long; his forehead projecting and irregular. His eyes were small, deep set, and watery. His temples and cheek-bones were large, and his cheeks were hollow. His nose was flat, his chin sharp; his mouth large, and filled with black and ugly teeth. Naturally, his complexion was pale, and he rouged his face, to avoid looking like a corpse. His voice was like a woman's. His appearance contemptible. The general expression of his face was idiotic. He had the manners of a clown, and the gait of a fool. He had a scar on the left eyebrow, caused by a stone thrown at him; scars beneath both eyes, produced by the incision of a lancet. At his birth, his ears were attached to his head at the outer edges in such a manner as to make it necessary to separate them with a razor. He had marks of scrofula on his neck and legs, and a tumour beneath the knee, which had been punctured thrice. As a child, his great toe was lanced for inflammation caused by the nail growing into the quick. His nurse had cauterised his left leg. At the back of his head there was a large pointed bone, which protruded in a very remarkable manner. His father, grandfather, and uncle had each a similar peculiarity, which, indeed, was hereditary in his family. Finally, the son of Monsieur de Caille resembled his mother chiefly in his nose and the lower part of his face. He resembled Mademoiselles le Gouche and St Etienne, his cousins; but above all, he was like Madame de Lignon, his aunt, and Mdlle. la Coulette, his cousin. Such was the description of his person. As to his mind, he was, it was alleged, stupid, and rarely spoke without making some silly remark. It was found impossible to teach him either to read or to write. He was brutal, passionate, quarrelsome, without feeling, and always ill-treated children of his own age. He had a cringing aspect, and the manners of a groom, and fled from the society of respectable people to enjoy that of scoundrels. This description was flatly contradicted by Monsieur Rolland's witnesses; and the soldier's counsel urged that, as Monsieur Isaac de Castellane could not have two noses, two mouths, in short two faces and two bodies, his was the right portrait. Witnesses were brought who stated that Monsieur de Caille was never at his son's death-bed at all. Others swore that Isaac never could read or write; and to shew that this was nothing extraordinary, several instances were cited of persons of good position who were then in the flesh whose education had been left in the same deplorable condition. Other instances of persons who had forgotten to read after they had learned were proved, in order to meet the evidence of those who appeared to remember that Isaac's learning had reached thus far. Many witnesses swore that the soldier in no way resembled Pierre Mêge in stature, features, complexion, or voice. The attacks upon Monsieur Rolland were resumed. He was denounced as a mendacious conspirator, in league with the other members of the family. The evidence in the depositions of Monsieur de Caille was ridiculed as being utterly worthless, coming from a man who had fled from his country as a heretic, and it was urged that the majority of his relations were not to be believed for similar reasons. On the other hand, Monsieur de la Blinière's witnesses knew nothing whatever of the numerous peculiarities said to have been visible in and upon Isaac le Brun. According to their testimony, Monsieur de Caille's son had fine eyes, a wellformed nose, a small rosy mouth, a remarkably well-formed face, and a beautiful complexion. His figure was slight, but firmly and compactly built. He carried himself well, and had a most pleasing expression of countenance. His manners were winning, and his disposition kind. He was a man of high character, and extremely liberalminded. He was well informed, full of wit and vivacity, yet at the same time gentle and unassuming. He spoke French perfectly, and was devoted to the exercise both of body and mind. He was much attached to his own profession of faith-was pure in morals, fair in his dealings. In fine, he was a scholar, gentleman, and Christian. Four of Isaac's tutors deposed to his having learned to read and write, and to his having studied Greek and Latin at college. Duly attested certificates, signed by the French minister at Geneva, from five different professors, set forth that Isaac le Brun had attended their lectures at Geneva during three years. As it had been urged that he had forgotten to read and write, Monsieur de la Blinière pointed out that the soldier had denied ever having been able to learn to write. With regard to the proofs of Isaac de Castellane's death, certificates were produced from the magistrates at Vevay, establishing the