to notice it, and one day it is Charlotte herself who broaches it to Frank.

"I can't congratulate Gertrude on her future lord and master," she says, coming out from a room in which she has been having a lengthy tête-à-tête with the subject of her remarks; "he may be wealthy but he certainly isn't wise."

"I don't like the fellow myself, and never did," Frank says, remembering the part Clement Graham has played in the drama of Kate's life; but that's neither here nor there; Gertrude likes him, I suppose."

"I suppose she does; nothing else but 'liking' would induce her to marry him, I should think?"

Well, I don't know about that," Frank says, with touching candour as regards his sister's possibly mercenary motives; "Gertrude has always had a keen eye for the main chance; every happiness in life that money, and money alone, can give, will be hers when she marries him, if she only plays her cards properly."

Money can't give much happiness if there's no love in the case I should think," Charlotte says sweetly; "poor Clement! he's too weak to chain her heart, I fear; do you know, Frank, that for days past he has been trying to make friends with me, evidently thinking that it won't look well to the world if he goes on showing contempt for me simply because I have no money of my own; that is the secret of his dislike to me, I'm sure, and now he tries to conceal it."

"I shouldn't take any notice of the meanspirited fool if I were you," Frank says, carelessly, and Charlotte infuses still more sweetness and suavity into the tones in which she answers,

"I must admit to myself that I am doing wrong in meeting you in this way," she says to him, as he comes up to her eagerly, "but my desire to be with you, and to listen to you, is stronger than my sense of right, stronger than my appreciation of all the advantages I should gain by keeping to my engagement with Frank.'

""

In his fatuous folly he really believes her; how indeed could he distrust such smiling, quiet, sweet, womanly eyes, and manners. He really believes her. He really thinks that she is ignorant of the immense worldly advantages he possesses over Frank Forest, and that she is here, risking her reputation and future comfort for love of himself alone.

"Gertrude either thinks it bad form to be demonstrative, or she has no feeling for me to express," he says, all the time she has never said as much as you've just said to me, and a fellow gets very tired of it."

"They're a cold-hearted family, I fear," Charlotte Grange says, shaking her head. "As for Forest, he can't blame us for changing our minds before we married," Clement Graham goes on, "he nearly did it himself two or three times before he married May Constable, I understand; I don't believe you would ever be happy with him."

"I don't believe I should-now," she replies.

Then don't risk it," he urges, flushing up a little; "there's no need for us to make any fuss or to let it be known" (he grows pale again at the thought of the possible consequences of its being known), "we'll get it over quietly, and start off for Boulogne at once; we'll telegraph the intelligence to them from there, for I don't want to do anything underhand."

"I understand you so thoroughly," she says, and, to do her justice, she does.

It is strange, at least, if not suspicious, that the very day after this conversation she should be strolling alone with Clement Graham in one of the most secluded avenues in Kensington Gardens.

On December 3rd will be published,

BEING THE

EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER

FOR

CHRISTMAS, 1874.

PRICE FOURPENCE.

VOL. XIII.

314

Marks to assume her position as nurse, and that he would be glad if the girl would call at Dr. Blatherwick's, and ask him to see Miss Studley as soon as possible. All this being settled, the girl took her leave, and the captain turned towards the house. "Half-past ten," he said to himself, after consulting his watch. "Blatherwick will have gone on his morning rounds and will not get the message until his return. That will give me plenty of time to have it all out with Anne before he comes here. She has slept very long, and-there could have been nothing in that draught which Heath brought in? No! I remember now, he tasted it himself to prove its innocence! If she does not wake soon of her own accord, I must rouse her. It is most important to find out how much she really saw, and what she intends doing about it. Anyhow, we must clear out of this! I wish I had never seen the place, I had a presentiment about it from the first. I recollect saying I thought it was a damp, slimy, cut-throat kind of crib when I first saw it, without any idea my words would have turned out so correct! Heath over-ruled me then, as he does in everything, and I dare say he was right in saying that we should never find a quieter neighbourhood, or one where -Let us hope the quiet won't be broken for the next few days! that fellow's cursed temper has upset the plans of months!"

And the captain stamped his foot with rage and vexation as he remembered the money and the jewels which but twentyfour hours before were in his keeping, and which in the flurry and agitation consequent upon what had been done, he had suffered to be taken from him, and carried off. The captain had often had occasion to curse his want of nerve, but never previously had it commited him so deeply. The fact of being an accessory in a crime of such magnitude, which had hitherto so seriously disturbed him, almost vanished from his mind, as he recollected the blind obedience with which he had assented to Heath's proposition that the booty which had been acquired with so much trouble and danger, should be taken away to some locality, then unknown to him, and to which he would always have a difficulty in obtaining access.

