a pause, during which he was wrestling with and getting the better of his wild beast-" the devil of it is-I'm glad, after all, that I have told you, because now things will be easier— that I could not even ask you to marry me.

"You know, Dick, that it would be useless if you could." "I know. The other-boy-Frank-Melliship-I know." He sat down on the lower step, and crunched his heel into

the grass.

"If you knew all, I said—yes, if you knew all, I think you would-pity-me, Grace. If I could only find something to say that would make you love me! If I could only make you understand-only I can't talk as some men can-how I long for you, how I curse the-the cause that keeps me from hoping ever to marry you."

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'Dick, I never never could marry you."

"But I should have a chance—at least, I should think soif it were not for her, Grace. He started to his feet, and stretched out his arms to her wildly. Grace, what does all the world matter, and what they think or say? See, I love you, I will fight for you, and-and worship you all my life. I am rich, I will give you anything that you like to ask. The world over there is far more beautiful than here. Come away with me. We will build a house in California, in a spot I like well. The sun is always bright there. Grace, come with me. I am a man; I am not a puny stripling like Frank Melliship. Men know me, and are afraid of me. But I-I, my girl, am afraid of no man in the world—no man. Roaring Dick is king wherever he goes!"

He was mad with passion. His eyes were aglow with a strange fire, his voice was harsh and hoarse. He made a movement towards the shrinking and terrified girl, with outstretched arms. Grace shrieked, and fell back against the cross. Then between them stepped the listening woman.

"No," she cried-"no, Grace Heathcote: leave me my husband, at least. Take his rings and his presents, hear his fine speeches-you may have them; but you shan't have him. Not that-not that. Leave him to me. He is mine-mine: my handsome Dick. You think you will get away from your Polly. Not you, my lad, not you. Not yet-not yet."

She had been drinking: her face was flushed and red; she wore a coarse country dress; she was frowsy and heated: her voice was thick. Good heavens! what a contrast to the sweet and delicate girl who stood above her on the steps, white and frightened.

"Pretty things for a wife to hear-very pretty things, upon my word. And as for you, you young minx-"

Here Dick laid his heavy hand on her shoulder, and swung her round. She looked up at him, in her rage and fury, with parted lips and flaming cheeks. Her husband was pale and calm, save for the trembling of his lips.

His eyes met hers.

You know how, in the Festin de St. Pierre, the statue of the Commandant lays his irresistible hand upon the shoulder of Don Juan. At its cold touch, the bravado and courage go out of the man. As it weighs him down, he sinks lower and lower till the earth closes over him.

At the first touch of Dick's hand, Polly trembled. When he turned her round, and she read, not wrath, but a cold pitiless determination in his face, her rage died out suddenly, and she became cold all over. She dropped her eyes. He looked at her steadily for a few moments, and then said, in a husky voice

"Go away from this, Polly. Keep out of my way—you'd best-for the present."

The woman went on her way down the hill without a word. Grace sat down, and buried her face in her hands. She forgot her own terror in her sorrow for Dick. Across his face had flashed, for a moment only, a look of misery and shame that cut her to the heart.

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"Oh! Cousin Dick-Cousin Dick," she cried, bursting into tears-"I am so sorry.'

"Forgive me, Grace," he said, quietly. "Forgive me. I get mad sometimes, you know. I was mad then. Tell me you forgive me."

She held out her hand. In truth, she had never caught the meaning of his words. How should she know what they meant?

He took her hand in his, and kept it.

"I was only nineteen when I married her. Even then there was no excuse for me. But she made me do it. I took her up to London, when my father sent me to work at our town agent's. We were married in St. Pancras Church. Then I left home, was turned out by my father-all my fault, Grace, not his, remember that—and I left her. Till the time I came home again, I never thought of her. Now I have to pay her to keep silence. Pity me, Grace.”

"I do pity you, Dick-I pity you from my heart."

"I said what I ought not, my child. I said I loved you. That is true. You will always remember that I loved you, will not? As long as I live, I shall love you. But you

you

may trust me, Grace. I shall never offend you again. For I can never ask you to marry me."

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And, oh, Dick-oh, Cousin Dick, you won't try to do any harm to Frank?"

"Frank Melliship? I'm not the man, Grace. Marry whom you like. I will help you—that is, if I can.'

She laid her hand in his once more. He looked down at her the passion faded out of his deep black eyes-eyes now soft and tender as a woman's.

:

"Go, Grace. Keep my secret. I must stay here awhile, and think. Go home without me, my child.”

"I am afraid-of her, Dick."

