He had said he would tighten the vise upon Hugh Jocelyn, and Fulke had kept his word with deadly precision.

A fortnight had elapsed—a fortnight of suspense to all save the Frenchwoman. She had never been in such vivacious spirits-her color glowed with a hectic brightness only rivaled by the gaudy hues of her toilet.

A telegram announced Fulke's reappearance at Jocelyn Hall that afternoon. He would dine with them, and desired especially to see Winifred. How Winifred received this news no one knew save Mammie Jane, and she held her peace, only dropping mysterious hints among the servants about her "poor young miss." Marie received it with hilarious delight, and made an elaborate toilet an hour carlier than usual, and descended to the library to wait for that "savage," as she always termed him in her own deprecating way.

"And, Marie, when the talking is over the eating will begin, will it ?" demanded old Madame Frissae, clutching her dress-skirt, just as Marie was about to trip down-stairs. "Ah, mon Dieu! Yes, yes," was the impatient answer. "And you will not chatter so long as to make the dinner wait, will you ?"

"Imbecile ! no."

“And, Marie, Marie, wait one moment. Let the talking be short, mon enfant, so the eating will soon come. We can talk always, but such eating is divine. Ah, mon Dieu! don't let the talking be much. Think of the soups and the patés and the jellies, and-and-the iced wineBut Marie had disappeared. She found the general in the library, and a few minutes later Fulke's homely, coarse visage appeared among them. The sinister triumph, the ill-suppressed exultation visible to the wary eyes of the Frenchwoman, told its own story. "He has had the best of it this time," Marie eagerly concluded, as she rang the bell and sent a message to Winifred. Hugh Jocelyn asked no questions and Fulke made no revelations. All three waited for Winifred, and after some delay Winifred, pale, but exquisitely lovely, glided into the room. She sat down beside the general, vouchsafing Fulke the merest possible greeting, and never once allowing her glance to rest upon him. Her toilet was strangely sombre, and utterly devoid of ornament, but Fulke's gaze seemed, as it always did, to devour her loveliness with a rapturous admiration.

"I have obeyed your command, Winifred," he said, drawing out a roll of papers and laying them on the table before him. "I have collected, at great labor and trouble, every shred of evidence of Bernard Jocelyn's death, and it is here. On Tuesday, you remember, March 6th, Bernard Jocelyn left the station by the 11:30 train, with John Devèy as an attendant. He reached the City of New York at three the following morning. The testimony of the hackman who drove them to the hotel proves that his condition bordered upon helpless exhaustion, and the evidence of the night-clerk of the City Hotel is to the effect that Devèy ordered coffee, with the hope of reviving him. Instead of reviving him, he sank rapidly from bad to worse, and in less than an hour all efforts to rally him failed-in less than an hour Bernard Jocelyn was dead. And here let me state, by way of explanation, a fact none of us understood at the time: John Devèy was not to ship on the Arcturus. Instead of that, he was to sail the next morning on some whaling vessel, and did sail. Naturally, his arrangements were hurried. He consulted the clerk and landlord of the City Hotel. The clerk and landlord insisted upon removing the remains to an undertaker's. Devèy procured a conveyance, and placing the dead man within, took the address_of_several undertakers, and at

daylight on the morning of the 7th drove from the door of the City Hotel. There the evidence of the clerk and landlord is strengthened by the evidence of the sea-chest, rugs and traveling accoutrements of the Arctic voyage— and there the evidence of clerk and landlord and Jocelyn's luggage ceases. That far, and no further, they go; their evidence proves his death. But deeming that unsatisfactory, I at last discovered an undertaker who prepared for the grave and buried the body of an unknown man answering the description of Bernard Jocelyn-in fact, it must have been Bernard Jocelyn- but while the evidence of his death is overwhelming, the evidence of his burial is meagre and uncertain. John Devey sailed at sunrise; he had no time to dɔ more than hastily consign the remains to some undertaker, without concerning himself with their destination. He did this, and nothing more. I can place the matter in the hands of skillful detectives, and have another possible chance of ascertaining his grave-if Winifred desires it." Fulke paused and looked fixedly at Winifred, whose downcast eyes had never been lifted from the floor. She sat like a statue, in marble rigidity, only her breast heaved painfully, and her lips were compressed in unnatural firmness. "If Winifred desires it," repeated Fulke.

"Did you say that he is dead?" asked Winifred, in a strained, mechanical voice.

