"I can see some things, master, without watching," answered Peg, dryly. "There was a dark, thickset man with her when she appeared at my door. He turned and went off into the wood." "Jasper Hatton !" thought Hawkstone. He regarded Peg with unappeased wrath. "Why did you lend your aid to decoy Miss Ravenel here to-night? Why did you fill her ears with a story which might better have been told at another time? How dared you, at the bidding of Mademoiselle Zephyr, seek to turn from me the heart of the woman I love ?" Peg looked the island lord squarely in the face, and replied: "I gave your former wife the shelter of my roof for an hour or two, master, because I could not deny such a small favor to one who had once borne the name of Hawkstone; but I didn't decoy Miss Ravenel here-that was the work of Mademoiselle Zephyr. True, I spoke my mind to her, sir-I told her your mother's story. For the sake of Philip Hawkstone's second wife, I could not let the girl that she brought to this island rush into marriage with you without knowing something of the fate of those who had been before her -something of what she herself may expect, if ever she becomes your wife." He winced visibly. 'Answer me, master, would it not have been a sin and shame to stand by and see Miss Ravenel marry you with the truth untold ?” He frowned. 66 "You have meddled with my private affairs in an un- | warrantable manner, Peg," he answered, sternly. "Were it not for your long service to me and mine I should find it hard to forgive you." "It joins the island road," he said, "at the very spot where Miss Rokewood's ponies took fright at son e strange movement in the thicket. Yes, all is now quite plain to me, Peg." Then he mounted his horse again, and rode away by the border of the creek. He had small hope of finding there any track of Bee's abductors. The incoming tide had been at work before him, and of course he was ignorant of the exact spot where the Whithaven boat had waited for Mademoiselle Zephyr. Dark as it was, however, his keen eyes suddenly discovered something swinging from a low bongh near the entrance to the creek. It was a sash of pale ribbon, worn, as he remembered, by Bee when she started with Miss Rokewood for the lighthouse. Ile slipped it into his pocket. All was plain to him, indeed! Madame Vera had with great success substituted the aid of Jasper Hatton for that of luckless Gabriel Ravenel. He went back to Tempest Hall to await the return of the searching party. He could not leave the island till he had arranged certain affairs with Harris, as it was difiicult to tell how long a chase Mademoiselle Zephyr might lead him. Jetta Ravenel and Miss Rokewood stood waiting in the porch as Hawkstone dismounted at the door. "No news," he said, grimly, before either could speak, "Bee has been carried from the island. I shall start in pursuit as soon as possible." Then aside to Miss Ravenel, who leaned white and cold against a pillar of the porch: "I must see you alone before I go-I have something to say to you.' She made a slight gesture of acquiescence. "I did right, sir-I know I did right !" persisted Peg, Rokewood followed Hawkstone into the Hall. stubbornly. With a dark suspicion in his eyes, he stepped suddenly into the Inlet house, and seized a candle from Peg's mantel. "With your permission," he said, dryly, "I will go and see my mother!" Peg followed him as he strode down the passage, and through the secret door to the apartment of the mad woman. The lamp was still burning there, the sea-shells still strewed the floor, but the place was empty. usually calm exterior was greatly ruffled. Doris Her "All this is very dreadful," she cried; "and my guardian is in a fever of anxiety because Bee was in my care when she disappeared." "Have I not assured you that you are in nowise accountable for the loss of Bee ?" he answered, soothingly. "I beg you to cease reproaching yourself. Before many hours, I shall return with the child." The night was far spent before Harris and the searching party came back to Tempest Hall. They had found no trace of Bee. After a long conversation with the over "What has become of her, Peg ?" demanded Hawk- seer, Hawkstone ordered Sampson and his catboat to stone, sharply. "It's likely she's slipped out on one of her flights round the island, sir," answered Peg, looking blank, "though I didn't see her go-I never do. She's more like a spirit than a woman. If I try to lock her in, she grows violent. I've found from experience that it's best to let her have her own way. Besides, she knows how to manage the secret door as well as I do." He gave a searching glance around the room, then put the candle in Peg's hand. Won't you believe "I see, master," she said, sadly, "you doubted meyou thought I might be hiding Miss Bee here. "Can't you believe me when I tell you again that I haven't seen the child, and know nothing of her? me for the sake of my past service ?" "Yes!" answered Hawkstone, "I can I do believe you, Peg! Now come and show me the way which that dark, thickset man took when he turned into the wood." She went with him in silence. The salt tide was gurgling in the