neccssitate her taking another person into her confidence she was bound to do the very best she could for Jenny, even at that Lazard.

As for money, it was the least part of her difficulty, for, though she had no actual control over her husband's finances, he had the most absolute confidence in her, and never questioned her expenditure.

'What is the sum required to ensure Harry his partnership?' she asked.

It is nearly a hundred pounds, my lady.'

Then you may tell him to-day that that sum will be forthcoming. I will advance him the money myself.'

'Oh, my lady, but how can we ever repay you?' exclaimed Jenny.

'By doing exactly what I tell you,' was the quiet reply. 'Harry must go up to town at once and look after his own interests, and I shall send you after him.'

It was a delightful prospect; but there was an obstacle in the foreground to which Jenny could hardly shut her eyes.

'But I have no friends in London, my lady, and I could not go without father; and father is very difficult to stir.'

Lady Trevor had a shrewd suspicion that another fifty pounds would be found very efficacious to stir him either in the direction of London or elsewhere; but, on the other hand, such an offer would be sure to arouse his suspicions. It was essential that the role of Lady Bountiful should not be over-played.

'You will not go with your father, but with Harry's mother, who is the proper person, not only to look after yourself, but to prepare his house for him.'

Then you will have to tell Mrs. Grange,' murmured Jenny, in affrighted tones.

'I shall tell her nothing that will not be pleasing to her, if I can help it; leave all that to me. You had better see about packing your things, for you will be off to-morrow. When your father comes back you will say that I found you in sad trouble, and have made up my mind to help you. From what I hear of him he is a sensible man, and will not object to that. As to Harry, he would be a fool, indeed, to look such a gift horse in the mouth.'

(It was lucky for Lady Trevor that the excitement and agitation which had robbed her of her usual prudence also prevented Jenny exercising her powers of observation, or it would certainly have struck her that for a French woman her ladyship had a considerable command of English idioms.)

'Tell him to come up to the Court this afternoon, and his mother will give him the money and arrange matters.'

She felt that she was leaving Jenny a good deal to do in the

way of explaining things; but she trusted to her woman's wit, and also to the facility with which people accept what is for their own benefit ; and, after all, much the harder, as well as the more delicate, task remained for herself.

The urgency and importance of her errand had prevented the associations which the sight of her old home would otherwise have evoked; but now that it was accomplished, so far as in her lay, they began to take hold of her. The gratitude of the girl, expressed in the simplest but most heart-felt way, moved her, too, towards Jenny herself.

In putting her out of harm's way, she felt that she was not only performing a duty that every woman owes to another, but acknowledging a claim of kinship. If she had had a daughter of her own she would have given her, in full measure, a mother's love, and in some sort her niece appealed to this undeveloped passion. With wonder Jenny perceived the tears steal down the cheek of her alien and high-born visitor, as she bade her farewell.

It was no small part of the punishment of Lady Trevor's own wrong-doing that she must needs send away from her that innocent and tender girl who had so close a claim upon her, and whom it would have been a life-long pleasure to take under her wing.

May I see you again, my lady, before I go?' inquired Jenny pleadingly.

'No, dear, I think it will be better not,' she answered coldly, but with a pang far keener than the disappointment her reply aroused in her companion; 'but you have always a friend in me, remember, who, though far off, can stretch out a hand to help you.'

There are often reasons best known to ourselves why our personal benefits to others should have these limitations; but Lady Trevor's case was an especially hard one she was cutting herself off from an affection on which she could have relied, and of which she stood in sore need; for there was not a woman in the world she could call her friend.

She reached home by the same unfrequented path by which she had come, and though in a calmer frame of mind, so wrapt in her own sad thoughts that she forgot to call or her way upon Mr. Smug, as she had intended, to inform him of the success of her enterprise. It would be time enough, she reflected, to do this when her arrangements with Mrs. Grange were completed; as if in this world there was ever time enough' to take precautions against We-know-not-whom who stands with sinister smile and armed hand beside every one of us, to strike us where our defence is weakest.

In the housekeeper's room she found not only Mrs. Grange,

but her son Harry, who had come to tell her his bad news from town. It would have been safer, perhaps, to have seen her alone, but, on the whole, she was not sorry to have the opportunity of judging for herself what sort of a husband Jenny had chosen. He was a well-looking young fellow, with a frank and honest face, but most distressingly shy-which from what she had heard of his antecedents she had not expected. His brief experience as a soldier had not apparently destroyed a modesty which suffused his cheek with colour under her gaze, and confined his replies to monosyllables. He listened to her praises of Jenny with a proud satisfaction that well became him, but also with a certain air of triumph directed to his mother that did not escape Lady Trevor's notice. She at once concluded that something had occurred to make Mrs. Grange less enthusiastic about her future daughter-in-law than heretofore, independent of the pecuniary misfortune that had disarranged the young fellow's matrimonial plans; for, though shrewd enough, she was far too truthful and high-minded to be actuated by any sordid feelings. Was it possible that some breath of scandal respecting Hugh had already reached her ears?

