well with your character, of the man whom you egged on your brother to kill. Let me pass, I say -your very touch is pollution.'

And this time Aphy Larpent made no effort to detain her guest. The elf threw herself, so soon as the door had closed, upon Mrs Gulp's hard square sofa, and hot tears, very different from those which a momentary sentiment had wrung from her, fell like rain upon the faded cushion on which she had laid her head. It is very likely that Violet was accurate when she said that relenting on the part of Aphy Larpent could be but of ephemeral duration; but the revulsion of feeling was now very abrupt, and it seemed to rend her, as evil spirits rent the demoniacs of old. No woman can be indifferent to another woman's contempt, and, for the time, Aphrodite almost forgot, in the poignant anguish of her shame, the ample means of vengeance that lay within her grasp.

'She shall pay dearly, ah! dearly, for this,' murmured Bruce Larpent's sister, as she tossed restless on the sofa-pillows; and yet, as she spoke, she felt as if she would willingly have exchanged places with her late antagonist. Above me, from the first, always, ever, above me; even with the shadow of death tracking her, she keeps her boasted superiority to the last. I can ruin, but not humble her. That accursed pride of hers remains beyond my reach. Well, well! we shall see! It may be your turn, Violet, before long to crave pardon from the despised Aphy Larpent, and to be denied.'

Hours passed away before the slight, lithe form that lay upon the sofa ceased to writhe and to change its position, while all the time bitter thoughts went whirling through the busy brain. She had never, in truth, quite made up her mind, this Aphrodite Larpent, as to the actual use to which she should ultimately put her power over Violet. She had looked on it as on a talisman which might be made profitable and pleasant. By the aid of the secret which she knew, she had extorted money, had exercised influence, had repaid tenfold, in suffering, the contempt which Miss Maybrook had been too proud to dissemble. It was Aphy's nature to revel in intrigue and mystery, to compass selfish ends by crooked ways. But she had never been quite certain as to what she should do at the last. She thought now, for the first time, that she was certain on that subject. There was a dangerous glimmer in her shifting eyes, and two scarlet blotches burned on her usually sallow face. And at length she rose, adjusting her hair before the mirror over the mantel-piece, and effacing as best she might the traces of recent tears. The hour of dinner was approaching-dwellers in Great Eldon Street, especially such dwellers as belong to the female sex, dine unfashionably early, and the slipshod maid-of-all-work, who might have been twin-sister to the Betsy Jane to whose duties she had succeeded, came to lay the cloth in lodging-house fashion as a preliminary to that meal. But the dinner itself arrived, and still Violet came not, and Mary Ann being questioned, declared that Miss Maybrook had left the house long ago, and had not returned. 'Left the house!' exclaimed Aphrodite, as a sudden idea suggested itself to her. She took nothing with her-no luggage, I mean? No, of course not, or I should have heard the noise.'

The girl replied in the negative. Miss Maybrook, so far as Mary Ann knew, had taken nothing with her. She had simply gone out on foot, as it might be, for a walk,' and had not as yet come back. That was all.

Time went on. It was long since Aphrodite's solitary meal had been concluded, yet Violet Maybrook came not, and her hostess sat in the window, watching, with an anxiety and an impatience that surprised herself, for the return of her avowed enemy. Still, seconds growing into minutes, minutes expanding into hours, the time went on. A wild idea arose once in Aphy Larpent's brooding mind. 'Not-not dead!' she muttered, with white lips, to herself 'the river! And then there passed before her mental vision the phantom of Violet, not, as she had last seen her, proud and contemptuous in her fierce beauty, but cold and motionless, with the long dark hair defiled with mud and tide-weed, the lustrous eyes hidden for ever beneath the heavy white lids. Can I have driven her to that?' Aphy asked of herself, almost quailing before the thoughts which her words evoked. It was not pity that she felt, but a formless horror that she longed to shake off, and be free from. At length she decided on going up to Miss Maybrook's room, the same which had formerly been occupied by her own brother, Bruce. No; nothing, apparently, had been disturbed since last she entered that dingy chamber. In her walking-dress, as usual, Violet had gone out, and there were no signs of packing, or of any preparation for departure, visible.