creek; the brown leaves rustled down upon them, as they moved together under the twisted pepperidge-trees. Peg pointed to a little path running away into the deeper silence and darkness of the forest, and Hawkstone nodded. await him at the wharf, then snatched a hasty breakfast alone, for neither Miss Rokewood nor Jetta Ravenel appeared at the meal, and repaired straightway to the old library for a last interview with the woman he loved. After a brief delay, which seemed an eternity to his furious impatience, Jetta Ravenel entered with a slow, reluctant step. She was very pale-the dark shadows under her eyes told that she had not slept. He took her hand-it lay cold as snow in his clasp. About her lovely mobile lips were resolute lines that filled him with alarm. "I see you have been thinking over our conversation of last night?" he said. "Yes," she answered, and drew her hand significantly from him. "My determination remains unshaken." "You will not marry me, Jetta ?" "No !" "And you can stand and say this, knowing that you are deliberately putting a knife through my heart ?" "There is a knife in my own !" she answered, drawing a shuddering breath. The pain, the pallor of her face, in its drift of dark rich hair. maddened him. He tried to take her in his arms. She repulsed him-gently, indeed, but firmly. "You make it very hard for me, Basil," she faltered. "It is impossible that I can ever know happiness, or peace of conscience, as your wife. Spare me further words." His iron-gray eyes blazed with desperate passion. "Every man will make a stand for this life !" he cried, bitterly. "You are assailing the very citadel of mine! I will not live apart from you, Jetta, for I can have no life apart. Your scruples shall not avail with me. You love me, I love you-this is the only thing worthy of our consideration." "Oh, hush i" she implored. "No, you must hear me out. I am free to marry you lawfully, and neither Mademoiselle Zephyr, nor any other living creature, shall hold us asunder. I freely acknowledge that my father committed a cruel sin when he cast off my mother and married another woman. Do you find any parallel betwixt her case and that of the girl who deliberately deserted husband and child to fly with Jasper Hatton back to the circus-ring? You dare not tell me that you do! Her protests against my marriage with you are as false as herself. Shall I allow you to sacrifice our happiness to her vengeance and jealousy? -never! You have promised me your hand, Jetta-I will never give you up, nor release you, under any circumstances, from your engagement." She trembled as she answered. "All that you say only convinces me that I must leave the island at once-that I must put the world betwixt myself and you, Basil. I never can, I never will, marry you while Bee's mother lives. I tell you again, as I told you last night-you may break my heart, but not my resolution. I must go away to some spot where you will never see-never hear of me more !" "And where will you find that spot ?" he demanded, fiercely. "Not on this side of the grave! Whither you go, I will follow!" "Now you are unkind, ungenerous-unlike yourself," she sobbed. "In this battle the odds must ever be against me. I leave you, Basil, because it is right that I should do so." "Right that you should cast me from heaven down to perdition? Right that you should utterly lay waste my life? You have small comprehension of the love I bear you if you think I will submit to such a fate." The wavery Autumn sunshine, peering through the small panes of the library-windows, struck mournfully on the wan faces of the two lovers. Jetta Ravenel looked around, as though seeking some avenue of escape. All the heart within her-a passionate, Southern heart that, like a flower, had wakened to life under the ardeat sun of his gray eyes-reached after this man; but an iron hand seemed holding her back from him. Her visit to the Inlet house-all that she had seen and heard there, still pressed upon her like a nightmare horror. "Basil," she gasped, "I cannot talk of it now. Let us face the inevitable with courage. Your fate can be no sadder than my own. You are going away this morning in pursuit of Bee?" "Yes," he answered, gloomily. A spasm of pain contracted her pale, sweet lips. "Ah, poor little Bee! I see now that my presence at Tempest Island has been disastrous to you all. No attempt was made to carry away the child till I camenone might ever have been made but for me. I have provoked this crisis in your domestic affairs, and so long as I remain under your roof, Basil, I shall be sure to bring fresh torments upon you. This is another reason why I should go, and immediately." The haggard reproach of his look made her shrink. "Your argument is a poor one, so far as it concerns me, Jetta, since no trouble, no possible disaster, can equal that of separation from you. Oh, girl, girl! how can you be so stubborn, so determined, when you know that you are breaking my heart? Bee may go-I will not leave this spot to search for her-the whole world may go, unless you swear that you will stay on the Tempest till I return to it." "Oh, be calm !" she