. Well! well! I was not an object of disgust to the dog.

But the coachman was startled, when he saw me again. He said something, I did not know what it was; and he produced a pocket-flask, containing some spirits, I suppose. Perhaps he thought I was going to faint. He little knew me. I told him to drive back to the place at which I had hired the cab, and earn his money. He earned it.

On getting home, I found Mrs. Tenbruggen walking up and down the dining-room, deep in thought. She was startled when we first confronted each other. "You look dreadfully ill," she said.

I answered that I had been out for a little exercise, and had over-fatigued myself; and then changed the subject. "Does my father seem to improve under your treatment?" I asked.

"Very far from it, my dear. I promised that I would try what Massage would do for him, and I find myself compelled to give it up."

"Why?"

"It excites him dreadfully."

"In what way?"

"He has been talking wildly of events in his past life. His brain is in some condition which is beyond my powers of investigation. He pointed to a cabinet in his room, and said his past life was locked up there. I asked if I should unlock it. He shook with fear; he said I should let out the ghost of his dead brother-in-law. Have you any idea of what he meant?"

The cabinet was full of old letters. I could tell her that--and could tell her no more. I had never heard of his brother-in-law. Another of his delusions, no doubt. "Did you ever hear him speak," Mrs. Tenbruggen went on, "of a place called Low Lanes?"

She waited for my reply to this last inquiry with an appearance of anxiety that surprised me. I had never heard him speak of Low Lanes.

"Have you any particular interest in the place?" I asked.

"None whatever."

She went away to attend on a patient. I retired to my bedroom, and opened my Diary. Again and again, I read that remarkable story of the intended poisoning, and of the manner in which it had ended. I sat thinking over this romance in real life till I was interrupted by the announcement of dinner.

Mr. Philip Dunboyne had returned. In Miss Jillgall's absence we were alone at the table. My appetite was gone. I made a pretense of eating, and another pretense of being glad to see my devoted lover. I talked to him in the prettiest manner. As a hypocrite, he thoroughly matched me; he was gallant, he was amusing. If baseness like ours had been punishable by the law, a prison was the right place for both of us.

Mrs. Tenbruggen came in again after dinner, still not quite easy about my health. "How flushed you are!" she said. "Let me feel your pulse." I laughed, and left her with Mr. Philip Dunboyne.

Passing my father's door, I looked in, anxious to see if he was in the excitable state which Mrs. Tenbruggen had described. Yes; the effect which she had produced on him--how, she knows best--had not passed away yet: he was still talking. The attendant told me it had gone on for hours together. On my approaching his chair, he called out: "Which are you? Eunice or Helena?" When I had answered him, he beckoned me to come nearer. "I am getting stronger every minute," he said. "We will go traveling to-morrow, and see the place where you were born."

Where had I been born? He had never told me where. Had he mentioned the place in Mrs. Tenbruggen's hearing? I asked the attendant if he had been present while she was in the room. Yes; he had remained at his post; he had also heard the allusion to the place with the odd name. Had Mr. Gracedieu said anything more about that place? Nothing more; the poor Minister's mind had wandered off to other things. He was wandering now. Sometimes, he was addressing his congregation; sometimes, he wondered what they would give him for supper; sometimes, he talked of the flowers in the garden. And then he looked at me, and frowned, and said I prevented him from thinking.

I went back to my bedroom, and opened my Diary, and read the story again.

Was the poison of which that resolute young wife proposed to make use something that acted slowly, and told the doctors nothing if they looked for it after death?

Would it be running too great a risk to show the story to the doctor, and try to get a little valuable information in that way? It would be useless. He would make some feeble joke; he would say, girls and poisons are not fit company for each other.

But I might discover what I want to know in another way. I might call on the doctor, after he has gone out on his afternoon round of visits, and might tell the servant I would wait for his master's return. Nobody would be in my way; I might get at the medical literature in the consulting-room, and find the information for myself.

A knock at my door interrupted me in the midst of my plans. Mrs. Tenbruggen again!--still in a fidgety state of feeling on the subject of my health. "Which is it?" she said. "Pain of body, my dear, or pain of mind? I am anxious about you."

"My dear Elizabeth, your sympathy is thrown away on me. As I have told you already, I am over-tired--nothing more."

She was relieved to hear that I had no mental troubles to complain of. "Fatigue," she remarked, "sets itself right with rest. Did you take a very long walk?"

"Yes."

"Beyond the limits of the town, of course? Philip has been taking a walk in the country, too. He doesn't say that he met you."

These clever people sometimes overreach themselves. How she suggested it to me, I cannot pretend to have discovered. But I did certainly suspect that she had led Philip, while they were together downstairs, into saying to her what he had already said to Miss Jillgall. I was so angry that I tried to pump my excellent friend, as she had been trying to pump me--a vulgar expression, but vulgar writing is such a convenient way of writing sometimes. My first attempt to entrap the Masseuse failed completely. She coolly changed the subject.

"Have I interrupted you in writing?" she asked, pointing to my Diary.

"No; I was idling over what I have written already--an extraordinary story which I copied from a book."

"May I look at it?"

I pushed the open Diary across the table. If I was the object of any suspicions which she wanted to confirm, it would be curious to see if the poisoning story helped her. "It's a piece of family history," I said; "I think you will agree with me that it is really interesting."

She began to read. As she went on, not all her power of controlling herself could prevent her from turning pale. This change of color (in such a woman) a little alarmed me. When a girl is devoured by deadly hatred of a man, does the feeling show itself to other persons in her face? I must practice before the glass and train my face into a trustworthy state of discipline.

"Coarse melodrama!" Mrs. Tenbruggen declared. "Mere sensation. No analysis of character. A made-up story!"

"Well made up, surely?" I answered.

"I don't agree with you." Her voice was not quite so steady as usual. She asked suddenly if my clock was right--and declared that she should be late for an appointment. On taking leave she pressed my hand strongly--eyed me with distrustful attention and said, very emphatically: "Take care of yourself, Helena; pray take care of yourself."

I am afraid I did a very foolish thing when I showed her the poisoning story. Has it helped the wily old creature to look into my inmost thoughts?

Impossible!

To-day, Miss Jillgall returned, looking hideously healthy and spitefully cheerful. Although she tried to conceal it, while I was present, I could see that Philip had recovered his place in her favor. After what he had said to her behind the hedge at the farm, she would be relieved from all fear of my becoming his wife, and would joyfully anticipate his marriage to Eunice. There are thoughts in me which I don't set down in my book. I only say: We shall see.

This afternoon, I decided on visiting the doctor. The servant was quite sorry for me when he answered the door. His master had just left the house for a round of visits. I said I would wait. The servant was afraid I should find waiting very tedious. I reminded him that I could go away if I found it tedious. At last, the polite old man left me.

I went into the consulting-room, and read the backs of the medical books ranged round the walls, and found a volume that interested me. There was such curious information in it that I amused myself by making extracts, using the first sheets of paper that I could find. They had printed directions at the top, which showed that the doctor was accustomed to write his prescriptions on them. We had many, too many, of his prescriptions in our house.

The servant's doubts of my patience proved to have been well founded. I got tired of waiting, and went home before the doctor returned.

From morning to night, nothing has been seen of Mrs. Tenbruggen to-day. Nor has any apology for her neglect of us been received, fond as she is of writing little notes. Has that story in my Diary driven her away? Let me see what to-morrow may bring forth.

To-day has brought forth--nothing. Mrs. Tenbruggen still keeps away from us. It looks as if my Diary had something to do with the mystery of her absence.

I am not in good spirits to-day. My nerves--if I have such things, which is more than I know by my own experience--have been a little shaken by a horrid dream. The medical information, which my thirst for knowledge absorbed in the doctor's consulting-room, turned traitor--armed itself with the grotesque horrors of nightmare--and so thoroughly frightened me that I was on the point of being foolish enough to destroy my notes. I thought better of it, and my notes are safe under lock and key.

Mr. Philip Dunboyne is trying to pave the way for his flight from this house. He speaks of friends in London, whose interest will help him to find the employment which is the object of his ambition. "In a few days more," he said, "I shall ask for leave of absence."

Instead of looking at me, his eyes wandered to the window; his fingers played restlessly with his watch-chain while he spoke. I thought I would give him a chance, a last chance, of making the atonement that he owes to me. This shows shameful weakness, on my part. Does my own resolution startle me? Or does the wretch appeal--to what? To my pity? It cannot be my love; I am positively sure that I hate him. Well, I am not the first girl who had been an unanswerable riddle to herself.

"Is there any other motive for your departure?" I asked.

"What other motive can there be?" he replied. I put what I had to say to him in plainer words still. "Tell me, Philip, are you beginning to wish that you were a free man again?"

He still prevaricated. Was this because he is afraid of me, or because he is not quite brute enough to insult me to my face? I tried again for the third and last time. I almost put the words into his mouth.

"I fancy you have been out of temper lately," I said. "You have not been your own kinder and better self. Is this the right interpretation of the change that I think I see in you?"