Stay! What was that? Merely a scrap of paper, which had probably been placed upon the dressingtable, but which, by some accident, had fallen on the floor, and had been swept aside by the skirt of Aphy's dress in passing, and so lain until now unseen. But the scrap of paper had writing upon it, and to the following effect: War, then, let it be! You have defied me, and must thank yourself for the result. Before you read this, I shall be on my way to

But no matter. It is enough for you to know that the fabric of deception which you have so cunningly built up is shattered at a blow.-V. M.'

What the threat portended, Aphrodite could not guess. It was the threat itself that angered her, coupled as it was with Violet's abrupt departure. To whom had this wayward, headstrong girl gone? And what was the meaning of her menace? Bruce Larpent's sister ground her teeth together with fury at the thought that through the agency of her whom she had regarded as a useful instrument, her shameful history might be published throughout London, and her painful struggles to lead a new life, free from the taint of disgrace, be in vain. Yet Violet was no ordinary tale-bearer. She might have the means of a nobler revenge than this. Be it as it might, it must be war now, and war to the knife, without pity or mercy. Aphrodite's face grew grim and resolute, and she knit her brows and compressed her lips for a few instants, then rang the bell, sharply, once and again. me a cab!' she said, when the lagging hand-maiden appeared; and ask Mrs Gulp to let me have her bill for whatever I owe her. I am going awayonly for a day or two, most likely-but I am going at once. Don't stare at me, but do as I tell you to do.'

Get

Hastily she attired herself for a journey, hastily

she threw into the smallest of her trunks a few necessary clothes, and, after impatiently awaiting the slow completion of her little account by the spasmodic Mrs Gulp, she stepped into her cab, and was driven swiftly off towards the railway station which she had indicated as her destination. She had been gone perhaps for an hour, when another cab dashed up to the door in Great Eldon Street which bore the conspicuous monosyllable of Gulp, and Oswald Charlton alighted, followed by Sergeant Flint. Miss Davis-or Larpent, it's all the same, at home, my dear?' said the sergeant jauntily. "We must see her, the squire and I, on a little matter of business that cannot wait, so shew us up at once, please.-What! gone-gone by railway!' and the detective gave a long whistle at the news. 'We may as well look round the rooms, anyhow, as the search-warrant entitles us to do, squire, but I am afraid the bird has not left much behind her in the empty nest.'

CHAPTER XXXV.-TO SCOTLAND YARD.

"Nothing, nothing at all, except this,' said Sergeant Flint disconsolately, as he entered the tiny sitting-room in which Oswald had awaited the termination of the search among Aphy Larpent's effects; 'which could scarcely have come honestly into the young woman's keeping;' and as he spoke he opened his broad hand and disclosed a diamond cross, with a large sapphire set in the middle of it; and which must be taken care of until she proves her right to its possession. If ever her brother wrote to her, she has burned the letters, or has them about her person; and the same may be said, no doubt, of the will. It's a hard nut to crack, squire, for all that it seemed so easy at the outset.'

'Our wisest plan will surely be to follow her without delay,' returned Oswald. 'It seems most probable that if the will be indeed in her hands, she has withdrawn to some place of concealment, whence she may make better terms. As for the jewel you shew me, it is odd, but I seem to have a faint recollection of having seen it beforeof having admired it, when I was a boy.'

'I daresay you have, squire,' remarked the sergeant dryly,; and then re-opening the door, he addressed himself to a policeman standing on the landing-place without, who had aided in the late perquisition amidst Miss Larpent's boxes and drawers, and bade him send up the maid-servant at once.

Mary Ann's answers to the detective's queries were explicit enough. She had herself called the cab from the nearest stand. The number of that vehicle she did not know, but with the driver of it she had a casual acquaintance, made up of occasional nods and winks of jocose recognition when she went by on errands; and that he was a regular frequenter of the cab-rank in question, she could testify. He was a stoutishbuilt young man, with a red face and a drab greatcoat. The horse had two white feet, and the cab had of late been newly painted. Was certain that she could point out cab and cabman out of fifty others. Miss Davis, or Larpent, had bidden the man to drive quickly to the Silcheshire-yes, Silcheshire railway-and the cab had gone off at a brisk pace. Which was all that Mary Ann knew.