When Lady Trevor, however, disclosed her benevolent intentions, they were received with a gratitude that forbade the existence of any suspicion of their motive; and as she went on to express her pleasure at being of service to the young people, the housekeeper opened her heart to her. John Beeton, it appeared, had made himself very disagreeable to Harry that morning, and even hinted that Jenny might do better for herself than marry him; a suggestion which, to use the young man's graphic expression, had put his mother's back up;' she had probably made some observations similar to that of Mr. Beeton's, but from the opposite point of view. Both mother and son, however, expressed their grateful acceptance of a proposal that seemed a short cut out of all difficulties, and it was arranged that Harry should leave for town that afternoon, and Mrs. Grange follow him with Jenny on the morrow morning. This fortunately left but a few hours, since, until the girl was well away, Lady Trevor was a prey to forebodings and apprehensions. To know that Harry was gone was so far a relief to her, but on the other hand, his absence, if known to Hugh, might be itself a source of danger. How Jenny had fared in her explanation of the matter to her father was also a source of great anxiety to her. Mrs. Grange had gone to the cottage and arranged with the girl as to the hour of departure, but Mr. Beeton had not at that time returned home. He was probably solacing himself for the bad news of the morning at the publichouse, and there was no knowing in what frame of mind he might return from it. There were times with him when

obstinacy and resentment usurped the place of self-interest, or, in other words, when he became so blind drunk that he could not see his own advantage. To move in the matter further, however, was obviously dangerous; and there was nothing for Lady Trevor but to be patient and hope for the best. Who of us is so fortunate as not to know what it is to be condemned to inaction when encompassed by peril? Under such circumstances there is only one source of comfort-and this was closed to her. To some men, and to many women, the consciousness of their own guilty conduct is not a bar to an appeal for Divine aid even in a matter in which that conduct is involved; but with Lady Trevor it was not so. A hypocrite to her fellow-creatures, she shrank from paltering with her Creator; and while far from irreligious in her general views and behaviour, she left with a piteous Faith, whose other name was Misgiving, all that concerned her elder son to Fate.

He dined as usual with the family, and for once she regretted that Clara Thorne was not of the party; in the evening she regretted it still more, for happening to look into the billiardroom, where the young men were at their usual game, she found only Charles and Mr. Gurdon; Hugh, they said, had gone out with his cigar for a stroll.

As the true word is often spoken in jest, so it frequently happens that a piece of information, lightly dropped as of no concern, has a significance to the hearer undreamt of by him who utters it. To Lady Trevor this news given to her by Mr. Gurdon, between two strokes of his cue, and less regarded than either, raised before her eyes a mist of blood. She had none to confide in; none to take the bright side of things, or rally her upon her morbid fears. If Sir Richard had not been asleep in his chair, with those lines of care and pain showing on his thin cheeks so piteously, she might have been driven in her feverish anxiety to tell him all. How cruelly calm looked the still face of nature as she paced the terrace like some wild creature caged; how indifferent to her prayers and pains looked the autumn sky! Then, after all (so hard is the way of transgressors), these self-inflicted tortures were suffered in vain, for presently she heard the front door slam, and Hugh's clear whistle (for he whistled like a blackbird) sounding through the hall, and she knew by its cheerful note that all was, so far, well.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

AN ANXIOUS MORNING.

IT had been arranged that Mrs. Grange and Jenny were to start early in the morning-early, that is, even as time was reckoned at Mirbridge—so as to excite as little notice as possible. Farmer

Wurzel had been asked by the housekeeper to lend his taxed cart for their conveyance, to which he had acceded with characteristic good-nature. She was of a modest and unassuming disposition, and it did not strike her as strange that her mistress, who had so many horses and vehicles at her disposal, should not have offered to send her, while to Lady Trevor it was most important that she should seem to have no hand in the matter of the two women's departure. If she could only feel that they were safely away, she felt that she should breathe more freely-one kink in the faulty cable of her life would then at least have passed over the roller. Fortunately she could not foresee how lengthy and how full of kinks it was fated to be. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, but sufficient, alas! for the unhappy wrong-doer in a double sense. One turn of the rack at a time was all that she could bear.

All that night sleep came not near her, but her very thoughts were nightmares. At daybreak she rose and dressed, and through the misty autumn morning repaired to a spot by which the cart must needs pass by. Hidden in a little wood, drenched in dew, she awaited its coming. It was not her intention to speak with its inmates, for the presence of the driver forbade it, but only to assure herself of their departure. She was much too soon, but every minute she pictured to herself some disaster to account for their delay. Her ears were on the stretch for the sound of wheels, but they heard nothing but the 'drip, drip' of the boughs, and through the fading leaves the chestnuts pattering to the ground.'

It was a wet and mournful morning, and so far nature was in unison with her thoughts, but otherwise all things seemed strange and unsympathetic indeed. If an open grave had been in the wood (as she reflected), and she had lain down in it to die, it would have altered nothing, unless, indeed, it would have brought peace to herself ?—a question to which she offered no reply save by a shudder. We speak of annihilation as abhorrent, but there are more terrible things which the thoughts of death evoke in certain minds. Pitiable indeed is their condition to whom the end of a miserable life presents itself only as the beginning of another that has no end. To this unhappy woman there was but one alternative-the same that was offered to the Russian peasant pursued by wolves, of which she had read in story-by the sacrifice of her eldest born she might save, not indeed her life, but her soul. This seemed, however, too much for Heaven to ask of her; and since on her part she dared ask nothing of Heaven, she resolutely closed the door of reflection, and murmured to herself, instead of a prayer, 'I will go through

with it.'

At last, without sound of wheels, as she expected, but with the squeak of an axle and the crack of a whip, the cart appeared.