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HALF-TITLE PAGE MISSING This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est i'\m6 au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X »X SOX V 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X ire details les du modifier ler une filmage The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of : Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UnivArsity of Toronto Library The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract V, <4 WHO WINS? oa THE SECRET OF MONKSWOOD WASTE. BT MAY AGNES FLEMING, AUTHOR OF *The Unseen Bridegroom," " The Heiress op GiiEN GowsB. "The Baronet's Bride," "Estella's HuauAND," 'Lady J^velyn," •• Maodalkn's Vow," etc. «« ?^ Oonanntt 1870, bt Daym A EvntauK, -i ♦^ ["sweetheart series l -j^l^fr I) New Tork: GEORGE MUNRO'S SONS, PUBLISHERfl, 17 TO 27 Vandewater Street. AH iTRAIGflT FRONT «°>«is THE MOTHER'S MISSION. 1840. 1903. A great Emperor ono» asked one of his noble subjects what would se- cure his country the first place among the nations of the earth. The noble- man's grand reply was, "Good mothers," Now, what congfitutes a good mother? The answer is conclusive : She who, regarding the future welfare of her child, seeks every available means that may offer to promote a sound physical development, to the end that her offspring may not be deficient in any single faculty with which nature has endowed it. In infancy tnere is no period which is more likely to aifcct the future disposition of the child t/'mn that of tecihiug, producing as it docs fretfulness, moroseness of mind, etc., wliich if not checked will manifest itself in after dayst USE MRS. WINSLOW'S SOOTHING SYRUP. FOR OVER SIXTY YEARS. An Old and Well-lried Kemcdy. MRS. WINSLOW'S SOOTHING SYRUP Ims been used for ovet SIXTY YEARS ;;y MIIJJONS of IMOl'tlERS for tliHr CfllF.DHEN WHILE) TEETHING, WITH PKRi^ECT SUPOKSS. IT SOOTHES tlie CHILD, SOFT- tN'8 the GUMS. ALLAVy all PAIN; CURES WIND COMC. and is tlie beg| nmied.v for DIARRHG'.A. SnM bv Dnifreists in evprv pnit of tbe world. Be Wire and ask for MRS. WINSLOW'S SOOTHING- SYBUP, aad Lbke DO other kind. Twenty-Five Cents a Bottle. a c nl ) 1 / WHO WINS? CHAPTER I. ON THE TRAMP. N. iperorono© [ his noble t would se- itry the first the nations The noble- reply -was, icrs." Now, tutesagood lie nnswer is She who, he future her child, ry available Biopment, to ingle faculty is no period of the child , moroseness in after day* rRUP. cdy. ■n used for ovei DKEN WHILE CHILD, SOFT- and is the best ilifl world. Ba SYBXJP, aoa " Are we almost there, Joe? I am dead beat — I can not go further. Yonder are tlie lights of Leamington — let us rest there." The man looked round at the piteous cry. He was a big> broad-shouldered fellow, with a certain stride and swing, bold and free, that stamped him soldier, in spite of the disguising farmer's garb lie wore. A young man, big-boned and loose- jointed, with a sullen, sunburned face — what you could see of it for the shaggy black beard and blacker cascade of mustache — purple-black Jiair close-cropped, and big, savage black eyes. A fierce, gypsy-faced fellow, with a murderous scowl on hie bent brow, a murderous devil in either eye, and horrible oaths perpetually on liis lips. He looked around — this big, black-browed Saul, at the plaintive, womanly cry. She was his wife— the little, slender creature beside him, wilh a face of pallid whiteness, drawn and pinched with unutterable weariness and hunger and cold. For, though the night was August,, she shivered as she tottered along the endless way, under the weight of a heavy, sleeping child. She was miserably clad, and her blistered feet were hardly protected from the pitiless stones by the wretched shoes she wore. She strained the little one to her with a fierce, hard clasp that had little of love in it, though it was her only one, hushing its fearful wails with vindictive little shakes. A for- lorn and wretched couple as any on whom that warm August night shut down. '* Whimpering again," the man said, with a horrible oath; ** you want me to beat in that white face of yours to a jelly — don't you? Shut up, you whining fool, or I'll blacken your other eye to match the one I blackened last night I" " But, Joe," with a wild, tortured ory, " I can not go on. (( »^i^ 6 WHO wnrs? I tell you. My feet are bleeding and blistered, my arms ache with the weight of this child, and my head is throbbing until I am blind with pain. For God's sake, stop at Leammgton to-night— we will reach Plymouth before the ship sails to- The man's answer was a brutal blow. He turned round upon the frail creature beside him, Avith a volley of blood- curdling oaths, and struck her full in the face. ** I told you I'd do it," he said, with a wolfish glare in his greenish-black eyes; ** mw, will you stop your whimpering, mistress? You used to be proud of that pretty face of yours. Look in the glass to-morrow, and see if you'll be proud of it any mare. Come on, and hold your infernal clack, or PU smash every bone in your body, by !" The woman had staggered blindly back, the blood spurting from a deep cut between the eyes, but she did not fall. She put up one hand and wiped away the flowing blood, then, without a single word, resumed her walk after him. " Oh, we take it quiet, do we!" the man said, with a back- ward growl; *' a little blood-letting settles some people won- derfully. Now, come, and let's have no more jaw about stopping at Leammgton. I'll stop where I see fit and when I see proper — not before. Come on faster, and be hanged to you!'"' The woman wore a deep sun-hood of the poorest and plain- est kind, but it effectually sliaded her face. That face had turned of a dull, leaden white, where the blood did not horri- bly disfigure it, and the light in the swollen and discolored eyes was a light that might have made that reckless man tremble. It was still eai'ly in the night, between nine and ten. The road was long and lonely, and far and faint in the distance twinkled the lights of Leamington village, athwart the pur- phsh haze. The sky, bending down on the tree-tops, was overcast and menacing. The moon rent her ^ ly up through piles of jagged cloud, and what wind there was sighed with an i^iearthly, eerie moan up from the sea. Wild weather was near — wild weather for this wretched trio, for weary days and nights on the tramp. Dead silence fell between them now. The woman's lips were compressed, as though she never meant to open them again, and the eyes, dull and lifeless before, blazed up with terrible fire. The blow, that might have beaten out all her feeble remaining strength, had goaded her on with a fierce des- peration born of vhidictive hatred and despair. In dead i L._ WHO WINS? 7 arms ache :ih'm^ until leamington p Bails to- ned round • r of blood- I flare in his himpering, e of yours, proud of it ack, or 1*11 3d spurting ; fall. She ilood, then, • ith a back- people won- jaw about and when I hanged to b and plain- at face had i not horri- discolored ckless man . ten. The ;he distance rt the pur- 2e-tops, was up through bed with an kveather was ,ry days and I Oman's lips open them ^ up with /lit all her fierce des- In dead ted out a sflence she walked on itfter him along the lonesome, dusty road, straining the 8leepii}g child to her breast with an energy of fierce strength that made his intolerable weight no more than a featlier. The road ended in the village. Ten was striking loudly by the Leamington clocks as they passed through the long, strag- gling streets. Lights twinkled here and there from cottage homes, and the Vino Inn was brilliant with illumination. The man stopped before it, licking his dry, cracked lips in a wolfish sort of way. ** I'm going in for a pot o' porter, mistress," he said; " wait you here till I come back." Still dead silence. Growling out inward oaths that seemed to come as naturally as his very breath, he tramped into the inn and vanished like an evil gnome in the lighted door-way. Stock-still the Avoman stood looking straight before her into the purplish mists of the night, with a fierce, reckless stare. Once she si^oke in a whisper to herself and her own dark thoughts. ** Take your drink, Joe Dawson; it will be your last. You have trodden on the worm for two long years; its time has come to turn. You will never strike the fool who married you another blow." The man came out of the public-house, wiping his lips with the back of his big, sunburned hand. ** Come on!" he cried, with his customary oath and growl. " None o' your lazy lagging here!" The landlord had followed his suspicfbus-looking customer to the door, and stood looking after him until he disappeared. He heard the brutish ivords and remembered them, and the frail-looking creature to whom they were addressed, long after, when the whole country rang with his name. *' A rough customer," the landlord thought. ** Looks as if he had been out on the tramp for a month. A rough customer for that poor little woman — her master, I take it. She had a .child in her arms, too, poor soul!" Away beyond the village the dusty high-road wound tortu- OVLBly, and lost itself in bleak marshes and ghastly commons. Dark clumps of woodland dotted the way — spots made, one might think, for foul murders, so lonely and desolate were they. And still on and on spread these interminable miles that lay between them and the seaport of Plymouth. Another hour and another — midnight now. The menacing wind had arisen higher and shriller; the moon had hidden her ^Killid disk behind the black, scuddmg clouds; the summer \ I 8 WHO WINS i ■tonn was very near. Even the dull, brute nature of the man could not fail to road the palpable signs of the coming tempest. " Curse the weather!" ho growled, furiously, shakmg his fist impotently at the blackening sky. ** It'w agin me, like all the rest. Mv feet feel like lumps of raw llesh, and Fm one bundle of aches and pains from head to foot. I wish I had never deserted. Grilling out yonder in India, and fighting those black devils of Sepoys, was better than this. I'll go no ' further to-night." m ^ , He halted suddenly and faced the woman. She stopped when he did, but still never opened her lii)s. *' Do you hear, vou white-faced cat? I'm going to stop here till day-break, and the storm bo hanged! Sit down there, you and your brat, and watch till I wake." They were beside a thick holly hedge, with sheltering trees above, and a soft carpet of velvety moss beneath. He flung himself heavily, with a groan and a curse, upon the fragrant bed. " Down with you there!" ho growled as if to a dog; " and not a word out of your miserable head, if you don't want it broke! Wake me at day-dawn. D'ye hear?" " I hear," she spoke, at last, in a hard, hollow voice. ** Sleep, brute, beast, unworthy the name of man, and sleep your last. You will never see day-break again!" The closing words were spoken under her breath, but the man would not have heard them had they been uttered aloud. Before his head had well touched the sward he was dead asleep. % Then the woman arose, white as death, terrible as doom. She laid the child on a little hillock, without one look at its quiet, sleeping face, and glanced around for what she wanted. She found it near — as near as if Satan had laid it ready to her hand — a long, sharp-pointed stone, deadly as a dagger. She lifted it and bent over the slee})ing man breathing heavily and .snoring in his sleep. His hat had fallen ofi'; his grizzled, bearded, sunburned face was upturned to the night sky. " And I loved this brute once!" the woman said in a hiss- ing whisper; *' and I gave up all for him — home, parents, friends, heart, soul! Why, it is no more crime to kill him than to shoot down a mad dog!" With the horrible words she lifted the heavy stone and struck him with all her might upon the temple. There was one convulsive bounds one gurgling cry, a spout of hot, red blood, and then — The Tivoman turned away with a sickening shudder of horror WHO WXiTB? f the man y tempest, aking hia le, like all 1 Fm one ish I had d fighting ' ril go no ' le stopped ) stop here there, you Bring trees lie flung le fragrant log; " and I't want it [low voice. , and sleep th, but the ered aloud. J was dead 3 as doom. 3 look at its she wanted. •eady to her igger. She heavily and liis grii'.zled, b sky. d in a hiss- ne, parents, to kill him r stone and There was of hot, red ler of horror and repulsion from what lay before her. It was very sHll, too — awfully still; there was no need to repeat the blow. t>he flung the stone away, took one last backward glance at the F!f?ppii)g child, one last, shuddering gaze at that other still form, then turned swiftly and flitted away into the night. Ik'foro niDining the storm burst in rain and thunder and wind. A violent storm, too violent to last. It passed with the nifi^lit. The sun rose in its splendor and looked down in hiilescribtible glory on thsit most awful of all sights, the up- turned face of a murdered man. CHAPTER 11. CYRIL TREVANION. The play that night was a French vaudeville, and the the- ater was one of the third-rate order, on the Surrey side of the Thames. It vvaa one of tliose clanceable, singable little com- edies where the jokes are as broad as they are long, and the seedy actors interpolate lengthy improvisations of their own into the original passages — one of the short-skirtea, semi-nude Black Crook and White Fawn kidney so common in these latter days. The gay little vaudeville had had quite a lengthy run. This was its last night, and the house was crowded. The throng in the pit was the roughest of railway navvies, soldiers, sailors, and all the rag-tag of creation. There were decently dressed people in the gallery, and a sprinkling of shabby gentility in the wretched little boxes, but such as they were, the house was fllJcd. Was it not the benefit and the farewell night of Miss Kose Adair? and was not Miss Kose Adair the prettiest, the cleverest, the most charming little actress that ever set navvies and news-boys mad with love and delightr* Clustered by themselves in the stage-boxes tvere some half dozen young officers — magnificent fellows, as regarded in com- parison with the rest of the house — sporting eye-glasses, and staring at the people about them through those lorgnettes with undisguised contempt. Very young oliicers, with the callow down yet green on their boyish chins, their hair parted down the middle, a tendency to drawl, but wonderfully and ele- gantly got up by the best AVest End tailors. Very harmless young heroes, their maiden swords still unfleshed — their maiden pistols preserving their pristine glitter — dainty carpet knights, great in the dance, and mighty at the mess-table. They lounged about the bozes, amusing themselves with ear* — ,0**^* i WHO WINS? castic criticisms on their neighbors, while waiting for the cur- tain to rise. , . , i , ** Saw Trevaiiion to-day,'' lisped one white-Iashed ensign, tightening his belt, '* ridinff down the Row with Lady Clara Keppel. What hick tlie fellow has! Suns himself in the smiles of high-born beanty all day, and in the lovely light of httle Roira's black eyes all evening." "Don't cull her Rosa," another interjected, testily; *' it Bmacks so confoundedly of negro minstrelsy. Luck I I be- lieve you! Trcvanioii's one of those fellows bom with a golden spoon in their mouths, lie is the heir of Monkswood llall and Trevanioii Park, the two finest places in Sussex, with a clear rent-roll of fifteen thouyand a year. His governor's a trump. I wish mine could see his parental duties in the money line half as clearly." ** And Trevanion's sovereigns flow like water," a third said, " while better men — myself and most of you fellows — haven't possessed one between us for the last six months. I did my first bill, I remember, at seven years old, on the cover of my spelling-book, and I liave done bills and bill-discounters ever since with a perseverance worthy of a better cause. And they say he's going to marry Rosie." There was a general laugh at his last remark. ** Don't be maudlin, Stanley. A man may not marry hi? grandmother — no more may he marry a little danseuse, par- ticularly at the innocent age of nineteen. Not but that Misa Rose Adair — I wonder what the little girl's bond-fide name is: — is pretty enough and sparkling enough to almost warrant such folly. Trevanion's deucedly spooney about her, there's no doubt about it; but there'll be no marrying or giving in marriage — take my word for it, Stanley. He comes of a race as proud as the devil, and nearly as diabolical." " They say the man who spoke English at the Tower of Babel was named Trevanion. But hold up! * Lo! the con- quering hero comes!' " With the last word the door opened, and Lieutenant Cyril Paget Trevanion, of the — th Hussars, . stood before his brother knights. Younger than even those youthful warriors — barely nineteen — but towering above the tallest of them bv a full head, and superb in Ris fresh young manhood. Tall, strong, black-browed, wilh the darkly handsome face of the handsome, hot-blooded Trevanions — flashing black eyes, and the magnificent proportions of a muscular Apollo. As he en- tered, the bell tinkled, the lights flashed np, the curtaioi roiOi T-;c WHO WINS? 11 >r the our- Bd ensign, ^aiiy Clara self in the i\y light of estily; *' it ok I I be- ll a golden wood llall sex, with a overnor's a ies in the , third said, s — haven't 1 did my over of my nnters ever And they marry hi? iseiise, par- it that Miss (le name isf ost warrant her, there's or giving in es of a race le Tower of >1 the con- ;enant Cyril before his fill warriors of them by lood. Tall, face of the k eyes, and As he en- iurtain roaOi the orchestra crashed out, and Miss Rose Adair, the goddess of the evening, bounded li^'iiUy on the stage. A thunder of applause greeted the appearance cf their favor- ite — her last appearance, as tiiey knevv. A HJender little creature — a mere fairy sprite, M'itii luminous- dark eyes and a wonderful fall of yellow-brown hair. With tho^e amber-drip" ping tresses went a skin of pearly whitencsL', just tinted ever BO taintly on the oval cAeeks with rouge. As Mile. Ninon, the witching hiiW. f/ri{,4m-^ t- 34 WHO WllfS ? ,.% ; ■ Eose?" the young man cried, flushed and impetuons. * 'I! the Scotch marriage does not suit you, we can easily be re- married upon our return to England; and, as for being a min- or, there will be no one to dispute the legality of our union. Not ray father— he never refused me anything yet. He is not likely to oegin now." ** Oh, Cyril I But this is not like anything else. Men hay© disinherited only sons for less." *' My father will not. And, besides, he can not. Monks- wood Priory is entailed— comes to me, with its fertile acres, if I were disinherited to-morrow. 1 will listen to no more objec- tions. Rose. You wii^t say yes— you nmst be my wifel I love you madly! I can noi live without you. My beautiful Rose, look up, and say, ' Cyril, I love you, and I will go with you to-morrow!' " He bene over her, his handsome face flushed, hot, red, his eyes glowing, alight with wine and love and excitement. She raised her dainty, drooping head at his bidding, and looked him fuUin the face, a glittermg brightness in her large dark eyes. " I love you, Cyril," she repeated, ** and I will go with you to-morrow. Earth holds no dearer lot for me than to be your wife. But if you repent, later, remember I have warned you." ** I will never repent!" he cried, with a lover's rapturous kiss. ** Our honey-moon will last until our heads are gray. In all broad England there is not another such happy man a» Cyril Trevanion." She turned away her head to conceal a smile—- a smilo strangely akin to derision. It was gon^ like a flash. ** And now I must turn you out," she said, gayly. ** I have much to do between this and dny-dawn. Whether one goes to ^1 ance or to Gretna GreeU;; one must pack up. It is shockingly late besides- Mrs. Grundy will bo horrified. For rity's sake, go at once!" r She pushed him playfully to the door. The black October night was blacker and chillier than ever, and the bleak, wet wind blew damply in their faces. Miss Adair shivered audibly. ** I don't envy you your drive back," she said; **and the rain will overtake you if ; ou don't hurry. We are likely to run away in a deluge to-morrow." ** Blissful to-morrow!" exclaimed Cyril Trevanion. " Come rain and lightning and tempest, so that they bring meijou, I shall thank them. For the !ast time, good-bye and go.xl- night." v^ A lover-like embrace; then the young man sprung lightly WHO WWCSf 10 into his night-cab and whirled away. Eose Adair stood in the door-way until he disappeared, dei4)ite the raw blowing of the chill morning wind. In tho darlmess her pretty face wore a triumphant glow. *' I have conquered I" she said, under her breath. " I will be Cyril Trevanion^s wife, as I knew from the first I would. Poor fool! And bethinks I care for him — a stupid boy of nineteen ! The old life may go now. Mrs. Cyril Trevanion, of Monkswood Hall, may look upon tho past aa a horrible dream, over and gone!" On the close of the third day a post-chaise rattled up to the door of an Aberdeen hotel, and Lieutenant Trevanion handed out his bride. The " Scotch mist '^ hung clammy over every- thing, the sky was of lead, the coming night was bleak and drear; but the face of the young oflicer was brighter than a sunset sky. Was he not a bridegroom of four-and-twenty hours' standing, and was not this radiant little beauty beside him his bride? ** They will show you to your room, my darling," he said. ** I will join you presently. Here is your traveling-bag. It might hold the crown diamonds by its weight and the care you take of it. The servant will take it." ** I will take it myself." She turned her back abruptly upon him as she spoke, and followed the servant upstairs. She dismissed the woman the Tiioment she entered the room, and turned the key in the door. The boxes had been sent up. She knelt down at once before one of them, and unlocked and unstrapped it. " I will conceal it here/' she said. " He is not in the least likely to find it, in any case; but it is safer here." She unfastened her traveling-bag and drew forth the con- tents, whose weight and her solicitude about it had puzzled Lieutenant Trevanion. It contained but one thing — a brightly burnished copper box, securely locked and clasped. The little Dride thrust this box out of sight among the garments in the trunk. ** * Safe bind, safe find.' While yoii are secure / am secure. I don' I think Cyril Trevanion will ever find me out. The day that brings you to light sees the hist of Rose Trevanion. Rose Trevanion! A new name, a new alias ! How many I have borne! Rose Lemoine, Eofo Dawson, Rose Adair; and now — last, brighte-^t, and best — high-sounding Trevanion I What will be the next, I wonder, and which among them all will they carve vu my tombstone F'' )j> 16 WHO WINS? CHAPTEE IIL AT MON'KSWOOD. *' And it all ends here! My ambitious dreams, my bound- less pride, my grand aspirations for him— it all ends here! In the hour when I loved him dearest, I would sooner have slaitt him with my own hands than lived to see him fall so low!" He was aii old man, yet grandly erect in his sixtieth year; straight as a Norway pine, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, royal-browed and bright-eyed, as it was in the nature of the Trevanions to be. He was General Trevanion, of Monkswood Priory, or Monkswood Hall, as it was oftener named, and he held in his hand an open letter from his only son, Cyril. The letter told him of that only son's marriage— dwelling with lover-like rapture on his bride's peerless beauty, her transcendent sweetness and charms. It told him that she was the loveliest, the most innocent, the purest, the gentlest of her sex; but it also told him the awful fact that there was no withholding— that she was an actress. " * Beautiful and pure as an angel from heaven!' " the old man quoted from the letter, with a bitter sneer — " this spot- less dansetise, this artless cherub from the boards of a third- .rate London theater! It ussd to be our boast that the Tre- vanion blood never bred fools or cowards. It has bred both in my son Cyril. Son! From this hour he is no longer son of mine. Yet he is not quite a coward, either, or he would hardly dare to face me here." For the open letter told him that the writer was coming to *' Beard the lion in his den; The Douglas in his hall." And that, within a very few hours after its receipt. General Trevanion might lock for a penitential visit from his heir. ** I will not fetch Rose with me, father," the young man wrote. *' I know what a crime a low marriage is in your eyes. I know how you will revolt at first from the idea of an actress. But only wait until you see her, my father, in her exquisite beauty and youth, and grac( and artlessness, and you will love her almdst as dearlv as I do." The old lion read this passage aloud again, and laughed out- right in the bitter intensity of his scorn. "Fool! idiot! drivekr!" he cried, with p'lssionate con- tempt, his fierce black eyes ablaze. '* I could curse the houi .*«« WHO WINS? 17 in which his mother gave birth to so besotted an imbecile I What judgment has fallen on the Trevanions, that the lasti of their name — one of the proudest and noblest that ever old England boasted — should render himself an object of derision to gods and men? The last of his race, did I say? Nay, S^^bil is that — and by the eternal Heaven! Sybil shall inherifc every shilling I possess, every acre 1 command. The angelic actress from Drury Lane may soar back to the celestial re^ gions she hails from, with the idiotic spooney of nineteen ehe has duped into marrying her, for all she will ever reign in Trevanion, Sybil Lemox shall be my heiress, and he shall not inherit the price of a rope to hang himself!" He dashed the letter fiercely aside, and started up, pacing up and down. The grand old face was stormy with rage; the fiery dark eyes, that never lov/ered their light to friend or foe, flashing with impotent passion. Kage, grief, shame, all dis- torted the massive countenance, and the sinewy hands clinched until the nails bled the palms. ** And he dare come here! he dare face me! I don't know what shall keep me from shooting him down like a dog!" He strode up and down the magnificent length of the library, quite alone in his impotent storms of fury. A spacious and splendid apartment, the wainscot lined with books from floor to ceiling, busts of grand old Greek poets gazing serenely down on the lore of ages, and over the marble chimney-piece a clock, with Amphytrite guiding a group of fiery sea-horses, in bronze. In the deep fire-place where, for four hundred years the blaze of yule had risen high at Christmas time, a sea-coal fire burned now, its red glow fiashing fitfully on the dark paneling and wainscoting, on busts and pictures, books and bronzes, quaint old Indian and Chinese cabinets, and vases as high aa your head. The library was lighted by one vast Tudor window, with cushioned scats — a window that was a study in itself, and which overlooked a wide vista of velvet lawn, cool depths of fragrant fern and underwood, and waving belts of beech and elm. A grand old place this Monkswood Hall — a monEistery once in the days long gone when there had been monks and mon- asteries all over England, before the Koyal Bluebeard and his red-haired daughter came to banish and burn and behead. And under the leafy arcades of its primeval forest, of its ma- jestic oaks, and towering elm and copper beech, the ghostly prior who had ruled there last, v/alked still, somber and aw* 18 WHO WlWg ful, with cowl and gown, in the stormy moonlight and atfll black dead of night. And some ghostly curso had fallen on the usurping race of the '' bold, bad Trevanions;" for the le- gend rail, that for many a night before the death of ths head of the house, a solemn bell tolled in those windy turrets— an awful bell, that no mortal eye might see, no mortal hands might ring. The Prior's Walk lay open to all — a woodland aisle, where the elms met above your head— where the nightingale sung o' nights, and the sward was as emerald velvet — a long avtenuc of green beauty and delight, and a short cut to the village. Bui; for all its loveliness and convenience, there were few in all Speckhaven who cared to brave the ghostly horrors of the Prior's Walk at nightfall. A grand and stormy old place this Monkswood— where the vstrong Trevanions, father and son, had reigned since the days of the seventh Henry — one of the show-places of the county. The short November day was rapidly darkening down, and the mystic depths of fern looked illimitable seen from the stately Tudor window. The clock, above which the fair sea- goddess guided her fierce chargers, pointed to half past four, and as tlie night drew on the wind roared more wildly down the vast stacks of chimneys, along the vast, draughty halls, and around the numberless gable ends. General Trevanion glanced impatiently at the time-piece as the spectral gloaming came on apace; his massive face settled slowly into a look of iron grinmess and determination. " He must soon be here," he muttered, under his breath. " For nineteen years every desire of his heart has been granted almost before the wish was expressed. Now he will see how a Trevanion says no." The library door was flung wide as the thought crossed his mind *' Master Cyril, sir,''' announced the old gray-haired butler, and noiselessly withdrew. General Trevanion stopped short in his walk, swung round and faced his son. The young man had advanced eagerly, but with the first look at his fa- ther's face, he halted, hesitated, stopped, and came to a stand- still by the fire. The old lion stood — a large w^riting-table between them — drawn up to his full kii^gly height, his head thrown back, his proud nostrils dilated, his dark eyes flashing. Cyril Trevan- ion, very pale, but altogether dauntless, encountered that look tmflinchingly. So they met— father and son. ' The young man was the firs'; to speak. ,. ** You have received my letter, sir?" he said very calinly. WHO wursF 19 aisle, where " I have received it Here it is." He crumpled it up as he spoke, and fluug it straight in th0 fire. One bright flash of flame — then it was gone. Oyril Trevanion turned a shade paler than before; but the bold, invincible look on Lis face was very like tha^. on General Tirevanion^s own. f *' You are deeply displeased, sir," he said^ still very quietly; ' ** I expected as much. But wait until you see my wire — my Rose. Eftrth holds nothiiig half so lovely — half so sweet aa she I Even the crime of being an actress will be forgotten and forgiven then.'' ** I will never see your wife!" General Trevanion answered, the fierce rage within him only showhig in the working of his fiery nostrils, the flashing of his stormy eyes. *' I will never see your wife, never see you ! I disown ycu — you are no longer a son of mine! For four hundred years you are the first of our race whc ever made a mmdliance, who mixed the pure blood with the filthy puddle in an actress's veins. No son of mine shall bring disgrace on his name and house, and still remain my son. 1 will never speak to you. I will never see you, though 1 were on my death-bed. I will never forgive you! In the hour you cross yonder threshold, through which women, with royal blood in their hearts, have stepped as brides — in the hour you go forth to your angel of the dcmi- womle — your seraph of the caiiuille — you are as dead to me as though the cofifin lid had closed above you and they had laid you in the family vault! If I slew you where you stood, your low- lived blood would haixlly wash out the stain of your disgrace!