He answered: "I have not been very well lately."

"And that is all?"

"Yes--that is all."

There was no more to be said; I turned away to leave the room. He followed me to the door. After a momentary hesitation, he made the attempt to kiss me. I only looked at him--he drew back from me in silence. I left the new Judas, standing alone, while the shades of evening began to gather over the room.

"IF anything of importance happens, I trust to you to write an account of it, and to send the writing to me. I will come to you at once, if I see reason to believe that my presence is required." Those lines, in your last kind reply to me, rouse my courage, dear Mr. Governor, and sharpen the vigilance which has always been one of the strong points in my character. Every suspicious circumstance which occurs in this house will be (so to speak) seized on by my pen, and will find itself (so to speak again) placed on its trial, before your unerring judgment! Let the wicked tremble! I mention no names.

Taking up my narrative where it came to an end when I last wrote, I have to say a word first on the subject of my discoveries, in regard to Philip's movements.

The advertisement of a private inquiry office, which I read in a newspaper, put the thing into my head. I provided myself with money to pay the expenses by--I blush while I write it--pawning my watch. This humiliation of my poor self has been rewarded by success. Skilled investigation has proved that our young man has come to his senses again, exactly as I supposed. On each occasion when he was suspiciously absent from the house, he has been followed to the farm. I have been staying there myself for a day or two, in the hope of persuading Eunice to relent. The hope has not yet been realized. But Philip's devotion, assisted by my influence, will yet prevail. Let me not despair.

Whether Helena knows positively that she has lost her wicked hold on Philip I cannot say. It seems hardly possible that she could have made the discovery just yet. The one thing of which I am certain is, that she looks like a fiend.

Philip has wisely taken my advice, and employed pious fraud. He will get away from the wretch, who has tempted him once and may tempt him again, under pretense of using the interest of his friends in London to find a place under Government. He has not been very well for the last day or two, and the execution of our project is in consequence delayed.

I have news of Mrs. Tenbruggen which will, I think, surprise you.

She has kept away from us in a most unaccountable manner. I called on her at the hotel, and heard she was engaged with her lawyer. On the next day, she suddenly returned to her old habits, and paid the customary visit. I observed a similar alteration in her state of feeling. She is now coldly civil to Helena; and she asks after Eunice with a maternal interest touching to see--I said to her: "Elizabeth, you appear to have changed your opinion of the two girls, since I saw you." She answered, with a delightful candor which reminded me of old times: "Completely!" I said: "A woman of your intellectual caliber, dear, doesn't change her mind without a good reason for it." Elizabeth cordially agreed with me. I ventured to be a little more explicit: "You have no doubt made some interesting discovery." Elizabeth agreed again; and I ventured again: "I suppose I may not ask what the discovery is?" "No, Selina, you may not ask."

This is curious; but it is nothing to what I have got to tell you next. Just as I was longing to take her to my bosom again as my friend and confidante, Elizabeth has disappeared. And, alas! alas! there is a reason for it which no sympathetic person can dispute.

I have just received some overwhelming news, in the form of a neat parcel, addressed to myself.

There has been a scandal at the hotel. That monster in human form, Elizabeth's husband, is aware of his wife's professional fame, has heard of the large sums of money which she earns as the greatest living professor of massage, has been long on the lookout for her, and has discovered her at last. He has not only forced his way into her sitting-room at the hotel; he insists on her living with him again; her money being the attraction, it is needless to say. If she refuses, he threatens her with the law, the barbarous law, which, to use his own coarse expression, will "restore his conjugal rights."

All this I gather from the narrative of my unhappy friend, which forms one of the two inclosures in her parcel. She has already made her escape. Ha! the man doesn't live who can circumvent Elizabeth. The English Court of Law isn't built which can catch her when she roams the free and glorious Continent.

The vastness of this amazing woman's mind is what I must pause to admire. In the frightful catastrophe that has befallen her, she can still think of Philip and Euneece. She is eager to hear of their marriage, and renounces Helena with her whole heart. "I too was deceived by that cunning young Woman," she writes. "Beware of her, Selina. Unless I am much mistaken, she is going to end badly. Take care of Philip, take care of Euneece. If you want help, apply at once to my favorite hero in real life, The Governor." I don't presume to correct Elizabeth's language. I should have called you The idol of the Women.

The second inclosure contains, as I suppose, a wedding present. It is carefully sealed--it feels no bigger than an ordinary letter--and it contains an inscription which your highly-cultivated intelligence may be able to explain. I copy it as follows:

"To be inclosed in another envelope, addressed to Mr. Dunboyne the elder, at Percy's Private Hotel, London, and delivered by a trustworthy messenger, on the day when Mr. Philip Dunboyne is married to Miss Eunice Gracedieu. Placed meanwhile under the care of Miss Selina Jillgall."

Why is this mysterious letter to be sent to Philip's father? I wonder whether that circumstance will puzzle you as it has puzzled me.

I have kept my report back, so as to send you the last news relating to Philip's state of health. To my great regret, his illness seems to have made a serious advance since yesterday. When I ask if he is in pain, he says: "It isn't exactly pain; I feel as if I was sinking. Sometimes I am giddy; and sometimes I find myself feeling thirsty and sick." I have no opportunity of looking after him as I could wish; for Helena insists on nursing him, assisted by the housemaid. Maria is a very good girl in her way, but too stupid to be of much use. If he is not better to-morrow, I shall insist on sending for the doctor.

He is no better; and he wishes to have medical help. Helena doesn't seem to understand his illness. It was not until Philip had insisted on seeing him that she consented to send for the doctor.

You had some talk with this experienced physician when you were here, and you know what a clever man he is. When I tell you that he hesitates to say what is the matter with Philip, you will feel as much alarmed as I do. I will wait to send this to the post until I can write in a more definite way.

Two days more have passed. The doctor has put two very strange questions to me.

He asked, first, if there was anybody staying with us besides the regular members of the household. I said we had no visitor. He wanted to know, next, if Mr. Philip Dunboyne had made any enemies since he has been living in our town. I said none that I knew of--and I took the liberty of asking what he meant. He answered to this, that he has a few more inquiries to make, and that he will tell me what he means to-morrow.

For God's sake come here as soon as you possibly can. The whole burden is thrown on me--and I am quite unequal to it.

I received the doctor to-day in the drawing-room. To my amazement, he begged leave to speak with me in the garden. When I asked why, he answered: "I don't want to have a listener at the door. Come out on the lawn, where we can be sure that we are alone."

When we were in the garden, he noticed that I was trembling.

"Rouse your courage, Miss Jillgall," he said. "In the Minister's helpless state there is nobody whom I can speak to but yourself."

I ventured to remind him that he might speak to Helena as well as to myself.

He looked as black as thunder when I mentioned her name. All he said was, "No!" But, oh, if you had heard his voice--and he so gentle and sweet-tempered at other times--you would have felt, as I did, that he had Helena in his mind!

"Now, listen to this," he went on. "Everything that my art can do for Mr. Philip Dunboyne, while I am at his bedside, is undone while I am away by some other person. He is worse to-day than I have seen him yet."

"Oh, sir, do you think he will die?"

"He will certainly die unless the right means are taken to save him, and taken at once. It is my duty not to flinch from telling you the truth. I have made a discovery since yesterday which satisfies me that I am right. Somebody is trying to poison Mr. Dunboyne; and somebody will succeed unless he is removed from this house."

I am a poor feeble creature. The doctor caught me, or I should have dropped on the grass. It was not a fainting-fit. I only shook and shivered so that I was too weak to stand up. Encouraged by the doctor, I recovered sufficiently to be able to ask him where Philip was to be taken to. He said: "To the hospital. No poisoner can follow my patient there. Persuade him to let me take him away, when I call again in an hour's time."

As soon as I could hold a pen, I sent a telegram to you. Pray, pray come by the earliest train. I also telegraphed to old Mr. Dunboyne, at the hotel in London.

It was impossible for me to face Helena; I own I was afraid. The cook kindly went upstairs to see who was in Philip's room. It was the housemaid's turn to look after him for a while. I went instantly to his bedside.

There was no persuading him to allow himself to be taken to the hospital. "I am dying," he said. "If you have any pity for me, send for Euneece. Let me see her once more, let me hear her say that she forgives me, before I die."

I hesitated. It was too terrible to think of Euneece in the same house with her sister. Her life might be in danger! Philip gave me a look, a dreadful ghastly look. "If you refuse," he said wildly, "the grave won't hold me. I'll haunt you for the rest of your life."

"She shall hear that you are ill," I answered--and ran out of the room before he could speak again.

What I had promised to write, I did write. But, placed between Euneece's danger and Philip's danger, my heart was all for Euneece. Would Helena spare her, if she came to Philip's bedside? In such terror as I never felt before in my life, I added a word more, entreating her not to leave the farm. I promised to keep her regularly informed on the subject of Philip's illness; and I mentioned that I expected the Governor to return to us immediately. "Do nothing," I wrote, "without his advice." My letter having been completed, I sent the cook away with it, in a chaise. She belonged to the neighborhood, and she knew the farmhouse well.