'Silchester, I suppose?' said Oswald; and the

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sergeant, with a nod of assent, produced a Railway Guide, and read as follows: London, Silchester, Helmsea, Docktown, and Whitborne Railway'

'Whitborne !' exclaimed Oswald, surprised. Why, that is where Mrs Philip Dashwood is living, and Miss Beatrice Fleming is now on a visit to her. Of all singular selections for a hidingplace, that would appear the most extraordinary.' The sergeant did not seem to see this in the same light as his non-professional companion. He tapped his forehead once or twice, then shook his head, and smiled slightly. What a game that would be!' he muttered; and yet the odds are against it. Educated young women are the most difficult of all to make out-they are.' Then, addressing himself to Oswald, he suggested that they should repair at once to the proximate cab-stand, and, guided by Mary Ann, endeavour to get speech with the cab-driver who had conveyed Aphy Larpent to the terminus. There was only one cab, as it turned out, left upon the rank, a confirmed crawler, drawn by a slow and heavy-heeled horse, and driven by an elderly and gin-perfumed person, who, in defiance of the warmth of the weather, adhered obstinately to his thin and weather-stained coat of many capes, such as hackney-coachmen wore in the Tom and Jerry days that are departed.

'Why, it's Old Nick.-How are you, my buck?' called out the sergeant, in his cheery fashion, as he caught sight of the grog-blossomed countenance of this veteran of the cab-rank. The owner of the diabolical sobriquet awoke from his nap, to cast rather a perturbed glance at the detective.

'Nothing up, sure-ly,' was his rueful ejaculation. A poor cove can't so much as lay the silk_over his nag, or touch his hat to a fare, without being pulled up for it now-a-days. But you're above them lags, ain't you, sergeant?'

'Don't you be afraid, Nick,' answered that officer genially; nobody wants the pleasure of your company now, as the Bow Street magistrate did last year, when you forgot to give notice of the bracelet left in your cab. And you must admit we drew it mild for you about the previous character, and so saved you the other six months' oakumpicking. No malice, eh, old boy?'

No malice on my side,' grumbled out Nick, still in evident distrust of the motives of his questioner. When, however, he was made to understand that the sergeant was merely desirous of information respecting the cab wherein Aphy had been conveyed to the terminus, his vigilance relaxed, and he became sufficiently communicative. That was Bill Barnes,' he said gruffly; 'he as was in the public line as barman, and couldn't quite square it about the money taken over the counter, at the Friend in Need, Camden-Town way, as got the Great Eldon Street job. Paints, regular, every spring, and goes in for rosettes in the ears of that screw he drives, Bill does, and so gets picked off the rank oftener than is fair to his mates. Howsomedever, it so happens I can tell you where he drove to, anyways first, when he'd got his fare inside, and the trunk on the footboard alongside of him. He was a-driving past, and he'd just given us the office, by sloping his whip-you know, Mr Flint-in the way that says I'm for such or such a railway station, when the lady tugs at the checkstring, and as that don't pay, puts her head out of window, and tells him, loud enough for us to hear, that she's changed her mind, and that

frequent, and when the station was reached, it was found that the train had started some minutes before, and, as Sergeant Flint soon elicited from a railway policeman, Superintendent Starkey and Miss Larpent had been among the passengers for Whitborne.

THE CHEQUE BANK.

THE distinguishing feature of British banking has been, and is still, the system of cheques. By this system our gold is economised, which is an essential to the prosperity of the country, owing to a growing scarcity of the precious metal. Cheques, however, are almost exclusively used for large payments; in Scotland this is obviated, to a certain extent, by the extensive use of pound-notes of the value of twenty shillings; but in England the trouble arising from all small payments having to be made in coin, is great. A scheme has been, however, devised and brought into active operation, which will altogether do away with the difficulty in England, and which threatens, to a certain extent, to eclipse the Scotch small notes. This scheme is the Cheque Bank, and the careful thought and foresight which must have been bestowed upon it, reflects great credit upon those who have got it up. Its principles are so novel, and so important to the British commercial world, that albeit with its financial position or success we have nothing to do-a glance at its advantages and peculiarities will be both interesting and instructive.