fact. Other depositions were also forwarded, after having been authenticated by the authorities of Bern and the Marquis de Puysieux, the French ambassador in Switzerland; amongst others, those of Monsieur le Sage, the minister who attended Isaac le Brun on his death-bed; of Monsieur Second, in whose house he lived; of the doctor, surgeon, and chemist who attended him; of the watcher who had been placed over his body, and who had laid it out; of the undertaker who had prepared the corpse for burial, and placed it in the coffin; and of several others who had attended the sick man during his last illness, and who had subsequently followed him to the grave. Monsieur de Caille further obtained the evidence of twenty-nine other witnesses, who had known the deceased at Lausanne, and who gave an accurate description of the illness that had eventually carried him off, and of his general appearance. Three of Isaac le Brun's aunts gave similar evidence; and the vicar of the parish of St Louis at Grenoble deposed that he was present when Madame Rolland received the news of her nephew's death in 1696. This was the principal evidence brought forward in proof of the death of Isaac le Brun, and certainly most people would consider it sufficiently convincing, and in the end it proved so. Other proof, however, was forthcoming to shew who the soldier in reality was, and this was subsequently placed beyond doubt. Honorade Venelle came forward and swore unhesitatingly that Pierre Mêge was her husband, whom she had married in 1685, and with whom she had cohabited until 1699. Her reasons for keeping so rigid a silence since she first heard of her husband's villainous proceedings were perfectly valid and comprehensible. Had she attempted to verify his statements, her position would have been that of particeps criminis; on the other hand, had she given information as to who he really was, she would in effect have been signing his deathwarrant, and she determined to let things take their course, the more so as her position as a 屯 married woman was not imperilled until the marriage of Pierre Mêge with Mademoiselle de Serri. Her evidence, coupled with that of many other witnesses, established the identity of the soldier as Pierre Mêge, who had enlisted seven times in the French army, against whom a warrant for violence against a clergyman had been issued, who had three times abjured his religion, and who had been guilty of many other vile actions. In this extraordinary case, which stands at the head of the French causes célèbres, no less than three hundred and ninety-four witnesses, who had almost all seen and known Isaac de Castellane, were examined on the impostor's side. Of these, one hundred and ten either swore positively that the soldier was the son of Monsieur de Caille, or that they believed him to be such. Of these one hundred and ten witnesses, twenty said that the impostor resembled Madame Rolland, although not the slightest likeness existed between the two. Sixteen were convicted of falsehood out of their own mouths. One extraordinary fact was elicited during the trial: the journal of Monsieur Bourdin, Isaac de Castellane's maternal grandfather, contained an entry of the names of the five different nurses who had attended his grandson when a child, and these did not correspond with either the Christian or surnames of those examined during this trial; and it was proved that one of them, Martine Esprit, could only have been seven years old at the very time she swore she suckled Isaac le Brun. On behalf of Madame Rolland, one hundred and eighty-four witnesses were examined-of these, thirty-eight swore that the soldier was not the son of Monsieur de Caille; seven, at the Toulon trial, swore the same. All these witnesses agreed with those at Lausanne and Vevay in their description of Isaac le Brun. One hundred and thirty witnesses swore that the soldier was Pierre Mêge, whom they had known-some fifteen, others twenty, and again, others twenty-five years. the Toulon trial, nine gave similar evidence. They shewed themselves to be thoroughly conversant with his history to the most minute details. Many of his comrades and superiors in the army never doubted for a moment that he was the same Pierre Mêge; in fact, on all sides, from those who had known him well, and those who knew but little of him, the cry came that he was no one else but Pierre Mêge. At It is to be observed that the whole of the members of the family of De Caille rejected the soldier as an impostor from the very first. Only one relation, who had never seen Isaac le Brun, said he believed in him; but this statement was afterwards withdrawn. Amongst the witnesses of the soldier, there were twenty beggars subsisting on