Nearly two hours afterward, I heard the chaise stop at the door, and ran out, impatient to hear how my sweet girl had received my letter. God help us all! When I opened the door, the first person whom I saw was Euneece herself.

ONE surprise followed another, after I had encountered Euneece at the door.

When my fondness had excused her for setting the well-meant advice in my letter at defiance, I was conscious of expecting to see her in tears; eager, distressingly eager, to hear what hope there might be of Philip's recovery. I saw no tears, I heard no inquiries. She was pale, and quiet, and silent. Not a word fell from her when we met, not a word when she kissed me, not a word when she led the way into the nearest room--the dining-room. It was only when we were shut in together that she spoke.

"Which is Philip's room?" she asked.

Instead of wanting to know how he was, she desired to know where he was! I pointed toward the back dining-room, which had been made into a bedroom for Philip. He had chosen it himself, when he first came to stay with us, because the window opened into the garden and he could slip out and smoke at any hour of the day or night, when he pleased.

"Who is with him now?" was the next strange thing this sadly-changed girl said to me.

"Maria is taking her turn," I answered; "she assists in nursing Philip."

"Where is--?" Euneece got no further than that. Her breath quickened, her color faded away. I had seen people look as she was looking now, when they suffered under some sudden pain. Before I could offer to help her, she rallied, and went on: "Where," she began again, "is the other nurse?"

"You mean Helena?" I said.

"I mean the Poisoner."

When I remind you, dear Mr. Governor, that my letter had carefully concealed from her the horrible discovery made by the doctor, your imagination will picture my state of mind. She saw that I was overpowered. Her sweet nature, so strangely frozen up thus far, melted at last. "You don't know what I have heard," she said, "you don't know what thoughts have been roused in me." She left her chair, and sat on my knee with the familiarity of the dear old times, and took the letter that I had written to her from her pocket.

"Look at it yourself," she said, "and tell me if anybody could read it, and not see that you were concealing something. My dear, I have driven round by the doctor's house--I have seen him--I have persuaded him, or perhaps I ought to say surprised him, into telling me the truth. But the kind old man is obstinate. He wouldn't believe me when I told him I was on my way here to save Philip's life. He said: 'My child, you will only put your own life in jeopardy. If I had not seen that danger, I should never have told you of the dreadful state of things at home. Go back to the good people at the farm, and leave the saving of Philip to me.' "

"He was right, Euneece, entirely right."

"No, dear, he was wrong. I begged him to come here, and judge for himself; and I ask you to do the same."

I was obstinate. "Go back!" I persisted. "Go back to the farm!"

"Can I see Philip?" she asked.

I have heard some insolent men say that women are like cats. If they mean that we do, figuratively speaking, scratch at times, I am afraid they are not altogether wrong. An irresistible impulse made me say to poor Euneece: "This is a change indeed, since you refused to receive Philip."

"Is there no change in the circumstances?" she asked sadly. "Isn't he ill and in danger?"

I begged her to forgive me; I said I meant no harm.

"I gave him up to my sister," she continued, "when I believed that his happiness depended, not on me, but on her. I take him back to myself, when he is at the mercy of a demon who threatens his life. Come, Selina, let us go to Philip."

She put her arm round me, and made me get up from my chair. I was so easily persuaded by her, that the fear of what Helena's jealousy and Helena's anger might do was scarcely present in my thoughts. The door of communication was locked on the side of the bedchamber. I went into the hall, to enter Philip's room by the other door. She followed, waiting behind me. I heard what passed between them when Maria went out to her.

"Where is Miss Gracedieu?"

"Resting upstairs, miss, in her room."

"Look at the clock, and tell me when you expect her to come down here."

"I am to call her, miss, in ten minutes more."

"Wait in the dining-room, Maria, till I come back to you."

She joined me. I held the door open for her to go into Philip's room. It was not out of curiosity; the feeling that urged me was sympathy, when I waited a moment to see their first meeting. She bent over the poor, pallid, trembling, suffering man, and raised him in her arms, and laid his head on her bosom. "My Philip!" She murmured those words in a kiss. I closed the door, I had a good cry; and, oh, how it comforted me!

There was only a minute to spare when she came out of the room. Maria was waiting for her. Euneece said, as quietly as ever: "Go and call Miss Gracedieu."

The girl looked at her, and saw--I don't know what. Maria became alarmed. But she went up the stairs, and returned in haste to tell us that her young mistress was coming down.

The faint rustling of Helena's dress as she left her room reached us in the silence. I remained at the open door of the dining-room, and Maria approached and stood near me. We were both frightened. Euneece stepped forward, and stood on the mat at the foot of the stairs, waiting. Her back was toward me; I could only see that she was as still as a statue. The rustling of the dress came nearer. Oh, heavens! what was going to happen? My teeth chattered in my head; I held by Maria's shoulder. Drops of perspiration showed themselves on the girl's forehead; she stared in vacant terror at the slim little figure, posted firm and still on the mat.

Helena turned the corner of the stairs, and waited a moment on the last landing, and saw her sister.

"You here?" she said. "What do you want?"

There was no reply. Helena descended, until she reached the last stair but one. There, she stopped. Her staring eyes grew large and wild; her hand shook as she stretched it out, feeling for the banister; she staggered as she caught at it, and held herself up. The silence was still unbroken. Something in me, stronger than myself, drew my steps along the hall nearer and nearer to the stair, till I could see the face which had struck that murderous wretch with terror.

I looked.

No! it was not my sweet girl; it was a horrid transformation of her. I saw a fearful creature, with glittering eyes that threatened some unimaginable vengeance. Her lips were drawn back; they showed her clinched teeth. A burning red flush dyed her face. The hair of her head rose, little by little, slowly. And, most dreadful sight of all, she seemed, in the stillness of the house, to be listening to something. If I could have moved, I should have fled to the first place of refuge I could find. If I could have raised my voice, I should have cried for help. I could do neither the one nor the other. I could only look, look, look; held by the horror of it with a hand of iron.

Helena must have roused her courage, and resisted her terror. I heard her speak:

"Let me by!"

"No."

Slowly, steadily, in a whisper, Euneece made that reply.

Helena tried once more--still fighting against her own terror: I knew it by the trembling of her voice.

"Let me by," she repeated; "I am on my way to Philip's room."

"You will never enter Philip's room again."

"Who will stop me?"

"I will."

She had spoken in the same steady whisper throughout--but now she moved. I saw her set her foot on the first stair. I saw the horrid glitter in her eyes flash close into Helena's face. I heard her say:

"Poisoner, go back to your room."

Silent and shuddering, Helena shrank away from her--daunted by her glittering eyes; mastered by her lifted hand pointing up the stairs.

Helena slowly ascended till she reached the landing. She turned and looked down; she tried to speak. The pointing hand struck her dumb, and drove her up the next flight of stairs. She was lost to view. Only the small rustling sound of the dress was to be heard, growing fainter and fainter; then an interval of stillness; then the noise of a door opened and closed again; then no sound more--but a change to be seen: the transformed creature was crouching on her knees, still and silent, her face covered by her hands. I was afraid to approach her; I was afraid to speak to her. After a time, she rose. Suddenly, swiftly, with her head turned away from me, she opened the door of Philip's room--and was gone.

I looked round. There was only Maria in the lonely hall. Shall I try to tell you what my sensations were? It may sound strangely, but it is true--I felt like a sleeper, who has half-awakened from a dream.

A LITTLE later, on that eventful day, when I was most in need of all that your wisdom and kindness could do to guide me, came the telegram which announced that you were helpless under an attack of gout. As soon as I had in some degree got over my disappointment, I remembered having told Euneece in my letter that I expected her kind old friend to come to us. With the telegram in my hand I knocked softly at Philip's door.

The voice that bade me come in was the gentle voice that I knew so well. Philip was sleeping. There, by his bedside, with his hand resting in her hand, was Euneece, so completely restored to her own sweet self that I could hardly believe what I had seen, not an hour since. She talked of you, when I showed her your message, with affectionate interest and regret. Look back, my admirable friend, at what I have written on the two or three pages which precede this, and explain the astounding contrast if you can.

I was left alone to watch by Philip, while Euneece went away to see her father. Soon afterward, Maria took my place; I had been sent for to the next room to receive the doctor.

He looked care-worn and grieved. I said I was afraid he had brought bad news with him.