"She dares not touch you. By- !"-he clenched his fists-"But I will walk with you to the top of the hill, and see you safe with Bob."

"Good-bye, Dick. Don't do anything dreadful. Oh! I am so afraid you should." Then she added, almost in a whisper, "Don't be cruel to her."

They parted: she with a heart full of new and strange sympathies and sorrows; he subdued and heavy-laden.

He pulled out his cigar case, and smoked for above an hour, sitting on the steps of the old cross. Then the sun got low, and he got up and walked homewards.

He

At the foot of the rising ground on which the cross stands, runs the river which winds down the plain, and flows between his father's house in Derngate and his own little villa. took the towing-path, and followed it moodily. It was a very lonely path: few people walked there by day, and none by night. The barges have all left it long since, and the deserted stream flows along broad and deep, between the trees which overhang it on either side.

Presently, before him in the path, he saw his wife. She had been drinking again, since he sent her away, to drown her fears; and now she stood in the way before him, facing him, with her arms akimbo, and a loud, defiant laugh.

"So you've done your fine talk with Grace Heathcote at last, and now you're coming to beg my pardon, I suppose." Dick grew purple with passion. He seized her by the waist in his mighty arms, and, without saying a single word, raised her aloft, and threw her-heavy as she was-six feet

and more into the river. With a shriek, the woman fell into the deepest part of the stream, and disappeared.

Dick's wrath, when there was no opposition to feed it, was as short-lived as a straw-fire. He looked at the rings of water widening round the spot where Polly had fallen in, with an expression which rapidly changed from extreme rage to one more like extreme vexation.

"Carambo!" he cried-"what if I've drowned her ?"

But he might have spared himself his anxiety. The cold water sobered her in a moment; and rising from the mud at the bottom, into which her head had at first plunged, she came to the surface. Ten feet lower down, a fallen tree lay

half across the stream.

The current bore her on before she
She clutched the branches, which

had time to sink again.
bent and ducked her again and again. But at last she landed
herself, and clambering up the bank, wet and dripping, turned
in fury upon her lord and master.

Dick was sitting on the grass, laughing as if it was the best joke he had ever known in his life.

"I told you how it would be, Polly, if you split. Now you see. Lord! if you could only get a sight of your own face!" She had risen from the waves, like Venus Anadyómene. Encumbered as she was with her draggled clothes, she only resembled the goddess in that one fact. Besides the mud at the bottom, which was still in her hair and bonnet, she had collected a goodly quantity of duckweed on her way out of the water, which hung in graceful festoons upon her shoulders. "You'd better go home to your mother and get dry, Polly." "I'll cry all over Market Basing that I'm your wife. I'll have revenge, you black, murdering villain. I'll have my rights out of you, I will."

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Then, Polly, perhaps next time you go into the river, you will stay there."

Dick strode off alone, leaving his wife on the other side. When he got home, he bolted the door, so that her key was of no use. About ten o'clock, a little gravel was thrown up at his window. It was Polly, crying.

Dick, let me in-let me in, Dick. I'm very sorry, and I haven't told nobody-on my sacred word, I haven't. I said I'd been a blackberryin,' and fell in."

Dick poked an unrelenting head out of the window. At sight of it, his wife put her handkerchief to her face and sobbed loudly.

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"Polly," said the inhuman Dick, "you may go to the

devil."

Polly went home. She arose early next morning, and repaired again, trembling, to the house. But she might just as well have gone defiantly, for Dick Mortiboy was off to town by the six o'clock train.

FOLLOW

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH.

CEMBER AS the old novelists used to say, to Paragon-place, Gray's Inn-road. This pleasant retreat lies on the east side of the road, not very far from the lordly entrance to Gray's Inn. Paragon-place is a cul de sac; and as it consists only of six houses in all, it passes a peaceful and quiet existence, having but little intercourse with the outer world. It consists of a single row of five houses, with another at the end, looking down the court. They face a paved alley of ten feet in breadth. The northern side of Paragon-place is bounded by a brick wall, eight feet high, set about and garnished, for the better protection of the inhabitants, by a plentiful topdressing of broken bottles. wall may also serve as a protection to the printers' offices which lie beyond. At all events, it is a barrier insuperable between Paragon-place and the printers. Thus fashion separates itself from business: leisure and retirement from compulsory work.

The

I would that we might linger over Paragon-place and its inhabitants. About every house there hang half a dozen histories; from the tale of every dweller might be woven a romance of real life-that is, a tale of sin and suffering, of poverty and sorrow. We have to do with one only. It is the third tenement in the row. Like the rest, it consists of three main rooms, lighted, each "fore and aft"-the front window