charity at Manosque, and sixty workmen and peasants who were unable to read or write. Amongst the witnesses on behalf of Madame Rolland, more than two-thirds were burgesses, lawyers, gentlemen or clergymen, many of whom had studied with Isaac le Brun. On the 17th March 1712, thirteen years from the date upon which the impostor first came forward, the supreme court of Paris decided that he was not the son of Monsieur de Caille, but was Pierre Mêge. He was again thrown into prison, but the unfortunate Mademoiselle Serri, with whom the impostor had gone through the ceremony of marriage after the absurd decision of the Provençal Parliament, commenced a suit, conducted by Monsieur Jylouin, in which she sought to obtain an order to oppose the judgment which made her marriage illegal. This delayed a prosecution for bigamy against Mêge, which was to have been at once proceeded with; but before Mademoiselle Serri's case had been terminated, death had summoned him before a higher tribunal. Although it is difficult, within the prescribed limits of a magazine article, to give a faithful account of such a protracted trial, we have endeavoured to do so. Much of the evidence has, of course, necessarily been omitted, together with the able speeches of the counsel, but enough has been said to shew that boldness and effrontery are principally needed for successful imposture, and that the clearest and most unimpeachable evidence is sometimes scarcely sufficient to combat successfully the fraudulent designs of those who possess such qualities. It FOREST-LIFE IN CENTRAL INDIA IN the very centre of India there is a vast Highland region, abounding in peaks and ranges, which would be of great importance if they were more known, and if anybody ever thought of any mountains in India except the Himalaya and Nilgherries, which, being collectively the mightiest mountains of the earth, are invariably known as the hills.' If we look on the map for the sources of the Son, the Narbada, and the Tapti, we shall find this region, explored and vividly described by the late Captain Forsyth. emerged from the outer darkness that shrouds the early history of immense tracts in India only The aborigines within the last three centuries. had never possessed a written language, and such of the Hindu writings as bear the remotest semblance of history, speak of all India south of the Jumna as a vast wilderness inhabited by hostile demons and snakes. Religious hermits of the northern race are described as dwelling in leafy bowers in their midst, while heroes and demigods wander about like knights-errant, protecting the devotees from their hostile acts, which seem more like the pranks of frisky monkeys than the actions of human beings. The snakes and demons have been conjectured to have been the black aborigines of the country, and the scenes of the epics to portray the gradual advance of the Aryan race and religion into their midst. But there is nothing to tell of the history of the wild men of the wilder ness, who are regarded as being as much beyond the pale of humanity as their country was beyond the Aryan pale--the land of clearings and the black antelope. In this strange region, forms of animal and vegetable life are found united which do not coexist in any other place: the sál forests adjoin the teak forests, though each growth is distinct; the wild buffalo, the twelve-tined 'swamp' deer, and the red jungle-fowl are plentiful within the area of the sál woods. Captain Forsyth was sent to explore the forests, which had been frightfully devastated by the natives, prompted to the work of destruction Forests and Wild Tribes, Natural History, and Sports. *The Highlands of Central India: Notes on their By Captain J. Forsyth, Bengal Staff Corps. Chapman and Hall. by the railway contractors and numerous speculators, who, foreseeing the value the timber was likely to acquire, owing to railway operations and the closing of the forests, went into the jungles with bags of rupees in their hands, and spread them broadcast among the wild tribes, with instructions to slay and spare not-to fell every teak tree larger than a sapling that they could find, and mark them with their peculiar mark.' Captain Forsyth thus summarises the results of this proceeding: Scarcely anything that was accessible escaped the axe. Now came delay in the railway works, failure of the contractors, and want of money. The cut timber was abandoned wholesale where it lay. Teak-wood is full of oil, and burns readily after lying for a short time. The jungle-fires occurred as usual in the long dry grass where the logs were lying, and the great majority of them were burned. The exact amount of the destruction can never be known; the injury done to the