It was done, now, and could not be helped that was his first consolation as he went up-stairs again.

All silent in the bedroom still; that draught must surely have been of extra power! No! as he stood by the side of

the bed, Anne's eyes opened slowly, and rested on him looking down at her.

No nervousness, no start, not a quiver in her eyelids. A faint flush rose on her cheeks and throat, but died away as quickly as it had come. She lay there motionless, but awake, with her attentive eyes fixed upon her father.

It was he who grew uneasy under that searching gaze. "Awake at last, Anne !" he said, bending over her, "how do you find yourself now? You've had a long sleep of it!"

"I am quite well," she replied, raising her head, and speaking in her usual calm voice, "have I slept long?"

"A great many hours, but not too many!" said the captain, "a good long sleep was necessary for you, Anne! You've been ill-you know that?

"No! I did not know that, I do not know it now! And yet," she continued, sinking her voice to a whisper, "I know all that has happened, father! I remember everything!"

As his ear caught these words, the captain, who was stooping over the bed, rose abruptly and closed the door. Then, returning to his former position, with an anxious expression on his face, which he strove in vain to conceal, and with a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to infuse a jaunty tone into his voice, he said, "I do not know that anything particular has happened, Anne! You really have been ill, and are possibly under the influence of the fever!"

She raised herself on her elbow, and, leaning towards him, said in the same low tone, "Was it under the influence of the fever that I, standing at the window, saw Walter Danby stabbed to the heart by Mr. Heath, as you stood by? I saw that foul act committed, father, that base, treacherous, cowardly deed was done before my eyes! I remember nothing further; I may have been ill, as you say, I have a dull numbing pain in my head still; I do not know what day it is, what length of time has elapsed since I fainted, but I do know that I saw murder done, and I thank God I am alive to avenge it!"

"Hush Anne ! cried the captain, holding up his hand in warning, "for Heaven's sake keep silence!"

"For Heaven's sake?" she repeated, shaking her head sadly, "do you invoke Heaven, after witnessing such a crime, without an attempt to prevent it?"

"What was I to do?" said the captain, doggedly. "I couldn't I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered, suddenly changing his tactics, "the delirium hasn't passed away yet, I fancy!" "Ah, father!" said Anne, stretching out her hands appealingly "why attempt to bewilder me any more? If an angel were to come from Heaven to testify to the truth of what I saw, my own certainty of having seen it would not be greater! Rather make such amends as you can for your cowardice—”

me, I would tell him exactly what I have told you!"

“There would be other consequences besides that which you have named," said Studley, quietly. Studley, quietly. "Heath is not here, and you will never see him again-at least, I think not!"

"I will see him in the dock at the Berks Assizes," said Anne, with intense earnestness, "and my evidence shall send him thence to execution."

66 Then you will send your father at the same time," said Studley, looking steadily

"Was it not cowardice? What else could it have been which prevented you from interposing between a man, bound hand and foot and unarmed, and his assassin ?"

"It was done in an instant, before I could interfere! I had no notion of what was coming," muttered the captain, with his eyes on the ground.

66

"It was done in an instant; but it was no less murder, base, treacherous, cowardly murder!" cried the girl, raising her voice. You had no notion of what was coming, you say; and I believe you! Life can be little enough to me for the future; but I would pray to be taken at once, if I thought otherwise. But, then, all the more reason for you to join with me in denouncing the murderer."

"What!" cried Studley, staggering back, aghast; "do you think of doing that ?

"What else could be done?" said Anne, sitting upright in the bed, with her eyes wide open, and her hair streaming over her shoulders. "Father, do you imagine, for an instant, that I could live with the knowledge that the man who murdered Walter Danby was unpunished? We have been together so little that you have no idea of my character, and take me probably for the quiet, long-suffering, littlesaying person I have always seemed to you. If so, you could scarcely be more widely wrong."

if

"Have you thought what would happen, you were to take such a step as that you have just named ?" asked the captain, drawing a chair to the bedside and seating himself.

"Mr. Heath would try to kill me, perhaps, as he killed Walter! But then, at least," she said, with rising scorn, "you would interfere! Not that I fear him!" she cried. "If he is here, and dares to see

Anne!"

You, father? You had no hand in this foul deed, if you did not interfere in time to prevent it!" she said, in astonishment.

"An accessory before the fact' is the technical term for a person in my position, and death is the inevitable penalty," said the captain, deliberately. "You must be prepared for that result, so far as I am concerned, before you take any move in the matter."