** He stopped; but the lightning of his fiery old eyes spoke more eloquently than words. He stopped, ior the* effort to hold his passion in rein and speak steadily almost suffocated him. And Cyril, drawn up to his full height, his handsome face stormily set, his dark eyes gleaming — tall, strong, princely — a son for any father's heart to exult in — stood like a rock, listening and replying not. ** I have let you come here," his father went on, " because from my own lips I would have you hear your fate. Take your strolling player, your painted ballet-dancer, and go forth to beggary, if you like — a stiver of my money you will never see again. Trevanion Park and all I possess — your mother's fortune included — is mine,, to do with as I will, and not one farthing will you ever command, though you were dying of hunger at my gates. Monkswood is entailed — Monkswood must descend to you; but even there you will feel'the weight of my vengeance. I will lay it wastk-* than a warren — Uw 90 WHO WINS? 13 ~\ \ timber shall be felled— the game hunted down like vermin— the house left to ruin and decay. When you and your wife come here at the old man's death, you will find a barren waste and four gaunt walls to call your homo— nothing more. I have said all I have to say— I will never forgive you I Sybil Lemox shall be my heiress— for you— I never want to hear of you, dead or alive. Go!** Cyril Trevanion had spoken but twice since his entrance into the room. Kow, at the llery old martinet's thundering command, he turned without a word. He knew bis father — not fiercer at the taking of Douro or Talavera — not more deadly at the grand charge of Waterloo — had that clarion voice of command led to the death or the victory. He knew his father, and he knew himself, and, without one syllable of en- treaty or expostulation or defiaiK^e, he looked his last forever upon his father's face, and went forth to bravo his fate. He left the library, crossed a tesselated pavement of white and black stone — down a sweeping stair-way of slippery oak, black and polished, and wide enough to drive up the proverbial coach-and-four. The vast baronial hall of the manor, with ita gulfs of chimneys, its carved stone chimney-pieces, so lofty, that there must have been giants in the days when they could be used, hung with family portraits by Holbein and Van Dyck — with branching antlers of red deer, suits of mail that strong old warriors of the Trevanion blood had clanked in before the walls of Antioch in the Crusade days long syne. A grand and stately old entrance hall where the tide of wassail, the blaze of yule logs, had surged high many a merry Christmas. Massive doors of oak opened down the length of this interminable hall, and through some of these, standing ajar, the young man caught sight of long vistas of splendor and color, of glowing draperies, rich carving, and gleaming fire-light pictures of brightness and luxury, to dream of strangely in weary years to eome. His hand was on the door to depart, wheuthe shrill 3ry of a child arrested him — a wild cry of joy and surprise, and the next instant a little fairy figure came flying down the stairs, and plumped headlong into his arms. ** Cyril I Cyril! Cyril!" a perfect scream of childish ecstasy; "oh! Cousin Cyril!" " Sybil!" the young man said, catchiug the fairy up, and kissmg her; "my dear little pet Sybil! This is, indeed, an astonisher! I thought you had gone for good to Scotland." ^ *' Mamma is here, and baby Oiiarlcy — we are all here on a visit. But, oh. Cousin Cyril! I didn't know you were coming! Uncle Trevanion never told me. lou will stay as long as we WHO WINS? n do, won't you? Oh, how tall and handsome you are I" with little gushes of impetuous kissing. ** And how glad I am that you are here!" ** My dear little Sybil/' Cyril said, with a light laugh, ** what unconscious havoc I have been making with your five- year-old heart I And you really like me so much as this?" " Like you! I love you better than anybody — ever so much better than brother Charley. But then Charley's only three years old, and you're a great big man, and wear a lovely uni- form, and I llko big men. " ** And lovely uniforms — highly characteristic of the sex! But it is growing dark, my fairy princess, and if I am to catch the seven-fJty train back to London, it is high time I was on the move. The fly from the railway is. waiting for me just outside the gates. '^ "Going back? Oh, Cyril!" *' I must, my pet,"' the lieutenant said, smiling a little sadl^ at that reproachful cry. "It is Hobson's choice, if you know what that is. Say good-bye for me to Lady Lemox and babv Charley, and kiss mo yourself." I'll go with you to the gates. Yes, I will!" impetuously, as she saw her companion about to object. " Wait until I get my cloak; I won't be a minute." \ She darted away like a spirit — a little, slender thing, all in white, with bright brown ringlets down to her slender waist, and great wide eyes of luminous blackness. Gone and back like a flash, this time with a little cloak of scarlet cloth, the hood drawn over the brown curls, and the bright, pretty face peeping out rosily froni the hood. "Little Red Kiding-Hood," the young man said, "and I am the Wolf. Come on, my fairy. Very polite of you, I must say, to escort me so far. Are you in the habit of seeing your gentlemen friends to the entrance gates. Miss Lemox?" " No," said the fairy; " because there isn't one of them half so big or so beautiful as you. Cousin Cyril. The oflScers from Speckhaven come here; but some of them are old, and most of them are ugly, and I don't like them at all. Oh I what a nice evening it is, and how sorry I am you are going away!" They were walking down the long, winding avenue that led to the portico entrance of the house, the stately trees meeting above their heads, the golden stars a-glitter in the cloudlt^sa blue. Very beautiful — mysteriously beautiful — looked the black SI WHO WDTBf t 1 f \M I ilepfchB of woodland, the yellow groves of fern, the glimmering X>ol3 and lakelets, the velvet sweeps of sward. The young man sighed as he loDKed, then langhed. ** I am a modern Lara going forth from his father's halli, the * world all before me where to choose.' And my little Sybil is sorry I am going away? Well, it is pleasant to know that, even though you do usurp my rights by and bv. What a charming little heiress you will make, my pretty Sybil, and what damage those big black eyes and ilowing ringlets will do after awhile! You don't like" the oflicers from Speckhaven now, but you'll change your mind presently, my little one, and forget even the existence of Cousin Cyril." "Forget you!" cried Sybil, indignantly. "You know better than that. I wish I wore grown up a young lady now, and then you would' marry me, wouldn't you, Cyril? 'And I might go with you always. I should like that. I should like to go with you always, and go with you everywhere." The shrill whistle of intense amusement with which Lieu- tenant Trevanion greeted this piece of intelligence scared the nightingales chanting vespers in the green gloom. ** By Jove! for a young lady of five years you know how to pop the question astoundingly. Higiily flattered as I must be Dy your honorable intentions, Miss Lemox, yet permit me to decline. This is not leap year, and matrimonial propositions emanating from your sex are not for an instant to be tol- erated. Besides, my precious little beauty, 1 have one wife already." Sybil's black eyes opened to their widest ~uJ. oefore she could express her surprise or disappointment, there started out from the coppice near a tall, gaunt old woman — a weird fig«. ure, half clad, with naked feet, and streaming iron-gray haii\ gleaming eyes, and dusky face. Sybil recoiled with a little cr}'-, more angry than startled. " It's old Hester — Cracked Hester!" she said. " How dare you come back, after what Uncle Trevanion said to you yes- terday? She tried to steal me away, Cyril, and she snares the rabbits; and uncle says he'll have her transported for poach- ing, if she comes here any more." " He says it, but he won't do it, my little queen," replied the woman in a husky treble, harsh and shrill. " He won't do it; for I know his secret, and the curse that is to fall. The Trevanions have flourished long, but their end is near. The doom is at hand; and then, my handsome soldier — then, my pretty little lady — look to yourselves!" Shtt turned away with a tragical sweep of one bony amv • '■w le glimmering hed. ftither's halli. And my little asaiit to know id bv. What tfcy Sybil, and nglets will do n Speckhaven iiy little one, '* You know mg ladv now, ::!yril? And I I should like are/' 1 which Lieu- nce scared the 1. L know how to as I must be permit me to .1 propositions mt to be tol- bave one wife u'. oefore she U'e started out — a weird fig^ ron-gray hau\ m. startled. '' How dare d to you yes- she snares the ied for poach- lecn," replied "He won't J to fall. The is near. The ier — then, my • bony amv • WHO WUiTlf fl ipectrsl glance of warning out of the gleaming old tyes— > turned slowly away, chanting as she went: *• The Doom slinll fall on Monkswood Hall. Our Lftdy and her gmcel Dark falls llie doom upon the lost Fair dau<;hler of the race. •• The bat slmll flif. llie owl shnll hoot, Grim Ruin stalks with hiisfe; The Doom shall full when Monkswood Hall Is changed to Monkswood Waste." " She always sings that," Sybil whispered, with a little ihiver. " But, then, she is mad, poor thingi Here we are at the gates, and there ia your tly. Will you come back soon, Cyril?'' wistfully. ** I may never come back." He stooped and kissed her tenderly. *' But don't quite forget me, my dear little Sybil, and, remember, I will always have a tender spot in my heart for you. Come, we will exchange love tokens, little one! Here ia this ring. Wear it round your neck until these fairy fingers grow large enough for it. If I meet you a score of years from now, a stately and gracious young lady, I will know Cousin Cyril is still remembered by this token." He kissed her again, and set her down. " Will you be afraid to return, Sybil— afraid of Cracked Heater?" ** Oh, no! I will run all the way. And, Cyril, I will wear J^our ring, and love you forever. And when I am a young ady, please come back for me, and I will go with you any- where in the wide world." " You will * live with me and be my love,* " the gay husaar said, laughing. *' It wouldn't be proper, Sybil, unless they introduce polygamy into this narrow-minded country, pend- ing your growing up. Good-bye, niy little one. I may re- mm'd you of all this in years to come. Meantime, farewell— a long farewell — my darling little Sybil." He leaped into the fly and was gone, and the pretty fairy stood regretfully gazing after him, with a solitaire diamond flashing in her hands — to meet again — how? CHAPTER IV. CYRIL TREVANION HEARS THE TRUTH. « But he will surely relent, Cyril. You are his only son." ** He will never relent^ Bose. You don't know my fa^ieii u WHO WINS? Wo Trovanions arc a bitter and vindictive race, and as Shake- speare says, * Fathers have flinty hearts; no i)rayer8 can move them.' No, my dear little bride, all hone is over there. I would die of starvation at his tliresholcl — die ten thousand deaths — before I would ever stoop to sue to him more." ** And sue me die, too!" Hose Trevanion said, bitterly; ** for it will come to that, I suppose. You have notliing but your lieutenant's pay — a brilliant prospect for the future." They were at Brighton, whither the hussar had brought hig bride, walking on the AVest Cliff. TJio November day was shortening fast; a chill wind blew over the sea. Few were abroad in the raw, autumnal twilight — those few strangers to them. He had brought his bride to Brighton — this discarded heir — that she might be near, in case his father consented to see her. That hope was over now. He had but just returned from that fruitless pilgrimage to Monkswood, to find their lodgings deserted and liis three-weeks' bride sauntering drearily up and down the Wiest Clill. ** Or I may go on the stage again— take to rouge and spangles once more, and earn the daily bread and damp beel of every-day life," she said, still more bitterly. ** Other wom- en of my profession do it, and have done it — why not I? Mrs. Cyril Trevanion will bo a taking and high-sounding name for the bills." Lieutenant Trevanion looked in wonder at his wife. She stood gazing at the mists rising on the sea, her pretty yellow curls blowing back, the rose bloom bright on her cheeks — youthful and sweet as a dream. But the fair brows were knit, the dark eyes gleamed angrily, and the rosebud mouth was rigidly compressed. *' It will hardly come to that. Rose," he said, gravely. ** Cyril Trevanion 's wife will never tread again the theatrical boards, and she knows it. 1 have influential friends, my Rose. They will use their influence in my favor, and obtain me an appointment abroad — a lucrative one, in some of the colo- nies. You will not object to going abroad with me, my dar- ling?" Rose Trevanion shrugged her graceful shoulders. ** It is that, or starve, I suppose. If we must become ex- iles, we must; but I confess I haidly looked forward to this sort of life. Lieutenant Trevanion, when I married you." The young man's powerful dark eyes jfixed full upon her in a look she felt, but did not meet. • ^ " Then you regret your marriage. Rose? You loved the WHO WINS? ou loved tho name, the wealth, and tho position of General Trevanion*« heir — nol tliu iiimi who loved you?'* " If you wish to put it so — yes," tho hride of three weokt answered, with hitter rcoklossness. ** Of one thing you may be certain, sir: if I hud known iJiis was to bo the result, I should not liavo hwn your wife to-day! Let us talk no more about it. It is too hiti^ now." She turned ])L'tulantly away from liim, and looked moodily seaward. Very fair and childish nho appeared — very sweet and delicate lookeil tho rosy mouth that uttered such cruel words. Her young husband stood beside her, his handsome face more darkly stern than mortal man had ever seen that face before. ** It grows cold. Do you not wish to return to the hotel?" he asked, brielly, after a ])ausc. ** No. AVhat does it matter? The sooner I take cold and get my death, 'ind make an end of it all, the better." He took no notice of the taunt. His face could hardly grow more darkly rigid than it was; but he turned to leave her. ** In that case, then, you will have the goodness to excuse me for a moment. I think I see some one yonder I know." He walked hastily away in the direction of the road. Friendly faces had very little interest for him just at that mo- ment, but anything was better than standing with his wife's frowning brow before him. Left alone. Rose Trevanion drew her mantle abont her, shivering a little in the bleak blast. ** Was it worth while," she thonght, moodily, " to risk so much to gain so little? How much better off ^hall I be out yonder — in some dreary colonial town, the wife of a besotted, moon-struck simpleton, than I was before? Better to have remained Rose Adair yet awhile longer, and waited for the luck that mud have come." Lieutenant Trevanion joined his friends — two military men —one a young and eminently handsome man, the other a tall, nne-looking, powerful personage of nearly forty, whose bronzed face and scars told of battles lost and won. ** Major Powerscourt," the young hussar said, holding out his hand, ** they told me you were home on sick leave, but I confess I hardly looked to see you at Brighton in November. When did you arrive?" " Cyril Trevanion, by all thaii's surprising!" exclaimed the stalwart major. " Why, how the lad has grown since I saw him last, and as like the general, my old commanding officer, as two peasi My friend, Captain Hawksley, of * ours ' — ^Lieu* WHO WINSP 1 1 P tenant TreVanion. When did I arrive? This afternoon, to please Hawksley here, who has friends in the place, and if 1 nad known we were going to have such beastly weather, Td have seen my friend Hawksley very considerably inconven- ienced before I came." " There's nothing the matter with the weather," said Cap- tain Hawksley; " rawish, to be sure, but what would you have in the middle of November? If a man leaves his live: out there in India, he has no right— eh! by Jove! it's not pos- sible, is it? I say, look there, Powerscourt!" Both men stared, foi- Captain Hawksley had all at once fallen into a state of alarming excitement in the middle of his aentence. " Look there, Powerscourt! Rose Dawson, for a ducat!'* " Eh?" cried Powerscourt; " little Rose! the girl who was with you last year deer-stalking in the Highlands I Where?" ** Yonder— alone on the West Cliff. She doesn't see us — how she will open her big black eyes when she does ! And see how the little sorceress is dressed — got up regardless of expense. What's the name of the latest moth whose wings she has singed, I wonder?" ** Lacelles was speaking of her the other day at the club," said the major; *' told me she had found some rich fool to marry her. Poor devil! Why didn't she cut his throat at once! Let's go and congratulate her." " Stop!" said Cyril Trevanion. He was deathly pale, and his eyes glittered like live coals. " I — I happen to know that lady, and I— for God's sake, Powerscourt!" with a sudden fierce cry, " what is it you mean?" The two men looked at him, then at each other. Major Powerscourt had been smoking — he took his cigar from be- tween his lips, and laid his hand on the young hussar's shoulder. "You know that lady?" he said; "don't tell me, Cyril trevanion, that you have married her!" " I have married her!" Cyril Trevanion cried, loudly and passionately; '^ she is my wife — what then?" " Why then," replied Powerscourt, dropping his hand and replacing his cigar, '* I have nothing more to say; only the Booner you take your pistol and blow your brains out, the bet- ter. Heavens and earth, Trevanion, what an egregious young ass you have been!" " Stop!" the young man exclaimed, hoarsely, " even snch old friendship as yours, Powerscourt, gives you no right — ** He stopped short, literally unable to ^o on, almost sujfocated WHO WlJfS ? Vt I with ihe horrible emotion within him. Captain Hawksley looked at him compassionately. ** I willleave you with your friend, Pov/erscourt," he said. " I will go back to town, and wait for you on the Parade. Devilish ugly piece of business this altogether!" in a low voice. ** Fm glad to be well out of it." He bowed to Trevanion, but the hussar never saw it. Hia face was ghastly, as Major Powerscourt took his arm and led. I him away. "I'm sorry for you, TrevanioTi," the elder officer said, gravely; " sorrier almost than i* I saw you dead before me. Good heavens! what -will your father say — the proudes*; old martinet in the three kingdoms! Was there no friendly voice to warn you — ^^no friendly hand to reach out and save you from the maddest act of a madman's life? Lacelles told me some one had married her, but, by Jove! I could nH. believe it. 1 couldn't imagine the existence of so infatuated an idiot!" Lieutenant Trevanion burst into a harsh, discordant laugh. " I have heard of Job's comforters, Powerscourt; they flhonld have had you to give them lessons. Speak the truth, man!" turning upon him with sudden fury, ** a-nd speak at once, or I'll tear it from your throat! Who and what is yon- der woman?" ** fcJhe is the most vicious and tmprincipled little adventuress the wide world holds. I met her in Paris. Hawksley and I , both know all about her. Did you never hear of her first mar- riage — of the poor fellow who was her first husband?" ** Her husband!" " A bad business, old boy — yes, she had a husband. He was a private in Hawksley's company — that's how Phil got to know her first. It appears she was originally a Miss Kosine Lemoine, the only daughter of a drunken Frenchman, an actor, a savant, a broken-down roue, and she ran away with 'his soldier — Joe Dawson, I believe he called himself — at the precocious age of fifteen. He was a brute, I must say, a sot of the lowest order, and when she left him and his youngster, three years after, for life in Paris — well, I for one, who don't set up for a rigid moralist, did not blame her. She returned to him, however, four months later, and a heavenly life he led her, if the truth were known, in a state of chronic and beastly drunkenness. Finally, after a flogging, he deserted, taking his wretched little drab of a wife with him, and the next we heard of him he was dead." "Dead!" " As a door nail— murdered— struck with a itone^ right on #-*^l HB TTHO WINS ? p. 1 ! 1 I the temple, by f?ome one all at home in the anatomy. Don't ask me who did it— give the devil his due— -he had earned it richly. There was search made for the wife, but she had -vaa- ished— the authorities of Leamington never found her from that day to this. They buried poor Joe Dawson, and sent the ' child to thu work-house. A year later, a pretty little actress, a Miss Kose Adair, appears, and the initiated knew her at once, but kept their own counsel. Why should Hawksley, and such fellows as that, turn lihadamanthus, and haunt to perdition a poor little wretch who never injured them? There's her story for you, and the sooner and the quieter you get rid of her the better. You may depend upon Hawksloy and me, dear boy — very few know of your mad marriagfe, very f;. v ever need know. I will m.uzzle her ett'ectualiy hi five minutes with the threat of tlie rope and the hatigman. Come, cheer up, Tievanion," with a hearty slap on the shoulder. '' A7/ de.yjermidnm.'^ But Cyril Trevauiun was staring straight before him, with an awful, blind, vacant stare. It was fully five minutes before he spoke, his face v/eariiig the dull, livid pallor of death. " Let us go to her,'' he said, in a hoarse, breathless sort of way. "Oh, my God! I can not believe what you tell me I There is some mistake — some horrible mistake. Let us go to her, Powerscourt, and teil me you never saw her before, or I shall go mad where I stand!" " My poor boy!" Major Powerscourt said, compassionately, ** Heaven knows I would spare you if I could. But it is best you should know the truth. Let us go to her, as you say." They spoke no more; in dead silence they drew near the lonely little figure, still gazing moodily at the gathering mists upon the sea. She recognized the clank of the spurs, and spoke without turning around. " How long you have been. Lieutenant Trevani^n," she said in a tone of peevish impatience. " I am famished and half frozen. Let us go back at — " She never finished the sentence. She had turned around, and was face to face with the Indian major. He stood before her, tall, stalwart, stern as doom, and, like a galvanized corpse by his side, stood her deluded husband. Her face turned of a dead waxen whiteness from brow to chin, and the words she was uttering froze on her lips. ** Major Powerscourt!" '* Yes, Rose Dawson,'-' Major Powerscourt answ?; red, stern- ly, "it is L You hardly expected to see me again so soon, when we parted in Paris, did you? I confess, for my part, I WHO WHSrS? omy. Don't had earned it she had vaa- nd her from and sent the little actress, knew her at d Hawksley, and haunt to jured them? e quieter you on Hawksley ad marrfaij'b, •effectually in he hangman, slap on the )re him, wfth linutes before •f death. Lthless sort of you tell me I Let us go to jr before, or I fl passionately. But it is best 3 you say. '' rew near the thering mists le spurs, and *> van J on," she famished and irned around, ! stood before anized corpse face turned nd the words 3w:vred, stern - igain so soon, )r my part, I should as soon have looked for the empress of ohe French promenading the West Clitl at Brighton. I thought it was an understood thing you did not come to England, Mrs. Daw- son?" She made no reply; she stood white and trembling to the very lips. The major loomed up before her, big, stern, piti- less as death itself. '' I came here with another old friend of yours, Rose — Cap- tain Philip Hawksley. And I have told Lieutenant Trevan- ion all. Do you hear. Rose Dawson? for I deny your claim to any other name — all. That nasty little episode of poor Joe Dawson among the rest." She uttered a low, wordless cry of abject terror, and hid her white, frightened face in both hands. '' You're a clever little woman. Rose, and I rather admire your pluck in putting an end to that drunken beast Dawson; but, by Jove! when jou delude infatuated young raeo into marrying you, you come it a little too strong. Not that you have the shadow of a claim upon my young friend Trevanion; boys of nineteen can not legally contract marriage s; but lest you should grow to fancy you have, I may as well put an end to your delusion at once. I give you just one week to ^uifc England, my dear Mrs. Dawson; if, at the end of that time you are still to be found, I will have you in the Old Bailey in four-and-twenty hours. And I can hang you, Rose, and I'll do it, by all that's mighty!" She dropped her hands from before her face, and looked him straight in the eyes, her own brightly defiant. The first shock over, and the little golden-haired sorceress could be as insolently defiant as the bravest. " You won't send me to the Old Bailey, and you won't hang me. I^m not afraid of you, Major Powerscourt, or of Captain Hawksley, either. You may surmise what you please; you can prove nothing. As for your young friend Trevanion," with a disdainful sneer, " I regret my folly in marrying him, quite as much as he can do, and I am perfectly ready and willing to give him back his liberty at any moment. I married the heir of Monkswood and Trevanion, not a penni- less, discarded son, doomed to subsist on a lieutenant's pitiful Eay. I will resign Lieutenant Cyril Trevanion within the our, provided Lieutenant Cyril Trevanion does the handsome thing by me, and pensions mo off as he ought to do." "What a mercenary little scoundrel you are. Rose!" the big major said, half indignant, ^ ;ilf amused. " Your candor ifi absolutely refreshing, and your ckcekiness in making termi 80 WHO WlSBf &! -I m r-' at all, the best joke I have xieard lately. Cyril, my lad, let tis go back to the hotel; we can't arrange matters here; and for Heaven's sake, dear boy, don't wear that corpse-like facel This horrible little DeliJah is not worth one honest man's heart-pang. You perceive your candor is contagious, Mrs. Dawson. Take my arm, if you please. I want to turn the key upon you presently." He drew her hand resolutely within his arm, and Rose obeyed not unwillingly. She saw one of those women ready to be your abject slave or your merciless tyrant according as they find you. Major Powerscourt showed himself master of the situation, and the fatal little siren respected him accord- ingly- They reached the hotel, passing Captain Hawksley on the Parade. The captain removed his cigar and touched his hat in sarcastic homage to the late Miss Adair, and Rose's black eyes flashed their angry lightning upon him as she swept by. Major Powerscourt led her to her own door, saw her enter, turned the key, and put it in iiis pocket. ** Now then, Trevanion," he said, kindly, ** we'll go to your apartment, dear old boy, and settle this nasty little affair at once. Come, cheer up, man! It's an ngly mistake, but by no means irreparable. We'll divorce you irrm Rose Daw- son in the next twelve hours, without the aid of Sir Cresswell Cress well." " Wait!" Lieutenant Trevanion said in the same hoarse, breathless way he had spoken before — '* wait; give me time. Leave me alone for a little. I can't talk, 1 can't think. I feel as though I were going maa." "He looks like it, by Jove!" exclaimed the majo", in alarm. ''Curse that httle yellow-haired Jezebel! Remain here one instant, Cyril. I'll fetch you a glass of brandy."' Cyril Trevanion leaned heavily against the wall, his breath coming in suffocating gasps, his face now li\idly pale, now flashing fiery red ^^ith the surging blood in his brain. He [ stood literally stunned, everything swimming before him in a ; hot, red mist. The major reappearrd with a glass of brandy. "Drink it," he exclaimed, impetuously, **ftnd get out of thifi stupor, if you can. Be a man, Cyril Trev-^nlon. Few know of your folly; few need ever know. In twelve months you \^ill be ready to laugh with me at the whole thing, and snap jrour fingers in her face. Drink this and go to youi room, if you will. In an hour I will ]o\n you." WRO fTDflf 81 The young man drained the fiery fiuid and handed back thtt glass. ** I will go to my room," he sa'l, the red light flashing back into his white face. " I may thank you later, Powers- court, for what you have done to-day. I can not now.'* He wrung the"^ major's hand and strode away. The Indian . officer heard him eater his room, close and lock the door aftei ' him. ** An ugly business,'* Powerscourt said, with a somber shake of the head — " a confoundedly ugly piece of business. Great Heaven! what fools young men are, and what an aban- doned little fiend that fair-haired enchantress upstairs must bel 1 hope that boy will do nothing rash He would not be the first Trevanion who has blown out his brains for less. lUl have a talk with Hawksley. Kose must march before the sun rises." He found his friend taking a constitutional on the piazza, still solacing himself with his cigar, and watching the cold, white November moon with dreamy eyes. ** Well," he said, taking his friendi's arm, " and how have you settled it? Poor devil! I pity him with all my souL- I can imagine no greater torture, here or hereafter, than being tied for life to that fair-haired termagant!" ** We don't tie people for life in these latter days," the ma- jor responded. ** I'm not afraid of Madame Rose; we will get rid of ker easily enough. It's Trevanion himself Pm afraid of. The lad will go mad or kill himself under the disgrace. I have known him from boj'hood, you see, and I understand pretty thoroughly the stuff he is made of. I could throttle Joe Dawson's relict this minute with all the pleasure in lif^I" */ Do," said Hawksley, serenely. " I wish you would. It might save, in the future, some honest man. But a few hun- dred pounds will buy her off. She goes cheap, the little vil- lain. Oh! what is that?" It was a woman's shrill scream. The nert instant Rose herself came flying down the stair-way, and out before them on the moonlit piazza. "The deuce!" said the major. ** I thought I locked her in. Does the chief of the infernal angels help her to whisk through key-holes? How did you get out, mistress?" ** 1 wanted to speak to Cyril Trevanion," Rose answered, breathlessly, " and I pushed back the bolt with a pair of scissors. For pity's sake, go to him. Major Powerscourt! Something dreadful has happened! Not that way — not that way I His door is locked!" 