entreated. "Go and look for Bee-go at once! You have no right to delay a moment. Yes, yes, I will stay at the Hall till you come back-I will not leave the place till you bring the child-I promise faithfully." He snatched her to his heart, and pressed his lips to hers. "No more than this? Will you promise no more, Jetta ?" "I must not-I cannot !" “Ah, you are a woman, and therefore it is not possible that you can slay both your own heart and mine! If I did not believe this, no power on earth should tear me from the Tempest. I would not leave you if a thousand voices of duty called. Oh, my dearest! be merciful to me and to yourself! Oh, my dearest! keep faith with your lover, and when I return, God grant that you may be less cruel, and I less wretched!" It was well that his arms fell away from her with the last word, for he was taxing her powers of endurance to the utmost. She could not look longer in that splendid, reproachful face, and keep her determined front. He went out in silence and closed the library-door. Half an hour after, Sampson's catboat was dancing over the blue water toward Whithaven, bearing the island lord, who looked back, again and again, with troubled, anxious eyes, to the old Hall on the wooded slope, where he had left the woman that he loved. When and where would he meet her again? CHAPTER XXVI. THE SEARCH. As THE boat reached Whithaven shortly before noon. Hawkstone sprang ashore at the wharf where the island people were wont to land on their visits to the main, a man stepped out from a group of loungers there, and put himself before our hero with a shamefaced, depre catory air. "I say, Prince Lucifer," stammered Vincent Hawk. stone, "you are too late, you know the game has flown!" Hawkstone pulled himself up and looked sharply at the kinsman who had so recently attempted his life. "I've been walking about this wharf for hours, watching, like Sister Anne on Bluebeard's tower, for Sampson's boat," went on Vincent, before the other could speak. "By Jove! you haven't hurried yourself! I thought you would be in Whithaven by sunrise. Should have skipped down to the island and offered my services, but was under ban, you know, and was sure your islanders wouldn't let me land. See here, Prince Lucifer—a madman isn't considered responsible for his misdeeds, and I was stark, staring mad the night I shot at you in the island garden. Had been drinking hard, you see." Hawkstone looked at him a moment in stern silence, then answered, dryly, "No doubt!" The handsome ne'er-do-well put on a meek and penitent air. "Well, I'm deucedly repentant now. Come, you were always generous, Prince Lucifer-always noble. I'll admit that I've tried your patience abominably in the past, but can't you make up your mind to forgive me once more ?" A frown knit Hawkstone's brows. "If I find it more easy to distrust than to believe you, Vincent, you have only yourself to blame," he answered. "True-too true !" said Vincent, airily. "Nevertheless, peace must be patched up between us-shake hands and be friends." Hawkstone put out his hand, coldly, reluctantly. He pitied quite as much as he despised his ingrate cousin. 'You mean that you can't tolerate my company, eh ?" drawled Vincent, with a lance-like gleam in the corners of his blue eyes. "Well, then, let me walk to the train with you." They went down the steps of the hotel, and off along the elm-shaded street. "When you return to Whithaven with the child,” said Vincent, "I hope you'll be generous, old man, and per Hawkstone frowned. "You will probably give me abundant cause to repent my weakness before many days are over," he said. Vincent seized the hand with great eagerness. "Heaven forbid! Don't think so poorly of me, Mag-mit me to go down with you to the Tempest.' nanimous Prince Lucifer; thanks awfully for this ghost of a pardon! I am mad to help you, now that you find yourself in trouble. Don't frown-I know the errand that has brought you to Whithaven-yes, and I saw at the hotel last night your lost daughter, secure in the clutches of her triumphant mamma! Of course, nobody here had any right to interfere 'twixt mother and child; so Madame Vera and her offspring remained undisturbed at the Eagle House till seven o'clock this morning; then madame, with bag and baggage, her French maid, little Bee, and last but not least, a swarthy fellow called Hatton, departed for New York on the early express. And, 'pon my soul, Prince Lucifer, he that follows in the hope of overtaking that party must have swift heels, and all his wits to the fore !" "Your audacity, Vincent, is worthy of admiration! Before you ask that favor, give me other proof than words that you are really anxious to wipe out your past misdeeds.” Hawkstone's face grew dark. "That Hatton again!" "Yes; one of Madame Vera's many lovers-he has pursued her for years, I hear. Now they're off for Europe, probably. You'd better look them up on the transatlantic steamers. You see, they're safe in Gotham by this time-have got a good start of you, for you can't follow till the next train, which won't leave Whithaven for a half-hour yet. Come up to the Eagle House, and hear the facts which