She to whom I gave my love is still in herself the same. I loved her for herself, and nothing else. Can I abandon that love, she being unchanged? Surely never! Shall I be forsworn then to her, and to my own heart, because circumstances oppose my selfish interests to my love? Never will I be guilty of such infamy. But all the more will I take her to myself, adding tender compassion to the tender love I bear her take her to myself, away from the contamination she is unconscious of screen her from scorn, and show that unselfish love, when centred on an object too pure for contact with the world, can despise the world's scorn and gladly sacrifice its favours. As for my uncle, what has he been to me? What but a cold and austere monitor? Has he ever shown any feeling or affection towards me -any of the interest of a near relation-even the common interest of a mere guardian? Do I owe him a debt of gratitude for neglect and coldness? Is not this letter of his an outrage upon every sentiment of kindness and affection-the coldblooded, hard-hearted letter of an utterly selfish man incapable of sympathy? Do I owe obedience to such a man? I owe obedience to no man in this matter, and much less to him. I own no such authority; I cast it off. I cast off every tie that is opposed to her. I sacrifice every interest that stands between her and me. I accept disinheritance. It is a small sacrifice to make for her sake. O Eila! my angel!—my own for ever!-many waters quench not love, and ours no sea of troubles shall ever overwhelm !"

And so, standing on the ruins of the temple he had reared for his divinity, he vowed that his devotion was unshaken, and that, for worse or for better, his love was hers, proof against every change and chance.

These heroic resolutions of selfabnegation, these renewed oaths of fealty to his love, did not, however, exclude a feeling that Fate had given him a bitter cup to drink; and as his mental exaltation subsided, there remained a sense of personal outrage and wrong-perfectly vague, indeed, but none the less keen on that account. It was no satisfaction to execrate his unclehis conduct under the circumstances was perfectly inevitable; it was no more satisfactory to execrate his uncle than to heap abuse upon Fate. Eila's father, again, however execrable, was not the proximate cause of his trouble, and wrath loves to expend itself on a proximate cause, taken red-handed-in the very act. With these feelings, Bertrand set himself to read a second time his uncle's letter, and presently his eye fell upon a point that had escaped his special notice in the tumult of the first perusal. It was this:—“I received a communication from one who professes an interest in your welfare, though he desires to remain incognito."

Here was the fuel for which the fire was hungering, and fierce and sudden was the blaze of Bertrand's fury. Who was this villain-this stabber in the dark? Who was this false and fors worn friend who sought to rob him of his love? What right had he to rake up secrets that need never have come to light? to give circulation to anything that might tarnish the name of her whom he adored? True or false, it was an outrage so deep and black that blood alone could wash it out. But who was he? Who could the miscreant be?

The circle of possibilities, round which his wrath travelled like lightning, was a narrow one. Almost instantly he started up, and exclaiming, "He and no other!-it can be no other!" dashed wildly from the room.

Captain Pigott was reposing himself in his quarters, in the interval between his return from hunting and the time to dress for mess. He was seated in the cosiest of loungingchairs, his slippered feet resting upon a yielding footstool; and the vague half-smile upon his lips, the languid and infrequent puffs which he dealt to an expiring cigarette, the gentle drooping of his eyelids, and, now and then a suave deflection of the head, were all symptoms that he was pleasantly coquetting with the god of slumber. Upon this tranquil scene burst Bertrand Cameron, throwing the door open with a crash that made everything in the room vibrate, and roused its occupant to wakefulness and wrath.

"Now then, Bertrand," he said, petulantly, but without looking round, as knowing that no one else could venture so to enter his sanctum, "this is too intolerable. I told you I was tired-I even hinted that I was bored; and I believe I was just dropping off into as nice a little doze as a man need wish for, when here you come blundering back and spoil it all. Upon my life, it's too bad! Hang it all! can't a fellow be allowed to have his quarters to himself for one hour?"

He spoke almost pathetically, but Bertrand answered not a word.

"Now, perhaps you'll just take yourself off again, my good fellow," continued the sybarite; "I require forty or fifty winks before mess, so you must see that you can't possibly stay here."

Still Bertrand said nothing. Surprised at this unwonted phenomenon of silence, only broken by the deep breathing of his friend, Pigott looked round, and saw on his face an expression he had never seen there before. "Hilloa!" he

cried; "why, man, what's the matter? You look as if you had seen the devil!”

Bertrand glared fiercely at him, then, holding out the fatal letter, said, in a voice broken and tremulous, "I have not seen the devil, but I have seen his handiwork, and here it is."