83 WHO WINSf The Indian major waited for no more; he dashed away down the piazza to the window of the young lieutenant's room. The window, like the door, was closed and fastened, and the surtaiu was drawn; but through a spaoe which the curtain did not cover he oould see into the brightly lighted room. One fiance was enough. With a cry which mortal man had never efore heard from the stern lips of the bold Indian sabreur, he dashed the casement in with one blow of his mighty fist, and leaped headlong into the apartment. CHAPTER V. SENT ADRI FT. Cyeil Teevaniox lay face downward on the floor, still and lifeless as a dead man. On the table was a brace of pistols, a half-written letter; a dark stream of blood trickled slowly from the livid lips and formed a little pool on the carpet. The major raised him up, with a deep exclamation of hor- ror. The helpless head fell back over his arm, the limbs be- ing limp and lifeless, and the dark, dreadful stream still trickled from the ghastly lips. " He has not shot himself, after all," said Major Powers- court, glancing at the loaded pistols; " he only meant to, and nature has saved him the trouble. He has ruptured an artery while writing his letter. Here, Hawksley, send some ol these papers after a doctor, and see that Rose Dawson does not make her escape." ** I shall not try to escape, Major Powerscourt," Rose said, with a little disdainful air. " Why should I? If Lieutenant Trevanion ruptures an artery, no one can blame mc for that . foolish act. I will return to my room, and await Major Pow- erscourt's good pleasure. " " Go, then," the major said, sternly, " and pack u}» your belongings. Before day-dawn you will be many a mile i'rom this, or — " The little beauty shrugged her graceful shoulders and smiled insolently as she turned to leave the room. ** You do well to leave your sentence unfinished. You will not harm a hair of my head, and you know it, Major Powers- court. The Indian hero would hardly gain much credit in a victory over poor little me." She left the room and went up' to her own — a luxuriant apartment, brilliantly lighted. But once alone, and the inso- lent smile faded, the fair face tm-ned hard and drawn, the WHO WINS ? Sd blarA eyes took a fierce, bitter light. She stood in the center oi the room, the gas-light flooding her sylph-like figure ai'd flashi^ back from her bright silk dress. ,. " Is it worth while/' she thought, ** to risk bo much to gain ll 80 little? /s the game worth the candle? Must my whole life \] be like this — one endless round of plottings and counter-plot- tiiigs — of defeat in the very hour of victory? I fled from a drunken sot of a father — a father who had dragged me about from town to town, from country to country, from one wretched lodging to another — to a still mort drunken sot of a husband. Good Heaven! the horrible life I led with that man I The sternest censor that ever sat in judgment on frail woman could hardly have blamed me when I left him. And yet, I was mad enough and cowardly enough to return to him — to Joe Dawson!" She covered her face with her hands, shuddering. '* No, I can not ti ik of that. If there be an avenging Heaven, as they say, how will I ever dare to die? Oh, my God! how that dead man's face rises before me in the awful hush of night — that face, as I saw it last, so terribly still and white!" She wrung her hands hard together, and began walking up and down the room in an involuntary hurry, born of the hurry and tumult of her mind. But her face was flushed, and there was a streaming brilliancy in her great, glittering black eyes. "It is not sorrow," she said, setting her white teeth; " it is not remorse. I would do it again, if it were to be done — for he war; the greatest brute earth ever saw, to me. But that terrible face haunts me — will haunt me until my dying dayl And the child — I wonder if it is alive — if it will ever meet its miserable mother? They talk about mother-love, those others. Perhaps I am different from the rest of the world; but I always hated it as I hated its father — little crying, fret- ^ ful torment I It is dead, no doubt — work-house children al- ways die. '' I She continued her walk up and down, her slender fingers twisting themselves convulsively, her exquisite face strangely old and haggard and hard in the garish gas-light. ** And 710'iv/' she thought, bitterly, " this last failure — the worst of all! I took pains enough and trouble enough. Heaven knows, to lure Cyril Trevanion, the heir of fifteen thousand a year, to his fate. I thought to reign at Monkswood Priory — to have done with this miserable life of lying, and scheming, and crime — to turn Lady Bountiful, to become the mother of the Gracchi, an honored matron among the landed ladies of England, and lo! in the very hour of my triumph, I find my / L- u- 84 WHO WIKSf U-' huBband discarded by his patrician father, and no hopo Vefore as but a dreary existence, dragged out in some forlorn 'oreign colony. And 'then, Philip Kawksley and this big Indian ma- jor must needs turn up and defeat even thut pro'jecfc. ''Truly there is a destiny which shapes our ends, in spite of our clev- , erest schemes. Well, I can face either fortune — I am no worse off at least than I was before, and I vvon't leave Eng- land—I won'ti not for Cyril Trevanion and Philip Hawksley, and Major Powerscourt combined. Vu iStay, and I'll have re- venge on General Ewes Trevanion as sure as my name is Rose. I will never cross his threshold, on't 1? I will never own one centime of his money, forsooth^' She clinched her little fist, and her black eyes literally U^zed. '* Very well; we shall see!'' There was a knock at the door. Cyril Trevanion's bride threw herself into a fauteuil before the fire, elevated her pretty little lotlines on the fender, laid her head against the violet velvet back of her chair, and said in her softest, sweet- est soprano tones: '* Come in, Major Powerscourt." Major Powerscourt came in. Rose never stirred. The hard-drawn lines vanished from the rose-tinted face, and bright little smiles dimpled the dainty mouth. She made an exquisite picture, reclining there, the glistening golden hair in shining contrast to the violet velvet, the dark eyes luminous as twin diamonds. But Major Powerscourt had come straight from the bedside of his friend, struck down as by lightning through this amber- tressed siren's perfidy, and he was as little moved by all that sensuous splendor or beauty and colux^^g as weather-beaten St. Simon Stylites on his hoary pillar might have been after twenty austere years. " ¥/iJl you sit down. Major Powerscoutt?" the little beauty said, waving one richly ringed hand airily toward a chair. " You have a great deal to say to me, I dare say, and it will be much more comfortable to say it sitting than standing. How is Lieutenant Trevanion now? Poor fellow! I am really very sorry for him. Since you are heartless enough to part man and wife. Major Powerscourt, it would be so much nicer to part amicably. He has returned to consciousness, I hope? What does the doctor say?" " That it is the turn of a straw whether he ever survives. That if he does survive, it is ten chances to one but he will be an idiot for life!" The little lady lifted her plump white ehouldent. WHO WIKSP , ii " How yery unpleasant! Boys of nineteen take things ter- ribly in earnest. And you won't sit down, Major Powers court? Tlien, as it makes one fidgety to see you standing there so frightfully grim and stern, will you be good enougn to say what you have come to say, and go outh Only, please don't scold — it never does any good, and I .dislike to be scolded. '" '^ " Do you, indeed?*' said the Indian officer, grimly. In spite of himself, the insolent audacity of the frail little midget before him amused him. She looked so pretty, so tiny, 80 childish, so helpless, that, wicked little sinner as he knew her to be, the harsh words he oiicfht to utter died upon his lips. The contest between the strong, stalwart man and the slender sylphide seemed so terribly unequal. " Do you, indeed, Mrs. Dawson?" he said, eyin^ her stoic- ally. *' I wonder how a cell in the Old Bailey, a diet of bread and water, a prison barber to shave off all those lovely ring- lets, and R. prison garb to exchange for that glistening silken robe, would suit you? I have the strongest mind to try it I ever had to try anything." "Don't be disagreeable," Rose said, petulantly; "you know you haven't. You would be ashamed of yourself all ycur hfe long if you did anything half so unmanly. I'm only a poor little woman. Major Pgwerscourt, and if I try to better myself, who can blame me?" ** Ah! you are going to do the pathetic! Well, don't waste I your eloquence, Rose. I'll let you off scot-free this time, to better yourself once more. I wonder who you'll victimize [next, Mrs. Dawson?" " Don't call me Mrs. Dawson," Rose burst out, angrily; I" I hate the name! And I am Cyril Trevanion's wife, and have a right to his name. I am Mrs. Trevanion as fast aa [Church and State can make me." ** Church and State, in this case, standing for Oretna JSreen," said the major. " It was the Immortal Blacksmith who tied the nuptial knot, wasn't it? But we waste time talking. Here are my terms: I will giv6 you one hundred [pounds, and yc will Isave England as swiftly as steam can [carry you, ana netter yourself in France or anywhere else, if fou choose. You may beguile the Emperor of the French or the Sultan of Turkey into marrying you, for all I will ever interfere. I resign them cheerfully to the worst of all earthly 'iteflp—into being duped by you. But you must promise never return to England— never to trouble Cyril TreYanicn \- "; I.' '; I H WHO WIKBf '/A*. 7(1 " I will promise nothing of the sort I" She arow m 8hi| ipoke, aDd stood brightly defiant before him, her little figun erect, her fair head thrown back. " I won't leave England I will depart from this place as soon as you please— I will promise nothing. _ remain. It is of no used for you to threaten and bluster, | Major Powerscourt— I tell you, I wo7i't !'' She stamped her little foot, and folded her pretty arms, and I looked up at him ablaze with rebellion- and Major Poweri. court looked down at th( defiant fairy in a whimsical mixture | of anger and amusement. ** Give me the hundred pounds," she said, holding forth onel plump, bejeweled hand. ** It's a pitiful sum enough, but it will suffice for the present. And the next time you meet mo, Major ^owerscourt — or your friend Captain Hawksley, either — be good enough to mind your own business and let me alone." Major Powerscourt took out his pocket-bpok, still staring in| comical dismay at the flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. *' Upon my soul, Rose," he said, " you hav3 an unequaledl knack of turning the tables. I yield. But, mind, it's a weak and cowardly act of me; and if you ever trouble poor Cyril Trevanion more, I'll keep my promise and have you up for the murder of Joe Dawson. Ah! tluU makes you wince, does it? Remember the sword of Dam — what's his name?— ^U8-| pended by a single hair. Let Cyril Trevanion and my per- Donal friends alone, and the hair will uphold the sword; med- dle with them — " " That will do," Rose said, disdainfully. ** Don't trouble! yourself to finish the sentence. I won't interfere with Cyril I'revanion, unless in the future Cyril Trevanion interferes with me. In that case, self-preservation is the first law of nature, I'll not be crushed with impunity by anybody. Suppose you give me your purse off-hand. Major Powerscourt, as they do on the stage. General Trevanion would give more than one| hundred pounds, I dare say, to see his son free." The Indian officer grimly laid two crisp fifties in the pretty I pink palm. ** I give 3^ou just one hour," he said, pulling out his watch,| ** to get to the station. There is a train for London at ten- fifty. You will go by that. And remember, for the latt time, if you cross my path again, I'll not spare you. Yol beauty and your blandisWents have about as much efteot apcal WHO WUfS F 87 me M the beauty of Kathleen had upon the etony St. Eeym when he hurled hor over the rock. And, by all the gods, 1*11 ixurl you to perdition without mercyl Have you l^lything more to suy to me before we part?" ** Only this," said the bride of Cyril Trevanion, her pretty face sparkling with malicious audacity, ^' that it is a thousand piiies I did not marry i/ou instead of that milksop down- stairs. To dupe such a man as you would be something to be proud of to tho last day of one's life. Good-bye, Major Powerscourt. If we ever mee*^ again, don't be too hard on poor little Boso." She actually held out her hand, and Major Powerscourt, in ipite of himself, took it. The next instant he was gone, in- dignant at his own weakness and folly; and Rose Trevanion, alone in her room, laughed a silvery peal of triumph. ** I can wind the best of them and the sternest of them around my little finger," she said, exultingly. " General Trevanion is a widower. Who knows, then? I may reign queen of Monkswood yet, in spite of the discarded son and lit- tle Sybil Lemox." Within the hour he had given her, "Rose Trevanion left the hotel. She carried a large morocco bag in her hand, contain- ing her jewels and that mysterious copper box, which she would no6 intrust to the keeping of her trunk. By the ten- fifty train, flying through the brilliant November moonlight, weaving silently her dark plots, the little adventuress spea on her way to London. CHAPTER VI. **AND NOW I'm in THE WORLD ALONE." Lying back in the softest of lounging-chairs, smoking an unexceptionable hubble-bubble — a supper worthy of the Troisj Freres before him — Cyril Trevanion sat gazing out at the falling January snow and the lights ol the town twinkling feebly through the white drift. For it was January now, and the foam of the sea, seen from I his window, was not whiter than the streets of Brighton. It had been a sharp struggle between life and death, during those I weary weeks of brain fever, but his strong, young manhood, Ihis iron constitution, had vanquished death. He was conva* llescent now — the pale shadow of his darkly hand some, self, but iwlth life beating strongly in the strong heart that only knew |it8 own bitterness. The haggard face looked very still and ' 1-— almost marble-lilce in its white calm. He was t&ciag ''K^J'^FvWJ!^ Il I ■ i 8i WSO WZ9B? the inevitalle, as all brave men must, with stoical enduranoi and quiet , , v, . The news had fled ajDace— borne on the very winds ox hearen. The latest sensation el the clubs and the nieas-tablcs, among gossiping dowagers a id chatteriitg young ladiei, waa the mad marriage of General Trcvanion's only son. "Poor devil I" the men said, with a lau'^h and a shrug, ** what an in conceivable idiot the fellow must be. He has sent her adrii't they say— no doubt the little ballerina has made a capita, thing oi it." It had flown down even to Moukswood Pnory, to goad the fiery-hearted old seigneur to utter madness—lo make him curse, in hia passionate pride, the hour of that once idolized son's birth. And Cyril Trevanion knew all this— they did their best, Major Powerscourt and Captain Hawksley, in their friendly good nature, but they could not keep it from him. Did it not stare at him from the very columns of BeWs Lifej with tell- tale initials and droll comments? If his pale face turned a shade more ghastly, if his teeth locked hard together — he made no other sign. His six-shooter lay ready to his hand, but he never looked that way. In the -'rst hour of his mad- ness, those pistols, lying loaded on his table, were to have blown out his infatuated brains; but ho had been saved, as by fire, and his thoughts never turned to that escape now. And not once, since he had been stricken down by that Unseen Hand, had the fatal name of the golden-haired traitress escaped his lips. He sat alone this evening. Major Powerscourt had left him to enjoy his Manilla in the keen January air. He sat alone, smoking steadily — the book he had been reading fallen on his knee — his dark, dreamy eyes fixed on the darkening sky and sea. It was quite dark when the Indian officer strolled in, filling the warm room with a rush of wintery air. "Musing in the gloaming," the major sojd, cheerily, ** romantic, dear boy, but uncommonly conducive to dismals and blue devils. We'll light the gas and send you to bed; in- valids always ^o to roost with the chickens." "Never' mind the gas, Powerscourt," the younger man said, impatiently; " there is light enough for what I want to say. I have played invalid long enough — I'll be off to-mor row." i> **AhI" said the major, taking a seat near, and lighting another weed. "You're off, ate you? Well, I have no ob- jection, provided your destination is Moukswood." ** Moakswoodl'^ Cyril Trevanion repeated, bitterly. " My ffMO WWi? 19 last Tiiit to Monkswood was so pleasant, that it is likely I will hasten to return. The r6Io of Prodigal Son is not the least in my line, and General Trevanion is hardly the sort of father to kill the fatted calf and robe the pciiitont in gold and purple. No, Powerscoiirt, I have looked my last on Monkswood. I am the first of the race who ever disgraced tlip name of Trevanion —a name that never was approached by shame until I bore it. I know how my father received me last — on© hardly cares to brave that sort of thing twice." The major listened very quietly. ** What, then, do you mean to do? You haye some plan formed, I suppose?' ' *' Yes, I shall exchange- — go out to India. One always finds hot work out yonder, and tho sooner a Sepoy bullet sends one more fool out of the world, tho better. 1 \,as cowaid enough, that first night, to meditate Kelf-murdor. I am thankful, at least, that tfiat last dastardly deed was spared me. It would be a fitting ending, no doubt, for such a besotted life as mine has been. '° '* Don't give it such terrible earnestness, my friend,*' Major Powerscourt said, puffing calmly at his cigar; *' nothing is eyer worth a scene. You will go out, of course — in any case you could hardly do better; but let us hope for a more agree- able ending than a Sepoy bullet. And one's father is one's father; if I were you 1 would run down to Monkswood and say adieu. Even* General Ewes Trevanion may have been guilty of follies in his life-time — if not, then he has been most confoundedly slandered. Let him think of the past, and not turn so tremendously Spartan and stiff-necked. We all haye our little weaknesses where pretty women are concerned — the best of us." Cyril laughed sardonically. ** But you don't marry them, my boy. I might have been enamorea of all the griseltes and ballet-girls ni London; so that r did not stoop to the madness of wedlock, my rigidly moral father might have disapproved, but he assuredly would not have discarded me. However, as you say, a father once, a father always; and the dear old governor has always acted like a trump tc me. I'll go down, if you insist very strongly, Powerscourt — I owe you more than that." He stretched forth his hand in the darkness, and his friend grasped it in a strong grip. ** Be a man, and live down the present. We will laugh oyer it together out there in India, when you win your colonelcy. And she — have yon no curiosity about her, Trevanion?" i II i grRwsome place and a lonesome. And ye've cam back, Mais- ter Cyril, and we niver thocht to clap ee on ye mair." The young man leaned heavily against the granite archway, very pale. He was v eak still, and he had not expected this. " Do you know wLere my father has gone?" he asked. ** Deii tak' me if I do! He was of a high stomach and a proud temper always, and it's no likely he'd tak' auld Mclver mto his confidence and tell him his plans like in a twa-handed crack. £ dinna ken, Maister Cyril, where ony ane o' them's ^ane; but Mistress Telfer she's awa' to Trevanion Park, and a' the sairvents wi' her, clapt on board wages, i: el sech'n a time as the gineral may see feet to come back. And Janet iDd m&t we're left here teel further orders; and deil's in i^ WHO WMTfi? 48 bnt I think the auld prior o' ghaisfcly memory Btalki frae room to room, tellinff his beads aud — '* The garrulous old keeper of Monkswood was cut short by finding himself suddenly alone. The young heir had swung himself abruptly round and disappeared. *' Hech, sirs!*' muttered Mclver, staring after him into the t;wilight; " deil to my suul, if he's no eane! He's no unlike a speerit himsel', stalkin' up pale and dark, and vanishing in the clapping o' an ee like a ghaist in the gloanalng. Weel, i maun gang back to Janet and the parritch.'* He relocked the door, wagging his hoary head, and Cyril Trevanion strode down in the wintcry starlight, solitary and alone .as he had come. The moon had risen above the tree- tops — a round, white, silver shield, with numberless stars cleaving clear and keen around her, and the mystic glades of fern and underwood black with bitter frost, the dark expanse of beech and elm and oak looked wondrously beautiful in the solemn night. The discarded son turned to take one parting look, his heart very bitter. ** Will I ever see it again?" he said, aloud, between his set teeth. ** A i >ble heritage lost through the mad folly of a mad boyl My pretty Sj'bil may take this with the rest; 1 will never return to claim it. Seven feet of Indian soil, and an In- dian bullet to do its merciful work, is all I ask of Fate now!" " And even tliat yon will not get, dishonored son of many Trevanions!" said a shrill voice at his elbow. " A soldier's honored grave is too fair a fate for your father's son. The curse of the murdered prior, shot down like a dog: in yonder green glade, will fall on the last of the race I And you aud Sybil Lemox are the last!" He had turned round, and found himself face to face with the weird witch who had surprised him on his last visit — old Hester. ** You again, Hecate?" he said. "You can trespass with impunity now, I suppose. But hadn't you better keep civil, and hadn't you best not play eavesdropper? Suppose you go home, my venerable beldame^ if you possess such a thing. These night-dews are uncommonly provocative of rheumatics. He walked away rapidly; but old Hester stood where he had left her, shaking her bony fist after him impotently. ** The curse will come! the doom will fall! I see it in the future — your fate and the little Lady Sybil's. I have read the stars, and I know what they say, and the time is coming taat 44 WHO WDTB? •• The bat shall flit, tho owl shall hoot; Grim Kuin stalks with haste; The doom shall full when Monkswood Hall is changed to Monkswood Waste!" And with the ominous crconing of this hoary old raven, Cyril Trevauion looked his last on Monkswood Priory. Two weeks later, amolig the crowd assembled on the pier, watching the steamer bearing the troops to the transport fur- ^ ther down the Thames, there stood a little woman, closely veiled, whose eyes were steadfastly fixed on one figure, stand- ing a trifle apart on the deck— a conspicuous figure, the lofty head towering erect, even among those stalwart old veterans — a figure that stood with folded arms, the military cap drawn over his moody brows, looking his last on England — Lieuten- ant Cyril Trevanion. As the steamer puff'ed its way out into the stream, farewell cheers given and returned, the band plajing gayly '' The Girl I Left Behind Me," the little woman on the pier, with a sud- den motion, flung back her veil and made her way to the front. People made room for the pretty, girlish face, lighted with its brilliant azure eyes, and shaded by glittering amber ring- lets. As by mesmeric force, the dark eyes of the solitary gazer on the deck turned that way and encountered tho brightly smil- ing eyes, the dimpled, roseate face, °* Bon voyage, Cyril!" called the clear, silvery voice of the siren. ** Lntil we meet again, adieu and au revoir P' He never moved. The steamer snorted and puffed her noisy way across tlie Thames, until the pier and the crowd were but black species against the sunlit February sky. But the last sound Cyril Trevanion heard was the musical voice of the woman who had driven him, an outcast and an exile, from his native land; the last face he was doomed to see on English soil, the fatal face of Hose, his wife. « CHAPTER VIL LA PRINCESSE TilEVANIOtT. >» " And after fifteen years of absence- -fifteen years of board- ing-school, of sunny Fraiice and Italy — it is home again to dear old Trevanion, to reign mistress of an inheritance to rbich I possess not the shadow of right. Oh, Cyril! hero ol WHO wnrsP il my childhood, dream of my life, will you ever return to claim your own — those broad acres which I would so gladly resign, your lon^-lost birthright? Where, weary wanderer that he IS, where in all the wide earth is Cyril Trevanion to-day?" She leaned against the casement, and the violet eyes that gazed over the wide expanse of pleasaunce, of swelling meadow^ of deep, dark woodlaiid, of velvet lawn, filled with slow tears. A beautiful girl of nineteen, tall, stately and delicate as a young queen; the graceful figure, with its indescribable, high- bred air, the small head held erect, with a hauteur that wos as unconscious as it was becoming; almond eyes of deepest violet, that could soften or lighten, melt or flash, as you willed it, in the same instant; and waves and masses of rich, dark- brown hair, some warmer shade of black, worn in coils and curls in a gracefully negligent way that of itself might have bewitched you. A beautiful girl, a trifle proud of her long lineage, the sang azure in her patrician veins, it may be. A trifle imperious and passionate in the assertion of her rights, or the wrongs of others, but sweet and true and tender to the core of her heart. Romantic too, as it is in the nature of nineteen to be; given to dreaming over Tennyson, and Alfred de Musset, and Owen Meredith, and gentlemen of that ilk: a hero- worshiper and a dreamer of dreams, all beautiful J and mostly impracticable. That was Sybil Lemox Trevanion — im* I)etuous, high-spirited, high-tempered, maybe, at times; fear* ess and free, and lovely as your dreams of the angels. She was General Trevanion's legally adopted daughter and heiress now, bearing his name and destined to reign mistress over all these fertile acres of the Trevanions. In the Parisian boarding-school where she had been " fin- ished," the gay little pensionnaircs had dubbed the haughty English girl *' La Princesse," and the name became hjr welt But no fawn of the forest was ever gentler, ever more yieldine, than proud " La Princesse " to those whom she loved; and, like a true Trevanion, she could love or hate with a terrible intensity of strength. She stood now in the recess of a deep Maltese window, wreathed with roses and honeysuckle and all things sweet— an exquisite picture in an exquisite frame. The rich Juno sun- shine glowed in the deep red hearts of those fragrant roses, and sent shafts of fire athwart the brownish blackness of the girl's splendid hair. The white muslin robe she wore, with its rosy ribbons, fluttered in the faint, soft wind. She Wa» neither a pronounced brunette nor blonde. She wore pinky and looked lovely; she wore blue, and looked lovelier still—* 7!?^^*'J"''^^'^ I 46 WHO WTSnt wear what she might, she must ever bo beautiful aud thor- ough-bred; do what the would, she rau3t ever be queenly. It you found her sweeping a crossitjg for pennies, and she flashed upon you the light of those glorious eyes, you would bated your breath aud passed on, and left her " La Princ have mcesse ft Btill. She was quite alone, save for a frisky little Italian grey- hound and a big, majostic Newfoundland, stretched at full jength near, and looking up at her with great, lazy, loving eyes. As she stood in a dreamy reverie of the hero of her life — the "Count Lara" exiled from his father's halls — Oyril Trevanion— she espied a slender young man, dusty and travel- stained, sauntering slowly up to 'the house, smoking languidly as he walked. One glance, and the young lady went hastily forward to meet him. " It Is* Charley!" she said, aloud. " Come, Cyril,'' to the Btately Newfoundland; "come, Sybil," to the frisky little Italian, " here is your old tormentor, brother Charley.*' She tripped away down the linden walk and encountered the languid traveler under the trees. He was her only brother, two years her junior, and just free from Eton. The resem- blance between them \. as very marked as far as looks went Charles Lemox was singularly handsome, and as vain of his almond-shaped eyes and slender feet and hands as any reign- ing belle; but there all resemblance ended. " Dolce jar niente " was the motto by which Master Charles regulated the lazy tenor of his life. " How do, Sybil?" Chi^rlev said, languidly, throwing away his cheroot, and permitting himself to be impetuously kissed, with a gentle sigh of resignation. " Happy to see you again, and looking so very nicely, too. Surrounded by puppies big and little, as usual, I see— four-legged ones. Keally, my beautiful sister, doing the grand agrees with you. You are as ?osy as a milkmaid. And how's the governor?" ' Don't be irreverent, Charley,'-" Sybil answered, pulling his ear. " Poor dear uncle is no better — rather worse, I fear, if anything. But then, he expected it. His physicians aU agreed that to return to England was certain death. Still, he would come — his heart was set on it. ' What does it matter,' he answered them, impatiently, ' whether 1 die this month or next? Sybil, take me home,' and sio here we are." ^ " Enainently characteristic," Charley said in his slow, draw- ling voice. " Stubboriines?, 1 beneve, is one of the many agreeable traits of the Trevanions. The best of them will die before they yield an inch. iJca't catch the distemper, if you WHO WlKtP fltn, Sybil; there's nothing in life worth that tr^ajprjjft: earaeBtness, and it must be so very fatiguing! You have a look in your face 7iow sometimes that reminds me of those de- termined-looking Ediths and Alices in farthingales and dia- mond stomachei-s over there in the o]d hall at Monkswood. By the bye, are the family portraits left to go to the dogs with the rest?'