forests and to the country cannot be recovered in less than two generations of the people's life. The mischief had been completed, and most of the timber speculators had bolted from their creditors, leaving their logs smoking in the forests, before the formation of the Central Provinces, and ere the Forest Department had entered on their labour of exploring and arranging what was still worth looking after.' repulsive crocodiles, that batten on the ghastly provender thus provided for them. A march through the Narbada Valley is a delightful experience. The climate is perfect, and the scenery, the people, and the natural productions are all most interesting. Among the latter is the mhowa, most useful of wild trees, as its flower is edible, and also produces the greater portion of the ardent spirits consumed in the country. It is moreover offered in propitiation of the innumerable gods of the Gonds, who are pantheists. These strange people were the first employed in the coal-mines, and their courage in diving into the bowels of the earth was wonderful. Their pantheism came to their aid in this respect. From his cradle, the Gond has looked on every rock, stream, and cavern as tenanted by its peculiar spirit, whom it is only needful to propitiate in a simple fashion to make all safe. So he just touches with vermilion the rock he is about to blow into a thousand fragments with a keg of powder, lays before it a handful of rice and a nutshell-full of mhowa spirit, and lo! the god of the coal-mine is sufficiently satisfied to permit his simple worshipper to hew away at his residence as he pleases. The Mahadeo Hills, or Hills of the Great God, are of great beauty and peculiar sanctity. The whole range is sacred to Siva; and embosomed among their lofty peaks lies one of the most sacred The first remarkable scene of beauty near shrines, to which at least one pilgrimage is a neceswhich Captain Forsyth's route lay was a few miles sity in the life of every Hindu. The scene at off the road down the open and well-cultivated the appointed season for this performance is of an valley of the Narbada. Fancy a mighty river extraordinary kind; a crowd as motley as that pent up into a third of its width, and for more which throngs the famous ghats at Benares collects than two miles boiling along between two sheer then on all the roads thither; but at other times walls of pure white marble, a hundred feet in the people believe the way to be guarded by wild height, with here and there a seam of dark beasts, goblins, and fell disease, so that Captain green or black volcanic rock, which enhances the Forsyth had some difficulty in carrying his camp purity of the marble, like a setting of jet. What to the Mahadeos. After leaving Jhilpa, the last must be the charm, in a dusty oriental land, of village on the plains, he was fairly in the jungle, the coolness and quiet of those pure cold rocks, and as he ascended, the scenery began to change. and of the deep blue, pellucid water! The eye,' After a march of seventeen miles, he reached the says the traveller, never wearies of the infinite plateau of Puchmurree, which was like a fine Engvariety of effect produced by the broken and lish park, and then, through the vistas of the trees, reflected sunlight, now glancing from a pinnacle three great isolated peaks began to appear, glowing of snow-white marble reared against the deep blue red and fiery in the setting sun against the purple of the sky, as from a point of silver, touching here background of a cloud-bank. The centre one was and there with bright lights the prominences of the peak of Mahadeo, the shrine of the god himthe middle heights, and again losing itself in the self; to the right, like the bastion of some giant's soft bluish grays of their recesses. Still lower hold, rose the square and abrupt form of Chaurádown, the bases of the cliffs are almost lost in a deo; while to the left frowned the steep scarp of hazy shadow, so that it is hard to tell at what Dhúpgarh, the highest point of the central Indian point the rocks have melted into the water, from Highlands. The ascent by which Captain Forsyth whose depths the same lights, in inverse order, are had come up was gradual, but in all other direcreflected as clear as above, but broken into a thou- tions the drop from the plateau is sudden and presand quivering fragments in the swirl of the pool.' cipitous. The eastern pass has never been traThis beautiful spot is infested with bees, which, if versed by any baggage-animal. From this plateau disturbed, many travellers have found very danger- Captain Forsyth surveyed the scene of his appointed ous; and, indeed, on one occasion they stung an labours: ranges upon ranges of forest-covered intruder