One of its most striking peculiarities, and what must needs be a great assistance to it, in this its infancy, is that it acts in co-operation with already existing banks, instead of in antagonism to them, so that other metropolitan banks are made, as it were, branches of the Cheque Bank. Thus no one need go farther than a few yards to pay in or draw out his money. When money is deposited, the only receipt given is a chequebook containing cheques for the amount lodged. The largest amount for which any one cheque can be drawn is ten pounds. If we deposit a hundred pounds, we receive a cheque-book containing ten cheques for ten pounds; we may, however, have twenty cheques for five pounds, or one hundred cheques for one pound. Now, we can draw only to the amount of our deposit, and no farther, for, in the corner of each cheque, its value is perforated in words thus being indelibly fixed. In this way it is a sheer impossibility for us to overdraw our account, for though we may make out a cheque for any less amount than that specified on it, we cannot for a greater. This is a great advantage, as there can never be any cheque returned to the payee with 'No funds' inscribed on it, as too often is the case with the old system. If, then, we make out some cheques for a less amount than that specified, there must be a balance standing at our credit when the cheque-book is finished. This we may have carried on towards a new book, or, if we like, we may draw it, on surrendering the counterfoils of the old cheque-book. All cheques are made payable to order, and are crossed besides; so that, before receiving payment, the cheque must have been endorsed. This puts such an effectual barrier to unfair dealing, that the risk run by the Cheque Bank is comparatively insignificant. Each book of cheques contains ten, for which the uniform

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price is one shilling-tenpence being for government stamps, and the odd twopence being divided between the expense of the paper and bank commission. The way in which the book is kept is peculiar, and saves an enormous amount of time and trouble. Instead of each cheque being entered in the books some half-dozen times, the total amount only of all the cheques paid out is placed in the books. And to avoid all risk, the cheques are so carefully indexed and put past, that ten years hence a cheque cashed now will be found quite readily; also, their cheques are cleared daily, thus avoiding the necessity of passing through the bankers' clearing-house.

Let us now enumerate some of the leading peculiarities of the system: (1.) No interest is allowed on deposits. (2.) It does not keep its own cash. (3.) It transacts no financial business whatever. (4.) Being intended only for small accounts (as no interest is given), it is essentially a bank for the million. (5.) It discounts no bills.

In considering the first of these, the question naturally arises-What are the great advantages gained which counterbalance the want of interest? We will briefly detail some of these, as this question is of primary importance.

As we mentioned at first, if an extended use of cheques could be brought about, an incalculable boon would be conferred upon British commercial interests, owing to the scarcity of gold. The Cheque Bank was established for this very purpose, and as a large quantity of the gold used in England is for payments below five pounds, the utility of the Cheque Bank in this respect is obvious. Unlike the other existing banks, this one_encourages by every means in its power small accounts. To the artisan or retail dealer constantly making small payments, and to whom the interest on their deposits is of little moment, the Cheque Bank holds out great inducements, for by holding one of its cheque-books no end of trouble is saved. Now, anything that encourages the lower ten thousand to keep an account with the bank, and thus avoid the temptations to which they, with their pockets full of money, are exposed, it seems to us, is a national benefit.

Then the system is advantageous, from its being a costless and simple method of remitting moneybeing, in short, an introduction of circular notes into the home-field. The superiority of their cheques over Scotch notes is manifest. Whereas in England Scotch pound-notes are of comparatively little use, these cheques are as good in Scotland, or even in Ireland, as they are in London. Again, a pound-note is for a fixed sum-twenty shillings; these are 'promises to pay' for any sum according to the will of a holder of a cheque-book.

It will be interesting to see from what sources the revenue is derived, from which the shareholders are paid. (1.) There is the interest on the hundred thousand pound reserve fund invested in government consols. Large returns cannot be looked for here, as the best security, and not a high percentage, is sought. (2.) The dividends arising from the investment of the deposits. (3.) The interest on the money deposited daily in the banks with which it has opened credit. (4.) The balance of the shilling paid for each cheque-book, after deducting tenpence for stamps and the expense of the book.

Whether or not the Cheque Bank will be a