I have given you confirmed by the people there." Hawkstone went-in a furious frame of mind. At the hotel he found Vincent's story to be perfectly correct. Madame Vera had brought a child to the house on the preceding night-a little lame, pale-faced girl, who cried piteously, and was hurried out of sight by the French maid. And that morning the beautiful circus-rider had settled her bill, and departed with the aforesaid child and all her other belongings, including Jasper Hatton, who seemed to act as her guardian, on the seven o'clock express for New York. Hawkstone smiled grimly. It was rather late in the day for Vera to affect a guardian. While the clerk was thus corroborating his own statements, Vincent stood drumming on the office-window with careless fingers. | Vincent bit his lip, and laughed. "I will! When you return you'll hear unexpected things of me-'pon honor, you will! I'm not altogether incorrigible. Just now, you remember, I was speaking of that idiot, Gabriel Ravenel. You see, I am cursed with an unlucky fondness for play." Hawkstone frowned again. Well, I've encountered the fellow at the gaming-table tolerably often. He's been hiding all along in Whithaven. Wild horses, no, nor the fear of the gallows, wouldn't drag him from the place while a chance remained of seeing Zephyr here. Last night we met again in the usual way. He played like a lunatic-he's going all to pieces of late-got fleeced to his last cent-had some valuables about him, but lost those also. For your sake, and-and Miss Ravenel's, I couldn't see him left in the street, or at the police station, so I took him to my boarding-house and hid him there. Of course, he's likely to be apprehended at any moment. He's sick, too, as well as penniless- a desperate, half - delirious spectre of a man. Don't know what's to become of him, I'm sure; but now that Zephyr has left, perhaps 'twill be possible to send him out of the country. Wonder what he's done with all the loot he abstracted from old Sutton! Plainly he can't make up his aristocratic mind to use it." They had reached the depot by this time. Hawkstone He thrust a roll of banknotes into the other's hand. "Then keep Gabriel Ravenel at your boarding-place till I return, and use this money for his needs. I will then take him off your hands, and reward you well for the service." "All right," replied Vincent, as he pocketed the notes. "Of course you'll not rest, Prince Lucifer, till you "Greatly obliged, I'm sure. Hope you'll come back recover possession of Bee?" he said. speedily with the kid. Good-by and good luck, Prince Lucifer.” "That goes without saying," replied Hawkstone, dryly; "but first I must send some dispatches before me, which may possibly result in the detention of my daughter by the proper authorities-at least they will reduce Madame Vera's chances of running the child off safely." He went away to find the telegraph operator. When be returned, Vincent was still beating a tattoo on the window. "Wish you would permit me to bear you company, Prince Lucifer," he cried, "and share in the huntwould like to see Madame Vera's little game played to As the train moved out of Whithaven, Hawkstone glanced from the window of a drawing-room car, and saw on the receding platform the face of Vincent turned after the departing train with a look so evil, so full of vindictive hate, that he gave an involuntary start. "Is that boy deceiving me again ?" he thought, irritably. "Is he pondering new mischief? I am far too lenient with him. It is my misfortune that I can never find the heart to punish him according to his deserts." The train moved on. Hawkstone leaned back in his seat, and dismissed from his thoughts the cousin whom he heartily despised, and therefore could not fear. Straightway his heart flew back to Tempest Island and the girl who had inspired him with the one tremendous passion of his life. With the recklessness of baffled love, he said to himself: "She's mine, and I will have her I seek but for my own.' For years Fate has been keeping her for me, and not the angels above, nor the demons below, shall hold us apart now!" Before him arose her face-pale, maddening, as when he had last seen it in the library at the Hall-the great eyes heavy with tears unshed, a passionate despair lurking in their soft darkness. A girl slender as a reed, and yet, in purpose, strong as steel! How he was to undo the mischief that Zephyr had done he could not quite foresee; but on one point he was sternly determined, and that was to marry Jetta Ravenel in defiance of all opposition, all scruples, all malice. Love, the omnipotent, should conquer everything. She loved him, and being not a Spartan, but a girl, with a girl's heart, sooner or later he felt that she must yield to the mastery of his passion. With his arrival in New York, the torment of fruitless search began-search for individual atoms in the vast crowds of a great city. feebly it shadowed forth the tempest within him! In despair at the impotency of words, he started up, at last, and thrust the sheet into a gas-jet. As he did so-yes, while he stood watching the flame reduce all that passion and pleading