"I have the testimony of four men connected with the hotel that he died there between the hours of four and five on the morning of March 7th," answered Fulke, referring to his papers.

"Did they see him die ?" she demanded again.

"They were all present at the time of his death," was the brief response, while Fulke's gaze searched her countenance with a keen scrutiny.

"Ah, mon Dieu !-the magnificent Bernard," softly ejaculated Marie, hiding her exultant face behind the convenient fan. "I knew it would be his death; the doctor assured us of that."

"If Winifred desires it," resumes Fulke, taking no heed of Marie-"if Winifred desires it, the inquiry can be continued. It may be a satisfaction to know where he was buried, but it does not affect the fact of his death." Winifred made a faint arresting gesture.

"It does not matter; let him rest in peace; it cannot help him now," she said, in that far-away, hopeless voice. "There is nothing more for me to hear." She rose from her chair slowly and made a step toward the door.

"Winifred," interposed Fulke, facing her resolutely, "there is something more for you to hear. I have taken this pains to inquire about your cousin, because you declined to appoint the day of our marriage until your kindly interest was satisfied. I have complied with your wishes without meddling with your motive. He was my cousin, too, you remember. You have stretched the limit of my patience. I refuse to wait another hour. I refuse any quibble or excuse. I demand of you now what day you will be my wife, and you dare not fail to answer me."

She averted her eyes with a shudder of horror; she would not look at him-nor did she look at Marie. She ranked both as her bitterest foes, achieving their purpose across the yawning grave of her Bernard. And she dared not acknowledge that it was of her husband they coldly told her, dared not endanger her father's life, and, as Fulke said, she dared not fail to answer him. She averted her eyes as a terrible loathing crept into her pale, beautiful face.

"It does not matter," she said, with difficulty, while Fulke waited, a wild, eager suspense even in his welltrained features. "If a marriage with you means peace

and freedom for papa, it can be when you please. It does not matter to me; 1 give my life for his."

"That is just what it means, Winifred, to him," quickly replied Fulke.

"Papa," she said, with a gasp, "make the bargain and save yourself. I will do as you wish. You are all I have." "This is Thursday; will you marry me to-day two weeks?" demanded Falke, approaching a step. But as he approached she receded, with always that loathing in her fair face. "This day fortnight-shall that be our wedding-day?"

Faintly, in the dead, breathless silence, Winifred uttered the fatal monosyllable he wrung from her at last-"Yes."

CHAPTER XV.

THE CURSE HAS COME HOME AT LAST.

ARIE FRISSAE was in her element. In all her life she had never spent so much money, or given orders ad libitum for such beautiful things; so many laces and satins and silks "for Winifred," she averred. But, oddly enough, one after another of magnificent new dresses was added to the Frenchwoman's wardrobe, until, as she ecstatically told her mother, it was fit for a princess.

"He, he, Marie !" giggled the old woman, "it is fine enough, but the clothes are nothing. It is the eating, the wonderful eating-ah, me! You will never go away from here, will you, Marie? I should like to live here forever, and eat these grand dinners. I don't want to go to heaven, Marie; this is good enough for me."

"You old bother, I am going to see Winifred upon some excuse. Yes; I will ask to show her the new dresses. .She hasn't looked at them yet-barbarian. I would get up in the middle of the night to look at a work of art like a new dress. I'll manage it, somehow."

Marie went along the passage, singing and laughing to herself so rapturously that Mammie Jane, from the opposite end, shook her head in scandalized astonishment.

"Dem Freeze-ups is starin' crazy. Dey's possessed, dat's what dey is," she commented to one of the housemaids.

"To my notion, Mrs. Jane, dat little furrin Jezebul wants to git rid of Miss Winnie, and den she'll bewitch ole Marse," solemnly answered the housemaid. "To my notion, them Freeze-ups is uncanny; they are witches, wuss en any I ever heard of. See if it ain't so. There won't be no luck in this house tell them Freeze-ups go away from it."

"She'll hear you-hush! Witches kin hear anything," whispered Mammie Jane, with a shudder.

"What are you saying about me there?" shrilly called out the Frenchwoman, running swiftly down the passage toward them.

The gossiping servants stopped in terror.

"I tole you so. It's always de way," ejaculated Winifred's maid.

"What is it?" demanded Madame Frissae, suspiciously.

"It must be a poor place, Marie, if one don't want dinners. I had rather stay here where the good things are, and where the table is princely, for may hap, Marie, the Lord won't give us what we like."