-' ** Yes," Sybil answered, with a sigh, " it is all desolation at Monkswood Waste. The woodland is as wild as some Amer- ican forest, the ivy trails desolately over everything, and moth and mildew, the wind and the rats, have the grand, romantic old house all to themselves. There is no living thing there-r- not even a watch-dog — and General Trevanion will not hear its name mentioned, the dear old manor in which hundreds of his race have lived and died." ^* Ahl ' Charley said, listening to this impassioned outburst with serene calm, '* that unfortunate constitutional stubborn- ness again. Here we are at the house. My dear Sybil, per- mit me to sit down, and be good enough to ring for seltzer and sherry. The journey from London and the walk from the park gates yonder liave really completely knocked me up." " And mamma?" Sybil said, oheying his behest^ ** when does she come to Trevanion?" " Much sooner than is agreeable to her only son. I am mamma's avnnt courier. She comes before the end of the week, and Mrs. Ingram with her." "Mrs. Ingram! Who is she?" ** Ah, I forgot — you don't know, of course. Mrs. Ingram is Lady Lemox's bosom friend — a gushing widow of five-and- twenty — if one may venture co apeak of "a lady's age. She's very pretty, very petite^ very good style; is past-mistress of the art of putting on a Jouvin kid and tying her bonnet- strings; waltzes like a French fairy, sings better than Mali- bran, has the whitest teeth I ever saw outside of a dentist's ahow-case, and a chevehtre of inky blackness that would make any hair-dresser's fortune. She reads to my lady, writes her notes, sings her asleep, and attends to the comforts of her pet pugs and poodles. They met in the Highlands last year, and were struck with a sudden and great love for each other, after the fashion of womankind. The little widow was companion, then, to the worst-tempered old woman in the three king- doms, her Grace the Duchess of Strathbane, and after putting up with her for two years, you will own, Sybil, she can be but one remove from an angel. The duchess went to glory up there at Strathbane Castle, and Lady Lemox pounced upon Ut 46 WHO WINS? .They have been female Siamese twius since — Orestes aJi^^rvWes in petticoats. Where my lady goes, the widow goes— her country is the widow's country — where she dies, the widow will die. Isn't that Scripture, or something, Sybil? It sounds like it. Ah, thank Heaven! here is the seltzer and sherry, and I am really so parched from excessive talking that —hand me the glass, my dear "—to the little waitress—" it must be that garrulity is "infectious, Sybil, and that I catch the lisorder from you, Vm not like this upon ordinary occasions, I find conversation rather a bore than otherwise; but when I come to Trevanion, I beat all the gossiping dowagers I ever ^ met." Sybil laughed. *' You do talk, Charley, and as much nonsense as ever. Well, if your Mrs. Ingram is agreeable and amuses mamma, I shall be very happy to welcome her to Trevanion." "Don't call her my Mrs. Ingram," Charley remonstrated, plaintively. *' She isn't. I would have kissed her when I came away, but she declined. She's one of the intensely proper sort, you perceive. As though," said Charley, still more plaintively, " a seraph might not embrace me, and come to no harm by it." " Charley, don't be absurd! I spend the evening at Chud- leigh. Suppose you come." " Thanks — no — too much trouble. And it's so dreadfully exhausting to watch that girl, Gwendoline. I hate girls that bounce, and bang doors, and make eyes at a fellow. She's jolly, I admit, and sings * The Pretty Little Rat-catcher's Daughter ' to perfpction; hit — By the bye, Sybil, I met a cousin of hers, a gallant major in the cavalry branch of the service, deer-stalking last autumn at Strathbane. He came up with Lord Angus — home from the Crimea, with his blush- ing honors thick upon him — and he told me lots about your demi-god, Cyril Trevanion." *' Oh, Charley!" with a little gasp. ** And you never told me before!" " Don't be reproachful, my doar. You can't expect every one to dream by night and muse by day on the lost heir of Monkswood. No, I never told you before, because I hate writing long letters, and it would have taken a ream at least of best Bath laid to have satisfied yoti on that subject. And then there is really nothing to tell you but what you take for arranted, and the Times has told you ah'eady. He came dowr Lite the wolf to the fold, dealing death and destruction to 8ikh)B and Sepoys, and woe to the turban upon which his saber WBO WIVS f 4$ d«toended. Thev made him a captain out in India, a major be* fore the walls of Sebastopol, ana a colonel when he rode with the Six Hundred up the heights of Balaklava. It really turned me uncomlortably warm to hear Major Powerscourt talk about him, he grew so terribly enthusiastic. He got a bullet in th* hip, and a saber-cut across the face, and no end of unpleasant things of that sort. So don't heave away your young affections upon him, my hero-worshiping sister. He muet be ugly as a Hindoo idol by this time.*' But Sybil's delicate cheeks were flushed, and the great, deep eyes ilashing through unshed tears. " I knew ill" she said under her breath — " I knew it! The Trevanions were ever * without fear and without reproach.* And to think that I — that J, a useless, good-fdr-ncthmg girl, should usurp his rights — should reign where he ought to be king! Oh, Charley, I hate myself when I think of it!" ** Do you indeed?" said Charley, politely strugglin,? with a yawn. ** Very likely. You are ahvays absurd. But could you intimate as much quietly? It is rather preposterous in General Trevanion making you his heiress, while J am to the fore; but these old antediluvians are always blinder than bats. As to your Chevalier Bayard, he may be without fear; but he certainly is not without the other thing. He ran away at nineteen with a ballet-dancer. You know that story. Good Heaven!" exclaimed the Etonian, growing almost excited, " what an inconceivable donkey he must have been! The idea of any fellow taking a wife at nineteen, though she were a princess royal! Don't fall in love with a married man, Sybil, and don't flash the light of your angry eyes upon me for sug- gesting it. I'm your only brother, and it's my dutv to im- prove your morals. Besides, you'll never see hun. He's gone to Spanish America. ' ' Sybil's face, almost inspired while she listened to Cyril Tro- TBuion's praise, fell and clouded suddenly. ** Did Major — I forget the name — tell you that, too?" ** That, and no end besides — I don't remember half. He's ;^one to South America, however; and very likely civil wars, or tropical fevers, or earthquakes, or some of the other de- lightful things in style out there, have sent him toes up long ago. At least, I hope so for my own sake — it will be so nice by and by, when you come into the proi)erty, and can pay off a fellow's debts, and keep him in unlimited small change. Please don't burst out indignantly, Sybil, as I see you are about to do," Charley concluded, deprecatingly, getting up. " I'm exhausted already, and I really couldn't staml it. What do WSO WBfi f time do you dine in this primeval wigwam? Lilce George tbe T^iird, I dare say, at one o'cloclc, upon boiled mutton and tu^ipK** **^Wo dine at seven, when General Trevanion is able to 'kiweliis room. He will not come down to-day, and 7 am go- lug to Chudleigh Chase; bo unless you accompany me—" ^* * Oh, Solitude, where are thy charms!' Yes, I'll go, Sybil. Anything is better than a lonely knife and fork and plate— an oasis in a vast desert of dining-table. I'll go tc Chudleigh Chase, my Sybil, and face that terrible Gwendo- line, in her violent pink dresses, her bouncing and her bang- ing, and all the cut and dried platitudes of that old stick, bir Rupert, rather than impair my temper and digestion by dinine mournfully alone. I suppose to-morrow will be time enough to ay my respects to the lord of the manor? One can't en- dure too much in one day. Farewell!" With which the Etonian strolled away, and left his sister alone in the sunlit, rose- wreathed window. ** Gone to Spanish America!" she thought. " Will he ever come back? Will he ever know that his memory and his im- age are dearer to Sybil Lemox than any living man can ever be? I remember that last night at the gate — does hcj I won- der? — when he kissed me, a little child of four, under the oaks at Monkswood, and bid me wear this ring for his sake." A solitaire diamond glittered on the third finger of her left hand, the only ring she wore. " Except my mother and Charley, I have kissed no one since. My hero! my brave, lion-hearted Cyril! If he would only come back and take all! If 1 could only see him safe and happy once more, I would have nothing left on earth to wish for." Miss Trevanion drove her brother over to Chudleigh Chase in the pony-phaeton a little later, through the amber haze of the June sunset. Sir Rupert Chudleigh was their nearest neighbor, and Miss Gwendoline Chudleigh the aversion of Charley, and Sybil's devoted admirer and friend. They vis- ited each other at all times and all seasons, after the fashion of girls, and little Gwendoline, who was only sixteen — plump as a partridge, and rosy as any female " chaw-bacon " in Sussex— pretty well idolized beautiful Sybil Trevanion. Next morning Charley paid his respects to General Trevan- ion, and announced the coming of his mother and her com- panion. The old lion, with hair like a winter snow-drift now, and a face deep-plowed with hidden care and cureless illness, lay in his darkened room, and listened impatiently. "Let them come!" he said: "a poodle dog or a widow — imo wnfif il what does it matter, so that Lady Lemox and her pets don't trouble ms. Keep your mother and her widow out of out way, Sybil, my dear; and Charley, the less I see of you, the better I shall like it. Hobbledehoys were always my arer- Bion." " Pleasant!'* said Charley, in eoliloquy, " very I Hobblede- hoys, indeed! Really, Sybil, the old men of the present day are the horrideat bari)arian8 that ever cumbered the earth. 1 hope his venerable noddle won't ache until 1 ask to see him again." , Sybil barely repressed a laugh at her brother's wrath and astonishment. " Charley, don't talk slang — I hate it! And I must insist upon your speaking more respectfully of my guardian, or not speaking at all." The morning of the next day brought a telegram from Lady Lemox. She would arrive at Speckhaven by the four-forty train from London, and they were to meet her at the station with the carriage. Sybil told the general the news. ** Very well," was the response. *' I don't care when she comes, but I can't spare you to go and meet her. Let Charley take the carriage and go, and inform Lady Lemox that when I desire to see her I'll send her word." So Charley went alone, and in state, to meet my lady and her companion. The station, like all stations, was at the fag end of the town, a dreary island in a sea 0:° swamp and sandy plain, which the young man barely reached in time as the afternoon train rushed snorting in. He sauntered forward leisurelv to meet his mother — a little d irk woman, with a fretful, faded face that had been pretty once; and her com- panion, a bright little beauty with great black eyes, a pleasant smile, and abundant glossy black hair. ** Had Sybil come?" Lady Lemox peevishly asked. ** No? how very unkind and ungrateful of her, when she. Lady Lem- ox, had not seen her for three years. Children, nowadays, were utterly heartless — no doubt General Trevanion absorbed all her affection by this. time. And how was the general? Fit to die of chronic crossness and ill-temper! Really, Charles, such language was intolerable. Edith," to the black-eyed widow, ** pray see that all those boxes and parcels are carefully disposed 01. Those railway porters are so rough and uncouth. Charles, do make haste and get us home — 1 am almost dead of fatigue and headache." All the way to the Park, Lady Lemox ran fretfully on in a sort' of dismal monologue, growing so monotonous that it ./ 59 WHO mxsf lulled Charley into Rontle alumber before they reached the house. Sybil met them at the door, and threw herself, after her impulsive fashion, into her motlier's arms. " Dear mamma! darling mamma! how glad I am to meet you again. How long it seema since wo parted at Lemox. And, dearest mamma, how very well you are looking, too!" "Looking w-^U!" her ladyship murmured, reproachfully. " Sybil, how ca)i you, when 1 am almost dead! Ion are look- ing the jHctut6 of" health, I must say— quite too healthy-look- ,. iugfor my taste; but there are people who admire that red ' and white stylo of thing, I dare say. My dear, this is Mrs. Ingram— Edith, my daughter, Sybil. I hope you have seen that her rooms are as convenient to mine as possible — I really could not exist without her help nov^ Delphine," to her French maid, '* take these things up— I am completely worn out, and must lie down before I dress." Sybil herself led the way upstairs, and showed the travelers to their apartments. Lady Lemox was made lui])py — or as happy as it was in her nature to be — by finding Mrs. Ingram's rooms immediately adjoining her own. ** We dine at seven," Sybil said, " and quite alone. Gen- eral Trevanion is not well enough to quit hi3 chamber, and Charley, I believe, will mess with the oilicers at Speckhaven. You win find our life at Trevanion a very dull one, I fear, Mrs. Ingram." ** I am used to quiet, dear Miss Trevanion, ' ' the pretty widow said, with a brilliant smile, *' and prefer it. How very charming these rooms are, and what a delightful place Tre- vanion is!" She closed the door gently after the young lady, and lin- gered for an instant alone, before joining Lady Lemox, stand- ing by one of the windows, and gazing over the wide domain, very fair in the light of the radiant June sunset. "A delightful place indeed!" she repeated, under her breath; " and at last I enter Trevanion in spite of them all. To think that all this — all this, and more, might once have been mine! To think that I might have been mistress here, instead of that imperious girl! And for me he has lost this noble heritage: — for poor little me ! If Cyril Trevanion were my worst enemy, I could hardly wish him worse." The :iiree ladies ihied a1 ^ne together, and the pretty widow was the mo3t gorgeous of tnp hree. in amber silk and flutter- hig ribisong. Sybil, grai • \ and stately in dark blue, with pearls in her rich ^air, and a . lalf -shattered rose in her breast^ WHO wiini ? •8 looked at her across the table, with great, clear, eammt eyes, Ai she talked ^ayl J in the sweetest and most silvery o! Toicei. " Why do f not like her?" Miss Trevanion thought. " Sha is very pretty, very pleasant;, and a lady without doubt. Wh? do I dislike her, then? and are those great dark eyes bold, and that brilliant smile false? or is it only my unkind fancy?" It was the old rhyme of " Doctor Ftll " over again. •♦ 1 do not like you, Doctor Fell, The renson why I can not tell; But this I only know full well, 1 do not like you, Doctor Fell." They lingered late in the drawing-room. Lady Lemox had an aversion to** early to bed, and arly to rise," and there was music to while away the hours of the summer night. Mrs. Ingram played as brilliantly as she talked, and simg more sweetly than she smiled, in the richest of contraltos. Sybil listened enchanted, and sung ducts with her, and half forgot her unreasonable dislike. They lingered so long that Charley, riding homeward through the misty moonlight, a little flushed and heated after the wassail, found them still chanting their canticles, and my lady turning over a volume of prints. ** What a dissipated lot you are!" the Etonian said, politely; " singing matins, I suppose, as those gay old coves, the friars, used to do over there at Monkswood. Speaking of Monks- wood, S3'bil," said Charley, hiccoughing rather, '* I heard a piece of news to-night that will interest you, I met a man at the mess — a Captain Hawksley, of the Fortieth Heavies — and' he told me he saw the idol of your young affections, Cyril Trevanion, a week ago in London. He'd been sick, it seems, not to say seedy, and an object of compassion to gods and men. Told Hawksley he thought of coming down here to re- cruit—native air, and all that sort of thing. Good-night, ladies. Suppose you sing, * We won't go home till mornmg,' by way ol finale, and wind up the performance." Mrs. Ingram had been playing softly while Charley talked: but at the sound of Captam llawksley's and Cyril Trevanion's names, her hands feL heavily with a crash upon the keys. She sat still for an instant after the tipsy Etonian had left the room, and when she did rise, Sybil saw that the pretty, pi" quante face had turned of a dead waxen whiteness from brow to chin. M WHO wnrsf fi CHAPTER VIIL SYBIL'S VICTOBT. Lady Lemox, among her pet aversions — and she had many --classed early rising as the chief. She liked to get up be- tween ten and eleven, saunter through her bath, and her dressing, and her chocolate, a tete-a-tete breakfast with Mrs. Ingram, reading aloud tbe Morning Post, and get out when the day was properly warmed for her. The dulcefar nientt may have come honestly enough to Charley— inherited from his lady-mother. On the morning rxfter her arrival at Trevanion, my lady, strolling into her hovdoir at half past eleven, to breakfast, found that elegant apartment deserted to the geraniums in the windows and the bright summer sunshine. It was Mrs. In- gram's dutiful wont to await her patroness in an elegant demi- toilet, her smiles »3 fresh as her crisp muslin robe, and her perfumed hair shining as brightly as her starry eyes; but to- Gay the handsome widow was nowhere to be seen. " Where is Mrs. Ingram, Delphine?" my lady crossly asked. " Not sleeping still, surely?" ^ " No, madame," the French girl answered in her native tongue. " Madame Ingram v/as up and away over two hours ago. Ah I she comes here.' The door opened as the chamber-maid spoke, and Edith Ingram, her dark, delicate cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling, her dress less elegantly perfect than usual, came hastily for- ward. " I have not kept you waiting, I trust, dear Lady Lemox?'* she said. " I had no idea I would be absent nearly so long; nor would I, but that I met your danglicer, and she very kind- ly showed me through the house. Why," with a silvery little laugh, *' I was up and out this morning with the lark, and Miss Sybil — who is an earlier bird still — and over to Monks- wood Waste, before the dew was off the roses." ** To Monkswood!" repeated Lady Leinox, in surprise. ** What on earth took yon. to Monkswood, Edith?" *' Simple curiosity, 1 am afraid. One likes to see a haunted house some time in one's life. I did not sleep well last night, and I was glad, when morning came, to get out, for I felt half sick and feverish. I walked on and on, tempted by the beauty of the morning — early rising %s delightful, once one is fairly up and out — and I found myst;]" at the Priory gates before I knew WHO WDTS F 65 it. Of eourae I entered, and went dowu the Prior's Walk;* but the ghostly monk, cowled and cloaked, did not appear. Instead, 1 met Miss Trevanion, and she showed me the dear old place." *' Met Sybil!'* exclaimed Sybil's mother, still more sur- prised. " And what took her there, pray, at such an un- christian hour? Really, it is the most extraordinary girl I Up and away to that desolate old deserted house before six in the morning!" Mrs. Ingram laughed her gayest laugh, as she seated herself opposite my lady and poured out the fragrant chocolate. " It is Miss Trevanion's daily pilgrimage, I fancy. If one can not dwell in the presence of ^he rose, it is something to visit the abode of that splendid flower. If she can not see the lost heir of Monkswood, it is pleasant to pay her matin adora- tion at his shrine. I greatly fear your daughter Avill lose her inheritance, dear Lady Lemox, now that Colonel Trevanion has returned from Spanish America." " I wasn't aware he had gone to Spanish America," my lady said, sharply. " Prav, Edith, who told you f" " I — I scarcely remember," murmured the widow, just a thought confused. " I heard it somewhere, how^ever. And now he is back — Charley said so last night, at least." " Those odious officers! those horrible mess dinners!" cried Lady Lemox, with asperity. " That dreadful boy was halt intoxicated last night, and I don't believe knew what he wae saying. But supposing Cyril Trevanion were to come back to England — and it isn't in the least likel}- — he could not dispos- sess Sybil. The will is made — was made years ago. All ex- cept the Priory goes to her. General Trevanion will not change his mind. The laws of Draco were never more immu- table than the * I will ' of the Trevanions." " Ah!" the widow said, softly, buttering her waffle. " Very likely. I don't dispute it. The general may not change his mind, but your daughter VvLU resign all. fle is the hero of her dreams. She is romantic, and a soldier-worshiper, like all girls, dear Lady Lemox, with quixotic notions of duty, a:3d right, and self-abnegation, and all that. She will lay her kingdom at Count Lara's feet when that darhng of the gods appears, and, unless 1 am greatly mistaken, her own fair self as well." " Good gracious!" exclaimed her ladyship in shrill indigna- tion, ** what do you mean, Edith Ingram? Herself as welll How dare you insinuate such a thing! A soldier of fortune — tax adyenturer — a wanderer — Heaven knows what! A mai^ fl« WHO WINS? I ried man, and just double her age. Are you taking leave of yonr senses?" .^ t i ^^. " No, madame. And if he comes you will see I speak the truth. Nay, it is my firm belief she will persuade his father to forgive him, to send for him, to make him his heir. Dear- est Lady Lemox, it is for your sake I speak. Consider how unpleasant it would be for you, aft'^r your daughter's brilliant prospects, to find her disinlieritec, u.A all through her own mistaken sense of right. Do not be offended with me, deai friend. Speak to Sybil herself, and see whether or not I am odistaken ' " I will," said Ladv Lemox, decisively. " I'll speak to her at once, too. Good Heaven! it isn't possible my daughter could be so infatuated an idiot. And if she was, the general would not relent, let her plead as she chose." " Ah, my lady," the widow murmured, plaintivelj% " he is 1 an old man, and an only son is very dear. Long years of ab- i sence have softened his heart. He may be too proud to change unsolicited, but let his favorite adopted daughter speak but I . one word of pleading for the son he once idolized, and you will 1/ eee the result. " Lady Lemox seized the bell-rope impetuously, and rang a peal that brought Helphine flying. "Find Miss Trevanion, and send her here at once I Tell her I want her particularly." " And pray, don't mention 7iiy name," entreated the wid- ow, as Delphine disappeared. " She would consider it a very unnecessary, not to say impertinent, intervention on my part. She is very proud. She would not endure for an instant any miwarrantable interference." " I shall say nothing about you," responded my lady, in a very ill-temper indeed. ** You may leave the room, if you prefer, Mrs. Ingram." ^ But Mrs. Ingram preferred to stay. She was in a recess of /the window, bending over the geraniums and guelder roseSj. when Miss Trevanion, her head erect, her light step stately, her eyes a little surprised, entered her mother's sitting-room. It had been a morning of surprises, rather, to Sybil. When Mrs. Ingram stated that the heiress of General Trevanion was in the daily habit of visiting Monkswood, Mrs. Ingram had shrewdly guessed very near the truth. Always an, early riser, she was mostly out and av/ay for a breezy morning walk amid the dewy grass, with the ricing sun and the singing larks; and those morning walks, as a rule, were to the deserted Priory. On this morning, as shs^ opened a little door in one ol th* WHO WINSf 67 Asny gables, and let herself in^ she was astonished to behold « female figure, with its back to her, standing absorbed before a picture, in what had been the amber drawing-room. It had startled her a little at first; but Sybil was not in the least a nervous young lady, and a second glance revealed her moth- er's companion — the brilliant widow. The picture before whi'jh she stood, with the strangest expression of face, was the portrait of Cyril Trevanion, taken in his gay hussar uniform — a gift to his father upon his nineteenth birthday. "Mrs. Ingram!" Sybil exclaimed, in ungovernable aston- ishment. ** You here?" Mrs. Ingram wheeled round. It did not often happen to her to change color, but a hot-red flush darkened cheek and brow at this rencontre. For one second the eminently self- possessed Edith was at a loss. Then she burst out into one of her musical laughs, and held out her gloved hand. " Dear Miss Trevanion! how J must have startled you. Did you think it was one of the mythical monks telling his ghostly rosary? Pray, don't imagine you are the only person in exist- ence awake to the benefit of early rising, or to be deluded into a charming walk under waviiig trees. And the walk from Trevanion to Monkswood Waste is enchanting — one long, leafy arcade." ** Pray, how did you get in?" Sybil said, very coldly. That aversion at first sight, almost forgotten in her brilliance last evening, returned stronger than ever. Somehow it had given her a most unpleasant sensation to see this woman standing, with that absorbed face, before the picture of her hero. ** Mrs. Telfer keeps all the keys of the Priory, except one that opens a little door in yonder turret. You are not a witch, I trust, Mrs. Ingram, and capaple of whisking through key-holes?" Again Mrs. Ingram laughed — and the silvery peal grated discordantly on Sybil's ear. " Dear Miss Trevanion! What a droll idea! No, indeed— I wish I were. What fun it would be! Oh, no; I came through the window near the south entrance; I shook it — only the ivy and the honeysuckle held it down, and I raised it aa easy as possible, and crept through. Just fancy what a figure I cut, creeping like a burgliir through a window!" Again that hilarious laugh. " But now, dearest Miss Trevanion, we are here, and together, and as I am positively dying to see this dear, romantic old house, will you not good-naturedly turn cicerone, and show it to me? I am certain it must be full of sliding panels, and hidden trap-doors, and subterranean pa»» !« 9« WHO wnw? sages, and that sort of thing, and the pictures I hnow an superb." ^* There is very little time,'* Sybil said, drawing out her watch. " I always attend to the general'?; breakfast myself, and— however," with a bright, smiling courtesy indicative of the lady born and bred, " I will be most hap|)y to show you as much of the house as we can possibly see in half an hour. There ure secret passages and hidden doors in the Priory; but I am ignorant of their mysteries, so I can not point them out. You were looking at my cousin's portrait— very good, is it not? You never saw him, of course; but still you can easily ter. that it is an excellent picture.'' Mrs. Ingram turned to look at it once more. *'' To," siic! sMJd, with a queer smile, " 1 never saw your cousin, of course; but the picture, as you sav, is a work of art. How very, very handsome he must have been!'' **The Trevanions are all handsome," Sybil said. **Thafe sounds conceited," with a smile; " but I don't mean it so. Yes, he was handsome as an angel. Poor Cyril! I remember him perfectly, young as I was; and I loved him so very, very dearly.*' " He - tenderly she says it," the widow laughed. " Pm afraid you love him still, dearest Sybil. I mat/ call you Sj?bil, may I not? and you will oall me Edith? There are men, they say, good enough and brave enough and handsome enough to die for, and he looks as if he might be one of them. 1 navo never met any of those male demi-gods myself; still, very likely they exist. But he is a married man, is he not, my dear? Very sad story, his — Charley told it me — and she was an improper person, was she not? Poor fellow! to be so de- luded, and at nineteen. And these sort of women live forever. No doubt the dreadful creature is in existence yet. And there never was even a divorce, was there?" " There was none needed," Sybil said, haughtily, her cheeks flushing, her eyes lighting. " It was no marriage — there was not even a license — they were married at Gretna Green, and he was a minor. It was no marriage. She may be alive — the horrible creature who entrapped him — but Cyril Trevanion is as free as the winds ox heaven. Poor fellow!" the passionate tears starting to her eyes, "he has bitterly atoned for his one act of bojnsh folly." The widow looked at her askance — at the beautiful,- flushed, impassioned face — and laughed once more; but this time the laugh had a bitter, metallic ring. '^How vehement you are! Ah! it is easy to foresee what WHO wiirs f this idolized soldier's visit will end in. And being in London, he will come down here, doubtless. Dear Miss Trevanion, ahall I congratulate you beforeband?" Sybil turned upon her haughtily, her great eyes afire. ** You will kindly keep your congratulations, Mrs. Ingram, until they are called for. Do you wish to see the pictures? because, if so, you must see them immediately. At this hour 1 have very little time to spare." She led the way, her head thrown back, the tall, gracefu) :^gure haughtily erect, the step imperious — '* La Princesse '* to the core. The widow followed, a singular and by no means pleasant smile on her fair face. *' I should like to lower that lofty pride, to stoop that haughty head, my dainty Lady Sybil. And I will, too, before I have done with you, as surely as my name is not Edith In- gram I" They went down the long picture-gallery, the early morn- ing sunlight streaming redly oti ^.siil-shirt and corselet of cru- sader and cavalier, on branching antlers and brass helmets, cavalry swords and blue-bright sabers glittering dangerously. Sybil led the way, with a look on her handsome face strangely like that look of stern decision on the pictured faces of the dead and gone Trevanions gazing down upon them from the walls. It was there beneath the half-raised visor of Guy Tre- vanion, who fought side by side with Eichard the Lion-Heart- ed; now half hid, yet there still, amid the suave smile and waving love-locks of another Cyril — the handsomest cavalier in the gay court of the " Merry Monarch;" now under the powdered peruke and slashed doublet of Jasper, the brightest star in the court of Queen Anne. And you saw it again m the beautiful, smiling face of Rosalind Trevanion, in her starohed Elizabethan ruffle and stitf stomacher, under lace and farth- ingale; in the knight with his bland smile and deadly rapier; in the lady with her diamonds and stiff brocades; in all the faces of the men and women of the race. There was but time for a glance at all these, for a peep intd the great banqueting-room, large and lofty as a church; into the tapestried chambers; into the long refectcij, where the shadowy monks had met for their silent meals; into the old chapel, with its holy- water fonts, its idle censers, its vacant choir, its dim paintings and pale statues of saints and angels; into the cells, where those grim ascetics sought their GOwSort' less couches. Then Sybil haaded her companion a key, and turned to d^ pvt 60 ^HO WINS? ** I will be late as it is," she said, " and General Trevanion detests being kept waiting; but you can go over the house at your leisure, and let yourself out without the trouble of get- ting through the window— unless, indeed," smiling, " you ieai the prior's ghost." ** I don't fear the prior's ghost," the widow responded, gay- ly, " but I do a reproach from my lady. If yon will permit me, dear Sybil — there, 1 can twt be formal — I will walk back witii you. It will take us at least an hour and a half to reach Trevanion." Of course Sybil assented, not best pleased, however. She did not like the affectionate widow, with her very familiar ** Sybil;" but she was mamma's friend, and, as such, to be treated. She was SylDil's guest, too, and that young iady had all an Arab's idea of the beauty of hospitality. You partook of her bread and salt, and lodged in her tent, and though you were her deadliest enemy, you must be treated courteously and cordially from thenceforth. So, through the golden glory of the cloudless summer morn- ing, the two ladies Avalked back to Trevanion Park, and only separated at the house — Mrs, Ingram hastening to meet her patroness, and Sybil to minister to the wants of the sick seigneur. Deiphine found her just quitting the general's apartments, and delivered ray lady's message. Miss Trevanion hastened at once to obey the maternal behest. " You sent for me, mamma?" S_ybil remarked, as she entered. " I trust 1 see you quite recovered this morning from the fatigue of yesterday's journey." ** Thanks, dear," Lady Lemox said, rubbing her aquiline nose pettishly. *' I am as well, I dare say, as 1 ever will be in this world. But I am worried nearly to death ever since that absurd boy burst in upon us last night with his ridiculoas news." '* Absurd boy! ridiculous news I" her daughter repeated, snrprised. " I don't raiderstand, mamma." *' There, Sybil, doit't pretend to be obtuse. Y^'ou must un- derstand. I mean Charles, of course, coming home ui a gale, and crying out that Oyril Trevanion had returned. It isn't possible, you know, Sybil; but still, the bare report fidgeti me almost to death." *' Indeed' And why, pray? Colonel Trevanion has surely A perfe*^ I right to return to \m native land, \i he chooses." "Yes, very likely; only I should think, if he possessed ona atom of spirit, he would be ashamed to show his face in tfas WHO wnro t ei country where he so signally disgraced himself^ and where hii scandalous story is stilJ so well known." "Ashamed to show his face! Disgraced himself 1*' Syhil repeated, her spirited eyes beginning to sparkle dangeromly. ** Are not your terms a little harsh, Lady Lemox? You are extremely severe on the boyish folly of a lad of nineteen — folly for which. Heaven knows, he has long and bitterly atoned." "Oh, of course!'