to death. The Marble Rocks, like almost hills, tumbled in wild confusion; the long line every object of great natural beauty, have been sanc- of rampart-like cliffs, which mark the southern tified by the Brahmans, and many of the commonest face of the Mahadeo range, the deep red of their legends transported thither. Across the chasm, the sandstone formation contrasting finely with the monkey legions of Hanuman leaped on their way intense green of the bamboo vegetation out of to Ceylon; the celestial elephant of Indra left his which they rise; while, standing on the eastern mighty footprint here in the white rock. Temples edge of the plateau, the observer hangs over a sheer to Siva crown the right bank of the cliff, and by descent of two thousand feet of rock, leading the river's edge is a favourite ghat for the launch-beyond, in long green slopes, down to a flat, iming of the bodies of devout Hindus into the waters mense forest-covered valley. This is the great sál of Mother Narbada, which are consequently pol- forest. The edges of this great plateau are seamed luted by ghoul-like turtles, monstrous fishes, and with terrible mysterious ravines, one of which, a peculiarly sacred and indispensable point in the circuit performed by the devout pilgrim, is a grim marvel of nature. had collected in the lonely valley in a few days, and were now crowding up into the ravine where the cave is situated-a ravine through which, a week or two before, he had tracked a herd of bison! This gathering is no holiday outing. It is called Jambo-Dúrp. About a thousand feet of steep descent down a track worn by the feet of pilgrims leads to the entrance of the gorge. A dense canopy of the wild mango-tree, overlaid and interlaced by the tree-like limbs of the giant creeper, almost shuts out the sun; strange shapes of tree-ferns, and thickets of dank and rotting vegetation, cumber the path; a chalybeate stream, covered by a film of metallic scum, reddens the ooze through which it slowly percolates; a gloom like twilight shrouds the bottom of the valley, from out of which rises on either hand a towering crag of deep red colour, from whose summit stretch the ghostly arms of the white and naked Sterculia ureus, a tree which looks as if the megatherium might have climbed its uncouth and ghastly branches at the birth of the world. Farther on, the gorge narrows to a mere cleft between the high cliffs, wholly destitute of vegetation, and strewn with great boulders. Climbing over these, and wading through the waters of a shallow stream, the pilgrim at length reaches a cavern in the rock, the sides and bottom of which have been, by some peculiar water-action, worn into the semblance of gigantic matted locks of hair; while deep below the floor of the cavern, in the bowels of the rock, is heard the labouring of imprisoned waters shaking the cave.' It is small wonder that such a natural marvel as this should be a chosen dwelling-place for the god to whom all these mountains are sacred. The wild hill-people, Gonds and Korkús, are seemingly harmless and friendly savages, shy at first, but soon won to help in setting up the Englishman's camp, and acting as his beaters and attendants when he went after the big game. But they are not so interesting as the animals which share their grand, almost unlimited forests-such as the noble bison, whose unconquerable antipathy to the propinquity of man is contracting its range and The many long journeys of exploration underdiminishing its numbers, and the sambar, prince taken by Captain Forsyth, his point of departure of deer. The noble, melancholy beauty of the and the head-quarters being a commodious foresthead of an old bison, drawn by Captain Forsyth, is lodge on the plateau, brought him into scenes of quite wonderful, and he describes the creature as no extraordinary grandeur, beauty, and solitude, and other writer has done. From the eye of a newly-made him acquainted with some of the noblest slain bison,' he says, 'turned up to the sunlight, comes such a wonderful beam of emerald light as I have seen in the eye of no other animal, and the skin emits a faint sweet odour as of herbs.' All attempts to domesticate these free creatures of the forests have failed: after a while, the wild nature asserts itself, the young bison pines and dies, like the wild ass, sheep, goat, dog, and jungle-fowl. A tiger or a hyena is infinitely easier to bring up and tame than any of these. Tigers are rare on the plateau, and bears also, but panthers are plentiful in Puchmurree. The terrible feline race plays a great part in the actual existence, and in the religious or superstitious rites, of the aboriginal tribes of Central India. The tiger-god has a hut built for him in the