see him 'trounced;' and being caught one day with a hare in one pocket and a pheasant in the other, he was promptly taken up, and reserved for the judgment of the Bench, Hugh announced the fact at dinner on the very day it had occurred, with every sign of satisfaction, and expressed his intention of attending the Petty Sessions the next day to hear the sentence passed on the old scoundrel.'

A most uncomfortable silence ensued upon this piece of intelligence. Charlie was distressed at it on 'the poor governor's' account, whom he knew, if he came to hear of it, it would annoy exceedingly. Clara was disgusted, Lady Trevor alarmed and horrified. It was terrible to her to think that this man (who, whatever was to be said against him, was, after all, her own brother) was about to be committed to prison at the instance of her own son. To do her justice, she was so shocked by it that the thought never entered her mind of how the ignominy would, with tenfold force, recoil upon herself if at any time her secret should be discovered. To Clara, however, this occurred at once, and she did not hesitate to point it out to the unhappy woman. What she might have spared her, but did not, was to indicate the motive by which Hugh was actuated.

This is a mean revenge, Lady Trevor,' she remarked, 'for this man's having complained of your son's behaviour to his daughter. It must be put a stop to, at all hazards.

The advice which involved such frightful peril was uttered with cold decision.

'How can it be stopped?' groaned the other.

'You are the best judge of that,' was the unflinching reply; 'but since I bear your son's name, I will not have it connected with such an act of baseness. I will not share with you the shame that may hereafter come of it. It is, moreover, an indirect insult to myself. He must withdraw from the prosecution.'

Of her daughter-in-law's resolute and masterful character Lady Trevor was well aware; but there was a significance, as well as an audacity, in the other's speech which did not escape her ear. Was it possible that Clara had guessed, or at all events had begun to suspect, that second part of her dread secret which had so carefully been withheld from her? Lady Trevor's blood ran cold within her at the thought. She would almost have preferred to know the worst, to ask the question, 'Do you know all, then?' but that she lacked the courage.

'Perhaps Heaven knows-I may be able to persuade him,' she murmured doubtfully.

'Forgive me for saying there is no perhaps in the matter. It is absolutely necessary that you should do so, Lady Trevor.'

It was an unmistakable menace. The voice that uttered it trembled with suppressed passion, and Lady Trevor trembled

too, with fear. She felt like one beneath the upper and the nether millstone; she was being ground to powder between two iron wills. It was necessary for her, nevertheless, to act, and she sent for Hugh at once to come to her boudoir. If she had given herself more time for reflection, it would have been better for her. The interview between mother and son was the stormiest they had ever had, and, what was unusual indeed, it was Lady Trevor who showed the less self-control. She lost not so much her temper as her head, and reproached him roundly, while he listened with a moroseness that grew more dogged with every word. Finally she used the argument which on the last occasion she had found so efficacious.

'I tell you now, as I told you before, Hugh, that you are mistaken in supposing your future position a secure one. When your father comes to know of your behaviour in this matter, if you are so mad as to persist in it, it may prove your ruin.'

"Then it seems he doesn't know of it yet?' he answered, with a cunning sneer; 'and since no one goes near him but yourself, I shall know whom I have to thank, if any harm comes of it.'

She felt too late what a fatal mistake she had made in not having armed herself with her husband's authority beforehand, and answered despairingly:

'Then you will do nothing for my sake, ungrateful boy?'

'I will not do this, at all events,' he answered sullenly. I don't see what you have to do with John Beeton one way or the other. If I did, however, it would be all the same. I mean to have him punished. You say "out of revenge ;" well, let it be so. You tell me that I am beloved by nobody. Very good. Let me be feared instead, which makes people equally civil.'

His look, his tone, even to a mother's eye and ear, were brutal. For the second time in her life Lady Trevor's faith in her idol was shaken to its foundations. Was it the association of ideas that caused her to speak of one who, she well knew, deemed him clay from head to foot? Some mechanical force, at all events, rather than hope of such an argument having any weight, caused her to say:

Your wife is entirely of my opinion that your persistence in the prosecution of this unhappy man would be most deplorable. 'İs she? Then that settles it!' he answered with a savage 'Let her keep her pity for herself, for she will want it! And in a whirlwind of passion he flung himself out of the room.

sneer.

CHAPTER XLIX.

'SEND FOR SPENSER.'

ON the evening of that interview with her elder son, Lady Trevor did not appear in the drawing-room, but remained upstairs on the plea of having one of her dreadful headaches.' The statement was true enough, but it was not the true reason. Physically, she was as capable of bearing pain and concealing it as the Spartan boy with his bagged fox, but meet her daughterin-law with the confession 'I have failed' she dared not. It was the first time in her life that she had shrunk from meeting her enemies in the gate; but the poor woman had come to the end of her courage. Clara, of course, knew she had been beaten ; but if she had not known, the triumphant malice in her husband's face as he sat at the breakfast-table would have informed her of it. He went off early in the dog-cart to the neighbouring town, where the Petty Sessions were held; he was not wanted as a witness, but could not deny himself the pleasure of 'seeing justice done,' as he termed it, upon the man he hated. There was little chance that he would be disappointed; for not only was the law against the poacher clear, but the Bench was composed of preserving squires who would not be altogether sorry that Sir Richard was not among them, with 'his queer French notions,' to give his voice for mercy.

Mercy, too, had been advocated by another person who had come up early to the Court that morning to see its mistressMr. Smug.