"The worst possible news," he answered. "A terrible exposure threatens this family, and I am powerless to prevent it,"

He then asked me to remember the day when I had been surprised by the singular questions which he had put to me, and when he had engaged to explain himself after he had made some inquiries. Why, and how, he had set those inquiries on foot was what he had now to tell. I will repeat what he said, in his own words, as nearly as I can remember them. While he was in attendance on Philip, he had observed symptoms which made him suspect that Digitalis had been given to the young man, in doses often repeated. Cases of attempted poisoning by this medicine were so rare, that he felt bound to put his suspicions to the test by going round among the chemists's shops--excepting of course the shop at which his own prescriptions were made up--and asking if they had lately dispensed any preparation of Digitalis, ordered perhaps in a larger quantity than usual. At the second shop he visited, the chemist laughed. "Why, doctor," he said, "have you forgotten your own prescription?" After this, the prescription was asked for, and produced. It was on the paper used by the doctor--paper which had his address printed at the top, and a notice added, telling patients who came to consult him for the second time to bring their prescriptions with them. Then, there followed in writing: "Tincture of Digitalis, one ounce"--with his signature at the end, not badly imitated, but a forgery nevertheless. The chemist noticed the effect which this discovery had produced on the doctor, and asked if that was his signature. He could hardly, as an honest man, have asserted that a forgery was a signature of his own writing. So he made the true reply, and asked who had presented the prescription. The chemist called to his assistant to come forward. "Did you tell me that you knew, by sight, the young lady who brought this prescription?" The assistant admitted it. "Did you tell me she was Miss Helena Gracedieu?" "I did." "Are you sure of not having made any mistake?" "Quite sure." The chemist then said: "I myself supplied the Tincture of Digitalis, and the young lady paid for it, and took it away with her. You have had all the information that I can give you, sir; and I may now ask, if you can throw any light on the matter." Our good friend thought of the poor Minister, so sorely afflicted, and of the famous name so sincerely respected in the town and in the country round, and said he could not undertake to give an immediate answer. The chemist was excessively angry. "You know as well as I do," he said, "that Digitalis, given in certain doses, is a poison, and you cannot deny that I honestly believed myself to be dispensing your prescription. While you are hesitating to give me an answer, my character may suffer; I may be suspected myself." He ended in declaring he should consult his lawyer. The doctor went home, and questioned his servant. The man remembered the day of Miss Helena's visit in the afternoon, and the intention that she expressed of waiting for his master's return. He had shown her into the parlor which opened into the consulting-room. No other visitor was in the house at that time, or had arrived during the rest of the day. The doctor's own experience, when he got home, led him to conclude that Helena had gone into the consulting-room. He had entered that room, for the purpose of writing some prescriptions, and had found the leaves of paper that he used diminished in number. After what he had heard, and what he had discovered (to say nothing of what he suspected), it occurred to him to look along the shelves of his medical library. He found a volume (treating of Poisons) with a slip of paper left between the leaves; the poison described at the place so marked being Digitalis, and the paper used being one of his own prescription-papers. "If, as I fear, a legal investigation into Helena's conduct is a possible event," the doctor concluded, "there is the evidence that I shall be obliged to give, when I am called as a witness."

It is my belief that I could have felt no greater dismay, if the long arm of the Law had laid its hold on me while he was speaking. I asked what was to be done.

"If she leaves the house at once," the doctor replied, "she may escape the infamy of being charged with an attempt at murder by poison; and, in her absence, I can answer for Philip's life. I don't urge you to warn her, because that might be a dangerous thing to do. It is for you to decide, as a member of the family, whether you will run the risk."

I tried to speak to him of Euneece, and to tell him what I had already related to yourself. He was in no humor to listen to me. "Keep it for a fitter time," he answered; "and think of what I have just said to you." With that, he left me, on his way to Philip's room.

Mental exertion was completely beyond me. Can you understand a poor middle-aged spinster being frightened into doing a dangerous thing? That may seem to be nonsense. But if you ask why I took a morsel of paper, and wrote the warning which I was afraid to communicate by word of mouth--why I went upstairs with my knees knocking together, and opened the door of Helena's room just wide enough to let my hand pass through--why I threw the paper in, and banged the door to again, and ran downstairs as I have never run since I was a little girl--I can only say, in the way of explanation, what I have said already: I was frightened into doing it.

What I have written, thus far, I shall send to you by to-night's post.

The doctor came back to me, after he had seen Philip, and spoken with Euneece. He was very angry; and, I must own, not without reason. Philip had flatly refused to let himself be removed to the hospital; and Euneece--"a mere girl"--had declared that she would be answerable for consequences! The doctor warned me that he meant to withdraw from the case, and to make his declaration before the magistrates. At my entreaties he consented to return in the evening, and to judge by results before taking the terrible step that he had threatened.

While I remained at home on the watch, keeping the doors of both rooms locked, Eunice went out to get Philip's medicine. She came back, followed by a boy carrying a portable apparatus for cooking. "All that Philip wants, and all that we want," she explained, "we can provide for ourselves. Give me a morsel of paper to write on."

Unhooking the little pencil attached to her watch-chain, she paused and looked toward the door. "Somebody listening," she whispered. "Let them listen." She wrote a list of necessaries, in the way of things to eat and things to drink, and asked me to go out and get them myself. "I don't doubt the servants," she said, speaking distinctly enough to be heard outside; "but I am afraid of what a Poisoner's cunning and a Poisoner's desperation may do, in a kitchen which is open to her." I went away on my errand--discovering no listener outside, I need hardly say. On my return, I found the door of communication with Philip's room closed, but no longer locked. "We can now attend on him in turn," she said, "without opening either of the doors which lead into the hall. At night we can relieve each other, and each of us can get sleep as we want it in the large armchair in the dining-room. Philip must be safe under our charge, or the doctor will insist on taking him to the hospital. When we want Maria's help, from time to time, we can employ her under our own superintendence. Have you anything else, Selina, to suggest?"

There was nothing left to suggest. Young and inexperienced as she was, how (I asked) had she contrived to think of all this? She answered, simply "I'm sure I don't know; my thoughts came to me while I was looking at Philip."

Soon afterward I found an opportunity of inquiring if Helena had left the house. She had just rung her bell; and Maria had found her, quietly reading, in her room. Hours afterward, when I was on the watch at night, I heard Philip's door softly tried from the outside. Her dreadful purpose had not been given up, even yet.

The doctor came in the evening, as he had promised, and found an improvement in Philip's health. I mentioned what precautions we had taken, and that they had been devised by Euneece. "Are you going to withdraw from the case?" I asked. "I am coming back to the case," he answered, "to-morrow morning."

It had been a disappointment to me to receive no answer to the telegram which I had sent to Mr. Dunboyne the elder. The next day's post brought the explanation in a letter to Philip from his father, directed to him at the hotel here. This showed that my telegram, giving my address at this house, had not been received. Mr. Dunboyne announced that he had returned to Ireland, finding the air of London unendurable, after the sea-breezes at home. If Philip had already married, his father would leave him to a life of genteel poverty with Helena Gracedieu. If he had thought better of it, his welcome was waiting for him.

Little did Mr. Dunboyne know what changes had taken place since he and his son had last met, and what hope might yet present itself of brighter days for poor Euneece! I thought of writing to him. But how would that crabbed old man receive a confidential letter from a lady who was a stranger?

My doubts were set at rest by Philip himself. He asked me to write a few lines of reply to his father; declaring that his marriage with Helena was broken off--that he had not given up all hope of being permitted to offer the sincere expression of his penitence to Euneece--and that he would gladly claim his welcome, as soon as he was well enough to undertake the journey to Ireland. When he had signed the letter, I was so pleased that I made a smart remark. I said: "This is a treaty of peace between father and son."

When the doctor arrived in the morning, and found the change for the better in his patient confirmed, he did justice to us at last. He spoke kindly, and even gratefully, to Euneece. No more allusions to the hospital as a place of safety escaped him. He asked me cautiously for news of Helena. I could only tell him that she had gone out at her customary time, and had returned at her customary time. He did not attempt to conceal that my reply had made him uneasy.

"Are you still afraid that she may succeed in poisoning Philip?" I asked.

"I am afraid of her cunning," he said. "If she is charged with attempting to poison young Dunboyne, she has some system of defense, you may rely on it, for which we are not prepared. There, in my opinion, is the true reason for her extraordinary insensibility to her own danger."

Two more days passed, and we were still safe under the protection of lock and key.

On the evening of the second day (which was a Monday) Maria came to me in great tribulation. On inquiring what was the matter, I received a disquieting reply: "Miss Helena is tempting me. She is so miserable at being prevented from seeing Mr. Philip, and helping to nurse him, that it is quite distressing to see her. At the same time, miss, it's hard on a poor servant. She asks me to take the key secretly out of the door, and lend it to her at night for a few minutes only. I'm really afraid I shall be led into doing it, if she goes on persuading me much longer."

I commended Maria for feeling scruples which proved her to be the best of good girls, and promised to relieve her from all fear of future temptation. This was easily done. Euneece kept the key of Philip's door in her pocket; and I kept the key of the dining-room door in mine.

ON the next day, a Tuesday in the week, an event took place which Euneece and I viewed with distrust. Early in the afternoon, a young man called with a note for Helena. It was to be given to her immediately, and no answer was required.

Maria had just closed the house door, and was on her way upstairs with the letter, when she was called back by another ring at the bell. Our visitor was the doctor. He spoke to Maria in the hall:

"I think I see a note in your hand. Was it given to you by the young man who has just left the house?"