* exclaimed my lady, vehemently. "I knew how it would be. You still adhere to your old*r61eof champion. Boyisti folly, indeed! We all know the life he led in Paris some years ago — the drinking, the gambling, the women, the wine — the horrors of all sorts. No right-minded young lady ought to think of him without a blush.'" " Poor fellow!" Sybil said, bitterly. " Every one throws a stone at a drowning dog, don't they, mamma? Pray, who has been prompting your part this morning?" with a danger- ously flashing glance of the long almond eyes toward the win- dow. '* I can scarcely believe that all this would come-to you of itself, mamma. Mrs. Ingram is your confidante and ad- viser; but surely M.-s. Ingram can have no possible interest in the matter- The return of my cousin Cyril can be nothing to her, one way of the other." " Less than nothing," the widow said, very gently, and look- ing at the haughty speaker with soft, reproachful eyes. " Dear Lady Lemox, permit me to leave the room." ** I beg your pardon," Miss Trevanion exclaimed, hastily, ''I am sorry if I have judged you rashly." Mrs. Ingrain bowed deepl3\ ** But really, mamma, I don't see your drift. Did you send for me merely to read me a lecturer If so, I have not deserved it. i certainly did not recall the wanderer from South America." ** But you are very glad he has come, all the same?" A soft flush rose to Sybil's delicate cheeks, a gentler light ^one in the lovely eyes. ** Yes,'^ she said, almost under her breath; " very, very glad. Poor Cyril! Ah! mamma^ don't be hard on him. HiB crime was not great, and see how they have made him suffer. Think of all the long, weary years of homeless, lonely wandiN> ing over the world. ' Her voice choked euddenlj'. She turned and walked away to one of the windows. Yes, it was clear enough, the memory of this lonely wanderer was inexpressibly dear to Sybil Tre» vanion. For the past ten years the dream of her life had be«i his return — ^her dear, romantic, idolized Lara* to whom ihit WHO WI3fS? was ready to play " Kaled,*' the adoring page, at a momtnt'i iiotice. ^ . , ^. „ "What nonsense!" Lady Lemox cned, energetically. " Reallv, Sybil, you are ridiculouyly sentimental. Made him suffer, forsooth I A great deal you know about the life such men as he, better men than he, lead. Much time he has had for suffering— fighting Sepoys and Russians— playing * lion ' among the chaumiere belles of the Quartier Latin, grisettee and ballet-dancers, such as his wife was—his Kambling, bis horse-racing, and all the rest of it. He would laugh in your face if he heard your sentimental rubbish." ** My cousin was a gentleman!" Sybil said, cheeks hot, eyes flashing, queenly and proud. *' He would never laugh at me, mamuia. Will you kindly permit me to go? On ihis subject you and I will never agree." ** You may go, certainly — only first promise me not to fetch this ruined lion of the fastest Parisian society here. You are absurd enough, I fancy, even for that." " Quite absurd enough," said Sybil, standing very erect* and with that look of sternness and decision characteristic of the ** stiff-neoked Trevanions " more marked than ever. ** I will fetch him here most surely, mamma, if I can, and yield every sou that was to be mine, every broad acre, to their right- ful lord. This very day I will beg General Trevanion for justice to his discarded son — on my knees, if necessary. I would go forth a beggar to-morrow to sec Cyril Trevanion re- instated in his rights!" Lady Lemox gave one gasp, and fell back. Words were Eowerless here, and her feelings were too many for her. She ad recourse to her smelling-salts and her pocket-handker- chief. ** And I will succeed, mamma," Miss Trevanion continued, moving toward the door. *' His father loves him still. It will be no hard task to persuade him to do simple justice to his only son. I am sorry if I grieve you, dear mamma," more gently; " but right is right the wide world over. Until we meet at dinner, au revoir." ^ She glided with queenly grace from the apartment, a sub- limated look on her face that made it actually glorious. As she passed down the long corridor, she caught sight of her brother stretched out on the grass, under the trees, smoking— the picture of indolent content. Two minutes later, and she swooped down upon him — an impetuous young whirlwind in p0ttiooat8. WHO wnrs? e» ** Charley, Is it true — really, really true — that Cyril Tw* vanion has come back?" ** Eh?'* said Charley, lifting his head. " How much? Make that remark over again, my beloved sister, and please don't be so energetic. My head aches this morning — that*8 the worst of the ' sparkling cup of pleasure ' — the lees are bitter, bitter. The port, last night, was thick and sweet; but even old port has its drawback, in an unfortunate tendtiicy to concentrate itself in a man's nose; and the Cliquot champagne was heavenly— -there is no other word for it — but sparkling Cliquot is only bottled headache and sour stomach, after alL *' ' Fill the bumper fair; Every drop wo sprinkle O'er iho brow of rare Smooths away a wrinkle,' sounds very pretty; but the wrinkles came next day, when remorse and soda water set in. Last night I was happy; this morning my worst enemies (the tailor and boot-maker^ could wish me no more wretched. What did you say, Sybilr The world is a hollow mockery, and life hath lost its charms, but ni try to answer you — ere 1 die." " For pity's sake, Charley, stop that nonsense! I asked you if it were true that Cyril Trevanion had really returned?" " Hawksley said so, at least. Met him in London — seedy and sad, out of sorts, and out of pocket. Here's his address — I took it down for your especial benefit — so you can fly to him on the wings of love as fast as you please." He tore a leaf out of his note-book and handed it to her. Sybil took it; then, without a word, turned and hurried into the house. Charley looked after her, with a sigh of gentle re- proach. " Gratitude, thy name is woman! Not one word of thankSj not one expression of condolence for my unhappy state. * 'Twas ever thus from childhood's hour.' Perhaps I had better go to sleep." Charley sunk into balmy slumber accordinffly, until the June sun reached the meridian, and beat strongly down upon him. He awoke in a state a salamander might have envied, got up, yawned, stretched himself, and sauntered into the house. As he passed into the entrance hall, his sister came flying down the stairs, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling, a foldea latter in her hand. With an impetuous outburst she flung her arms around Charley and kissed him on the spot. " I hft?e succeeded!" she exclai ned. ** Oh, Cluuiej^ I Imt^ u WHO WIK8? iron the victory. The general has relented. I hare written to Cyril to come home. All is forgotten and forgiven. See, here is the letter!" She dropped it into the post-bag; then flew back again upstairs, leaving Charley standing petrified. " Ahd they call women responsible beings," the Etonian murmured, vaguely. ** Good gracious! there's a victory tc win — a victory that has cost the conqueresa her kingdom." CHAPTER IX. THE MYSTERY AT MONKSWOOD. ** Go back to Monkswood! For pity's sake, Sybil, do I hear yon aright?" . Miss Trevanion laughed at her mother's horrified face. ** You certainly do, mamma. The general wishes to return to Monkswood, and the general's wishes are to me like the Moi le Roi >f King Louis. He wishes to go back, and very natural inucecl the .vish is, under the circumstances." "An invalid's sick fancy," murmured, sympathetically, Mrs. Ingram. *' Of course it must bo indulged. But is the poor old man in a fitting state, deartot Sybil? The damp— th( rats — the rook-infested chimneys — the — " ** 'Ve will see to all that. Charley has gone to Mr. Eeed- worth, the land steward, to issue Uncle Trevanion's orders. The place will be in fitting order to receive us in a fortnight at most. " **I'll never go!" Lady Lemox exclaimed, indignantly. " I am very comfortable here. I like a modern villa, such as this, infinitely better, any day, than a ruined old pile like that. It is the home, the birthplace of all the Trevanions, it is true; but still — There, Sybil, I shall not go, so don't look at me BO imploringly. I should expect to see the prior's ghost every moonlight night under the trees, and hear the goblin bell in every souch of the wind in ths turrets. I shall stav where I am— that 8 decided. And you shall stay too, Edith.** " Very well, mamma,"* Sybil said, quite resignedly; "it must be as you please. We will do tolerably well, I dare say, with Mrs. Telfer, the housekeeper, Roberts, the butler, and a lew more. You and Mrs. Ingram will be visitors of stat9> when you condescend to come over and look in upon w3." ** And when is this precious will to bo made?'* inquired her ladyship, testily. "Oh, Heaven help you, Svhijf Lemoatl What a little fool you arel" WHO ynmf tt ** Thank you, my lady/* with a merry little lauffh, and a bonse-maid's little courtesy. " The will is to be made as soon as we are safely settled at the Priory. Colonel Trevanion, in all likelihood, will be here himself long before that." The rosy radiance that always lighted her face at the baw mention of her hero dawned softly there again, and the disin herited heiress left the room singing a gay chanson. Mrs. Ingram looked after her, with a careless laugh, but with a 'ook oi bitter hatred and envy in her glittering eyes. ** How nice it must be to feel young and sentimental, and quixotic like that. J havp seen so much of life, partly in mv husband's life-time, partly since, that at times I feel as though I were a hundred. But if your daughter had been born a kitchen-maid, her sweet simplicity could not be more refred\- ing." It was very seldom indeed the piquante widow alluded to the late lamented Mr. Ingram. He had been a merchant cap tain, it appeared, and his devoted wife had gone with him pretty well over the world. She had tried Baden Baden and Homburg, and all tL^ charming little Bads of Germany, on her own responsibility since, playing ecarte, vhigt-et-un, etc., like «,uy old soldier of fortune; but this was sub rosd. , It had been rather a vagabondish life, she frankly admitted, with a strong flavor of bohemianism, and she had resigned it and her liberty to dance attendance upon the Duchess of Strathbane — a vicious old Scotch woman. Since the death of that patroness and her espousal by " dear, dear Lady Lemox," she had gone upon velvet, her rose leaves had been without a thorn or a wrinkle, and life was one long dream of bliss. So at least she said, and my lady very com- placently believed it. The refitting up of the Priory went rapidly on. The seigneur had all the impatience of a petted invalid, and the fierce old oenturion used to play despot over his brigade. Sybil walked or rode over every day to superintend in per- son; and under the trees, grand and majestic in the leafy splendor of early July, the wrinkled crone, Hester, sat, watch- ing the heiress with malignant old eyes. Sybil heeded littlo those weird, baleful glances. With the princely spirit nature and custom had given her, she never parsed the witch-like figure without carelessly flinging her a handful of shillingc. And old Hester gathered them up ava'iGioaslj, and oroonsd ■till her ominous doggerel: • ^. ■t.,-1 ^ WHO WIKST ^^ •• The Doom shall fnll on Monkswood H&C, Onr Lntly send lier grnco: DfliU fulls the Doom upon the lait Full- auugliter of llie racel *• The h.it ulinll flit, tlie owl Bliall boot, Grim Ruin stalks with hnsto; Tlie D( om slmll full when Mnnkswnod Ball li changed to M(juksvvood Waste!" And Sybil, fearless, like a true Trevanion, listened «nd laughed, and swept along, princess-like, to issue her sovereign behests, and rule liege lady of all around her. Before the fortnight had expired the preparations came to an end, and General Trcvuniou and his ward, and a staff of servants, left the Park for the Priory. And Cyril Trevanion, contrary to all expectation, had iiot yet appeared to claim his own, to take his old, his rightful place in his father's house and home. There had come a letter—a letter which had given impetu- ous Sybil a chill, so brief, so cold, so formal was it — saying they might look for him shortly, that business of a pressing nature detained him in London. The old general road it through .his gold-rimmed eyeglass, propped up in a driit of pillows, with sad, wistful eyes. *' ft does not sound like Cyril," he said — *' like my brave, impulsive, warm-hearted boy, ever ready to forgive and forget at the first pleading word. The very writing is changed. Ah, well! he was nineteen flicn, ho is thirty-eight now; and time changes us all, and rarely for the better. Ho will come, Sybil; and that is something. I will see him again before I die." There was one room at the Priory — the " Adam and Eve Chamber," they called it — where many Trevanions had been born and slept away their wedded lives, and this apartment the general had particularly desired to be got in readiness for him. It was a vast and lofty and spacious room, with a great oak door, a slippery oaken floor and wainscot, a yawning gulf of a fire-place, where a wood-fire blazed now night and day, despite the sultry July weather; for these great rooms were al- ways draughty, and the invalid ever chill. On either'side of the great stone chimney-piece, wonderfully oarvfed with scrolls and legends, were two life-length ficures of the " grand old gardener and his wife," wrought witn mar- veious skill in the shining oak. And all the walls were cuS and oarved with repr«sentatioB&of four-footed thidgs—ot 3ihM WHO wnrsf H thftt Bwim and birds that fly — passing in review before their earthly king to be named. Peep in their mullioned casements were set ^he d!mi dia* mond-paned windows, half blind with climbing ivy and wild poses. The furniture was quaint, and old, and epindle-lcggcd, and in the center of the floor stood the bed — a huge four- poster, that centuries ago had come from Belgium, and in which ladies of the blood royal had slumbered before now. ^ Mrs. Ingram, going over this chamber with Sybil, fell into raptures. **How charming! how beautiful! how quainti Such a marvel of ancient art! Such a dear, romantic old room! Eeally now, if there were sliding panels in the Priory, one would look for the secret springs somewhere amid all this fan- tastic work — wouldn't they, Sv-bil, dearest? And this was the monastic end of the Priory, too, where all such delightfully mysterious places were most likely to be found." General Trevanion, lying back in a great sleepy-hollow of an arm-chair, darted a keen, angry, surprised look at the widow as she said this. But the pretty, smiling face, all sweetness and dimples, looked innocent and unconscious as a babe's, new-born. ** Call Clean ce, Sybil," he said, sharply. ** I am cold and tired. I want to go to bed." Miss Trevanion rang for the valet, and left the room; bui the next time she was alone with him the general turned upon her sharply. ** Sybil, tvho is that eve; smiling, honey-tongued woman your mother has picked up? Who is she, and where does she come from? And where is that fellow Ingram, or was there ever such a fellow at ail?" ** Dear uncle," Sybil eaid, smiling, yet a trifie shocked, * yoa know quite as much about her as J do. She is mam- ma's especial pet and friend, and," with a light laugh, " the aolace of her declining years. * That fellow Ingram ' was a merchant captain — deaxl years ago — peace to his ashes. Fur- ther than that, I know, and seek to know, no more." " Keep her out of this room," said the general, tharply. '* I don't like her, and I won't have her here. She is like sugar-candy, Sybil — too sweet to be wholesome. If yen told her black was white, she would simper and say, ' Yes, dear; I know it,' " mimicking the widow^s dulcet tones. " I like people like you, Sybil, who stand up stoutly, and tell me, 1^0, it IB notr Don't let he^ come here again; I don't Iik« hir." WHO wnrsf Sybil promised dut'fully, of course; "but the best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee." Tho widow was destined to come again, and yet again, and to deepen the dark mystery so soon to electrify them all. Whether in the removal he had caught cold, whether the "Adam and Eve "room was still unaired, whether secret trouble over tJie prolonged absence of his son Cyril had done it, no one knew; but the general fell suddenly and dangerously ill. Inflammation set in; a great physician from London was summoned; a telegram dispatched to the tardy heir, and all was dismay and confusion at Monkswood Waste. A lawyer Avas sumnioned, and the will that left all — every stiver — to Cyril Treviiiion, was made. Sybil insisted upon this. It was all Cyril's, by right, luid to Cyril it should go. " He doesn't deserve it/Sybil," Cyril's father said, bitterly. " See how he lingers, while they count my life by hours. But he will come, and you, my darling, will be his wife; so it will end in the same, after all.'' The great London doctor shook his head portentously, and looked very grave. He mifjht last a week; but tho stormy old lion's life was very near its ending now. They never left h^m. S3bil, m sorrow, pale and tearless, watched by his bedside night and day. He was delirious very often, almost always at night. He was not to be left for an instant alone. " You will wear yourself out, dearest Sybil," Mrs. Ingram said, mournfully, kissing the girl's pale cheek. *^ You must not — you really must not — sit up so much as you do. Let me take your place to-night." " Thanks," Sybil said, wearily. " It will not be necessary. Mrs. Telfer watches, with Clcante." ** Then I will assist Mrs. Telfer and Cleante. Ah! dearest Miss Tre^'anion, you are very crue!. You will not let me be of the slightest use, and I lon^ so much to do something. Let me sit up this once — pray do. Sho clasped her little hands, and looked piteously up at Sybil, great toars standing in the velvet-black eyes — a picture of pretiiness and innocence. And Sybil's heart relented. The general disliked her; but the poor P^eripra-i was far bevond the power oi: liking or disliking any one now. " You are very good," Miss Tievanion made answer. ** Sit up, if you will, Mrs. Ingram. Good Mrs. Telfer is fat and fifty, and extremely apt to fall asleep before midnight; and Clfli^tei, who has no more brains than a cat^ ii very like]jr to WHO wnrsf follow her example. But you are not like them, and I ^hall rest the quieter lor knowing you are beside him." ** A thousand thanks, dearest, sweetest Sybil!" cried the ffushing widow, kissing her impetuously. " I had begun to fear of late I had offended you. You have grown so sadly cold and formal. But now I know you will trust your poor Edith, who would die to servo you, darling Sybil." Sybil's superb upper lip curled a little. She did not like all tills effusion, and never distrusted the widow half so much as in her gushing moods. But she had promised. There was really no reason why Mrs. Ingram should not assist the house- keeper and valet in their watch, since the general, in his de- lirium, knew no longer friend from foe. Very sleepy, and unutterably fatigued in mind and body, Sybil retired early on that eventful, that never-to-be-forgotten night. Charley had driven the widow over in the gray of the sum- mer evening, and returned to the park. Cleante was to occu- py the dres;sing-room adjoining the " Adam and Eve," and Mrs. Telfter and the little widow enscorsced themselves in the easy-chairs, trimmed tiie night-lamp, and began tJieir vigil. Sybil retired to her chamber, half undressed, and threw her- self upon the bed. Almost instantaneously she fell asleep, and slept for three hours, decp]}^ dreamlessly. Then, without noise, or caus'^. of any kind, precisely at midnight, she sud- denly and fully awoke. A bell was tolling, solemn, slow, faint, afar off, but unmis- takably tolling. TliroLigli the deep stillness of the warm July night the low, steady tone fell — one — two — three — a longer and longer pause between each vibration — a bell, the deepest, the sweetest, the saddest, that ever Sybil Trevanion had heard. She sat up in bed, listening. Morally and physically the girl was brave; but now the cold drops started on her brow, and her heart stood still. And slowly, slowly clanged that passing bell, fainter every moment, and further off. She sprung up, drew the curtain, and looked out into the night. The untold glory of the full July moon flooded the chamber with heavenly luster. Countless stars sparkled; the soft, abundant radiance seemed clear as the light of day. The dark woodland, the deep plantations, tangled and wild, the waving groves of fern, looked mysteriously beautiful in thafc silvery splendor; but no living thing, far or near, was to be seen. The slipping of a snake, the light crash of a dry twig, the feont twitter of a bird in its nest, all these sounds of silence 70 WHO wnwf came to her ear; and still, above them, still clear, atfll mourn- ful and slow, sounded that weird passing bell. ^ Sybil's dressing-gown lay near. She threw it on, thrust her feet into slippers, hastened from the chamber straight to that of the general. She had to pass through the dressing-room on her way; the Frenchman, Cieante, lay soundly asleep on a couch. Another second, and she stood on the threBhold oi the sick-room. There she paused. What was Mrs. Ingram doing? The sick man lay yery still, and the widow was bending over him, her white h%nd8 busy among the pillows. Under those pillows, tho new will, the will that left all to Cyril, lay. It had been the sick man's whim to keep it there, and no one had gainsaid him. But could Mrs. Ingram be s&eking for that ? While she stood, breathless, the old man, with a sudden shrill cr3% started up in bed, and seized the widow by the wrist. " She will murder me!" he cried. ** I dreamed the knife was at my throat. Take her away, Sybil— take her away!'* The momentary strength left him even while he spoke. He fell heavily back among the pillows, his eyes closing in dull stupor once more. As if some prescience warned her she was watched, Mrs. Ingram turned round. Awfully corpse-like the fair face looked in the pallid glimmer of the night-lamp. *• Miss Trevanion," she exclaimed, " you herel I thought you were soundly asleep." Sybil advance(3, very pale. ** What is the matter, Mrs. Ingram? What were you look- fajg for a moment ago, when the general started up?" ** Looking for, dearest Sybil? 1 was not looking for any- thing. I was trying to arrange the pillows more comfortably, when I unfortunately disturbed our poor patient. He has been sleeping heavily since you left, but wandering and talk- ing at intervals. It is fortunate you did not resign him to the tender mercies of Cieante and Mrs. Telfer. They have boUi been soundly sleeping all night." Sybil danced at the housekeeper. Yes, sue was soundly sleeping, and snoring at that. Her conscience gave her d twinge for the unjust suspicion. How uncharitable she was to think evil so readily of this good»nat» ured little woman. *' Did you hear a bell toll?" she asked, half afihamed of iha question. "AbeU? No, dear. Did you?*' WHO WINS? n *' I fancied so. It was only fancy, thongh, I dare say. Now that I am here, however, I will share your watch uatil morning." " Dearest Sybil, no," the widow said, earnestly. ** Why should you? You need rest so much, my poor, pale darling, Bud you see our patient sleeps quietly. You will wear your- self out. You know you are not strong, ?ior used to watchiugj and if you are taken ill, what will the poor old general do vhen? No, my pet; go back to bed and sleep in peace. 1 ^.11 care for our patient fully as well as yourself." »3ybil hesitated. She felt wearied and worn and unrefreshed still; the temp- tation to rest was very strong; and then, as Mrs. Ingram said, ihe was (][uite capable of doing all that was needed to be done. It was wicked to suspect any one of ill design without cause; she would not yield to these unkind suspicions; she would obey Mrs. Ingram, and go back to bed. *' I am very absurd, 1 suppose," she said, " and full of ri- diculous fancies. I will return to my room, Mrs. Ingram, and try to sleep until morning." The widow looked after the slender, graceful, girlish figure, floating out of the room in its white drapery, with glittering black eyes. ** If you were not such a little fool, S3'bil Lemox," she said, between her little white teeth, *' you would thank me for serv- ing you against your will. I hate Cyiil Trevauion, and he shall never inherit the broad acres and full coffers of his fa- ther, if / can prevent it. And those white arms of yours shall never wreathe about him, my pretty princess, if 1 can hold yoa apart." The mystic bell had ceased to toll when Sybil returned to her room'. All was still; the indistinct noises of the night came faintly to her ear; soft and low came the distant wash of the waves on the shore — nothing else. * And Sybil slept until morning. The sunburst of another cloudless summer day filled the world when she woke, sprung up, dressed hastily, and hurried to the sick man's room. It was still very early — scarcely six — the night-lamp yet burned, and Cleante and Mrs. Telfor and Mrs. Ingram, all three were afleep. But Sybil never glanced at them twice; for, standing on the threshold, a great cry of horror and fear burst from her. The bed was empty, the sick man gone! That shrill cry awoke the valet. He yawned, turned, itrefcched himself, and sleepily got up, rubbing his ejrea. U 79 WHO wursf also startled Mrs. Telfer, v^ho sat erect with a Jerlc, gazing bo. wildered about her with dazed and stupid eyes. But the little widow slumbered so soundly tbat she never stirred. '*Miss Svbil!" gasped the housekeeper, " what on earth'i ;he matter.'* The g(3neial— " She stopped short, gazing bewildered at the empty bed. ** Where is my uncle? Where is General Trevanion?" Sybljl oried. " 'A^ake up, Mrs. Ingram, and tell me where he isl" She shook the widow vehemently. The great, velvet-blacV •yes opened and looked drowsily up. ** You, Sybil, love? Have I been asleep? Really; I hai no idea—" " Where is the general?" Sybil exclaimed, wildly. " What have you done with him, Mrs. Ingram?" ** /done with him? My dearest Miss Trevanion — *' And there she, too, came to a dead-lock, with a gasp or con- Btemation, at sight of the vacant bed. ** Good heavens! what can have happened? The last I re- mem oer is giving him a drink and resuming my seat. I felt very drowsy, and dropped asleep without knowing it. I never wok 3 since.' And the general— Oh, Sybil, Sybil! what can havt happened?" She clapped her hands, and looked up in pa'o affright i\i the item, beautiful face, colorless as marble. The clear, strong violet eyes met full the tearful black ones with a long, power- ful gaze. And the black eyes drooped and fell, and the widow covered her face with both slender hands, sobbing. *' You will never forgive me for falling asleep. I know it; I deserve it I But oh, dearest, dearest Sybil, indeed — I could not help iti" ** Alarm the house. Clean te," Sybil said, turning away, her voice ringing in its high command. '* Search every nook and comer. You will accompany me, Mrs. Telfer. He must have risen in his sleep and wandered somewhere. We will find him dead, in all likelihood, in one of the vacant rooms." She had loved the stern old man very dearly; but she shed no tear now. It was the hour for action, not for weeping; «nd Mrs. Ingram's sobs were the only ones in the room. Sybil's first act was to lift the pillows and look for the will, it was gone! She glanced at the weeping widow with a cyn» ical eye, and led the way from the sick-room. The search began. Thoy hunted everywhere; all in vain. Through every corner of the deserted old house, from cellar to garret, they looked; but not th? slightest trace of the niis»> Qg invalid. WHO WUSfB? 