wilderness, that he may not come near their dwellings; but when his tiger emissaries come and carry off animals and human beings, they are, for the most part, quietly submitted to. The gathering of pilgrims at the Mahadeo shrine was an extraordinary sight. Captain Forsyth beheld it on his return from a visit to the opposite plateau of Motúr. The little plain through which his road lay was swarming with pilgrims; forty thousand 'It draws the multitudes into a remote and desolate valley surrounded by the "eternal hills." No gorgeous temple or impressive ritual attracts the sight-seer. The pathways are mere tracks, scarcely discernible in the rank jungle, and here and there scaling precipitous rocks, where the feet of countless pilgrims have worn steps in the stone. Young and old have to track out these paths on foot; and all the terrors of pestilence, wild beasts, and the demons and spirits of the waste, surround the approach, in their excited imaginations. Arrived at the foot of the holy hill, the pilgrim finds neither jollity nor anything more than the barest requirements of existence awaiting him. His food is dry parched grain, his couch on the naked earth, during his sojourn in the presence of Mahadeva. Should he be the first to arrive, the tiger may chance to dispute with him the right to quench his thirst at the watering-place in the Dénvé river. . . . For a long way before the shrine was reached, the path was lined on either side by rows of religious mendicants and devotees, spreading before them open cloths to receive alms, clothed in ashes picked out by the white horizontal paintmarks of the followers of Siva, with girdle of twisted rope, and long felted locks, hollow-eyed and hideous, jingling a huge pair of iron tongs with movable rings on them, and shouting out the praises of Mahadeo. A long dim aisle, between high red sandstone cliffs, and canopied by mangotrees, leads up to the cave within which is the sacred shrine. No pilgrim ever brings more up the hill than he means to offer, for he may take back nothing; his last rupee, and even the ornaments of the women, must be left on the shrine of the god.' of animals, and the most ignoble of men; with magnificent tigers, elephants, deer, bison, and boars, and with the debauched-looking, opiumeating, utterly ignorant and brutal Mohammedan Bheels. His hunting adventures are most interesting, and his exploration of the teak and sál forests discovered to him many wonders, beauties, and resources of nature. His premature death, which took place in London on the 1st of May 1871, is a loss both to the country which he ably served, and to literature. A GOLDEN SORROW. 'ARE you awake, Walter?' I feel much the better for it. I am getting on very well; am I not?' 'Very well indeed; you will soon be quite yourself again. Do you feel equal to a short palaver now, or shall we put it off until to-morrow?' 'O no; I am quite able to listen, if not to talk much. Is there any news?' Walter Clint asked this question carelessly, in a casual kind of way, not by any means with the eagerness and intensity of one just returning to the active interests of life, of one from whom they had been shut out through many long weeks of severe and exhausting suffering. It was not thus that Lawrence Daly had expected him to take up the thread of life again; it was with far other anticipations he had watched him gradually reviving to impressions of surrounding things, and resuming somewhat of his old familiar looks. The time had seemed intolerably long and wearisome to Daly, even when the first apprehension had subsided, and hope of Walter's recovery had taken its place. The unshared burden of the two secrets-that of the death of Walter's father, and the extraordinary turn of fate which had made the disinherited son the owner of all his father's property; and that of the hidden nugget-weighed heavily upon him. He longed exceedingly for the moment when they might be freely discussed between himself and Walter; when they should revert to the hopes which had preceded this time of trouble, and find them strengthened and perfected by the strange unexpected intelligence from the Firs. Lawrence had little or no apprehension about the effect which his father's death might produce upon Walter. There was such ample compensation in the narrative contained in Florence's letter, and the chances that any better understanding should ever exist between the father and the son had been, by Walter's own admission, so infinitesimal, that there was little to fear. It would be a shock to Walter, and a transient grief; but the good news was lasting, and a full realisation of all he could have hoped-a secure, happy, comfortable home, and a safe future for his young wife