"Yes, sir.

"If he's your sweetheart, my dear, I have nothing more to say."

"Good gracious, doctor, how you do talk! I never saw the young man before in my life."

"In that case, Maria, I will ask you to let me look at the address. Aha! Mischief!"

The moment I heard that I threw open the dining-room door. Curiosity is not easily satisfied. When it hears, it wants to see; when it sees, it wants to know. Every lady will agree with me in this observation.

"Pray come in," I said.

"One minute, Miss Jillgall. My girl, when you give Miss Helena that note, try to get a sly look at her when she opens it, and come and tell me what you have seen." He joined me in the dining-room, and closed the door. "The other day," he went on, "when I told you what I had discovered in the chemist's shop, I think I mentioned a young man who was called to speak to a question of identity--an assistant who knew Miss Helena Gracedieu by sight."

"Yes, yes!"

"That young man left the note which Maria has just taken upstairs."

"Who wrote it, doctor, and what does it say?"

"Questions naturally asked, Miss Jillgall--and not easily answered. Where is Eunice? Her quick wit might help us."

She had gone out to buy some fruit and flowers for Philip.

The doctor accepted his disappointment resignedly. "Let us try what we can do without her," he said. "That young man's master has been in consultation (you may remember why) with his lawyer, and Helena may be threatened by an investigation before the magistrates. If this wild guess of mine turns out to have hit the mark, the poisoner upstairs has got a warning."

I asked if the chemist had written the note. Foolish enough of me when I came to think of it. The chemist would scarcely act a friendly part toward Helena, when she was answerable for the awkward position in which he had placed himself. Perhaps the young man who had left the warning was also the writer of the warning. The doctor reminded me that he was all but a stranger to Helena. "We are not usually interested," he remarked, "in a person whom we only know by sight."

"Remember that he is a young man," I ventured to say. This was a strong hint, but the doctor failed to see it. He had evidently forgotten his own youth. I made another attempt.

"And vile as Helena is," I continued, "we cannot deny that this disgrace to her sex is a handsome young lady."

He saw it at last. "Woman's wit!" he cried. "You have hit it, Miss Jillgall. The young fool is smitten with her, and has given her a chance of making her escape."

"Do you think she will take the chance?"

"For all our sakes, I pray God she may! But I don't feel sure about it."

"Why?"

"Recollect what you and Eunice have done. You have shown your suspicion of her without an attempt to conceal it. If you had put her in prison you could not have more completely defeated her infernal design. Do you think she is a likely person to submit to that, without an effort to be even with you?"

Just as he said those terrifying words, Maria came back to us. He asked at once what had kept her so long upstairs.

The girl had evidently something to say, which had inflated her (if I may use such an expression) with a sense of her own importance.

"Please to let me tell it, sir," she answered, "in my own way. Miss Helena turned as pale as ashes when she opened the letter, and then she took a turn in the room, and then she looked at me with a smile--well, miss, I can only say that I felt that smile in the small of my back. I tried to get to the door. She stopped me. She says: 'Where's Miss Eunice?' I says: 'Gone out.' She says: 'Is there anybody in the drawing-room?' I says: 'No, miss.' She says: 'Tell Miss Jillgall I want to speak to her, and say I am waiting in the drawing-room.' It's every word of it true! And, if a poor servant may give an opinion, I don't like the look of it."

The doctor dismissed Maria. "Whatever it is," he said to me, "you must go and hear it."

I am not a courageous woman; I expressed myself as being willing to go to her, if the doctor went with me. He said that was impossible; she would probably refuse to speak before any witness; and certainly before him. But he promised to look after Philip in my absence, and to wait below if it really so happened that I wanted him. I need only ring the bell, and he would come to me the moment he heard it. Such kindness as this roused my courage, I suppose. At any rate, I went upstairs.

She was standing by the fire-place, with her elbow on the chimney-piece, and her head, resting on her hand. I stopped just inside the door, waiting to hear what she had to say. In this position her side-face only was presented to me. It was a ghastly face. The eye that I could see turned wickedly on me when I came in--then turned away again. Otherwise, she never moved. I confess I trembled, but I did my best to disguise it.

She broke out suddenly with what she had to say: "I won't allow this state of things to go on any longer. My horror of an exposure which will disgrace the family has kept me silent, wrongly silent, so far. Philip's life is in danger. I am forgetting my duty to my affianced husband, if I allow myself to be kept away from him any longer. Open those locked doors, and relieve me from the sight of you. Open the doors, I say, or you will both of you--you the accomplice, she the wretch who directs you--repent it to the end of your lives."

In my own mind, I asked myself if she had gone mad. But I only answered: "I don't understand you."

She said again: "You are Eunice's accomplice."

"Accomplice in what?" I asked.

She turned her head slowly and faced me. I shrank from looking at her.

"All the circumstances prove it," she went on. "I have supplanted Eunice in Philip's affection. She was once engaged to marry him; I am engaged to marry him now. She is resolved that he shall never make me his wife. He will die if I delay any longer. He will die if I don't crush her, like the reptile she is. She comes here--and what does she do? Keeps him prisoner under her own superintendence. Who gets his medicine? She gets it. Who cooks his food? She cooks it. The doors are locked. I might be a witness of what goes on; and I am kept out. The servants who ought to wait on him are kept out. She can do what she likes with his medicine; she can do what she likes with his food: she is infuriated with him for deserting her, and promising to marry me. Give him back to my care; or, dreadful as it is to denounce my own sister, I shall claim protection from the magistrates."

I lost all fear of her: I stepped close up to the place at which she was standing; I cried out: "Of what, in God's name, do you accuse your sister?"

She answered: "I accuse her of poisoning Philip Dunboyne."

I ran out of the room; I rushed headlong down the stairs. The doctor heard me, and came running into the hall. I caught hold of him like a madwoman. "Euneece!" My breath was gone; I could only say: "Euneece!"

He dragged me into the dining-room. There was wine on the side-board, which he had ordered medically for Philip. He forced me to drink some of it. It ran through me like fire; it helped me to speak. "Now tell me," he said, "what has she done to Eunice?"

"She brings a horrible accusation against her," I answered.

"What is the accusation?" I told him.

He looked me through and through. "Take care!" he said. "No hysterics, no exaggeration. You may lead to dreadful consequences if you are not sure of yourself. If it's really true, say it again." I said it again--quietly this time.

His face startled me; it was white with rage. He snatched his hat off the hall table.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"My duty." He was out of the house before I could speak to him again.

MARTYRS to gout know, by sad experience, that they suffer under one of the most capricious of maladies. An attack of this disease will shift, in the most unaccountable manner, from one part of the body to another; or, it will release the victim when there is every reason to fear that it is about to strengthen its hold on him; or, having shown the fairest promise of submitting to medical treatment, it will cruelly lay the patient prostrate again in a state of relapse. Adverse fortune, in my case, subjected me to this last and worst trial of endurance. Two months passed--months of pain aggravated by anxiety--before I was able to help Eunice and Miss Jillgall personally with my sympathy and advice.

During this interval, I heard regularly from the friendly and faithful Selina.

Terror and suspense, courageously endured day after day, seem to have broken down her resistance, poor soul, when Eunice's good name and Eunice's tranquillity were threatened by the most infamous of false accusations. From that time, Miss Jillgall's method of expressing herself betrayed a gradual deterioration. I shall avoid presenting at a disadvantage a correspondent who has claims on my gratitude, if I give the substance only of what she wrote--assisted by the newspaper which she sent to me, while the legal proceedings were in progress.

Honest indignation does sometimes counsel us wisely. When the doctor left Miss Jillgall, in anger and in haste, he had determined on taking the course from which, as a humane man and a faithful friend, he had hitherto recoiled. It was no time, now, to shrink from the prospect of an exposure. The one hope of successfully encountering the vindictive wickedness of Helena lay in the resolution to be beforehand with her, in the appeal to the magistrates with which she had threatened Eunice and Miss Jillgall. The doctor's sworn information stated the whole terrible case of the poisoning, ranging from his first suspicions and their confirmation, to Helena's atrocious attempt to accuse her innocent sister of her own guilt. So firmly were the magistrates convinced of the serious nature of the case thus stated, that they did not hesitate to issue their warrant. Among the witnesses whose attendance was immediately secured, by the legal adviser to whom the doctor applied, were the farmer and his wife.

Helena was arrested while she was dressing to go out. Her composure was not for a moment disturbed. "I was on my way," she said coolly, "to make a statement before the justices. The sooner they hear what I have to say the better."

The attempt of this shameless wretch to "turn the tables" on poor Eunice--suggested, as I afterward discovered, by the record of family history which she had quoted in her journal--was defeated with ease. The farmer and his wife proved the date at which Eunice had left her place of residence under their roof. The doctor's evidence followed. He proved, by the production of his professional diary, that the discovery of the attempt to poison his patient had taken place before the day of Eunice's departure from the farm, and that the first improvement in Mr. Philip Dunboyne's state of health had shown itself after that young lady's arrival to perform the duties of a nurse. To the wise precautions which she had taken--perverted by Helena to the purpose of a false accusation--the doctor attributed the preservation of the young man's life.