7t As mysteriously as though the earth had opened and swal- lowed him up. General Trevauion had vanished. Charley was sent for; the authorities of Speckhavea war* aroused; a thorough and vigilant search began. All in vain. Through house and grounds— through erery nook and comer — no trace of the missing man. Ponds and pools were dragged, and many things were brought up, bufc not the dead body of General Trevanion. They spent a week in the fruitless sear h. The whole county was up in wonder and horror at the astounding myi- tery. And most vigilant among those tireless seekers was IWCri. Ingram, ever pallid and tearful, full of remorse for that dread- ful slumbei into which she had been beguiled, and so anxious to make her peace once more with " dearest Sybil." But Miss Trevanion turned away wiih a face like stone, an unutterably bitter heart, and rigidly compressed lips. Since that fatal morning she had never spoken one word to the wom- an, who, in her secret soul, she felt convinced, in some myste- rious and unheard-of way, had spirited off, bodily, the old gen- eral and the will. And to deepen the dark mystery of Monkswood, though a second telegram had been sent him, Cyril Trevanion came not. << CHAPTER X. THE CHIEF OF LAKA IS RETURNED AGAIN. » Seven miles away, where the waves of the ceaseless sea washed the shingly shore, under the broiling sea-side sun, there nestled the little fishing-village of Chudleigh. And high up on the coast stood the great house, with its grand old park, Chudleigh Chase. They were one of the oldest county fam- ilies, the Chudleighs — and the present baronet and General 'Trevanion had been close friends, as well as neighbors, when both were at home, which was not often. And among all who were shocked — nay, stunned, by the incomprehensible mystery at Monkswood, none felt it half as profoundly as Sir Buperi Chudleigh. Three weeks had passed away, and the search was about given over in des2)air. Not the faintest clew to guide them ad been found. The most artful detectives from Scotland Yard had been summoned, and these profound guessers of an- guessable riddles set their brains at work to no purpose. And at last they were fain to give it over, and trust to time to L'ft iJie daxk mystery shrouding the fate of the poor old genaraL n WHO wmsf fe Sir Rupert Chudleigh paced slowly up and doT^ii the '• sum- mer drawing-room "-—an exquisite apartment, all silver and azure— a carpet like drifted snow and rosebuds—and pictures, each a gem. Flowers bloomed luxuriously in the wide win» dows, and birds sung amid the flowers; for Sir Eupert was an epicure of the eye, as well as of the palate, and wanted all things pretty &,nd sweet about him. The August sun was flinging red lances of fire amid the rown boh^s of the giant trees, on its westward way; but the 'baronet still wore a picturesque dressing-gown of violet velvet, that clung about him not unlike a Roman toga. Having noth- ing earthly to do, and nothing earthly or heavenly to ihink of, he was a victim to that terrible complaint which the French call la maladie sans malade — the *' disease without a disease '* —and fancied himself at death's door or therea'uouts, a fragile blossom, ready to bo nipped by the first chill gale. He had been pretty well over every nook in the Continent, and now, in his fifty-eighth year, had returned to Chudleigh for good. He had married very late in life, to retrieve his ruined fortunes — squandered at the gaming-table — an heiress, rich as a female Rothschild and ugly as a Hottentot, who had just lived long enough to present him with one daughter and depart in peace. Sir Rupert had buried her in the family vault, with profoundest resignation, gone into mourning, sent the infant away to a widowed aunt iji Berkshire, and thanked his lucky stars that had given him a second fortune and rid him of an unlovely wife. He did not quite forget the little waif left be- hind; he desired the should be named Gwendoline, after his mother — sent quarterly checks to the widowed aunt, and re- quested that the best tutors should be had for her as she grew up. For sixteen years he remained abroad; then, wearied nearly , to death of himself and all the world, he had returned to Chudleigh, and for the first time had the pleasure of making tis daughter's acquaintance. The pleasure was a very doubtful one. The widowed aunt had died some six years before, and Miss Chudleigh had spent her existence in a continual round of boarding-schools. She never remained in one long, somehow; and the directress al- ways heaved a great sigh of relief and muttered a *' thank Heaven " when safely rid of her. ISir Rupert, a tall, thin, patrician-looking person, with deli- cate feet and hands and h; porsensitive nerves, came within an ace of swooning with horror at first sight of his daughter and heiress. She was short, ehe^as stout— dreadfuUjr stout— «h0 «» WHO want w had a fn,f} vcand faoe, intensely red cheeks^ a nose that turned op, a voice shrill and high, thick ankles, and sandy hair. With all th's, the du'^ipy little damsel had had a narrow e9» cape from being pr^«r,y. She had two big, surprised blue eyes, that laugheii in your face as she looked, teeth that outglittered pearls, and a skin like winter snow. And the red-brown hair ran wild in curls and kinks and ripples and waves over the most beautiful, the plumpest, the whitest neck in the world;, and she had the warmest heart, the best temper, and the clear- ' est laugh of any young lady in the three kingdoms. She had a tendency toward the *' fast;'' she could gallop at the heels of the hounds in her scarlet riding-habit, taking hedges and ditches helter-skelter, risking her neck everyday of her life with a rear\y recklessness that was positively delightful. She' had a scoro of dogs, big and little, at her command ; she sung " Champp^ne Charlie " with the ensigns and cornets over at Speckhavcn, and was summed up by those youthful warriors in that on ! expressive adjective, " ;W///." As the lOrd of Chudleigh Chase paced slowly up and down the long drawing-room, while the August sunset filled the room wirh lurid glory, the door was thrown impetuously open, and Miss Chudleigh, with cheeks more like peonies than ever, bounced in. She wore a riding-habit of purple cloth, a purple cap, with a long white plume set jauntily sideways on her dancing curls; and certainly, if not a Venus de Medici, was as bright a little English lassie as one might wish to see. " Papa," she breathlessly cried, " they've had news at Monksvvood; they've had another letter from Cyril I" The tall baronet glanced down at her, and went placidly on wifh his gentle saunter. *' Gwendoline, how often must I request you not to bounce in upon me in this abrupt manner, or call out in that shrill falsetto? If your nerves are made of cast-iron, mine are not." " Fiddle!" Miss Chudleigh came very near saying, but she held in in time. *' lie says, papa, he's been ill again; but they may expect hira shortly. Sybil showed me the letter — such a nasty, cold, unfeeling scrawl. He doesn't even say he's sorry for the poor dear old general's fate. If Sybil weren't a downright goose about lots of things, she'd be glad and thankful that the general had sense enough to take that last stupid will with him, wherever he's gone to. How she can set such store by him — this fellow Cyril, I mean — I can't andercomstumble. " *' Gwendoline!" cried Sir Kupert, in horror. " Undercome — ^ood heavens I what did you say?" * H WHO WDm? ,,.■..11 ** Beg your pardon, papal" said Miaa Chudleigh, rebuked " I forgot — I won't say it again. B-it I will say, this Cyri Tren nion is a flat and a f "Miss Chudleigh!" eai .re!" '«ther, with awful severity, if you talk anymore 8la " 'all order you out of the room. When does Cyril Trevu.non ' ho is coming?" " Shortly — that's all. He said it hetovd and he didn't come. They're going to leave Monkswood and go back to Trevanion Park. Poor, dear, darling Sybil can't bear the sight of the place now — she does take on dreadlul, papa, when there's no- body to see her but me. And it's my opinion she blames it all on that nasty, smiling, sugary cat, Mrs. Ingram." "Nonsense, Gwendoline! Blame it on Mrs. Ingram? What wild absurdity! Miss Trevanion has a little common 'sense, if you have not. Such a preposterous idea never en- tered her mind." "Very well, papa," responded Gwendoline, with a shower of nods; " think so, if you like, but it's true. She doesn't like Mrs, Ingram, and no more do I. I hate people who say 'yes, dear,' and * no, love,' every time I tell them it's a fine day. Mr. Weller says, * Beware of vidders,' and I agree with Mr. Weller. I expect to be one some day myself; but I sha'n'fc be a * widow bewitched,' like Mrs. Ingram." ** Mrs. Ingram is a very elegant and lady-like person. Miss Chudleigh," Sir Rupert said, sternly, V whom I most ardently wish you would take for a model. If Lady Lemox would con- sent to part with her, and she would consent to come, nothing could giva me more pleasure than to have her here as compan- ion and instructress lor you. Your ignorance of the common- est accomplishments of the most orcinary rules of etiquette is something frightful. You talk slang, you ride, you fish, you shoot, you sing com'o songs, and know no more of the art of dress than a South African belle. Good Heaven, Gwendoline Chudleigh! if you had been born the daughter of the lowest chaw-bacon in Sussex, you could hardly have been worse." ** I wish I had been born the daughter of a chaw-bacon, or a fisherman, or a gypsy, or a strolling plaver, or something else^free and jolly," responded Miss Chudleigh, sulkily; "I don't want to be ' formed,' and play stupid fugues and mon- astery bells and storms and variations, and . ongs without words, and rubbish like thar, on the piano, and have all the languages, living and dead, at mv finjrer ends, and addle my brams over McOuliough, and Adam Smith, and Hugh Miller, and the rest of the dreary old fogies.. I know enough Frenck WHO WIKiP 17 on, or 3thinfl: "1 to read Dumas and George Sand in the original, and I ota flay the * Fishers' Hornpipe ' the the ' Higliland Fling/ and nan. waltz down any girl of my years and inches in tilt county. Everybody likes me but you, papa, and I wouldn**-. be like that artificial, simpering, smooth-tongued white oat of a widow for a kingdom.'* 'Vith which Miss Chudleigh bounced indignantly out of the room, and plunged headforemost into the arms of a tall foot- man in the a?t of ushering a lady into the drawing-room. The lady was Mrs. Ingram, bewitchingly dressed, and all her sirer smiles in full play. Gwendoline rebounded like an Ind'- rubber ball out of the electrified footman's arms, and wfis gone like a flash. ** When we speak of the devil—" said Miss Chudle . " What on earth brings her here? Sybil can't have turned her out, and she can't be coming to beg papa to take her in. Did she make away with the general, I wonder, or was it the prior's ghost? I'm not a coward — I'd face a five-foot wall or the cholera morbus any day; but I wouldn't sleep a night in that dreadful old house — no, not if they were to make me a present of it. It's exactly like the * Castle of Obranto; or, the Mysteries of Udolpho,' that I read when I was a little girl, and I shouldn't be a bit surprised to see one of those grim old fellows in the picture-gallery step out of his frame, and ask me how I found myself. If that widow's coming here to form me, I won't be formed. I won't give up Bell's Life and take to High Church novels, and I won't resign my three hours' gallop with those ducks of * subs,' over at Speckhaven, for three hours' hard strumming on papa's grand piano; I won't learn geology and mineralogy, or tiny other ology — no, not for all the widows this side of Pandemonium." Miss Chudleigh went up to her own suite of apartments, and banged doors, and pitched things about in a high state of temper, and not without cause, for she had unwittingly , guessed very near the truth. In the drawing-room Mrs. In- gram sat, her lace handkerchief to her eyes, her voice lost in suppressed sobs. She was one of those fortunate women, thia little widow, who can cry without reddening their noses, or swelling their eyes, or making their complexions, generally, like speckled trout. The soft, black eyes looked up at you like stars through mist, the glistening drops fell — not too fast, nor too many — off the pearly cheeks, without a stain behind: and the widow's rouge was the production of high art, and did not wash off. She sat— beauty drowned in tears — her voice laltering, her great ey azins: Diteously up at the baronett y RP^" rs WHO wurif Sir Rupert sat opposite, p-avely playing with a paper knlfB, find listening to the widow a tale of woe. " Miss Trevanion dislik'^s and distrusts you,** he was repeat- ing; "ray dear madame, she can not be so unjust as to fancy you in any way accessory to her uu'ie*s lamentable disappear- ance. Miss I'revanion is a young lady of common sense, at least.'* *' Prejudice is stronger than conimon sense,*' Mrs. Ingrani answered, sadly. ** I am very, very unhjippy at Trevanion Park. Lady Lemox is goodness itself — but Lady Lemox's daughter — hal Sir Rupert, you have no idea how miserable one woman can make another — how terribly merciless she can be, particularly when her victim is friendless and alone, as I amr " And yet that is not like Sybil Trevanion. She was al- ways the most generous, the kiudest-hearted, the most gra- cious to those beneath — " The baronet pulled himself up shortly, *< However, aa you say, prejudice, in this case, may be stronger than generosity. And, my dear madame, if you really wish to leave Lady Lemox, why not come hero? I de- sire a companion exceedingly for my daughter, and 1 know of no one whom I would so greatly like to see filling that office as yourself." The widow clasped her hands — and the soft, black eyes looked speechless ecstasies of gratitude. " Oh, thanks. Sir Rupert! a thousand thanks! It is what I have been hoping for most ardently, but scarcely dared to ask. The meager annuity loft me by my late husband would barely suffice to keep me in clothing, and then he died deeply involved, and those debts I try in my poor way to pay — " The lace handkercliief in requisition again. ** Dear Sir Ru- pert, you have made me very happy — I knezo I should find a true friend in you." The baronet bowed, very well pleased. It was something Very new to him, this coming out as philanthropist, and de- cidedly pleasant. A pretty young widow, figuratively at your feet, kissing the hem of your garment, is not without its in- toxication, when you are an elderly widower of fifty odd, with an eye left still for the fine points of a woman. *' You will do us the honor of dining with us, Mrs. Ingram," the baronet said in his most stately manner, '* I am still in my morning-gown, as you see, but the wretched state of my health must — " " Dear Sir Rupert," Mrs. Ingram said, rising and inter- nip.ting, '* pray oit'er no apology— we all know the sad state of WHO want poor your healfch. Ah I life l^as many drawbacks, evpn for the^ great and the good I I will not remain to-day — thanks, dear Sir Rupert— I must return to Trevanion in time to dine with Lady Lemox, and break the news of my speedy departure. She will grieve sincerely, I know— she really cares for little lonely me.*' " A not very difficult task, I should imagine," Sir Rupert oaid, blandly. " I congratulate myself and ray daughter ou our good fortune. When will you come, Mrs. Ingram, to brighten our rather dull old house?" *' I will come next week — this is Friday — on Monday, then, probably. My preparations are few and easily rr\adc, and the sooner t leave, the oetter Miss Trevanion v/ill be pleased. It is very hard to be so misjudged; but thanks to your great goodness, dear Sir Rupert, I can even bear more than that. Accept the warmest thanks of a grateful heart, and allow me to bid you good -day." A gush of perfume — she lifted his long, lean hand, all spark- ling with splendid rings, to her lips, and kissed it impetuously — a last tender glance of the luminous black eyes — a swish of silk, and the elegant widow was gone. "Really," Sir Rupert Chudleigh thought, settling himself in his easy-chair, and looking complacently at his pink finger- nails, ** a most elegant and thoroughly lady-like person. She will light up our dreary rooms, like one of Greuze's plump beauties stepped out of its frame. Her manners are perfection, and her eyes the finest I think I oversaw. That Ingram must have been rather a happy fellow. It is to be hc-ped she will succeed in toning down that terrible child, Gwendolino. Heavens above! to think that 7 should be parent to such, a bouncer as that." The widow drove home through the amber mist of the sun- eet, her face as luminous with triumph as the radiant sky. ** * I came — I saw — I conquered!'" she thought, with an exultant little laugh. *' I can atford to cry ^uits with you now, my uplifted Princess Sj'bil! When I write my name Lady Chudleigh, who will be conqueress theji ? And Til do 5t, too, before the year ends, if Dame Fate, who has stood my friend so long, does not desert me at the supreme hour, and send that detestable Cyril Trevanion here to betray me. And yet he may come and not know me, after all." She reached the house, as the silvery haze of the summer twilight was falling, and ran np at once to the drawing-room. But hi the door-way she paused, for Sybil Trevanion stood talking to her mother^ with that fixed, infiexibie look on her wd WHO wnrs? i)Ble, beautiful face the widow liad learned to know fo well My lady's handkerchief was at hor eyes. Neither noticed the eavesdropper in the door. ** It is very unkind— it is frightfully cruel of you, Sybill'* my ladv said in a wliimperiiig voice. '* But you always %otr% as obstinate as a mule. JJo you suppose Edith Ingram carried off the poor dear general bodily and buried him alive? Even then Ihev would have found his bones. The idea of your blaming her is too monstrouF. llow could she help dropping asleep, any more than CIcantc or Telfer? and you don't dream of accusing them. You call yourself a Christian, Miss Trevanion, and you attend church two or three times of a Sunday, and you visit wretched sick paupers in Speckhaven, in their filthy little rooms, and read the Bible to them, and all that, and you think nothing next moment of turning round and accusing an innouent person of murder. Very consistent religion yours is, indeed!" ** I accuse no one," Sybil said, wearily. " I have no proof. But foul play has been done in some way, mamma. Some day wo will know. You remember what the German poet sayS; mamma: " ' Tlie mills of tlie gods grind slowly, Bui Ihey grind exceeding small.' Some day the truth will appear. Meantime, I don*t likp Mrs. Ingram, and I can not dwell in the same house with her. I leave Monkswood to-morrow, and never return here. I don't want to meet that woman again. Heaven forgive me if I do her wrong, but I disliked and distrusted her from the first. There is something , f the snake about her, I believe — its deadly glitter in her black eyes, its fatal hiss in her voice, its deadly enchantment in her smile. I don't like her, mam- ma, and she doesn't like me. One house can not hold us both." Lady Lemox sniffed audibly behind her perfumed cloud of cambric. ** You heartless girl! It must be as you say, of course, since you are mistress litre; but I never thought you were so utterly selfish. Y^'ou think of no one but 3^ourself, your likes and dis- likes. You don't care what becomes of ti\e. Who will write my letters? Who will read all the new novels to me? Who will sing me to sleep? Who will — " But here the thought of the terrible misery impending was too much for Lady Lemox; her voice was lest in tears. t^**Dear mamma," Sybil said, smiling in spito of herself. WSO Willi? M " the case is not so harrowing as you make it out. Let m« take Mrs. Ingram's place — let me do all these things for yoo. Beh'eve me, you will find m? ready and willing at all times." She drew out her watch. '* Past seven," she taid. " I must return at once. Give Mrs. Ingram warning, mamma, whoa «he returns. If money bo any compeusat'ou, draw freely on me. Only, go she must I" She turned round toward the door, and for the first time saw the widow, motionless as a statue, listening to every word. There was a slow, mockin? smile on her face, and the large dark 03'es looked full at Sybil, with a dangerous gleam in their Bhining depths. Miss Trevanion returned that sinister gaze with brightly fearless eyes. ** Pray, Mrs. Ingram," she said, " how long have you been listening there? Long enougji, I trust, to hear what I have been saying to Lady Lcmox." " Quite long enough, Miss Trevanion." She advanced into the room as she spoke. '* But it is no news to me. I am fully aware that you have honored me with your strongest ha- tred ever since my arrival here. And you wish to give mo my dismissal? Permit me, if you please, to take the initiative. 1 leave here on Monday morning." Miss Trevanion bowed coldly, swept past her, and was gone. Very fair and stately the handsome heiress looked in her trailing crape and sables — a lady to her finger-tips. A tiny phaeton and two lovely cream-colored ponies stood awaiting her. Sybil 'rove those superb thorough-breds her- self, handling tho ribu )ns in masterly style, though by nc means capable c* coping with Gwendoline Chudleigh, who drove four-in-hand, smokiJig a cigarette to the last ash with- out ever turning pale, or whistling tho '* College Hornpipe " with the best Cantab from college. The last red glimmer of the sunset had faded away in silver gray, and a brightly beautiful moon trembled on the edge of an opal sky. One by one the sunimor stars gleamed out, one by one the nightingales chanted in tho green gloom of the woods. The hedge-rows were all a^low, and the secret scent of new-mown hay filled the air. The lazy cows in the mead- ows lifted their slow brown eyes to see the dashing little drag flash by, and a great peace came into the gill's heart with the holy hush of eventide. Under the silvery stars, the woodland glades, the fern groves, the waving trees, the arrand old Priory looked very fair and peaceful* .t'\ « WHO wnref " How beautiful ifc all is!" Sybil thought, with a wistful libi tie eigh— " the dear old Priory! the grand old Parkl Ah, it Cyril would but return — if my * Prince Charlie ' would but come back to claim his own again!" She stopped, a little surprised by something that met her eye. She had not entered under the great archway, but by the west gate, a less pretentious and more retired way. It was the terminus of the Prior's Walk, and a quaint, m'^diasval old house, all peaked gables, and stacks of chim- neys, and diamond-paned casements stood here, half hidden in a wilderness of roses and ivy and sweet-brier. It was called the Prior's Retreat, and at odd times had been rented to any respectable tenant willing to pay a large rent for a very incon- venient residence. Of late years ifc had been quite deserted — haunted, of course, like the Prior's Walk — and the sight that surprised Sybil now was to see smoke cnrliug upward from the chimneys and a biff Livonian wolf-hound gamboling ponderously about. A second more, and she came directly in front of the Ketreat, and in eight of its new occupant. Leaning with folded arms over the little rustic gate, was a man — a gentleman. Sybil saw that, in spite of a shabby ehooting-coat and a broad-brimmed, foreign-looking hat. He was smoking a pipe — a short, fierce-looking, black thing loaded to the muzzle — and gazing with dark, dreamy eyes at the tremulous brilliance of that beautiful moon. A tall and powerful-looking man, somewhere about thirty, with a black cascade of mustache and beard. That magnilicent beard hid all t'^e lower part of his face completely, and what was left was tanned deep bronze, as if from long exposure to tropic suns. But you saw two powerful black eyes, large, bright, strong, and clear, a handsome nose, jetty masses of wavy hair, and a noble head. Sybil stared in wonder. As the gentleman encountered the clear gaze of the lovely violet eyes, ho started up, removed his pipe, took off his hat, and stood, gravely uncovered, before the fair young chatelaine. The graceful head bent ever so slightly, she touched the spirited ponies with her whip, and vanished amid the trees. Lounging on the portico, " doing the dolce," as he called it, was her brother. He rose languidly at ?'ght of her. ** You've been gcno ages, haven't you, Sybil? And there's-" " Charley," Sybil interrupted, " who is that at the Re- treat? I saw a gentleman jist now as I drove by." WRO WrBTSP .,-.% <« Did your* said Charley. " Then you saw a very fina fellow, let me tell you. That's Mr. Angus Macgregor, tho new tenant. Reedworth, the steward, has r^jnted the old rookery, and I've had the pleasure and profit of making the new tenant's acquaintance. He's a gentleman from foreign parts — been pig-sticking and boar-hunting in Suabia, 1 believe — of a literary turn — writes books and all that, and has taken the Retreat for a year to pursue literature on the quiet. Nice fellow — very intelligent — been pretty well everywhere, and fur- ther — writes jolly books about it, and makes lots of money, I daresay. Lucky beggar! I wish I could write books." " If you could, you would be too lazy to do it. Tell Will- iams to rub down the ponies. Are you going to dine with me, Charley, or—" " Yes, I'm going to dine with j'ou, Sybil, if you don't for- fet all about so sublunary a matter in talking to Mr. Cyril 'revanion. He's sold out, he tells me, so we needn's be afc the trouble of giving him military prefixes. Did I tell you he had come?" "Come!" Sybil gasped, her eyes wild and wide. "Cyril come! Oh, Charley! you never mean to say — " " My dearest Sybil," she Etonian remarked, with his most exasperating drawl, '* don't excite yourself; don't get the steam up, I beg. Yes, I do mean to say, * The chief of Lara has returned again,' and about as gloomy and grumpy a chap as I've seen this some time. I was on the point of telling you at first, when you so very impolitely interrupted me. I ratnei think you'll find him in the drawing-room." Charley stretched himself out again, exhausted, and closed his eyes. Sybil stood still a moment, her heart throbbing, her color coming and going. At last her hero had come! Then she started up, swept past Charley, and hurried into the draw- ing-room. CHAPTER XL sybil's hero. He was there. Standing before one of the long, narrow windows, gazing out at the purple twilight gemmed with golden stars, at his own wide domain, lordless so long, stood the hero of her dreams, thought of, longed for, i-*eal:zed all her life- Cyril Trevanion. A tall, dark man— she saw that before ho turned round— with glistening tlireads oi silver m the raven blackness of his H WHO WIFSP hair; more slender and less stalwart of figure, than the Tre. vanionb were wont to be. As the faint, subtle odor o! perfume, the light swish of her silken robe, the first faiut feminine exclamation reached him, he swung round, advanced a step, and Sj'bil and Cyril stood face to face. Fifteen years before they had parted down yonder, under the ancestral oaks and eJms, she clinging to his neck, he kiss-i ing and bidding her good-bye, on his way to that fatal bride for whom he had lost all. And now they looked in each other'c eyes again. Child as she had been, ehe remembered vividly how he had looked that night, beautiful, with r^-^an's best beauty, bright- eyed, clear-browed, hopeful, and handsome. And now! He stood before her, pale almost to ghasfclinese, deep bistre tints under the large black eyes, a jetty mustache shading the stern, set mouth, and a dark, fixed gravity over- shadowing all the face. It was Cyril Trevanion — she knew him at once — but darkly, sadly changed. The glad words of welcome died out on Sybil's lips. Some- thing in the stony fixedness of that rigid faced chilled to the core of her heart. " My brother told me you were here," she said, advancing with outstretched hand, and all the sympathy she dared not express shining in the eloquent violet eyes. ** We have been looking forward to your coming this long, long time. I need not say how happy I am to welcome you back to Monkswood, Colonel Trevanion." In the da3's gone by Sybil had improvised some hundreds of eloquent and pathetic little speeches wherewith to welcome her '* prince " home. Now the prince stood before her, and the welcome resolved itself into these commonplace words. Cyril Trevanion bent an instant over the pearly hand, then dropped itc It was the hand upon which the solitaire, his parting gift, shuue; but he did not see it. " It is a very painful return, Miss Trevanion," he said, and even his very voice seemed strangely changed to Sybil;*' as painful as the parting. I find my father dead, his fate wrapped in darkest m}stery, and Monkswood, blooming once, * as the rose,' changed to a forsaken wilderness. My poor fa- ther I I wish to Heaven it had been in my power to reach here sooner I" He turned away from her, and looked out of the window agam at the silvery gloaming settling over the yellow Sussex downs. WHO wnfsf a« ** Yes," Sybil answered, " it is a pity. He wished to seo you so much, to forgive you so ardeutly, to look hia last ci\ your face before he died. Tiie horrible darkness that shrouds his end nearly drives me wild when I think of it. It is the most utterly incomprehensible mystery that was ever heard of. The house was carefully bolted and secured; it held but a few women and two or three faithful men-servai.ts. lie was ut- terly unable to quit his bed, to raise himself in it of himself. I leave him for a few hours in charge of Mrs. Telfer, Cleante, and Mrs. Ingiuiu, and lo! in the morning he is gone as if he had been spirited bodily away! Not a trace, not a clew re- mains. The watchers slept, everything is found secure as we left it; but not the faintest vestige of his m3'sterious fate re- mains. I go half mad with wonder and terror when I think of it." " It iff most extraordinary. And those watchers — had you implicit faith in them?" " Mrs. Telfer and Cleante you know. Colonel Trevanion,^' Sybil responded, a little surprised. " They have been in his service these thirty years. As for Mrs. Ingram, she is a lady, and mamma's friend, and, of course. General Trevanion and his will could be nothing to her. You know, Colonel Trevau- j> ion," hesitating slightly, *' that the new will, that left all to you as it should always have been left, disappeared with him." ** 1 know it — yes. I don't regret that. Permit me to con- gratulate you on your accession. You will make a much bet- ter use of all these ingots than I would ever do. You have been my father's one comfort and solace all these years, I know. His companion almost always, were you not?" *•■ Since I left school, and I left very early — yes. The last three years we spent in Italy and the south of France; but hip constitution was entirely gone, and," with a sh)-, wistful glance, " he never was the same. Cousin Cyril, since he lost you. lie loved you very dearly. He forgave you in his heart long ago, I know. I think, sometimes, it might have added years to his life to have had you by his side." The moody darkness on the brow of the ex-colonel of cav- alry deepened. He made no reply; and at the moment Charley came lounging in, with h:"s habitual lazy hir. *' The ' tocsin of the soul * has sounded, Miss Trevanion, and your only brother is hungry enough to eat fricasseed monlcoy, if yon don't tell him wiij^.t it is. Macgrcgor was finipe-skootinff to-day, and .^orluced me Into accompanying him; and I hope Afr. Macgregor's head won't ache until ne catches me ftt it again. The way that man swings over ' brake, busfa« M WHO WINSf and scaur ' might take the conceit out of the favorite for the Derby. Pedestrian exercise is healthy, they say. I don't knovtr; never went in for it much; but I have my doubts, if it makes a man's appetite so painful. If you've done all your pretty speeches to the returned chieftain, Sybil, we'll adjourn to dinner." The trio adjourned at once to the dining-room, not the great dining-room of Monkswood, which was about as vast and cheerful as a church, but to a cozy little apartment opening off the drawing-room, all brilliant with the light of many wax candles, and all a-glitter with glass and Sevres ana quaint old silver, and where a butler, majestic enough and solemn enough for an armbishop, stood awaiting them. It was rather a silent meal, or would have been, only for Charley. Colonel Trevanio.i s moodiness seemed a chronio complaint. He sat like a statue of dark marble among the wax-lights and the flowers, eating little, drinking less, and talking least of all. Sybil felt a painful sense of constraint, a chilling sensatic j of aisappointment. It was hard to find anything to say to that fixed, inflexible face. But Charley, who was equal to a conversational monologue at any time, tali.;.; way, and did his best to draw Sybil's hero out. " I trust you have no objection to fighting your battles over again. Colonel Trevanion?" he said, eying his tall companion. *" Sybil is soldier-mad, you know, and nothing less than the whole Crimean campaign will satisfy her. You'll find it fa- tiguing, very likely; but you're in for it. Russians may have some mercy, but a woman has none. By the bye, you'll meet some — what's their names?- brothers-in-arms over there at Speckhaven; one or two of your old regiment, even, I believe." The f"ce of Cyril Trevanion flushed deep dark-red, and his fell. bold bui' K eye^ " I have no des^Vo to meet any of my old comrades," he mid, curtly. *' The circumstances under which I return, the painfui p3o., liie— " He stoprjd confusedly. "I wish to renew no o].} uc'j'iiunit n 3es, nor form any new ones. I prefer to rema'i! f 'icireiy .ilone for th'^ present." ** Oh," Oimrloy firawled, " Diogenes and his tub, Robinson Crnsoe at jyion'i;.HOud Waste! \our views of life appear to have changed Ji^hiiilernbly of late. I thought the stories they tell at the moss-taole of your wonderful conviviality and good- fellowship had a tciich of ihc long bow. They'll rather won- der at the change — the fellows of the Fifteenth — at your turn- ing hermit and living alone with tho prior's ghost. Do jott 'AM^'A^f^.iiii.