Marie laughed gleefully; her spirits were wildly exuberant, as her schemes prospered along with Fulke's. "You will have songs of praise, and hymns and harps, and wear white clothes, and have wings."

"I like the jellies and soups better, Marie," retorted the shivering old crone, crouching over the fire after the habit of the old days of scant fuel. "I would rather hobble with my cane to dinner at Jocelyn Hall than fly around heaven with nothing to eat and singing. Peste! it makes one hungry. Eh, Marie! let us stay here."

"Yes, yes, it is divine here, and only a few days more," quite good-naturedly replied Marie-"only a few days more and I think we will be rooted here for all eternity. At least, as long as Hugh Jocelyn lives and Marie has her wits, no human power can move her from Jocelyn Hall. I think you will have your soups and jellies, maman.

"And the iced wines, and patês, and game, and"Yes, you old fool !" dutifully responded the daughter. "I am going now to find out how this Winifred is pleased with her prospects. Considering all things, I think I shall quite cancel that little grudge against her with her mother. Considering all things, I rather think before we are both a year older the pretty mamselle will find Marie Frissae will have paid out her grudge with interest, for I don't believe one word of that lame story of Fulke's. Just as certainly as I am standing here, Bernard Jocelyn is living."

the housemaid.

"It's false; you said nothing of the kind. Don't lie to me. You go about your business directly, Ellen; and you, Jane, go and tell Winifred I wish her opinion on the new dresses. No; you bring the new dresses. I'll just go and see her myself."

The servants instantly obeyed, with an awe-stricken look, while Marie suddenly tapped at Winifred's door, and, without waiting for an answer, walked in. Winifred recoiled in shocked surprise at this invasion of her privacy by the Frenchwoman.

The girl had fallen away to a shadow in the last ten days; her face had a drawn, agonized expression strangely at variance with the marble rigidity of the beautiful face when she sat in the library and heard Fulke's testimony of Bernard's death. This was the seclusion of her own room, and she had not thought of Madame Frissae venturing there. Her countenance hardened into something of the defiant dislike and scorn which the tawdry Frenchwoman always inspired.

"You here, Madame Frissae ?" she said, her voice trembling, and hand shaking nervously, as she held to the back of a chair.

"Ah, my dear child, you seem ill! I do so sympathize with you!" gushingly began their guest, dropping into a chair without the least ceremony, while Winifred looked down upon her in freezing haughtiness.

"Reserve your sympathy, Madame Frissae. I really do not desire it, seeing that this is only the result of your own imprudence, I suppose I may term it, if I use so mild a term."

"My imprudence!" screamed the Frenchwoman, in

high, shrill tones. "What have I to do with your affairs ? I wash my hands of them! I am glad you are forced to marry that nasty Fulke, my pretty mamselle. I sympathize with the dear general, not with you."

"How dare you insult papa with your sympathy or presence here? You who betrayed him to Fulke, who, in every particular, has acted perfidiously toward him? How dare you insult him by treacherous professions ?" Marie Frissae's eyes glittered with rage, but every vestige of excitement had left her, only the cold, steel-like ferocity of her eyes betokened the vindictive wrath seething within her.

"I will tell you why," she said, tauntingly, but a deadly menace in her tone. "Because I hated your mother, and because I mean to pay off the grudge I owe her. As for you, my pretty mamselle, I hold you in the hollow of my hand, and I am not done with you until you are an outcast and a beggar, despised by honest people and your Bernard."

"I don't know what you mean." Winifred faced her with dauntless courage, a faint glow of color in the pallid face. "But you have no right to stay here, when you are not asked to do so. You will not be able to remain, if I am not here; I presume you will scarcely do that." The Frenchwoman laughed sneeringly.

"You will leave here, my pretty mamselle, but I shall stay-understand that. I shall stay, and shut the doors in the face of Fulke's cast off"

"Madame Frissae, be so good as to leave my room," Winifred's low, musical voice interrupted the insult on the woman's tongue. "Remember that I am mistress of this house, not you."

"Ha, ha!" the Frenchwoman shrieked, with mocking laughter. "No, no, my pretty mamselle, you are not, and you never will be, mistress of Jocelyn Hall. You will only be mistress of Fulke, that is all, ma chère; and then I will return to you some of the pleasant things your mother said to me twenty years ago."