"Don't give it me, my dear fellow; if there is one thing I hate and detest, it is the smell of sulphur," cried Pigott, adhering to his usual system of laughing off his friend's frequent tragedies.

"Silence!" thundered Bertrand.

"Well, that's exactly what I want; so if you'll only hold your tongue, and take yourself off without further parley, we shall both be satisfied."

"Silence!" reiterated Bertrand ; "this is no time for jesting."

66

Quite my own sentiment; I seldom have been less inclined for anything of the sort."

"You affect to misunderstand me, but

"On the contrary, my dear fellow, I never yet affected to understand you at all."

"Captain Pigott, this foolery must cease; this-this letter-take it and read it; you shall-you must."

"These excitable fellows generally go mad, I believe, in the longrun; and I suppose poor Bertrand's hour has come," thought Pigott, scanning his friend's face with some anxiety, however.

Then he took the letter, deliberately unfolded and began to read it with his cold passionless air, while Bertrand traversed the room with the restless strides of some caged wild animal. A grim smile overspread the reader's features as he perused the first paragraph or two, thinking, in his cynical way, "The battered

old drama of first love, of course! with all its portentous company of angels and fiends, spotless maids and sinless youths, spotted guardians and sinful parents! ha ha! ha!" But, as he read on, his face changed, and became exceedingly grave. If this man was, as some of his brother officers alleged, selfish and cold to all the rest of the world, none of them doubted or denied that there was a warm place in his heart for Bertrand, and a regard that might even have stood the test of personal sacrifice. Feeling thus, then, for his friend, whose disposition, with all its pride, romance, and fastidiousness, he thoroughly understood, and knowing the transcendental nature of his love for Eila, he not only comprehended what a terrible blow this letter must have inflicted upon Bertrand, but felt a hearty sympathy for him. And so, when he had completed the perusal, he went up to his friend, and, laying his hand upon his shoulder, expressed what he felt sincerely, though with characteristic brevity-"I am truly sorry, my poor old fellow.”

But Bertrand flung him off with indignation, crying out, "Have you no shame left? Do you dare to address me as a friend?"

me, you vile hypocrite! you false, treacherous friend! There is no word base enough and foul enough to describe your character, and none strong enough to express my loathing for it. Madness! no, I am not mad-though, God knows, I have enough to make me so: you have done your best to madden me."

"I, Bertrand? I? How? where? when? You are dreaming-or raving. Do you know who I am?" "Yes, I know well who and what you are. A friend, a confidant, who has betrayed both characters, and hidden himself behind an incognito to do it; the man who denounced to my uncle

Stop, Cameron, stop!" cried Pigott, with a sudden change of voice and expression.

"I will not stop," vociferated Bertrand with great vehemence"I will not stop. I say you are the man who denounced to my uncle this miserable stain upon the birth of my betrothed-wantonly, in cold blood. It was my affair; it was nothing to him. Knowing that her love was everything to me, you did it. What was the motive?-in the name of everything diabolical, what was the motive of such infernal treachery? Was it "

I

"You shall listen to me," interrupted Pigott, "if you were twenty times a madman. I have listened to you too long; I have borne too much-a thousand times more than I could from any other man. have borne it because I was sorry for your distress, and believed that it had bewildered your mind; but this deliberate repetition is too much. If you have your grief to nurse, I have my honour to protect. No living man shall leave such a cursed imputation upon me. must be retracted instantly, in the first place. The wildest grief and the wildest temper are no excuse for such an outrage."

It

"How can I retract with the evidence of this letter before my eyes? Who else could it have been?"

Pigott relapsed into his passionless manner. "I see," he said, "I was wrong. I have been surprised into an informality. Pray excuse it. Of course it is not for me to argue the point, or to prove that your charge is false, when I have said that it is false. I shall leave the matter in other hands. And now let me suggest that this room is mine, and that I shall expect you to have a representative ready to meet mine with the smallest possible delay." He went to the door and opened it, but Bertrand remained motionless, staring confusedly, like a man waking from a dream. "I must beg to be left alone, Mr Cameron," said Pigott.

"Can I--" stammered Bertrand; "is it possible that- do you positively deny that you are the man who wrote?"

"I have said all that I mean to say on the subject," said Pigott. "Give me your honour as a gentleman."

"You forget the laws of honour and the conduct of a gentleman in asking for it when a gentleman denies a thing, he does not stoop to any more binding form."

