I am glad that the revelation, to make which I knew your dying husband had sent for Mr. Spenser, was never made to him. I read that in your face as I came in here-despite its widowed looks, there was a complacent satisfaction in it, misplaced, as you shall find. You thought your peril was past-your hateful son for ever free to trample upon all about him, and, above all, on me. From that idle dream I see I have awakened you.'

Lady Trevor had answered nothing to either threat or taunt. Her spirit was crushed within her. She wore the despairing look of some poor creature of the fields caught in a trap, 'who sees the trapper coming through the wood; but, as the stream of her daughter-in-law's passionate reproaches seemed here to have ceased to flow, she inquired humbly:

'What is it you mean to do, Clara ?'

"With you? Nothing,' was the cold response. 'To do you justice, you have a conscience that will sting you more than any lash from my whip. I am quite content-now that you know what I think of you to leave you to it. But for that hound, your son, never did he treat dog as I will treat him.'

Then how will he treat me? groaned the wretched woman. 'Oh, Clara! think, oh, think what a scorpion's sting it must be to a mother to be reproached by her own offspring for his undoing!'

'I have thought of it, Lady Trevor, and it shall not be done,' was the unexpected rejoinder.

'What! Is it possible that you will not tell him? Oh, generous girl! She threw herself upon her knees, and would have snatched and kissed the other's hands, but that with a quick movement she withdrew them out of reach.

'No, madam; you misunderstand me. I do pity you a little -more than I thought it possible a while ago; but, be assured, there is no shadow of weakness in my purpose. Your son must be told your story. Without that, where would be his punishment? How else could he be made to do justice, to make reparation, to act aright, despite his brutal impulses and the promptings of his wicked heart? Above all, where would be my revenge? Of course, he must be told; nor would I suffer my lips to be robbed of that precious morsel-the telling of itfor thrice his rent-roll. On the other hand, he shall never reproach his mother for her sin: first for your own sake, for I am a woman still, and cannot, despite my wrongs, harden my heart against you, as you, who had no wrongs, did against me; secondly, because I know it would gratify his vile and revengeful nature to taunt and curse you for his illegitimacy; and, with my will, he shall have no pleasures, good or bad.'

It was terrible and yet sublime to see her passion: the swan, says the poet, is 'born to be the only graceful shape of scorn,'

but if he could have seen Clara Trevor as she stood clothed in contemptuous fury, he would have admitted that there was another exception.

Yet of her two tyrants, Lady Trevor was compelled to own to herself, that the yoke of this woman-who had at least some compassion in her-would be preferable to the iron harrow of her pitiless son. The degradation of accepting her daughter-inlaw's protection was, of course, unspeakable, but she had brought herself to that pass when even degradation, if it only promised safety, seemed almost welcome; and in Clara's hands she felt sure that, somehow, her secret would yet be safe. Of course, all depended upon Hugh's willingness to accept the terms, hard and bitter as they were sure to be, that his wife would offer to him; but what alternative had he but to accept them? His position, his birth, his wealth were his raison d'être, and made him all he was; without them he was as unsubstantial as a bubble. How could he withstand the demands, however imperious, of one who, though herself open to such material considerations by nature, had become, it was evident, through her wrong, absolutely indifferent to them, and who could with a word fling him down from his pedestal, and leave him landless, penniless, friendless, exposed to the jeers of a mocking world!

CHAPTER LL

SUBMISSION.

SINCE it has been decided by the dramatic authorities that a lady should not be permitted to cut to pieces her children upon the stage, the same rule should, I suppose, apply when she performs the same operation upon her husband. The gentleness of woman and the sensitiveness of the married man alike shrink from the spectacle. Otherwise, I confess, there is a great temptation to lift the curtain, and disclose that shameful scene wherein Hugh Trevor was made to bite the dust, and, prostrate at the feet of the wife he had taught to hate him, took his punishment like the cur he was. To lick him into shape' was, as we know, impossible, and there was abundant excuse for licking him out of it. He was punished, indeed, to borrow the language of the police-court, 'beyond recognition.' Not one feature of his insolence and pride remained to him, nor was ever beheld in his evil face again. Never was lash laid on by tongue of judge on trembling felon with such bitter emphasis, nor sentence pronounced with more unfaltering severity. Of course, there was risk in it. Hugh might have said, 'Do your

worst; but remember you are still my wife, and revenge at least is left to me.'

If such an alternative did cross his mind, there was certainly murder in it, and for once he resisted a desire-for behind it he saw the shadow of the gallows-tree. At all events, his submission was abject, immediate, and complete. So far as he himself was concerned, there was no difficulty in satisfying the claims of justice, and even of poetical justice. But as regarded his future position in relation to others, there were difficulties, indeed; in the court of Honour (though that did not trouble him-he was out of its jurisdiction) they were prodigious, and in the eye of the Law insurmountable.