^^if'Sikmii.i't'asL:fSa^^ wtto wnrs? 9ft remember meeting an Englishman — a Scotchman, rather- named Macgregor, out in Lima, last year? He tells me he met you there; and as he's a tenant of yours now, perhaps you'll like to renew Zti6* acquaintance." Again the deep>red flush rose over Cyril's swarthy face. "No," he said, siiUenlyj "I wish to ren'jw 710 one's ao- quaiiitance. I remember no Macgregor at Lima. A man can't bo expected to keep posted as to every John Bull or raw-boned Scotchman he meets on his travels." There was something so vindictive in his tone — something so rude in his words — that Sybil loolced at him in shocked wonder. But her brother was in nowise moved. *' Very true," he said in his softest voice; ** only when the * raw-boned Scotchman ' suffers to save our life, it gives him — well, a slight claim to a place in our recollection. But per- haps the street brawl in which he saved you from a Spanish dirk has slipped your memory too?" " I was ill of a fever after I left Lima," Cyril Trevanion fciaid, with a moody look of injury. ** It was at Valparaiso; a very dangerous brain fever, in which my life and reason were both despaired of. I recovered, contrary to all expectation; bat a very remarkable change had been wrought. A/l the past was a blank. I remembered ijothing of my whole life before that fatal fever — not my own name." Sybil uttered an exclamation. Charley looked at him fur* tiveiy, a curious twinkle in his eyes, but his face preternat- uraliy solemn. The ex-colonel was gazing into his plate. He did not seem to fancy meeting their gaze. *' Ah!" Charley said, patheticallj% " what a very remari'-a- ble fever, and how I wish some of my creditors could catch it. If only a man's boot-maker and tailor lost their memory, what an Elysiimi this earth would he! And so you have forgotten 3ver.y thing, and the waters of Lethe are no fable, after all? rU mention it to ^Macgregor; it may save him some trouble. He appeared to have been tolerably intimate with yoa out there. Most astonishing case you ever hoard of — eh, Sybil?'* There was a covert mockery in Charley's tone, which h. ^ sister was quick to detect. The painful sense of constraint deepened. It was a relief when dinner was over, and they reciirned to the drawing-room. The Etonian stretched him^^elf upon a sofa, and went on with his work of drawing out the returned hero; ' ut Colonel Trevanion drov; out so extremely fine that even v arley was baffled. Of his battles in India and Russia, of his travels in u WHO WDTSr South America and Central Abia, Cyrii Trevanion was strit ingly reserved a:iU taciturn. °* * On their own merits modest men are dumb/ ** quoted Charley. *' My own case precisely. Tve covered myself with flory some hundreds of times in stand-up fights with bigger oys; I've had a set-to with a distinguished member of the P. E., Bully Brittles, and I licked Bully; but 1 never epeak of these exploits. It's not a lack of memory, either; it'£ fenuine innate modesty^ the real, ivnadulterated tSimon Pure. jet's have somo music, Sybil. Talking doesn't seem to be the coloriel's forte." Cyril Trevanion took his departure earl3\ He was stopping atone of the Spcckhaven hotels. The brother aai sister watched him mount his horse and ride away in the soft sum- mer moonlight. Ho had aj^reed, before that leave-taking, to accompany tiiem to "'revanion Park on the n.jrrow, and re- main their guest for the |) resent. ** Rum sort of chap, that hero of yours, Sybil!" the Eton- i;:ir said;, as the dark horseman disappeared. " Don't remem- ber his oldest friends, or the man that saved his life a year ago, and eats fish wii^h his knife. But then that fever. How's your ideal now, my dear, rojiiantic, novel-reading sister? Con- siderably shattered, eh? If he were anything less than a hero, and the last of all the great Trevanions, who 7)ei'sr go wrong, I should say he was about the greatest guy and the sulkiest lent I've come across lately. The man who can eat salmon cuUets with his krife, an;' drink out of his finger-glass, it/ capable of any ear(hi\ eriu»e.'' But Sybil was go'^c. Sbo tiiti '\ up the dark, polished oakei; stair-way, and di^^aijp^.v -i ii' hui own room. The night-lamp burned uini, brit thb lovely summer moon- light streamed in, and pui > shame i^ feeble glimmer. She blew it out, and ?;it down I ' the .t'inuow, her chin resting on lier hanc^ , the de(^;j, dark e} i looking ihour^httully out over the silvery grove' of fe?"n, the waving iioes, the vei vet-green glades of Monkcvood Waste. And so the dream of her life was realized — Cyril Trevanion was ccme. A cold, leaden sense of chill and disappointment weighed down her h*?art like lead. He was so ditlerent — oh, BO diffcr'3nt!— from the Cyril she remembered, from the hero of heidrcama. She had read, she had heard of his brilliant exploits, of his matchless bravery, cf his counuess "deeds ol derring-doj" h&whe Ivd.l sv/cpt d'own,an ;ncaniate whirlwind, upon hordes of turbaned Sikhs and yellow KHfiferf, and turned the tide of victory at Um iaci hi-kiirC hoiw he had stormed b»t- »maSm&?y--&^' WHO wim f 8# teries, and led forlorn hopes, and ridden with the glorious Six Hiindred up the deadly heights of Balaklava. And when her eyes had flashed, and her cheeks flushed, and her heart throbbed aiinost to bursting with pride and joy, she had remembered that this invincible hero, this Coeur de Lion, had kissed and caressed her at parting, and given her the soli- taire she wore by night and by day as a token of his love. ** My hero, my king!'* the young enthusiast would cry, passionately kissing it, "I would die for you I Oh, to be a man, and such a man as he I Oh, for the dear old days of chivalry and romance, when girls could go, disguised, and play page, at least, to their liege lord and knight. My own brave Cyril!" And now the great dream of her life was realized; her lion- hearted had come — a tall, black-browed, sullen gentleman, wrapped in gloom as in a mantle, guilty of awkwardnesses that made the high-bred I'ldy's hair rise, and most &haniefully un- grateful to the man who, only a year before, had saved his life. One by one the slow tears arose in the proud eyes and fell, she was so unutterably sh ncked and disappointed. Her idol of old was but potter's clay. Poor Sybil! The hours of the genial July night wore on. She had little desire for sleep. A sonorous clock over the stables struck loudly the midnight hour before she awoke from her painful reverie. With a long, shivering sigh, she was about to rise and pre- pare for bed, when something caught her eye that riveted her to the spot, and set her heart beating wildly with a sensation akin to terror. A figure was moving amid the shrubbery — a tall figure, wearing some kind of dark, shrouding garment, not unlike a priestly soutane. Slowly it moved — now stopping, now going on, now lost in dense shadow, now distinct in the brilliant light of the moon. It left the shrubbery and entered the Prior's Walk. Was it the prior's ghost taking its customary midnight airing, and w&lling its ghostly beads under the monastic oaks? No. The vivid moonlight, streaniing full on the lonely fig- jrc, its head turned toward tJie v.ateher's window, showed Miss Trevanion the handsome face, bronzed and bearded, of Mao- gregor, the tenant of the Retreat. Sybil drew her breath agnin; s^he had been terribly strrtled. Mr. Macgrogor wore a long, loose, picturesque-looking cloak, and a broad-brimmed Spanish sombrero, and was altogether ymo worsF not -mlike & bHffand in a play, or a sentimental caraliar cnme to sing his midnight serenade under his lady's lattice, lie did nothing o! the kind, however. He paced briskly up and down the long, leafy aisle, in the solemn beauty of the night, for nearly an i. ur. 8yb»l watched him through it all, surprised, curioug, amused. Then he plunged with a crash into the fir plantation and disappeared. " How odd!'* Sybil thought, languidly, forgetting all about h<»r cousin in this new sensation. " What a very eccentric personage this Mr. Macgregor must be. But then authors are all eccentric, I believe. I shall like to know him, 1 fancy, ..nd I must read his books. He has beon a i^rcat traveler, and is wonderfully clever, I, suppose. Ho has the face for it; and I hke clever men." The ex-cavalry colonel and the eccentric tenant of thj Ke- treat were queerly enough mixed up in M'ss Trevaiion'a dreams that night. She awoke from one — a most vivid vision — in which a glistei I'lg black snake, with the wide, velvet eyes and silken smile of !\dith Ingram, was about to spring upon her with its deadly folds, while Cyril stood by with grimly folded arms and gloomy face. She struggled — she strove to cry out — her last hope was gone, when, crashing out of the fir-trees, came the tall Macgregor, and his blackthorn whirled through the air and came down like the stroke of doom on the hooded serpent head. And Cyril slunk moodily away, and the handsome tenant of the Retreit had knelt on one knee before her on the greensward, his kingly brow uncovered, and said: ** Look at m» WHO woniP tl Sybil obeyed The tenant of the Retreat was stretched lazily beneath a big branching oak, smooking a cheroot and watching the vivid azure of the July sky as seen through the glistening foliage. His long, lean wolf-hound lay stretched oat beside him, and master and dog made a very striking tab- ieau set in vivid green. " I say, old fellow," Charley called, " Pve a message from Sir Rupert ChUdleigh. He wants you to dine with him this evening, and give him the benefit of your views on — hanged if I don't forget what! I strongly recommend you to be punc- tual, and give >//e your opinion of his old Latour claret and his- Lafitto with the black seal. And, oh! Gwen says you're to fetch her a batch of French novels, and finish teaching her all-fours. She'd come to you, only she's afraid it wouldn't be strictly proper. My sister. Miss Trevanion — Mr. Mac- gregor. She goes in, no end, for authors and poets, and all such small deer, so I expect you'll be sworn friends directly." Mr. Macgregoi had sprung up, and stood uncovered before the pretty chatelaine. He bowed low at Charley's very fre*"- pnd-easy introduction. ** My authorship will have done me its pleasantest service if it induces Miss Trevanion to add me to the list of her friends," he said, with a Fmile Sybil liked — bright and clear as the sunshine itself. *' I'll attend to your behests, Charley, and Miss Chudleigh's also. Ah, Colonel Trevanion! happy to meet you ogain, 1 confess,'- with a keen glance. " I should scarcely have recognized you, though. You have changed out of all knowledge since we parted last in Lima." Colonel Trevanion uttered something not very distinctly, and looked away from the piercing black eyes of his tenant. " He had a fever out in — what's the place, colonel? and lost his memory altogether. Don't remember anything now," said the Etonian, with a wink of intense significance. '* Con- venient sort of fever to catch, eh, Macgregor? Sybil, don't stare so — it's rude. You'll make Macgregor blush. ^' For Sybil was staring quite wildly at the tenant of the Ee- treat. At her brother's remark ifhe blushed red as a sunset sky, whib Mr. Macgregor laughed good-naturedly. " I resemble some one Miss Trevanion has met before, per* haps,'*' he said, with a glance from the splendid dark eyes that thnlled the gii-1 strangei}-, " 1 wibh you good-morning." He stood bareheaded" until the cn-riage disappeared, and still Sybil wore that startled face. Suddenly she tui'ned upoa tliid oolcuel. M WHO wursf \^- ** Cousin Cyril, do you know you very sfcrongly reiexnbll that man?" *'WhatI Macffregor? Jyio— surely not. " " But you del excitedly. ** It is tftat made me stare to. How Tory rude you are, Charleyi to draw attention to it u you did." " JSTot half so rude as yourself," retorted the Etonian. " If Maogregor had been the Pig-headed Lady, you couldn't have looked him out of countenance more. If you had gazed much longer, he might have thought you were falling m love with him, and taking his photograph in your mind's eye." "Nonsense! but the resemblance — don't you see it. Char* ley?" *' Can't say I do. Macgrcgor's much the better-looking man of the two, if you'll permit me to say so, colonel. Botn are black as the — don't look alarmed, S}'bil, I won't mention him — but Colonel TrevQ,nion's general expression of counte- nance says ' Go to the devil!' as plainly as words, while Mac- fregor*s rather a pleasant-looking fellow, on the whole. I ope you don't object to plain speaking, mv dear Trevanion?" turning with charming frankness to the Inuian otticer; ** it's a way I have." " So I perceive/' answered Colonel Trevanion, with a frigid face; ** and a most disagreeable way, I should imagine, your acquaintances find it." ** And Charley, like most other people who plume them- eelves upon their * plain speaking,' will take plain speaking from no one else," said Sybjl, in mighly displeasure. " Thoce Eton boys have become a by- word tor their impertinence. So the tenant of the Ketrcat visits at Sir Rupert Chudleigh's?" ** Quite intimate there," responded her brother, in nowise Juenched; *' and very jolly feeds the old baronet gives. His jafitte is nectar for the gods, and his Chambertin and Mar- laschino something to bo dreamed of in one's visions of Para- idise, Owen's the only drawback, with her flaming dresses, and her loud style generally; but Macgregor, who is next door to an angel as to temper, finds even /ler endurable. And he and the old cock — beg pardon for the slang, Svbil; mean Kir Eupert, of course — argue about no end of philosophical and metaphysical things, till all's blue, and the baronet loses his temper and gets badly floored. Then they go to ^cartit and Macgregor beats him at thul, b?- 1 they part deadly enemies— nntil next time." *' Your Macgregor appears to be a sort of Admh'able Crich- toa," said his sister. ^* Pray, how long has he b«^ in thew WHO WUBW* parts to strike up such an intimacv with so rery exclnsiye a gentleman as Sir Kupert? Or did they Icnow eacn other long •go?" ** Never set eyes on each other until about a month ago," Charley said. " Macgregor camo down to Speckhaven straight from Suabia, wheru, as I told you before, he had been pig-Bticking and boar-hunting, and writing jolly bookg. He and the baronet ' met by chance, the usual way. Sir Rupert got hold of his work on Central Africa, and his ' Tour Among Volcanoes ' — South American tiavels, you know; got im- mensely delighted with them, and called u])on the * talented author ' immediately. As for liking him, once you know him^ that*.< simply a matter of course. J like him," added tha Etonian, superbly; " and 1 can say no more." '* No," said Colonel Trevanion, with withering Earcasm^ ** I should say not. Thut comprises everything. Undue charity toward your species is not one of your weaknesses, I. fancy." (Charley eyed him askance. '* Weaknesses I have nonf^-, colonel. Fools I despise, an^; knaves J abhor. And I believe it is a generally admitted tru» ism that mankind is divided into these two classes. Mac^ fregor maij be a knave — I haven't coundcd him to his lowest- epths yet; but ho certainly is no fool. And of the two, L prefer the knaves." There was that in the easy insolence of the lad's tone that said, as plainly as though ho had spoken, "And i/cni belong to the fools." But they were at the house by this time, tO' Sybil's intense relief; and my lady, who hud got wind in some vay of the new arrival, was at the door to receive and welcome them. Mrs. Ingram was nowhere visible when the family party entered the drawing-room; but ten minutes later her silvery voice was heard humming a "* Traviata " air, and she came in through a glass door laden with a basket of dewy roses. Very pretty she looked, very youthful, very fre^h, the bloom, that was not all rouge, at its brightest on her oval cheeks, and the great, velvety eyes looking longer and darker for the artful circles about them. Her girlish robe of white muslin fluttered in the light July breeze: pink ribbons and blush roses lighted her up, and atl the rich black hair hung loose, half curls, half ripples, over the bare, plump shoulders. Sbo looked like one of Greuze'e melting beauties stepped oat of its frame. i IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGt-T (MT-3) ? ^ // ^/ ^.^ A .v^^* 4?. '/. p 1.0 I.I 11.25 21 12.5 ■50 vmf ■^ 1^ 12.2 :^ y^ ill 2.0 V] 71 w S^J^'" ^^ J> V o 7 /^ '^ / Photographic Sciences Corporation 73 WfST MAIN STREET WEBSiCR.N.Y. 14SM (716) 872-4503 'ii,^ 14 WHO wxire r She stood in the door-way an instant — an exqnfsfte tablean -—with her roses and her ribbons, glancing from one face to the other. Cyril Trevanion, sitting talking to Lady Lemox, his face partly averted, was the last she saw. As he turned round and their eyes met, the bright color faded from the rounded cheeks and a dull, leaden whiteness passed from brow to chin. She stood quite still, cold a:id pale, gazing at him with wild, wide e^-es. ** Sweets to the sweet!" Charley said, taking her basket of roses out of her resistless hand. " How you do stare, Mrs. Ingram I You are almost as bad as Sybil half an hour ago. Is Colonel Trevanion Medusa's head, and is he turning you to stone? Come, and let me present him. It may break the fatal spell." He led her forward, still resistless. Some sudden inward panic seemed to palsy every sense. Sybil looked at her in wonder, then suspiciously at her com- panion; but the colonel's impassi/e face was as impassive as ever, his deep-set eyes expressive o-! no surprise, of no recogni- tion, of no.hnig but great and sudden admiration. She had arisen before him so unexpectedly — she was so brill- iantly pretty, so fair, so sweet — that the eyes that had looked calmly enough on Sybil Trevanioii's beautiful face grew all alight with admiration of this gay little vision. Mrs. Ingram drew a long breath, it might be of relief, and gave Colonel Trevanion one little dimpled palm. The color came slowly back to her cheeks, the startled look left hor eyes. She sat*down by Charley, laughing and chatting in her gashing, girlish way, and listened to his off-hand compliments and free-and-easy love-making with laughing good humor. But all the while there was a puzzled expression in her face, all the while she kept up a furtive, ceaseless watch upon Cyril Trevanion, pausing in the midst of her gay repartees to listen while he spoke, to note his every movement.. Gradually she turned from Charley to him, asking adroit questions about India, and Russia, and South America, and receiving the briefest and least satisfactory of answers. There was a strange smile curving her pretty lips, a tri- umphant glitter in her eyes, when at length she quitted the drawing-room and ascended to her own apartment. The party at Trevanion Park met at luncheon, and again *the widow renewed her artful wiles, again to be baffled by the steady reticence of the hero of Balaklava. ** new very unkind Colonel Trevanion is!*' she said, makr ing a witching gestai'e^ and in a very audible '* aside " to wno wnrs? Charley. " He knows we are literally dying to hear of his adventures among the Turks and the turbans, the houi'is and the hashish-eaters, the awful fanatics of Central Asia, and the ions and gorillas and things of Central Africa, and he won't toll us a word The Times chronicles his wonderful exploits under the Indian suns and amid the Crimean snows, but not a word says he. And of Spanish America, with its earthquakes, and insurrections, and volcanoes, and dark-eyed donnas, he is mutest of all. Colonel Trevanion is a hero, beyond doubtj but he shows no mercy to the curious.'* " I never did care to chronicle my exploits upon the house* tops, Mrs. Ingram,'* Colonel Trevanion answered, " or make a howling about them at the street corners. I can not oven turn them to account, in the way of pounds and shillings, by elaborating them in books, drawing on my imagination for my facts when the real thing falls short." He finished with a withering glance at Charley. That placid youth met it with a front unmoved. ** No," he said, ** your worst enemy will never accuse you, my dear colonel, of the crime of writing books. That's a back-handed hit at Macgregor, isn't it? Don't be too hard on that poor fellow, colonel. He doesnH chronicle having saved your life, remember. Apropos of Macgregor, Mrs. In- gram, you'll be charmed with him, and he with you; but that* a a matter of course. And being a constant visitor at Sir Ru- pert Chudleigh's, you're likely to see a good deal of each other. As you are strong, dearest madame, be merciful in this case. Don*t break his heart as ruthlessly as you have broken mine— I'm used to it, and can stand it; but, like measles, it goes hard with your man of five-and-thirty. And as I've honored him with my especial esteem, I don't want his hairs brought with sorrow to the grave, for a year or two, at least." Mfs. Ingram laughed, and again she and Charley went at it full tilt, with lance and spear. Colonel Trevanion listened and looked, with the face of a man bewitched; and Sybil, after vainly endeavoring to draw his attention, turned away at length, with a scornful glitter in the haughty eyes, and a dis- dainful curl of the superb Up. Luncheon over, Mrs. Ingram' went back to the rosery with her dainty little basket; Sybil sat down to the piano; Lady Lemox took the latest novel, and Charley curled himself up iu a dormouse and drifted gently into the ** lovely land of dreams." Colonel Trevanion lingered for a little beside the im piADiste« bat his eyes wandered ever through the oj>as 90 WHO was? glass door to a fairy figure in white flitting airily aooui; amung the rose-trees. He was so absent, so distrait, answering so at random, that Miss Trevaniou took compassion upon him at last. **She looks like Love among the roses, does she not, Cousin Cyril?" with a slight laugh. " Pray, don't let me detain you; join Mrs. Ingram, by all means. I'm going to practice this fugue of Bach's, and you won't care to listen, I Know. Seel she smiles an invitation." And then the white hands swept over the keys in a storm of sound that drowned the Indian officer's reply, if he made any. A moment later, and his tall figure was out beside the white fairy, helping gather the roses, his face all alight, while he listened to her pretty prattle and her sweet laugh. Miss Trevanion spent four hours at the piano; then she went up to her room to dress for dinner. From her window she could see the widow and her victim, still busy in the July sunshine amid the roses and myrtles and azaleas, forgetful, apparently^ of all the world but themselves. ** And that is Cyril Trevanion— the hero of my life!" the young girl thought, a bitter pang of wounded pride at her heart. " Come home, after all those years, to be infatuated at first sight by the pretty, painted face of Edith Ingram I His father's fate is nothing to him, 1 am less than nothing, and she bewitches him in half an hour, as though he were a weak-witted boy of sixteen. Well, let him go! The man who can stoop to love that woman is not worth one regret from me!" She turned bravely away to her toilet, but the keen pain was at her heart still. It toas hard to giva up her ideal like this — to despise her hero, her king — to see ih.Q last of the Trevanions twice fooled — twice netted by two artful women. " There was some excuse for him at nineteen." she thought, bitterly; " there is none at four-and-thirty." i The widow was quite gorgeous at dinner — shining like a itar. She had not even made a show of mourning for the general. Black did not become her, an^ why should she make a fright of herself to please a young lady who was above being pleased by any effort of hers? She wore to-day a robe of wine- colored silk, that gleamed anH twisted about her like a fiery serpent; and there were blood-red blossoms in her midnight hair, and a half -shattered rose in her bosom; and fts perfum- ing petals drifted into the colonel's face while she talked to him. Sybil's clear eyes looked at her across the table — Sybil, ^ het deep black — ^high-necked, long-sleeved^ devoid o£ omA" WHO Wl»Bf 07- ment — a nun, from the austere cloisters of St. Clare, could not have taken exception to that toilet. And yet the delicate^, high-bred face, with its pure patrician loveliness, its shining, soulful eyes, its sweet, proud lips, was a hundred-fold more beautiful than that other. And the siren wove her rose-chains, and wreathed her gilded fetters. And the hero- of Balaklava bent his neck for the shining chains, and held out his hands for the flowery hand- cuffs. She nung for him after dinner, in her delicious mttzzo* /soprano — fiery little Spanish ballads, mistily tender German chants, impassioned Italian love-songs. And the circean smiles were rosy, and the flashing glances bright, and the en% trancing laugh at its softest and sweetest, and the new Delilah was driving her Samson mad and blind with the delicious fever men call love. ** Clearest case of spoons I ever saw in my life," observed Charley, soito voce, to his sister. *' He's dead and done for this bout. Oh, my poor little Sybil! After all the ammuni- tion 3'Ou've wasted, the dreams you've dreamed, the hopes you've hoped, to think that the little Ingram should havo Deaten you sky high at the first heat! He was a fool at nine- teen, and he's the most out-and-out fool in the three kingdoms at four-and-thirty." Mrs. Ingram and Colonel Trevanion shook hands affection- ately that night at partmg; but Miss Trevanion, very pale in the glare of the wax-lights, said her eood-night very oriefly and coldly, and swept past them botn. And the returned chieftain went to bed to dream of his Circe; and Circe herself, the wine-colored silk flung aside, and a loose wrapper donned, walked long hours up and down her room, thinking — thiuk«< ing. ** Who is he?" she said to herself; " who is he?--this man who claims to be Cyril Trevanion — who looks like Cyril Tre- vanion, and who is not Cyril Trevanion? He does not recog- nize me — that is proof in itself. There is that story ot the Chilian fever, the loss of memory; but — ah, bah! who believes that f Who is he — who is he? My lady believes in him. La Princesse believes in him, and is sorely disappointed, poor thing! Charley believes in him, and ' writes him down an ass.' He's not Cyril Trevanion, and before I'm a mouth older rU know who he really is I* '^i -•>.". wxo WXXlf CHAPTER Xm. THE TENANT OP THE RETREAT. The next day was Sunday, and the family at Trevanloa Park drove over to Speckhaven, through the golden glory of the July morning, to church. Lady Lemox and Miss Trevanion sat beside each other in the great cushioned and curtained pew of the Trevanions. And Mrs. Ingram, in the most delicious little bonnet that ever the fertile brain of a Parisian 'modiste imagined, the pretty face sweetly serious, the summery toilet faultless, sat beside that hero of a hundred fights, Colonel Cyril Trevanion. And if the gallant colonel's eyes wandered away from the vested min- isters, the swinging censers, the wax-lights and the roses, who can blame him? They drove home to luncheon, and still that very pro- nounced flirtation went on. Sybil Trevanion took very little notice of them now. She was sorry, pained, hurt, disappoint- ed; but she was not her cousin's keeper. He must "gang his ain gait " to the end. " Look at him!'* Lady Lemox cried in vindictive triumph; ** look at your cousin Cyril, Sybil I Even he can not resist the fascinations of Mrs. Ingram. You are the only creature alive that dislikes her, and it proves what a prejudiced and unjust girl you are." "Perhaps so, mamma," Sybil answered, a little wearily; ** but I have done my best, and I can not like her, I can 7wt trust her. I have done her no harm, at least. She wiU be as well off at Sir Eupert Chudleigh's as here." " She will, no doubt; but 1 — oh, what is to become of me, you cruel, selfish, unkind creature! No one ever suited me as she does, and for that very reason you send her away. If it were not that you had made up your mind about it before Colonel Trevanion came, I would say it was all your jealousy, and nothing else." ** Then you would say very wrong, Lady Lemox," Miss Trevanion answered, throwing back her head, the violet eyes beginning to lighten. " I am not in the least jealous of your pet. Colonel Trevanion is infatuated, that is clear enough; Dut Edith Ingram is wise in her generation — she would not marry the impoverished heir of Monkswood, if he were at har U%t to-morrow." WHO wiiro d9 <• Indeed!" with a sneer. " You appear to know all about It, Why, then, does she encourage him?" " Why do naturalists impale butterflies and beetles? For their own satisfaction. The butterflies and beetles may die, but what does that signify? The naturalist has had all he wants. Mrs. Ingram flirts with Charley as she would flirt ffith one of the stable boys yonder, if no better game ofl'ered, for the innate pleasure' of flirting. She won't marry Cyril Trevanion, since 1 hold Cyril Trevanian's fortune; but she'll fool him to the top of his bent. She'll marry Sir Rupert Chudleigh, I dare say, if he gives her the chance, and then — Heaven help poor Gvven! We won't talk about it, mamma, if you please. I am heartily tired of the subject." She leaned against the window, with a low, weary sigh, playing idly with the ivy sprays; and by the strangest of all strange wanderings, her thoughts went ofT at a tangent to the tenant of the Retreat. Was lie happy? Sybil wondered. Hia tastes appeared to be simple enough; he dwelt in a sort of bower of roses, with his two servants and his long, lean Livon- ian, and he wrote charming books, and was famous. Was he happy? He had wonderful eyes and a massive, powerfid brow, and his grave, handsome, composed face told you little; but he was a lonely wanderer over the world, for all that — friendless and houseless very likely, or he would hardly be • hero. And, somehow, there was that in his great, dark eyes, in the stern, set mouth, that gave this dreaming girl a strong idea of hidden trouble. The sunny summer moraing ended in a pouring afternoon. There was no more church-goin?. Mrs. Ingram seated herself at the parlor-organ and played Mozart and dreamy improvisa- tions of her own, with the Russian hero by her side, and Charley asleep near, under the soporific influence of her sol- emn-sweet melodies. And Sybil got hold of Mr. Macgregor's book, " Among the Turbans; or. Through the Land of tho Sun," a fanciful title enough for a volume of travels. But the book was altogether bewitching — its style perfect, its dic- tion faultless, full of laughable stories, racy anecdotes, pathetic touches, and " hair-breadth 'scapes." The girl was enchant- ed; she read and read, while the rainy afternoon wore away, and stranied her eyes to finish by the last expiring glimmer of daylight. She laid it down with a sort of regret. Like Sam Weller's immortal valentine, there was just enough to maka you wish there was more. '^ How charming it is! How clever he must be! And yit thara is Qn$ thing I dislike in it— the bitter way he speaka of V 51 100 WHO WIN8f women. He is sarcastic, almost cynical, whenever they ero In question, whether it is the veiled wives of the Faithful, the brilliant belles of Paris, or the dusky damsels of Kaffer land. He holds all womankind at the same cheap rate, no doubt." ** Have you any more of Mr. Macgregor's books, Charley?" Sybil asked her brother, after dinner, in the drawing-room ** I like his * Among the Turbans ' extremely.