"O Pigott!" burst out Bertrand, "I have been under a delusion-I see it now-I have wronged

you.

It is I that have violated friendship. Forgive me; I see it now. This horrible grief has confused all my thoughts. It is more than I can bear. Forgive me."

Pigott bore no malice, but he was ashamed of having been surprised into a display of violent emotion-almost into what he called "a fit of Bertrand's theatricals;" and so, though he accepted the olive branch at once, it was not in the effusive style in which it was ten

dered, but rather with an extra assumption of his usual dry manner.

"Of course I forgive you, as you didn't know what you were saying, Bertrand; but it is a mystery to me how all the grief in the world could put such thoughts into your mindabout me, of all men in the world. That I should be your uncle's informant! I, of all men!"

"I was mad, I was mad," groaned Bertrand. "Say you are as much my friend as ever."

"Pshaw! let us be done with all

this tragedy. There-there's my hand as heartily as ever; and now, for pity's sake, no more of it."

Then they both sat down in silence, Bertrand, with his head bowed down between his hands, plunged in thought. His course lay clear before him, in all save one respect. How was he to break the matter to Eila ?-how account for his uncle's stern prohibition, on some ground other than the real one, which she must never know?— how make light of the sacrifice she would be sure, in her sensitive mind, to feel that he was making for her sake, and feel so keenly as perhaps to refuse its acceptance? Pigott, on the other hand, sat comfortably indeed, but motionless as a statue. He, too, was busy in thought, though his face betrayed no emotion. It took him some little time to recover in reality the calmness which he had outwardly affected, and to allay the feelings of chagrin at the outrage which he had himself inflicted on his own stoical theory of action. But that stage being passed, he turned to the consideration of his friend's trouble with a quaint blending of sympathy and worldly sang froid.

"What a thing"-so ran his meditations-"what a thing is instinctive antipathy! Now I never liked that girl. I couldn't exactly say why; but I never liked her.

Perhaps it was the strain of felonious blood that I detected unconsciously: but then Bertrand didn't detect it; he had an instinctive sympathy; odd that, but then he is so odd. He was tremendously fond of her -no doubt of that. Poor Bertrand! That old sweep M'Killop!-any fool could see there was something queer about him. I always suspected there had been something amiss in that quarter; but an actual convict-a forçat! Good heavens! fancy my hobnobbing with a forçat for three months! But then fancy getting engaged to be married to his daughter! Poor Bertrand! it is awfully hard upon him. Who could have found it out and split to Sir Roland ? Some spiteful friend, of course ;-some one he had got the better of in a bargain. It's a bad business; but, after all, it's better it came out now. If Bertrand had married her, and found it out afterwards, what would have happened? Illusions can't last for ever. I suppose marriage sends most of them to the right about; and what would he have done? Perhaps defended felony in the abstract, and vowed his own ancestors were robbers and reivers, as all Highland ancestors were: he's capable of any flight; but I suspect Well, well, many men have died from time to time, and worms, &c.' The fiercest fire, the soonest over. He'll get over it, poor fellow; but it's hard lines for him now- - very. I don't think I ever allowed myself to be very sorry for anything before. I suppose I'll get over it too; but it's confoundedly disagreeable and painful for me just now. I had no idea I was so fond of the fellow. Here's the misery and the mistake of indulging the affections. They let you in for all this sort of thing; but I'm not likely to be caught getting fond of another fellow, if I

know it ;" and his previous refrain of "Poor Bertrand !" was gradually exchanged for "Poor Pigott!" At last the philosopher spoke. "Bertrand, old boy." No answer.

"I say, Bertrand, old fellow, it can do no good to sit moping over the affair; it's dismal enough, in all conscience; I'm sorrier than I ever was before. But, hang it! if the thing's dismal, take some action and be done with it for good and all."

"I am going to act," said Bertrand, in a hollow voice; "my mind is quite made up. I am only in doubt about one thing." "And that is?"

"How to break it to her."

"Oh, my dear fellow, that needn't bother you. Of course you have only to hint delicately that the fact is blown upon, and she'll see the common-sense of the thing; she'll admit the impossibility of the marriage at once. There will be no fight-that you may depend upon."

"By heavens, Pigott! do you mean-do you dare to mean to hint that she is aware of her father's disgrace?"

"Oh dear, no, no, no,-not at all, my dear fellow!" cried Pigott, with unusual alacrity, sorely belying his own convictions, but apprehensive of another scene; "innocent of it as the babe unborn, of course."

6

"Then what do you mean by 'no fight'?"