and himself; an end of their trials and of their separation. He had almost persuaded himself that, even in his languid, half-conscious state, Walter must perceive that something unusual was occupying his mind; but it was not so. Walter was quiescent, incurious, and even now, when directly appealed to, only moderately interested. There was no trace of the impatient, desperate eagerness to get away, to begin that homeward journey rendered possible by the acquisition of the nugget, which Daly had been prepared to remonstrate with and control. The letters lay in the locker, and Daly sat near it, intending to take them out at the appropriate moment. Walter's wistful, thin, pale face, looking very handsome notwithstanding its wanness, was turned towards him, and his head was supported on one almost skeleton hand. His hollow blue eyes were scanning Daly's face and figure, which still shewed traces of the illness he had gone through, though his recovery had been comparatively rapid, and he had not suffered physically from his late watching and fatigue. I have had a worse bout of it than yours,' began Walter. Yes; very much worse, and lasting three times as long. Since you have been ill, several things have occurred which I want to tell you about; and first-there will be no difficulty, as soon as you are able to travel, about your getting to England.' No difficulty! What do you mean, Lawrence?' I mean, that strange things have occurred in England. Letters have arrived. Don't you remember we were expecting them just when you took the fever?' 'Yes, yes; go on: give me the letters.' 'Presently. You must let me tell you something about them. First, there is a great change in all your prospects, Walter.' 'Is-is my father dead?' 'He is,' said Daly solemnly, utterly surprised by the question, for Mr Clint's death had not been in the least likely, according to the former letters they had received. Walter said no more, but covered his face with his hands, and lay quite still. This must be a great shock to you,' Daly began, after a long pause; but then Walter interrupted him. 'I don't think it is, Lawrence. I cannot explain, or understand why, but in some strange way, during my fever, I think I knew it. I tried to tell you once or twice, but I could not be certain whether I knew it, or had dreamed it. However that may be, it is not a shock to me. My poor father! It was not a happy life. I trust it ended better. And now, he cannot forgive me, and I cannot tell him I was not the bad fellow he believed me. It is all too late.' Daly was not sorry to see that there were tears now in Walter's eyes, and that his lips were trembling. 'It is not too late. This is the surprising news that I have known all the time you were in the fever, and have so longed to tell you. It was your wife who was with your father in his last days, and she told him all the truth, and got from him his forgiveness for you, and his blessing for herself.' Good God! Florence with my father-and she told him!' 'Yes; she told him; like the brave, true woman she is, and so saved you both from the burden of self-reproach and regret. She is the wisest, as she is the best of women. Here are her letters: I opened this one-marked immediate-when you were in the earliest stages of the fever, because I had seen the announcement of your father's death in a newspaper which came with the letters.' Daly put the little packet into Walter's hand. He looked at the letters; the seal of one was unbroken, but he could not yet open them. 'What has become of her?' he asked. 'Tell me.' Daly told him. He related the contents of Florence's narrative, not, indeed, in the words of the wife, whose sacred and self-sacrificing love had been so freely poured out in the letter in which she summoned her husband home, that Lawrence felt as if he had been almost guilty of profanity in reading the words intended for those beloved eyes only; but clearly and convincingly. No more anxiety for Walter as to what had become of his wife, from whom he was bidden to accept his rightful inheritance. The brief nervousness of astonishment, the brief bewilderment of mingled and contending feelings, passed rapidly away, and Walter was able to read the letters, which gave him a clear account of all that had happened, but from which he gathered that there had been one, of urgent importance, written by Florence, which he had never received. She spoke of her great anxiety for the arrival of his permission to tell his father the truth, in reply to her letter, in which she had repeated to Walter Mr Martin's warning. That letter had not reached him. Had not Florence obeyed her instinct, with what bitterness the good fortune which had befallen them must have been dashed! |