Having produced the worst possible impression on the minds of the magistrates, Helena was remanded. Her legal adviser had predicted this result; but the vindictive obstinacy of his client had set both experience and remonstrance at defiance.

At the renewed examination, the line of defense adopted by the prisoner's lawyer proved to be--mistaken identity.

It was asserted that she had never entered the chemist's shop; also, that the assistant had wrongly identified some other lady as Miss Helena Gracedieu; also, that there was not an atom of evidence to connect her with the stealing of the doctor's prescription-paper and the forgery of his writing. Other assertions to the same purpose followed, on which it is needless to dwell.

The case for the prosecution was, happily, in competent hands. With the exception of one witness, cross-examination afforded no material help to the evidence for the defense.

The chemist swore positively to the personal appearance of Helena, as being the personal appearance of the lady who had presented the prescription. His assistant, pressed on the question of identity, broke down under cross-examination--purposely, as it was whispered, serving the interests of the prisoner. But the victory, so far gained by the defense, was successfully contested by the statement of the next witness, a respectable tradesman in the town. He had seen the newspaper report of the first examination, and had volunteered to present himself as a witness. A member of Mr. Gracedieu's congregation, his pew in the chapel was so situated as to give him a view of the minister's daughters occupying their pew. He had seen the prisoner on every Sunday, for years past; and he swore that he was passing the door of the chemist's shop, at the moment when she stepped out into the street, having a bottle covered with the customary white paper in her hand. The doctor and his servant were the next witnesses called. They were severely cross-examined. Some of their statements--questioned technically with success--received unexpected and powerful support, due to the discovery and production of the prisoner's diary. The entries, guardedly as some of them were written, revealed her motive for attempting to poison Philip Dunboyne; proved that she had purposely called on the doctor when she knew that he would be out, that she had entered the consulting-room, and examined the medical books, had found (to use her own written words) "a volume that interested her," and had used the prescription-papers for the purpose of making notes. The notes themselves were not to be found; they had doubtless been destroyed. Enough, and more than enough, remained to make the case for the prosecution complete. The magistrates committed Helena Gracedieu for trial at the next assizes.

I arrived in the town, as well as I can remember, about a week after the trial had taken place.

Found guilty, the prisoner had been recommended to mercy by the jury--partly in consideration of her youth; partly as an expression of sympathy and respect for her unhappy father. The judge (a father himself) passed a lenient sentence. She was condemned to imprisonment for two years. The careful matron of the jail had provided herself with a bottle of smelling-salts, in the fear that there might be need for it when Helena heard her sentence pronounced. Not the slightest sign of agitation appeared in her face or her manner. She lied to the last; asserting her innocence in a firm voice, and returning from the dock to the prison without requiring assistance from anybody.

Relating these particulars to me, in a state of ungovernable excitement, good Miss Jillgall ended with a little confession of her own, which operated as a relief to my overburdened mind after what I had just heard.

"I wouldn't own it," she said, "to anybody but a dear friend. One thing, in the dreadful disgrace that has fallen on us, I am quite at a loss to account for. Think of Mr. Gracedieu's daughter being one of those criminal creatures on whom it was once your terrible duty to turn the key! Why didn't she commit suicide?"

"My dear lady, no thoroughly wicked creature ever yet committed suicide. Self-destruction, when it is not an act of madness, implies some acuteness of feeling--sensibility to remorse or to shame, or perhaps a distorted idea of making atonement. There is no such thing as remorse or shame, or hope of making atonement, in Helena's nature."

"But when she comes out of prison, what will she do?"

"Don't alarm yourself, my good friend. She will do very well."

"Oh, hush! hush! Poetical justice, Mr. Governor!"

"Poetical fiddlesticks, Miss Jillgall."

WHEN the subject of the trial was happily dismissed, my first inquiry related to Eunice. The reply was made with an ominous accompaniment of sighs and sad looks. Eunice had gone back to her duties as governess at the farm. Hearing this, I asked naturally what had become of Philip.

Melancholy news, again, was the news that I now heard.

Mr. Dunboyne the elder had died suddenly, at his house in Ireland, while Philip was on his way home. When the funeral ceremony had come to an end, the will was read. It had been made only a few days before the testator's death; and the clause which left all his property to his son was preceded by expressions of paternal affection, at a time when Philip was in sore need of consolation. After alluding to a letter, received from his son, the old man added: "I always loved him, without caring to confess it; I detest scenes of sentiment, kissings, embracings, tears, and that sort of thing. But Philip has yielded to my wishes, and has broken off a marriage which would have made him, as well as me, wretched for life. After this, I may speak my mind from my grave, and may tell my boy that I loved him. If the wish is likely to be of any use, I will add (on the chance)--God bless him."

"Does Philip submit to separation from Eunice?" I asked. "Does he stay in Ireland?"

"Not he, poor fellow! He will be here to-morrow or next day. When I last wrote," Miss Jillgall continued, "I told him I hoped to see you again soon. If you can't help us (I mean with Eunice) that unlucky young man will do some desperate thing. He will join those madmen at large who disturb poor savages in Africa, or go nowhere to find nothing in the Arctic regions.

"Whatever I can do, Miss Jillgall, shall be gladly done. Is it really possible that Eunice refuses to marry him, after having saved his life?"

"A little patience, please, Mr. Governor; let Philip tell his own story. If I try to do it, I shall only cry--and we have had tears enough lately, in this house."

Further consultation being thus deferred, I went upstairs to the Minister's room.

He was sitting by the window, in his favorite armchair, absorbed in knitting! The person who attended on him, a good-natured, patient fellow, had been a sailor in his younger days, and had taught Mr. Gracedieu how to use the needles. "You see it amuses him," the man said, kindly. "Don't notice his mistakes, he thinks there isn't such another in the world for knitting as himself. You can see, sir, how he sticks to it." He was so absorbed over his employment that I had to speak to him twice, before I could induce him to look at me. The utter ruin of his intellect did not appear to have exercised any disastrous influence over his bodily health. On the contrary, he had grown fatter since I had last seen him; his complexion had lost the pallor that I remembered--there was color in his cheeks.

"Don't you remember your old friend?" I said. He smiled, and nodded, and repeated the words:

"Yes, yes, my old friend." It was only too plain that he had not the least recollection of me. "His memory is gone," the man said. "When he puts away his knitting, at night, I have to find it for him in the morning. But, there! he's happy--enjoys his victuals, likes sitting out in the garden and watching the birds. There's been a deal of trouble in the family, sir; and it has all passed over him like a wet sponge over a slate." The old sailor was right. If that wreck of a man had been capable of feeling and thinking, his daughter's disgrace would have broken his heart. In a world of sin and sorrow, is peaceable imbecility always to be pitied? I have known men who would have answered, without hesitation: "It is to be envied." And where (some persons might say) was the poor Minister's reward for the act of mercy which had saved Eunice in her infancy? Where it ought to be! A man who worthily performs a good action finds his reward in the action itself.

At breakfast, on the next day, the talk touched on those passages in Helena's diary, which had been produced in court as evidence against her.

I expressed a wish to see what revelation of a depraved nature the entries in the diary might present; and my curiosity was gratified. At a fitter time, I may find an opportunity of alluding to the impression produced on me by the diary. In the meanwhile, the event of Philip's return claims notice in the first place.

The poor fellow was so glad to see me that he shook hands as heartily as if we had known each other from the time when he was a boy.

"Do you remember how kindly you spoke to me when I called on you in London?" he asked. "If I have repeated those words once--but perhaps you don't remember them? You said: 'If I was as young as you are, I should not despair.' Well! I have said that to myself over and over again, for a hundred times at least. Eunice will listen to you, sir, when she will listen to nobody else. This is the first happy moment I have had for weeks past."

I suppose I must have looked glad to hear that. Anyway, Philip shook hands with me again.

Miss Jillgall was present. The gentle-hearted old maid was so touched by our meeting that she abandoned herself to the genial impulse of the moment, and gave Philip a kiss. The outraged claims of propriety instantly seized on her. She blushed as if the long-lost days of her girlhood had been found again, and ran out of the room.

"Now, Mr. Philip," I said, "I have been waiting, at Miss Jillgall's suggestion, to get my information from you. There is something wrong between Eunice and yourself. What is it? And who is to blame?"

"Her vile sister is to blame," he answered. "That reptile was determined to sting us. And she has done it!" he cried, starting to his feet, and walking up and down the room, urged into action by his own unendurable sense of wrong. "I say, she has done it, after Eunice has saved me--done it, when Eunice was ready to be my wife."

"How has she done it?"