It could not be denied that Clara was making herself an accessory after the fact to her mother-in-law's fraud. The very title, indeed, which had now become her own, she had gained by fraud, though for the present she was robbing no one of it. So far, indeed, from its possession- to which her ambition had once looked forward with such eagerness - giving her any pleasure, she loathed it; it scarred her brows like 'Luke's iron crown;' but she was nevertheless compelled to wear it. This, however, was a small matter. Where Clara's dilemma lay was in the distribution of her husband's (supposed) fortune in such a manner as should meet the justice of the case as far as possible, without disclosing the secret of his birth. What it was her duty to do, upon the principle of Fiat Justitia, ruat Cœlum, there was no doubt; but it must be remembered that she was well convinced that the only person whom she was wronging, namely Charles Trevor, would, had he been acquainted with the circumstances, have very much preferred to be wronged than to have permitted that confession of his mother's shame which must have resulted from his getting his rights. It was indeed, as Clara persuaded herself, a charity' to keep him in ignorance of them. Fortunately for herself, she was a woman, and swayed by feeling much more than by principle; but, even as it was, she suffered torture from the pangs of conscience. If it had been possible, she would have resigned any material advantage that had accrued to her from her marriage, and returned to her father's roof as penniless as she had left it. But the nature of her guilt admitted of no such easy sacrifice. There were two circumstances that smoothed for her the immense difficulties that beset her; first, the craven submission of her husband to everything demanded of him; and secondly, the easy-going and unbusiness like disposition of his younger brother. In the latter case, indeed, the danger lay in bestowing upon him so much of the all that was his due without arousing his suspicions. How was it possible to make him believe in the liberalitv of a brother with whose selfish and grasping nature he was well

acquainted, and from whom, on his father's death, he had, with only too much reason, looked for nothing, unless it were a notice to quit the parental roof?

What Clara's straits must have been may be concluded from the fact that the explanation of Hugh's conduct was found in the disclosure of a matter that every instinct of wifely pride would have urged her to conceal, namely, his hushed-up pro. posal to Jenny Beeton. It was not probable, indeed, that the discovery of any act of his past life, however shameful, should have placed such a husband as he at the mercy of his wife, or even made him willing to compensate her for his ill-doing, by any wholesale compliance with her wishes, but it was possible; and when we find ourselves suddenly overwhelmed by unexpected benefits, we are never very curious about the motives which have actuated the giver. That Clara was, however, indirectly the giver, and not Hugh, Charlie was well convinced, and if he could not be said to have received his good fortune like a bride, without 'amazement,' his surprise did not prevent his acceptance of it. Even his thanks to her-for, as to his brother, as will be seen, he never had the opportunity of thanking him-were necessarily of the briefest, since it was impossible to allude to the cause which was supposed to have rendered her good intentions practicable.

Another circumstance that assisted the Ladies Trevor (for there were now two of them) was the Dowager having Mr. Morris so completely under her thumb. It would have been difficult, indeed, to have made clear to the lawyer land-agent why his client, the new baronet, did not 'stick to' what had become his own by heirship, but made over so much of it to his brother Charles. It was necessary to make him to some extent their confidant, in order that certain legal arrangements should be duly executed; and just as under certain circumstances a forged bill is better security than a genuine one, he proved himself better adapted for their purpose (that is, more reticent and less inquiring) than an honest man would have been.

But after all was done to hoodwink the world at large, and give the appearance of naturalness to what was so contrary to general expectation, enough still remained unexplained, or insufficiently explained, to arouse astonishment. More than one Prince Hal has given up his evil ways on succeeding to his father's throne, and made a very tolerable king; but there was nothing, as everybody agreed, of the Prince Hal about Sir Hugh; no generous instinct, no hearty ways, no kindliness, no sense of right; and how it ever came about that his rule was so mild, and just, and liberal, was that Mystery of Mirbridge from which our story takes its name. A partial explanation of his good landlordism was, however, reasonably found in the fact that Sir

Hugh was an absentee, a circumstance which, at its inception at least, no one was surprised at, on account of the ill terms on which, as everyone knew, he was with his wife.

Immediately after his father's funeral he left England, ostensibly to make arrangements about some property which belonged to him near his old home in France, and in that country, under one pretext or another, he continued indefinitely to remain. Clara kept her promise that he should never be permitted to reproach his mother. Until her husband was buried, the widow kept close in her own apartments, where, with intense relief, she received the news from Clara that Hugh had gone. Her illusions with respect to him were at an end at last, but enough of tenderness remained for him to make her daughter-in-law as reticent to her about him as, for other reasons, she was to others. Never, probably, was the head of a family in his lifetime so completely ignored under his own roof as Sir Hugh Trevor. News came of him indirectly from time to time, generally in connection with a taste he had always had, but which had become greatly developed, for French brandy; but it excited very little interest, though, perhaps, in one breast, a secret hope. Considering the state of mind in which it may be conjectured he was, so full of rage and despair, and baffled expectation of evil-doing, it was probable enough the news was true; the one ground for congratulation for mankind that is associated with the curse of drink is that so many worthless people take to it, and rid us of their presence, in consequence, the sooner. By all but three persons in the world Hugh Trevor might be said to be forgotten; and by all but two-his wife and his Uncle Johnforgiven. It is possible, if he had come back, so vehement was the hate the old poacher entertained for him, that he would have shot him, which would have been a terrible dénouement of the family secret, indeed. That catastrophe, at least, his unhappy mother was spared; but I venture to think she was punished enough for the sin of her youth, and the wrong-doing consequent upon its concealment. How complete had been the failure of

all her fraud and falsehood! How worthless had that idol proved to be at whose shrine she had sacrificed in vain her selfrespect! Not even now was she at peace, for who could be sure that in some fit of drunkenness Hugh might not blurt out his story, or even, mad with drink and rage, return home to tell it?

Still, as time went on, life became more endurable to her than it had been. The tendrils of maternal love, so rudely torn away from their first hold, gradually attached themselves to a more worthy object, her second son; while in Lucy, whom she had always regarded with tenderness, she found, even before the girl became Charlie's bride, a loving daughter. With Clara, too, her relations, though at first a little strained, were not un