This prosecution of John Beeton by your son, madam,' he had boldly said, 'is to us who alone know his motive nothing less than an infamy. My lips are sealed as regards his shameful behaviour to that man's daughter by my promise to you, and on that account I think I have some claim upon you in this matter. That Beeton is an evil-doer I admit, but the Law must not be used to gratify a rich man's revenge.'

Lady Trevor made no defence, but with rare tears bewailed her powerlessness to interfere.

'I pity you, madam,' said the preacher, at the conclusion of that most painful interview; but I also blame you. You have transformed, by your own foolish fondness for this son of yours, what should have been a blessing to a curse. You tell me that he fears no man; let him beware of the Living God.'

Mr. Smug's exhortations had not the repose of Lady Vere de Vere, nor the honey of the fashionable preacher, but when he was deeply moved they had a certain eloquence. Lady Trevor felt as though not only were all earthly friends deserting her, but that the Heavenly Powers (which had hitherto maintained

an armed neutrality) were about to declare themselves against her and hers.

At mid-day Hugh returned, silent and sullen. Even as he drove through the village in the dog-cart, it was observed that the young squire had seemingly swallowed summut as didn't agree with him.' If observation had been keener, it would have remarked that the groom behind him had 'swallowed summut' which had had an opposite effect. He was, in fact, almost bursting with the most scandalous and delightful news: in five minutes it was known among the household of the Court that, though John Beeton had got three months' imprisonment, he had taken it out' of Master Hugh by a torrent of vituperative accusation which had electrified all who had heard him. His character, never spotless, had not suffered half the ignominy through his going to gaol that had been inflicted upon his prosecutor by his revelations. The whole story of the young man's ambition to become his son-in-law had been told in public, and had certainly lost nothing in the telling.

Hugh did not appear at luncheon, and the family knew nothing of his disgrace; though the satisfaction that overspread Mr. Cadman's face, as he handed the side-dishes, might well have aroused suspicion. He would have given a month's wages to have mustered courage to tell them; but the catastrophe was too overwhelming to be revealed.

Before the meal was over, Dr. Ward made his usual call, and went up at once to the sick man. On all other occasions Lady Trevor had accompanied him; but, as ill-luck would have it, he was for once left alone with his patient for a few minutes. He found him rather better, and more inclined to talk than nsual. The doctor, who had been summoned elsewhere that morning, and had had no time to listen to gossip, was unaware of what had happened at the Sessions; but he knew that John Beeton had been caught poaching on the previous day, and he casually alluded to it as a matter with which Sir Richard must needs be acquainted. So little importance, indeed, did he attach to the communication, that he never attributed to it the change that took place in his patient's face at the moment it fell upon his ear. The case was one that was subject to sudden relapses, and he concluded that the wild twitching of those haggard features was due to one of them. This view, indeed, was corroborated by the yearning cry of 'Nannie, Nannie,' that at the same time broke from the sick man's lips; it seemed but the natural appeal of one who felt himself in mortal straits to his best friend and comforter. Yet when his wife came, not a word did Sir Richard utter; but lay like one already dead and dumb.

It is his worst bout,' whispered the doctor in reply to Lady

Trevor's look of agonized inquiry; 'and yet be seemed much better when I came. . . . We were, in fact, discussing the news of the village.'

It was unnecessary for Lady Trevor to ask, 'What news?' The occurrence she had fondly hoped to keep from the dying man had, she felt, already reached his ear; and in his glazing eye she read bis passionate desire to speak with her alone concerning it, while speech should yet be possible to him. It was terrible, while the precious time was flitting by, to have to mark his impatience for the doctor to be gone; and, as often happens, though he knew his ministrations were useless, he tarried long, as though solicitude were succour. At last, however, he departed, and husband and wife were left alone.

'John Beeton-prison-Hugh-it must not be!' were the words that fell from her husband's lips, like the last drops of an emptying jar, as she leant over his pillow.

She could fill up what was wanting in that thick and broken utterance only too well.

Ill as he was, Sir Richard had grasped the whole situation, and, understanding the meanness of his son's intention, was urgent that it should not be carried into effect. There was a faint colour, too, in his pale cheek that spoke of wrath; indignation that his authority should have been thus usurped and misused before the breath was out of his body. What was worse than all, his tone, to her sensitive and shrinking ear, had the accents of despair, because, as she translated it, so harsh and base an heir was to succeed him. To deceive him in what, it seemed to her, might be his last moments was impossible. She had duped his mother upon her deathbed; but this was her own husband, to whom she had sworn fealty.

'Alas! Richard, it is too late,' she moaned; 'John has been sent to gaol.'

'To gaol?' he exclaimed with sudden vehemence, and raising himself an inch or two in the bed; to gaol? and by your son! Oh! Nannie, Nannie; shame upon us both!' then sank back gasping upon his pillow. She watched him with dry eyes and aching heart for many minutes, in doubt whether he was alive or dead. Was that last utterance, with its bitter reproach, to be his farewell words to her? Presently, however, though his eyes remained closed, his lips moved again: 'Send for Spenser,' they murmured.

Was his mind wandering, or had she not heard aright? Such were the fleeting hopes that crossed her mind as she caught that brief and most unexpected injunction. In her heart of hearts she knew that her ears had not deceived her, and that the dying man was only too well aware of his own needs. Never since they had returned to Mirbridge had he expressed the least desire to