Between grief and indignation his reply was involved in a confusion of vehemently-spoken words, which I shall not attempt to reproduce. Eunice had reminded him that her sister had been publicly convicted of an infamous crime, and publicly punished for it by imprisonment. "If I consent to marry you," she said, "I stain you with my disgrace; that shall never be." With this resolution, she had left him. "I have tried to convince her," Philip said, "that she will not be associated with her sister's disgrace when she bears my name; I have promised to take her far away from England, among people who have never even heard of her sister. Miss Jillgall has used her influence to help me. All in vain! There is no hope for us but in you. I am not thinking selfishly only of myself. She tries to conceal it--but, oh, she is broken-hearted! Ask the farmer's wife, if you don't believe me. Judge for yourself, sir. Go--for God's sake, go to the farm."

I made him sit down and compose himself.

"You may depend on my going to the farm," I answered. "I shall write to Eunice to-day, and follow my letter to-morrow." He tried to thank me; but I would not allow it. "Before I consent to accept the expression of your gratitude," I said, "I must know a little more of you than I know now. This is only the second occasion on which we have met. Let us look back a little, Mr. Philip Dunboyne. You were Eunice's affianced husband; and you broke faith with her. That was a rascally action. How do you defend it?"

His head sank. "I am ashamed to defend it," he answered.

I pressed him without mercy. "You own yourself," I said, "that it was a rascally action?"

"Use stronger language against me, even than that, sir--I deserve it."

"In plain words," I went on, "you can find no excuse for your conduct?"

"In the past time," he said, "I might have found excuses."

"But you can't find them now?"

"I must not even look for them now."

"Why not?"

"I owe it to Eunice to leave my conduct at its worst; with nothing said--by me--to defend it."

"What has Eunice done to have such a claim on you as that?"

"Eunice has forgiven me."

It was gratefully and delicately said. Ought I to have allowed this circumstance to weigh with me? I ask, in return, had I never committed any faults? As a fellow-mortal and fellow-sinner, had I any right to harden my heart against an expression of penitence which I felt to be sincere in its motive?

But I was bound to think of Eunice. I did think of her, before I ventured to accept the position--the critical position, as I shall presently show--of Philip's friend.

After more than an hour of questions put without reserve, and of answers given without prevarication, I had traveled over the whole ground laid out by the narratives which appear in these pages, and had arrived at my conclusion--so far as Philip Dunboyne was concerned.

I found him to be a man with nothing absolutely wicked in him--but with a nature so perilously weak, in many respects, that it might drift into wickedness unless a stronger nature was at hand to bold it back. Married to a wife without force of character, the probabilities would point to him as likely to yield to examples which might make him a bad husband. Married to a wife with a will of her own, and with true love to sustain her--a wife who would know when to take the command and how to take the command--a wife who, finding him tempted to commit actions unworthy of his better self, would be far-sighted enough to perceive that her husband's sense of honor might sometimes lose its balance, without being on that account hopelessly depraved--then, and, in these cases only, the probabilities would point to Philip as a man likely to be the better and the happier for his situation, when the bonds of wedlock had got him.

But the serious question was not answered yet.

Could I feel justified in placing Eunice in the position toward Philip which I have just endeavored to describe? I dared not allow my mind to dwell on the generosity which had so nobly pardoned him, or on the force of character which had bravely endured the bitterest disappointment, the cruelest humiliation. The one consideration which I was bound to face, was the sacred consideration of her happiness in her life to come.

Leaving Philip, with a few words of sympathy which might help him to bear his suspense, I went to my room to think.

The time passed--and I could arrive at no positive conclusion. Either way--with or without Philip--the contemplation of Eunice's future harassed me with doubt. Even if I had conquered my own indecision, and had made up my mind to sanction the union of the two young people, the difficulties that now beset me would not have been dispersed. Knowing what I alone knew, I could certainly remove Eunice's one objection to the marriage. In other words, I had only to relate what had happened on the day when the Chaplain brought the Minister to the prison, and the obstacle of their union would be removed. But, without considering Philip, it was simply out of the question to do this, in mercy to Eunice herself. What was Helena's disgrace, compared with the infamy which stained the name of the poor girl's mother! The other alternative of telling her part of the truth only was before me, if I could persuade myself to adopt it. I failed to persuade myself; my morbid anxiety for her welfare made me hesitate again. Human patience could endure no more. Rashness prevailed and prudence yielded--I left my decision to be influenced by the coming interview with Eunice.

The next day I drove to the farm. Philip's entreaties persuaded me to let him be my companion, on one condition--that he waited in the carriage while I went into the house.

I had carefully arranged my ideas, and had decided on proceeding with the greatest caution, before I ventured on saying the all-important words which, once spoken, were not to be recalled. The worst of those anxieties, under which the delicate health of Mr. Gracedieu had broken down, was my anxiety now. Could I reconcile it to my conscience to permit a man, innocent of all knowledge of the truth, to marry the daughter of a condemned murderess, without honestly telling him what he was about to do? Did I deserve to be pitied? did I deserve to be blamed?--my mind was still undecided when I entered the house.

She ran to meet me as if she had been my daughter; she kissed me as if she had been my daughter; she fondly looked up at me as if she had been my daughter. At the sight of that sweet young face, so sorrowful, and so patiently enduring sorrow, all my doubts and hesitations, everything artificial about me with which I had entered the room, vanished in an instant.

After she had thanked me for coming to see her, I saw her tremble a little. The uppermost interest in her heart was forcing its way outward to expression, try as she might to keep it back. "Have you seen Philip?" she asked. The tone in which she put that question decided me--I was resolved to let her marry him. Impulse! Yes, impulse, asserting itself inexcusably in a man at the end of his life. I ought to have known better than to have given way. Very likely. But am I the only mortal who ought to have known better--and did not?

When Eunice asked if I had seen Philip, I owned that he was outside in the carriage. Before she could reproach me, I went on with what I had to say: "My child, I know what a sacrifice you have made; and I should honor your scruples, if you had any reason for feeling them."

"Any reason for feeling them?" She turned pale as she repeated the words.

An idea came to me. I rang for the servant, and sent her to the carriage to tell Philip to come in. "My dear, I am not putting you to any unfair trial," I assured her; "I am going to prove that I love you as truly as if you were my own child."

When they were both present, I resolved that they should not suffer a moment of needless suspense. Standing between them, I took Eunice's hand, and laid my other hand on Philip's shoulder, and spoke out plainly.

"I am here to make you both happy," I said. "I can remove the only obstacle to your marriage, and I mean to do it. But I must insist on one condition. Give me your promise, Philip, that you will ask for no explanations, and that you will be satisfied with the one true statement which is all that I can offer to you."

He gave me his promise, without an instant's hesitation.

"Philip grants what I ask," I said to Eunice. "Do you grant it, too?"

Her hand turned cold in mine; but she spoke firmly when she said: "Yes."

I gave her into Philip's care. It was his privilege to console and support her. It was my duty to say the decisive words:

"Rouse your courage, dear Eunice; you are no more affected by Helena's disgrace than I am. You are not her sister. Her father is not your father; her mother was not your mother. I was present, in the time of your infancy, when Mr. Gracedieu's fatherly kindness received you as his adopted child. This, I declare to you both, on my word of honor, is the truth."

How she bore it I am not able to say. My foolish old eyes were filling with tears. I could just see plainly enough to find my way to the door, and leave them together.

In my reckless state of mind, I never asked myself if Time would be my accomplice, and keep the part of the secret which I had not revealed--or be my enemy, and betray me. The chances, either way, were perhaps equal. The deed was done.

THE marriage was deferred, at Eunice's request, as an expression of respect to the memory of Philip's father.

When the time of delay had passed, it was arranged that the wedding ceremony should be held--after due publication of Banns--at the parish church of the London suburb in which my house was situated. Miss Jillgall was bridesmaid, and I gave away the bride. Before we set out for the church, Eunice asked leave to speak with me for a moment in private.

"Don't think," she said, "that I am forgetting my promise to be content with what you have told me about myself. I am not so ungrateful as that. But I do want, before I consent to be Philip's wife, to feel sure that I am not quite unworthy of him. Is it because I am of mean birth that you told me I was Mr. Gracedieu's adopted child--and told me no more?"

I could honestly satisfy her, so far. "Certainly not!" I said.

She put her arms round my neck. "Do you say that," she asked, "to make my mind easy? or do you say it on your word of honor?"

"On my word of honor."

We arrived at the church. Let Miss Jillgall describe the marriage, in her own inimitable way.

"No wedding breakfast, when you don't want to eat it. No wedding speeches, when nobody wants to make them, and nobody wants to hear them. And no false sentiment, shedding tears and reddening noses, on the happiest day in the whole year. A model marriage! I could desire nothing better, if I had any prospect of being a bride myself."

They went away for their honeymoon to a quiet place by the seaside, not very far from the town in which Eunice had passed some of the happiest and the wretchedest days in her life. She persisted in thinking it possible that Mr. Gracedieu might recover the use of his faculties, at the last, and might wish to see her on his death-bed. "His adopted daughter," she gently reminded me, "is his only daughter now." The doctor shook his head when I told him what Eunice had said to me--and, the sad truth must be told, the doctor was right.

Miss Jillgall returned, on the wedding-day, to take care of the good man who had befriended her in her hour of need.