to a pinch of gray ashes, something stabbed through him like a Soudanese spear-a premonition of evil, mysterious, inexplicable. The ear of his spirit heard suddenly the wash, wash of salt leagues of boisterous water, the rustle of dead October leaves on the terrace at Tempest Hall, and then the voice of Jetta herself, full of desperate need, calling to him from far away: "Basil! help, oh! help!” Verily he heard it! It hovered in the air above his head--the whole room palpitated with the horror and despair of it. "Jetta," he answered, wildly, "where are you? What has happened ?" His only reply was the noises of the street outside. He rushed to the door-looked out into the corridor. All was silent there-it was an ugly fancy. Jetta was safe at Tempest Hall. How could she be otherwise than safe in his own domain, surrounded by his servants? He laughed at his momentary weakness. "With all this infernal business, I am growing as nervous as a woman," he thought; but he went immediately and telegraphed this message to Miss Ravenel : "Is all well with you? If you need me, answer at once." No answer came, for Jetta Ravenel's eyes never saw the message. No tidings of Bee awaited him there, although his telegrams had set in motion the power which is supposed to ferret out all solvable secrets, and arrest with Briarens The second day of the search was a repetition of the hands the steps of evil-doers. The hotels, the outward-first. The silent hunt went on, but Argus eyes discovered bound steamers, the offices of transatlantic companies, yielded not the smallest clew to the whereabouts of the child and her captors. The official whose aid Hawkstone had invoked said, quietly: "No persons answering to the description of the party have yet been seen or heard from, Mr. Hawkstone; but if these people are in the city, you will have news of them before many hours." That they were in the city he could not reasonably doubt that they would be found was equally probable, since Argus eyes were watching, here, there and every where, for a stout, dark man, a small blonde beauty and a pale, lame child. He must bear the torture of indefinite delay as best he could. With this purpose in view, Hawkstone set forth to cool his impatience among the crowds of the great thoroughfares. He had never been a doting father, but the thought of his child Bee in the power of Vera and Jasper Hatton goaded him now be yond endurance. He panted to regain his daughter and fly back to Tempest Island. For hours he walked the streets, all his senses painfully alert. The echo of a child's voice, a carriage flashing by, with a little face behind the glass, some petite vailed woman darting by him on Broadway, a peal of mocking feminine laughter, set his pulses leaping more than once. All this was delusion, however-of Bee, and her fair, wicked mother he found no trace. He dined at Delmonico's; then called a carriage, and started for the opera-houses and the theatres. From one to another he hurried, searching with hawklike gaze orchestra-chairs, brilliant tiers of boxes, balconies aglow with color, and starting whenever, in the long curves of lighted stalls, his eyes chanced to alight on a fair face, a milky throat, a head of soft yellow curls. At midnight, weary, baffled, exasperated, Hawkstone retired to his hotel, and there poured out his heart in a letter to Jetta Ravenel-a wild, vehement letter, yet how no Vera, no Bee, no Jasper Hatton. At noon of the third day the officials before mentioned said to Hawkstone: "I fear you are on the wrong track. It is my belief that no such parties are in the city, nor have they escaped by foreign steamer or other line of exit. The same suspicion was taking form in Hawkstone's own mind. He had been duped, deceived, misled. He went back to his hotel to make ready for immediate departure, and found awaiting him there the following strange message from the woman when he was vainly pursuing "Since my revenge is accomplished, come back from yonz wild-goose chase! I have not been out of Whithaven. You werg directed to New York only that I might obtain a little time. Would you learn something of Bee? Then, at seven o'clock to-night. come to the gray church in Whithaven Square. It will be our last moeting on earth. VERA." (To be continued.) LINUS, THE KING'S SON. THIS story is current in Iceland. It was told to a German traveler in that out-of-the-way part of the world by a poor joiner-evidently a true-born Icelander, well versed in the folk-lore of his country, but a somewhat prosy narrator. The story is here given in a condensed form. True, there is not much said in it about music; but its chief incidents are brought about by the agency of magic songs. The singing of the swans lulls the king's son into a death-like slumber, and it is by means of music that the sweet foster-sister of Linus, when she finds him reposing on the couch-but all this the reader will see in the story itself, and to tell it first in a preamble, and then a second time, would be even worse than the prolixity of the honest Icelandic joiner. So let us proceed to the story. There was once a king and a queen who had a son |