"But, father, I, who was the witness of the frightful scene-I, who saw it all, would tell them that you were innocent, and that he alone

"Look here, Anne!" said Studley, suddenly bringing his hand down heavily on the bed; "there must be an end to this foolery!"

She looked up at him in wonder, and saw that his brows were knitted and his teeth set.

"I have something to say to you," he continued "and now seems to me about the fittest time for saying it. You must have known it sooner or later; and perhaps it is better that you should hear it from me, than from any other person. You say rightly that we have been thrown together very little; but that we have been kept apart was as much out of kindness to you as out of policy on my part. From the same mingled motives, I had arranged, as you know, that your being here should be but a temporary measure, and that our lives in future should be as distinct as they have been hitherto. What has happened has changed those plans, and what may become of either of us it is impossible to say.

But, in the humour in which I find you now, it is advisable that you should know that, in denouncing Heath, you denounce me, and that. though it is perfectly true that I had no act or part in this crime, I am so bound up with him in others, as to be entirely at his mercy!"

"You, father!" she murmured, falling back-"you, implicated in crime!"

Anne's horror at the revelation seemed to have no effect upon her father. There was a temporary resumption of his old jaunty manner as he said,

"I have endeavoured, not unsuccessfully, to keep the knowledge from you; but the fact is so, nevertheless." As he marked the freezing look of horror stealing over his daughter's face, however, he changed his tone. "It is true," he said, doggedly, "and has been true for years.'

66

66

Ah, father!" whispered Anne, "you are saying this to try me? I am weak, far weaker than I thought. Spare me, I implore you!"

"I speak in order that you may spare me!" said Studley, with a kind of savage frankness. "You have been brought up with the knowledge that you had a father, but with scarcely anything more. How I lived you were never told, for the best of reasons. No one knew but myself, and it did not suit me to take you into my confidence then, though it does now. I was recommended to leave the army, and, following the principle adopted by the wellbred dog, I went before I was kicked out. There had been a great deal of gambling in the regiment, and I had been particularly lucky, so lucky as to give rise to unfavourable comments, and, after an interview with the colonel, I thought it better to send in my papers. Your mother was alive then, and I soon found out she had discovered what had occurred; not that she ever mentioned it to me, but I felt certain of it. Other people, who had neither the same reason nor the same desire to keep it quiet, came to know it, and very soon I found that the world's cold shoulder was turned toward me. If that had not been so just then, my whole life might have been different; for I was young at the thing, and easily impressed, and your mother, without showing her hand in any way, did what she could to keep me straight. But when I found myself cut, right and left, my back was up, and I thought that if I had the name of being a swindler-ah! you may hang your head, and put up your hands to your ears, but that's what they called me I might as well have some of the profits. It's not a nice story," he continued, after a pause, "and there's very little variety in it. I think I kept tolerably quiet until I lost your mother; but, after that, I grew reckless, and the more I was talked of the

better I liked it. I was part-proprietor of a gambling-house in Paris, and another in Brussels, and was considered by the foreign police to be the sharpest and cleverest Englishman they had ever met."

The captain's voice had a kind of triumphant ring in it as he recounted his exploits, and he was apparently too much occupied in his reminiscences to notice that Anne had thrown herself prone upon the pillow, and that so much of her face as could be seen was burning with shame.

"Just about that time," he continued, "I fell in with Heath, and I soon found that, whatever I may have thought of my own skill, I was not to be compared to him. I was the older man, but in a short time he acquired a complete ascendancy over me. For years I have been less his confederate or accomplice than his slave, going here and there at his command, and doing everything he desired. It was at his instructions I took this cursed house; it was by his advice I was going to send you out as a governess, in order that your presence here might not interfere with his plans."

"Would it be impossible to break these bonds?" asked Anne, without raising her face.

66

Wholly impossible, and now more impossible than ever!" said Studley. "I would have liked to free myself years ago, but I could hit upon no plan. I am bound to that man, body and soul, for life. I must fall when he falls! Do you now, in the full knowledge of that fact, propose to denounce him as a murderer ?"

There was a pause of some minutes. Then Anne said, in a broken voice,

"No, father, after what you have said, I suppose I must forego my vengeance. Mr. Heath is quite safe, so far as I am concerned."

"You speak with remarkable prudence and discretion, Anne!" said the captain, bending forward, and laying his hands on his daughter's head.

"Don't touch me!" she cried, shrinking aside. "I-I did not mean that, but-I am still weak and nervous. What you have told me now has completely stunned me. I knew I could guess-that your life had been unsettled, but I had no idea that it had been criminal. What my future existence will be, with that knowledge upon me, I cannot imagine."

"I intended to have kept it from you," said Studley, "and I should not have told you now, if I had not been obliged. But