Before the end of the week, I heard from her, and was disagreeably reminded of an incident which we had both forgotten, absorbed as we were in other and greater interests, at the time.

Mrs. Tenbruggen had again appeared on the scene! She had written to Miss Jillgall, from Paris, to say that she had heard of old Mr.. Dunboyne's death, and that she wished to have the letter returned, which she had left for delivery to Philip's father on the day when Philip and Eunice were married. I had my own suspicions of what that letter might contain; and I regretted that Miss Jillgall had sent it back without first waiting to consult me. My misgivings, thus excited, were increased by more news of no very welcome kind. Mrs. Tenbruggen had decided on returning to her professional pursuits in England. Massage, now the fashion everywhere, had put money into her pocket among the foreigners; and her husband, finding that she persisted in keeping out of his reach, had consented to a compromise. He was ready to submit to a judicial separation; in consideration of a little income which his wife had consented to settle on him, under the advice of her lawyer.

Some days later, I received a delightful letter from Philip and Eunice; reminding me that I had engaged to pay them a visit at the seaside. My room was ready for me, and I was left to choose my own day. I had just begun to write my reply, gladly accepting the invitation, when an ominous circumstance occurred. My servant announced "a lady"; and I found myself face to face with--Mrs. Tenbruggen!

She was as cheerful as ever, and as eminently agreeable as ever.

"I have heard it all from Selina," she said. "Philip's marriage to Eunice (I shall go and congratulate them, of course), and the catastrophe (how dramatic!) of Helena Gracedieu. I warned. Selina that Miss Helena would end badly. To tell the truth, she frightened me. I don't deny that I am a mischievous woman when I find myself affronted, quite capable of taking my revenge in my own small spiteful way. But poison and murder--ah, the frightful subject! let us drop it, and talk of something that doesn't make my hair (it's really my own hair) stand on end. Has Selina told you that I have got rid of my charming husband, on easy pecuniary terms? Oh, you know that? Very well. I will tell you something that you don't know. Mr. Governor, I have found you out."

"May I venture to ask how?"

"When I guessed which was which of those two girls," she answered, "and guessed wrong, you deliberately encouraged the mistake. Very clever, but you overdid it. From that moment, though I kept it to myself, I began to fear I might be wrong. Do you remember Low Lanes, my dear sir? A charming old church. I have had another consultation with my lawyer. His questions led me into mentioning how it happened that I heard of Low Lanes. After looking again at his memorandum of the birth advertised in the newspaper without naming the place--he proposed trying the church register at Low Lanes. Need I tell you the result? I know, as well as you do, that Philip has married the adopted child. He has had a mother-in-law who was hanged, and, what is more, he has the honor, through his late father, of being otherwise connected with the murderess by marriage--as his aunt!"

Bewilderment and dismay deprived me of my presence of mind. "How did you discover that?" I was foolish enough to ask.

"Do you remember when I brought the baby to the prison?" she said. "The father--as I mentioned at the time--had been a dear and valued friend of mine. No person could be better qualified to tell me who had married his wife's sister. If that lady had been living, I should never have been troubled with the charge of the child. Any more questions?"

"Only one. Is Philip to hear of this?"

"Oh, for shame! I don't deny that Philip insulted me grossly, in one way; and that Philip's late father insulted me grossly, in another way. But Mamma Tenbruggen is a Christian. She returns good for evil, and wouldn't for the world disturb the connubial felicity of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Dunboyne."

The moment the woman was out of my house, I sent a telegram to Philip to say that he might expect to see me that night. I caught the last train in the evening; and I sat down to supper with those two harmless young creatures, knowing I must prepare the husband for what threatened them, and weakly deferring it, when I found myself in their presence, until the next day. Eunice was, in some degree, answerable for this hesitation on my part. No one could look at her husband, and fail to see that he was a supremely happy man. But I detected signs of care in the wife's face.

Before breakfast the next morning I was out on the beach, trying to decide how the inevitable disclosure might be made. Eunice joined me. Now, when we were alone, I asked if she was really and completely happy. Quietly and sadly she answered: "Not yet."

I hardly knew what to say. My face must have expressed disappointment and surprise.

"I shall never be quite happy," she resumed, "till I know what it is that you kept from me on that memorable day. I don't like having a secret from my husband--though it is not my secret."

"Remember your promise," I said

"I don't forget it," she answered. "I can only wish that my promise would keep back the thoughts that come to me in spite of myself."

"What thoughts?"

"There is something, as I fear, in the story of my parents which you are afraid to confide to me. Why did Mr. Gracedieu allow me to believe and leave everybody to believe, that I was his own child?"

"My dear, I relieved your mind of those doubts on the morning of your marriage."

"No. I was only thinking of myself at that time. My mother--the doubt of her is the doubt that torments me now."

"What do you mean?"

She put her arm in mine, and held by it with both hands.

"The mock-mother!" she whispered. "Do you remember that dreadful Vision, that horrid whispering temptation in the dead of night? Was it a mock-mother? Oh, pity me! I don't know who my mother was. One horrid thought about her is a burden on my mind. If she was a good woman, you who love me would surely have made me happy by speaking of her?"

Those words decided me at last. Could she suffer more than she had suffered already, if I trusted her with the truth? I ran the risk. There was a time of silence that filled me with terror. The interval passed. She took my hand, and put it to her heart. "Does it beat as if I was frightened?" she asked.

No! It was beating calmly.

"Does it relieve your anxiety?"

It told me that I had not surprised her. That unforgotten Vision of the night had prepared her for the worst, after the time when I had told her that she was an adopted child. "I know," I said, "that those whispered temptations overpowered you again, when you and Helena met on the stairs, and you forbade her to enter Philip's room. And I know that love had conquered once more, when you were next seen sitting by Philip's bedside. Tell me--have you any misgivings now? Is there fear in your heart of the return of that tempting spirit in you, in the time to come?"

"Not while Philip lives!"

There, where her love was--there her safety was. And she knew it! She suddenly left me. I asked where she was going.

"To tell Philip," was the reply.

She was waiting for me at the door, when I followed her to the house.

"Is it done?" I said.

"It is done," she answered.

"What did he say?"

"He said: 'My darling, if I could be fonder of you than ever, I should be fonder of you now.' "

I have been blamed for being too ready to confide to Philip the precious trust of Eunice's happiness. If that reply does not justify me, where is justification to be found?

LATER in the day, Mrs. Tenbruggen arrived to offer her congratulations. She asked for a few minutes with Philip alone. As a cat elaborates her preparations for killing a mouse, so the human cat elaborated her preparations for killing Philip's happiness, he remained uninjured by her teeth and her claws. "Somebody," she said, "has told you of it already?" And Philip answered: "Yes; my wife."

For some months longer, Mr. Gracedieu lingered. One morning, he said to Eunice: "I want to teach you to knit. Sit by me, and see me do it." His hands fell softly on his lap; his head sank little by little on her shoulder. She could just hear him whisper: "How pleasant it is to sleep!" Never was Death's dreadful work more gently done.

Our married pair live now on the paternal estate in Ireland; and Miss Jillgall reigns queen of domestic affairs. I am still strong enough to pass my autumn holidays in that pleasant house.

At times, my memory reverts to Helena Gracedieu, and to what I discovered when I had seen her diary.

How little I knew of that terrible creature when I first met with her, and fancied that she had inherited her mother's character! It was weak indeed to compare the mean vices of Mrs. Gracedieu with the diabolical depravity of her daughter. Here the doctrine of hereditary transmission of moral qualities must own that it has overlooked the fertility (for growth of good and for growth of evil equally) which is inherent in human nature. There are virtues that exalt us, and vices that degrade us, whose mysterious origin is, not in our parents, but in ourselves. When I think of Helena, I ask myself, where is the trace which reveals that the first murder in the world was the product of inherited crime?

The criminal left the prison, on the expiration of her sentence, so secretly that it was impossible to trace her. Some months later, Miss Jillgall received an illustrated newspaper published in the United States. She showed me one of the portraits in it.

"Do you recognize the illustrious original?" she asked, with indignant emphasis on the last two words. I recognized Helena. "Now read her new title," Miss Jillgall continued.

I read: "The Reverend Miss Gracedieu."

The biographical notice followed. Here is an extract: "This eminent lady, the victim of a shocking miscarriage of justice in England, is now the distinguished leader of a new community in the United States. We hail in her the great intellect which asserts the superiority of woman over man. In the first French Revolution, the attempt made by men to found a rational religion met with only temporary success. It was reserved for the mightier spirit of woman to lay the foundations more firmly, and to dedicate one of the noblest edifices in this city to the Worship of Pure Reason. Readers who wish for further information will do well to provide themselves with the Reverend Miss Gracedieu's Orations--the tenth edition of which is advertised in our columns."

"I once asked you," Miss Jillgall reminded me, "what Helena would do when she came out of prison, and you said she would do very well. Oh, Mr. Governor, Solomon was nothing to You!"

[The End]

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