"Leave my room, Madame Frissac, and—”

Jocelyn Hall, you would like to say, if you dared," interrupted Madame Frissae, swiftly. "I will leave your room; but neither you nor any one else can, or shall, order me to quit Jocelyn Hall. I am here, mamselle, and here I will be when Fulke turns you adrift, and the world tells you what I tell you now-that you are only mistress of Fulke, and not of Jocelyn Hall. My day is coming, mamselle. Good-morning, ma chère. How like your mother you appear just now !" and, with a mocking meaning in the evil smile, Marie rushed out of the room, chattering to herself furiously as she flew down the passage. "Fulke's mistress!" she exclaimed, with a burst of uncanny laughter. "That is all, and she can't help herself. Dieu, Dieu! if I can only live to see that Bernard come back-come back and find her Fulke's mistress-ah, I shall die of joy! We will be even then, Mathilde. I told you I would never forget, and I have never forgotten. Ah! Fulke's mistress! Fulke's mistress !- and a fine dance the savage brute will lead her!"

Up and down the passage the chattering Frenchwoman tramped, almost knocking Mammie Jane over with the strong, vehement jerk she gave to the magnificent dresses piled on her arm.

"Take them back instantly! There, now-go, I say there!" and the fiery visitor administered a ringing box of the ears upon Winifred's maid. The woman staggered back, appalled by the violence of this little foreign lady, arrogating to herself the rights of mistress of Jocelyn Hall. "Obey my orders !" she commanded. "My orders rule here."

The servant beat a hasty retreat, and Marie, impelled by her own tempest of anger, darted down the steps to the library. If she expected to find Fulke, she was, as usual, not mistaken. Fulke was directing invitations to the wedding.

"Mon Dieu! the comedy makes me laugh," she said, pointing to the invitations. "You have tricked them all, but you have not tricked me. Monsieur Stupid, your pretences are too shallow; your testimony of four men is not sufficient for me."

"They gave it, at any rate," doggedly replied Fulke, scowling at her. "They are honest men, and signed the testimony as it was given."

She looked at him fixedly.

"They may be honest men, but you are not. They may believe that Bernard Jocelyn is dead, but I do not ;" she pronounced the words with vindictive meaning. "I know this, and know that he will return sooner or later to Jocelyn Hall, to find his pretty Winifred his enemy's mistress."

"She will be my wife, Marie," was the fiercely spoken answer, and then Fulke's sinister, wily expression crept stealthily into his repulsive face. "You are trying to defraud me of Winifred's property. If she is not my wife I will have no right to her estate. Possibly you forget that."

"No. Abominable as you are, I don't forget it. And I mean to serve you. When you are tired of Winifred Jocelyn come to Marie Frissae, and she may give you a bit of history by which you will not lose the Jocelyn estate, come what may. With or without Winifred, the estate is yours-remember that."

Fulke listened, as he invariably did, with great attention, to this subtle French woman, whose slip of the tongue had profited him so largely. Nevertheless, he believed that she had given him the principal point of her secret, and for details he cared nothing. Still he listened, because he gave heed to everything, not knowing when fragments of information might serve him.

"Maybe that is true, my charming madame," he said, in a cynical, disagreeable voice, "and maybe that is not true. I prefer to get the estate in the usual way of estates belonging to the heads of old families with pretty daughters-in short, in this case I prefer the daughter to the estate, though I don't mean to waive the smallest bit of claim to that."

"Ciel!" mockingly retorted Marie, "I might have imagined that you were going to leave the estate for whoever wants it-Bernard, for instance. I might have imagined that, if only it had been any one else save you."

"Bernard Jocelyn will never see Jocelyn Hall again," was the sullen response. "Can't you hold your tongue ? That's the way with women-as soon as they are of some use, they spoil it all by ceaseless prating. They don't know when to stop talking-that's just it; and even you are not smart enough to hold your tongue. I don't want your secrets-I have them."

As soon as Fulke uttered the words he knew that he had made a mistake, and, for the first time, a faint conviction stole over him that this ferocious little tigress still held in her griffes some part of General Jocelyn's secret worth his having, and casting a light on his schemes. He knew this the instant he rejected her hint, and just as well he comprehended, by the resolute, sharp click of the firmly closed mouth, the obstinate, half-sullen look on the painted face, that she would not reveal it to him now, perhaps not at all.

"Monsieur Stupid," she sneeringly answered, "keep what you have. Perhaps you think Marie Frissae a