*' Charley threw her a slender volume, gold and azure — poems, you knew, at first glance. ** There you are — * A Wanderer's Dreams.' Pretty little idyls — sweet as sugar-candy. You're safe to go into ecstasies over it, Sybil. It's full of the most melodious abuse of the female sex. Baronesses and ballet-dancers, duchesses and danseuses, he tars them all with the same stick. I suspect Macgregor's like the rest of us — been jilted in the past tense, and turns cynic in the present. He's stunningly clever, and just the sort of fellow I'd make a dead set at, if I were a woman." Mrs. Ingram rose from the piano, with a light laugh, her silken robe flashing in the la^ip-light. ** Pray don't, Charley— don't make us fall in love with your literary lion before we even see him. But I forgot; you have seen him, dear Miss Trevanion. Pray tell me if the man is as irresistible as his book." ** I will leave you to form your own opinion, Mrs. Ingram," Sybil answered, with that involuntary lunitevr with which she always addressed the widow. " You are likely soon to see more of him than I do." And then Miss Trevanion opened the "Wanderer's Dreams," and presently forgot everything — Mrs. Ingram and the slave at her chariot-wheels included — in the music of those dreamy, delicious verses. Next morning the widow departed, and she and Lady Lemoz made the most of their adieus. It was really pathetic, that parting scene — lace handkerchiefs and smelling-cottles floui> ished, and touching tears flowed. Colonel Trevanion locked on sympathizingly; Charley, like the heartless little monster he was, enjoyed the whole thing hugely; and poor Sybil, feeling very much like a female Nero, dooming hapless victims to the stake, seized her hat and znado her escape. Mrs, Ingram departed, and Lai? Lemox, in a fit of 6iilk§, i:e^t her chamber all day, and made the life of her French, maid a misery to her. And late lu the afternoon came gallop* WHO wnrsf 101 ing over Km Gwendoline Chudleigh, in a high state of ezdte-^ ment and indijtjnaLion. "She's commenned nlreadyl'* burst out the baronet's daughter, *' she's beginning to ' form ' me before she's prop- erly in the house. My music has been shamefully neglectea; my fingering is atrocious; I shake my elbows and joggle my wrists; and the * Fisher's Hornpipe ' is only to be endured by persons lost to all morality I My French accent sots her nerves on edge, and Fm to go through a course of ' Le Brun's T61e- maque ' and * Noel et Chapsel ' at once. And Fm to be peiv secuted through all the ' nometries * and ' ologies ' there are, and get the Norman Heptarchy and all the kings of France, from Clovis I. to Napoleon III., by heart. And Fm to walic and talk by line and plummet, and simper and dip as she does, and become an object before high heaven. But I won't!'* cried Gwendoline, glaring viciously into space, and clinching one little chubby list '* FU see Mrs. Ingram boiled alive first!" " It's a harrowing case, certainly," laughed Sybil; ** but if Sir Rupert and Mrs. Ingram league against you, I greatly fear you'll be vanquished. And then, you know, my darling Gwen, you do want a little forming; and all these young subs frnm the Speckhaven mess-room are not just the most desira- ble tutors for a young lady of sixteen. But, hush! here is Colonel Trevanion. Don't abuse Mrs. Ingram before A /wi. I fancy he rather admires her." "1 dare say he does," responded Miss Chudleigh, sulkily. ** So does papa; and they're both donkeys for their painsi I don't care, Sybil; I'll say it again: they're donkeys to let that painted, artificial, simpering widow bewitch 'em I For she is fainted. Didn't I see the pink stains on the towels already? t must have been a happy release for Ingram — whoever he was — when the Lord took him. He's as solemn as Minerva and her owl, this black-a-vised cousin of yours, Sybil; but I dare say she can wind him round her little finger. I know she can papa, and to all the rest of the world he's as stiff and un- changeable as the laws of what-you-may-call-'em — Swedes and Prussians. I only hope she won't fascinate Mr. Macgregor, because I like Macgregor ever so, and I want to marry him myself in a year or two." '* Indeed I" laughed Miss Trevanion. " You compliment my cousin's tenant highl}'. Is Mr. Macgregor aware of youp strictly honorable intentions?" " I haven't mentioned 'em yet," said Gwendoline. ** J-'ve h^m waitmg to see how he takes you. My prophetic boqI—* 101 WHO WIKSf im't that how they put it m the novelsP—warns me that my cake is dough once he meets La Priiicesse. He's handsome and he's clever and he's famous, and he's been over every get- at-able corner of the globe, and ho talks like a bock — ever so much better than lots of books I know— and he's a dead shot and a crack rider, and all at homo with the gloves or the—'* But Sybil covered the rosy lips with two taper fingers. *' Have a Uttle mercy, Gwendoline! Don't chant the litany of Saint Angus Macgregor any longer I He's but one remove from an angel, no doubt, and I hate your angelic men. He looks big enough and strong enough for anything; but the days of the Iliad and Odyssey are gone. We don't fall down and adore men for their jjbyslcal might noiu, I don't want your big Snotchman, my deart'st Gwen; so propose, and wel- come, as soon as you like. Only make sure, first, he hasn't left a harem away in Stamboul. There is no trusting these great travelers." ** And here comes another of 'em," said Gwendoline, eying Colonel Trevanion, as he came slowly up, with no great favor. " He's the color of mahogany, and as dismal to look at as the Knight of the Woful Countenance. Don't you marry hiniy Sybil, for pity's sake! That grim visage across the breakfast- table would make you strychnme yourself before the end of the honey-moon." The colonel reached them, and received a due presentation to the rosy heiress of Chudieigh Chase, bnt ho hardly noticed her or her brief nod of acknowledgment before he turned to his cousin. " Reed worth tells me there are some repairs necessary at the Retreat, Sybil," he said. " The chimneys smoke, and the upper chambers leak, and the stair-ways are decaying. As you are walking, suppose you walk in that direction? I must see about it, and I don't want the medisBvalism of the old place spoiled." ** Yes, (Sybil," cut in Gwendoline, " come. Mr. Macgregor has promised me Alfred de Musset, and 1 suppose even Mrs. Ingram, prudish as she is," with a spiteful, sidelong glance at the colonel, '* couldn't object to my calling on a solitary gen- tleman, with you along, to play propriety. And, then, I'm dying to see what sort of a muddle he lives in. A bachelor's manage is always in a muddle, isn't it. Colonel Trevanion?" But Colonel Trevanion did not answer. They were crossing some fields within a quarter of a mile of Monkswood, and the Indian officer was looking before him with, for a hero, rather a startled expressior of countenance. Sybil foUowed lus |[az^ WBO wrraf 106 aDd turned pale; Gwendoline looked, and tittered a shriek. For there, straight in their path, between them and the bound- ary wall, stood a huge white bull, with every hair and every horn bristling wilh tiery rage. The scarlet feather in Misg Chudleigh's pork-pie hat, and the scarlet sash she wore pict- uresquely over her shoulder and knotted under her arm, had caugnt his bullship's eyes, and set his back up at once. The huge head was lowered, the eyeballs glared, and a long, low, ominous bellow warned them of the wrath to come. "Oh, LordI Oh, good gracious!" gasped Gwendoline, clutching Sybil's arm. ** Oh, Colonel TrevanionI Oh — // /*' Her ejaculations ended in a lon^, wild shriek of affright, for the bull, with a second terrific bellow, was making straight toward the red plume and scarf. And Colonel Trevanion, hero of a hundred Indian victories, invincible in Russian trenches and Balaklava heights, turned inglorionsly and— ;//6£/.' Yes, fled! In half a dozen bounds he was over the stone wall aiid safe, and the girls were left in the middle of the field to face their doom alone. But the guardian angels of the two heiresses were surely on the lookout that day, for ere Taurus, foaming and enraged, could reach them, a wild halloo rang thi-ough the field — a man leaped the stone wall and planted himself full in his path, an impromptu matador. The angry animal stopped, attracted by his new foe, who, armed with a huge stick, stood betv^en him and the scarlet plume. " For God's sake, fly! run for your lives! Charley! CharlevI take them away — I'll face the bull!" called a hoarse, breatn- less voice — the voice of Macgregor, the tenant of the Eetreat. Stunned, bewildered, half blind, Sybil and Gwendoline found themselves hurried along by Charley, who appeared before them as if he, too, had arisen out of the earth. They reached the boundary wall, they were over it, and the instant Miss Chudleigh found herself in safety, of course, her first act was to go oti into a dead faint. But Sybil never looked at her. Pale, breathless, terrified, her sole thought was for the man who had saved her life. How he managed it she never could tell; but in two minutes he had leaped the wall, and stood in safety by her side. *' Sharp work! eh, Charley?" with a slight laugh. " Good- evening, Miss Trevanion," bowing with as ea^y courtesy as though the late skirmish had been a contest with an excited turkey gobbler. " x hope his angry lordship in the field yon- der did not frighten you very much? Ahl how's this? Mill Chudleigh faintingr' # 1^^ \>9 lOi WHO WIWI f " Don't diitress yourself," sa?i Charley, who was plenty folly sprinkling poor Gwen with water; ** I'm bringing her to. And wnen 1 ve brought her to, Pm going to hunt up the gal- lant Colonel Trevanion, and bring fiiin to also. We'll lud him in a death-like swoon, ril bo sworn, behind the nearest hedge. He ought to enter himself as the favorite for the DerD3*. There isn't a racer in all England could beat his time, making for the boundary wall," Agam Macgregor laughed. ' •* ' He who flphts nnd nms nvray, May live to light anollier day.* There's Miss Chudleigh opening her eyes. Really, Charley, you ought to take out your diploma. Your skill in bringing round swooning females isn't to be surpassed. My dear Miss Gwendoline," bending over her, as that young ladv, with rather a wild expression of countenance, sat up, " 1 hope Charley hasn't qui/e drowned you? He didn't spare cold water — I'll say that for him." ** The bull!" gasped Gwendoline. "Oh, good gracious, that horrid brute! Where are we? He can't get us, can he?" " No, he can't," said Charley; *' and if he could, Owen, here's Macgregor and I — a match for a whole herd. You're as right as a trivet, and righter, if possible." ** Were yoit going to head him otf with that bamboo switch, Charley?" asked Macgregor. '* It would have been a novel sort of bull-fight, certainly." Charley held up the switch in question, and snapped it in twa " * My loss Ims paid my folly's tax, I've broken my trusty baltle-ax.' Oh, bv Jovel here comes the hero of a hundred fights, and as chap-fallen a hero as I've seen this month of Sundays. Mac- gregor, you paint — here's a subject for your next picture. Coeur de Lion running, like mad, from an excited bull, and leaving two young ladies to face him alone. Ah, colonel!" with mock politeness, '* I trust I see you none the worse for your recent little — ahem! — fright. We were going to hunt you up — thought you nuight bo in a fainting fit somewhere, and egadi you don't looli unlike it this moment" Truly he did not. His dark face had turned of an ashen white, and his fierce black eyes had a wild, vengefi^l glare as he tunied them upon the speaker. He muttered something, hoarsely and incoherently — no one knew what — and Charley looked with a cynical eye, and listened with a pitiless face. **Ihe Trevaniou blood never breeds cowards^ eh> my WHO WIKB f 100 colonel? So we'll call it constitutional caution. Gracionil though, the constitutional caution would have been unfortu- nate for the girls, if Macgrcpor hadn't chanced along. Sybil, I never knew you ungrateful before. Isn't it worth a * thank you ' to save your life?" She had been standing, white as a statue of snow, with many conflicting emotions, and quite unable to speak. At her brother" 8 rebuke she turned to her preserver, and held out her hand. " I am not ungrateful,*' she said, in a very low voice, " Mr. Macgregor will not think so badly of me as that." ** I can never think otherwise! than well of MissTrevanion," he said, with grave courtesy, his eyes lingering on that pur© white hand with its one sparkling solitaire. '* As for you, my dear Charley, I think you hud much better hold your tongue, and give your arm to Miss Chudleigh, who looks fit to drop. Make sure there are no excitable quadrupeds, for the future, in the fields you cross, with scarlet scarfs and feathers, my dear Miss Gwendoline. You're a heroine, beyond a doubt, but 7i(it where angry bulls are concerned. You fainted in the most approved fashion, in the * arms of your preserverl* as the RadclitTe romances have it — meaning Charley, of course. It was quite a tableau. Miss Trevanion, we are very near the Retreat. You will do me the honor of coming in and resting for a few moments, I trust." He offered her his arm, and Sybil took it at once. Had he not saved her life, and was there not a subtle charm about the man that bent them all to his will?" *' You, too, colonel," he said, courteously. " We have to settle about those repairs, you know. It will be altogether a charitable act, Miss Trevanion," with one of his light laughs, *' for visitors at my humble wigwam are like angeis, few and far between." Macgregor-s pretty dwelling, with its clustering roses, its climbing ivy, its stveetbrier and honeysuckle, came in sight even while he spoke. The red glory of the sunset blazed on its die- mond-paned casements, and turned the water-pools in tho misty woodland into pools of blood. The deaf old woman whr. " did " for Mr. Macgregor stood in the vine- wreathed door-way, like an ancient V a slight motion as though to prevent her, then checked himself and stood a little aside, liis lips compressed under his dark beard. Sybil arose and went over. A moment she looked; then she uttered a faint ejaculation, and her eyes turned full upon the artist in mute inquiry. It was an evening scene— -an avenue with waving trees- park ^ates in the foreground, and the turrets of a stately man- sion rising in the distance. A tall, slender younff man stood lu)lding ft little girl— a mere child— in his arms» his tall form WHO TTCTSf 10? fient over her. You conld see neither face distinctly, but he Wfts in the act of placing a ring upon her finger. And under the trees crouched a weird figure — a gypsy-faced old crone- glaring t^pon the youthful pair with malign old eyes. Beneath wa3 written: " Until we ineet again." ** Very pretty, indeed/' said Charley, with his customary drawl; " only why won't they let us see their countenances; and what's the elderly party under the trees making faces for? She's not in love with that slim young man, and jealous of the Iit'.!e one, h she? By George! the ancient dame isn't un- like old Crazy Hester." '' And the place looks like Monkswood,*' added Gwendo- line. " Coaldn't they have faced the company, Mr. Mac- gregor, as well as not? Nice, isn't it, Sybil? Why don't you Bay something? I never knew you tongue- tied before." And then, without waiting for a reply, the volatile bar- onet's daughter darted off at a new tangent, and pounced upon a portfolio of sketches upon the table. ** Charley, come and untie the strings — I adore pictures, you know. How Mr. Macgregor finds time to do all these things, and lie under the trees and smoke the way he does, is ?» mystery to w?e." Mr. Macgregor paid no heed to the compliment. He was standing, a half smile on his face, looking at Sybil's puzzled, wistful, inquiring countenance. Once or twice she looked at him, with a half-formed qn^tion on her lips, and each time iiOting those clear dark eyes; her own fell and her color rose. The inquiry she would have made died on her lips. She turned away abruptly and walked over to the table where Gwendoline and Charley animatedly discussed tlie con- tents of the portfolio. ** * Girl crossing a brook with pitchers.' They'ry always crossing brooks with pitchers, and always in their bare feet. * Heron drinking out of a solitary pool.' How thirsty the Herons invariably are in water-colors! ' Speiring fortunes.' Oh, of course, the everlasting red cloak and gypsy face, and she's charmingly pretty, and the gentleman's a perfect love. And — eh? why, good gracious me if there isn't Mrs. Ingram!" Gwendoline jerked out a sketch in a violent hurry and -held it up to general view. It was a water-color — a woman's head, with long, almond eyes and melting smile. And beneath, in pencil, ** A Rose Full of Thorns." ** It is Mrs. Ingram, by Japiter!" exclaimed Charley. " I say, Macgregor, where did you ever see the little widow, and how do you come to be so deuced uncomplimentary? * A roie . 1 %<» WHO wnsTsf ] £nll of thorns.' Do you hear that, my colonel? Be warned in time." Sybil looked swiftly over her shoulder at the artist. He was etauding behind her brother, and the darkly handsome face had turned a dead white. ** The original of that picture is dead/' he said, hoarsely. ^* I don't know your Mrs. Ingram." ** Egad, then, you've painted herl" said Charley; " the original may be dead ten times over, but that's Mrs. Ingram to a clear certainty, and a capital likeness, too. If he doesn't believe us he can step over to Chudleigh Chase—eh, Gwen?— and satisfy himself as soon as he pleases." ** I think v/e had better go,'' said Sybil, rising hurriedly; ** mamma will Xancy I am lost. It will be quite dark before W8 reach home, and there is no moon to-night." " VVith Colonel Trevanion to protect you, what need you fear?" said Cliarley, firing a parting shot at the Indian officer. ** Come, Miss Chudleigh, you mnsl tear yourself away from Macgregor and his laauifold attractions. Time is ou the wing." The trio departed— their host made no attempt to detain them. The dead whiteness that had settled on his face was there still when he bid them good-evening — there still, when, ftn hour later, he leaned over his garden gatC; watching the inmmer stars come out and glimmer in their golden beauty on the still black pools. t " And I thought her dead/' he said, between his teethj " and once more she rises before me wher j I had hoped even i) forget her memory. Oh, my God! am I never to be free?" CHAPTER XIV. ON GUARD. The pretty little widow who had come to " form " that fast young lady, Miss Gtvendoline Chudleigh, made herself entirely at home at Chudleigh Chase. It was a very pleasant house — the rooms large, lightsome, elegant — Sir Rupert's French cook was an artist, and the dainty little widow was a gourmande in her way, and lik'^i her sparkling Moselle, her hcol:, and her Cliquot. It was a very pleasant house, and tne hospitable baronet entertained some very pleasant people; and if his daughter's governess and companion had been a duchess, he could hardly have Jireated her with more courtly Grandisonian reBpect. It was ever so much nicer than at Trevanion Park, Ipitn only fidgety Lady Lemoz, and her high-stepping, proud' tmo wiHsf ^oo ^ed daughter, and ::cth!ng better to flirt with than a fiippuit Eton boy. For Mrs. Ingram dearly loved flirting — she was a coquette, and, as Miss Trovanion had said of her, would make eyes at the stable lads, if no better gaoae was to be had. But better game was abundant at Chudleigh Chase. First of all, there was the baronet himself, upon whom old point and float- ing draperies, and plump shoulders, and perfumed tresses, and long almond eyes, were never thrown away. And thero were the officers of the rifle brigade, very heavy swells indeed^ from the colonel, who wrote his name high in the peerage, to the dashing young subs, with the green down yet callow on their military chins, and who invariably lost their heads at first sight o* the gorgeous widow. And there were the county magnates — ponderous young squires in top-boots and pint coats, with mutton-chop whiskers, and an overfed look, like their own Durham cows, who stared at the brilliant little lady in speechless admiration, and whispered clumsy compliments in her pretty pink ear after dmner in the drawing-room. ALe radiance made you wink again; moires and brocades stiff enough in their richness to stand alone. They were rather suspicious, those splendid jewels, seeing that governesses, poor things, as a rule, don't sport such splendor; but Mrs. Ingrim looked up at you with tears in the soft, luminous dark eyes, and told you how *'poor, darling Harry" — the late lamented Ingram — had fiven her the diamonds and opals, and her grace of Strath- ane, the emeralds; and how could you be monster enough to doubt the truth of those innocent, tearful eyes? She stood alone in the picfars-guUery of Chudleigh, one afternoon, a little ( ver a week after her coming. As usual, her toilet was simply perfectiorv — rich green silk, that trailed and wound after her, a crown of i'y on the glossy black hair, rare old lace draping the rounded armr, the Strathbane em- eralds gleaming greenish as rhe moved, and a gold serpent bracelet with emerald eyes on iier dimpled wrist. She stood« amid tl Dyck, ■ •teadye eyes hi other ej lines th was vei ner, an nial yoi were sa The cast; tl and w< ■jm WHO wxmf 111 amid the long array of court beauties by Kneller and Van Dyck, herself a lovely vision, gazing out with bent brows and iteadyeyes at the ceaseless, falling rain. Those melting, starry eyes had a trick of growing very hard and steely when no other eyes were near, and the smooth brow bent into sharp lines that turned her ten years older in as many minutes. She was very pale, too. It was not quite time to go down to din- ner, and that wondrous rouge in which she bloomed in peren- nial youth, and the belladonna that lighted up the velvet eyes, were safely locked up in the widow's drawers. The August day had been dull, sunless, sultry, and over- cast; the August evening was closing down, hopelessly windy and wet. The trees rocked in a high gale, the red-deer trooped away to their shelter, sky and sea blended afar off in one long, gray line. It was a very fair domain, this Chud- leigh Chase, even in the rainy twilight of an eerie day — a grand old place — and the wife of Sir Kupert Chudleigh and the mistress, of these broad acres might consider herself a very lucky woman indeed. " And not one rood of it all is entailed," the widow thought, her dark eyet:. wandering greedily over meadow and park and copse. " And he doesn't care for Gwendoline. If «he were to die to-morrow, he would shrug his shoulders and lift his eyebrows, and say: * Poor child, how very unpleasant to finish like this!' and go back to Voltaire and Condorcet, and forget her in a week. As Mrs. Ingram, I am nobody, less than nobody, barely tolerated, admired with an admiration that is an insult in itself, an object of suspicion, a toast for the mess-table, an adventuress, a milliner's lay-figure. But as Lady Chudleigh, this wretched life of plotting, of intrigue, this dreary treadmill, on which I have gone up and down for the past twenty years, of which I am wearied to death, might end. I might forget the past, I might turn Lady Bountiful, grow as saintly and as orthodox as Miss Trevanion herself, and pass the remainder of my days free from guile, embroidering elaborate stoles and surplices for newly Hedged curates, and leading the choir in the village church. I could turn my mind to the poor, to beef and to blankets at Christmas, to eat tea and stale buns for the charity children, and forget the bad, bitter past. And by and by there would possibly be an heir, and I might be simply and honestly happy, like other women, an honored wife, a loved mother. Oh, lost wretch that I ami" She covered her face suddenly, shuddering from head to foot. " Can I forget I once had a child? \^here in all the wide 9fath, or under it, is the baby I deserted eighteen years s^of* Ill WHO WINS? The dinner-bell sounded while she still stood there, white and cold, so altered, so haggard, so old, so worn, that Sir Ru- pert Chudleigh would not have believed his own eyes had he seen her. But at the sound of that loud clanging in the lofty turrets, she turned slowly away and went up to her room. She was a first-class actress in the great drama of life, and it was her turn to go on and smile, and look happy and beauti- ful, and play the dreary play out. The many clustering lights were lighted in drawing aucl dining-room when the elegant widow swept in, the dark i»yeQ brilliantly sparkling, the delicate rose-tint bright on cheek and lip, the soft, subtle smile at its most witching. The brilliant green ot her dress setoff that rich, bright complexion, and the curiously plaited coronet of ivy lay like some chaplet on the abundant black tresses. There were strangers in the long drawing-room when Mrs. Ingram swept ii^; but strangers at Sir Rupert's hospitable board were nothing to marvel at. And two of the guests were not strangers, either, to the widow. Cyril Trevanion, turning over a volume of engravings, all by himself, and feverishly watching the door by which she must enter; and Charles Lemox, leaning on the back of Gwendoline's chair, and talking in his usual slow, lazy voice. A third gentleman — a tall, dark-bearded man, with a sun- burned, striking, and eminently handsome face — stood leaning negligently against the marble mantel, arguing some question animatedly with his host. Mrs. Ingram looked at him, and looked again. Like Queen Elizabeth, of virgin memory, she had a great and mighty ad- miration for handsome men, and adored (but most women do that) thews and sinews and physical might. Regarded from this point of view, the dark stranger was really a magnificent specimen of kingly man. It was much the same sort of glance as Henry the Eighth's royal daughter gave poor Raleigh, and Essex, and Leicester, and hosts of others, equally approving and equally fatal. There was a lull in the busy hum of conversation as the handsome widow sailed forward, her long silk robe trailing, her emeralds gleaming in the soft, mellow light. Colonel Trevanion and Charley rose to greet her, and the baronet ad- ran ced and presented his guest, the stranger, as Mr. Angus Macgregor. "You've heard of him, ?.nd you've read him, no doubt," the baronet said. '* He's very delightful in type, and cheap, in cloth^ lettered, at three-and-sixpence a volume. He's been wso wmf v^ 118 k and rilliant nd the ou the everywhere, and seen everything; snd I can safely recommend him as amusing, when the time permits you to draw him out." The little lady laughed, as she hold out her ringed right hand to the superb stranger. ** How very complimentary Sir Rupert is, Mr. Macgrcgor. He promotes you to the Eanie rank as a new song, a novel, a poodle, or an opera. Yes, I have heard of you, and read you, and your poems are entrancing, and your novels fascinating, and your books of travel perfectly irresistible." There were men alive who would have given a year of their life for the sweetly murmured words — then for the Parthian glance that shot the compliment home. Colonel Trevanion's countenance was like a thunder-cloud; but the tall tenant of the Retreat just touched and dropped the taper fingers, and the handsome bearded face looked strangely stern and set. "Mrs. Ingram is pleased to be sarcastic," he said, very coldly. " Neither I nor ray poor books make any pretense of ranking among the immortals. ' Men must work,' as Kings- Icy says, and if I earn the bread and butter of daily life by quill-driving, I ask no more." The deep, dark eyes met Mrs. Ingram's with a long, steady, powerful glance; the deep, stern voice had a metallic ring new to most of his hearers; and as the widow met those strong black eyes, heard tjiat vibrating tone, the color faded slowly from brow to chin, leaving her of a dull, unnatural white. Even the rouge seemed to pale, and the velvety eyes dilated in some strange and unaccountable terror. Where had ^he met those eyes? where had she heard that voice before? and why did this new terror clutch her heart like a mailed hand? ** Dinner!" announced the butler, flinging open the door. Sir Rupert courteously otfered his arm to the widow, Char- ley took possession of Gwendoline, and Cyril Trevanion and Angus Macgregor brought up the rear. "Look at Macgregor, Gvven,-' Charley said, in an aside; ** he's as stern as Rhadamanthus, and glowering as only a black-browed Scotchman can glower. What do you suppose is the matter — his digestion or the widow?" " I don't believe Mr. Macgregor is a Scotchman," replied Gwendoline, " despite his grand old name. I thought all Scotchmen were flinty-cheeked, raw-boned, and red-haired, and with an accent as broad as their native Tweed. I don't know what's the matter, but I shouldn't wonder if it were the widow; she's capable of anything, that simperuig little sor- ceress. And then, you know, he had her picture. Oh! by the way, I must tell her about it, and see wxiat she says. Mju iU WHO wisrs ? Ingram "—raising her voice—" did you erer meet Mr. Mao< gregor " portrait : ** Stunning] inconveniently large 1 would have taken it the other day to irear upon my heart. It must be you, though Macgregor says it isn't. 1 don't believe there are two Mrs. Ingrams in the scheme of creation." And Charley bowed to point the com- pliment. Mrs. Ingram looked across the table with startled eyes; but Macgregor 's dark, impassive face never moved a muscle. ** Impossible!" she said, sharply. ** I never saw Mr. Mac- fregor before to-day, although, perhaps, Mr. Macgregor may ave seen wic." Mr. Macgregor looked her full in the face, with a pointed intensity that for the second time thrilled her with terror to the heart. ** I never met Mrs. Ingram in my life until this evening," he said, slowly, and with a strong emphasis upon the name, ** and yet the picture Charley speaKs of is strikingly like her. But it is the portrait of a woman dead these many years, or supposed to be — a woman who in her life-time was so utterly lost and vicious that I would not let her approach a dog I cherished. The woman's name was Rose Dawson." He never took his eyes off her face — those cold, stern, piti- less eyes; and, for the second time that evening, the color faded, and a dead, livid white overspread the widow's face, through which the rouge gleamed ghastly red. But it was only for an instant. Talleyrand himself might have envied Mrs. Ingram her admirable self-control. Before the others could notice, the corpse-like pallor was gone, and Mrs. Ingram was shrugging her dimpled shoulders, making a pretty, pettish gesture. " How verjr unpleasant! And I look like that poor dead person? It is quite extraordinary, these accidental resem- olances. Here is Colonel Trevanion, for instance, Mr. Mac;- gregor; many say he resembles you." ** Gad! he does, too," said the barouet, eyin^ them crit- yially, '* and I never noticed it before. That patriarchal beard of yours, Macgre ^hrow over a hundred poor devils like me. Think better of it, Edith In- gram! Think twice before you make an enemy of CyrU Tre- vanioni" Ho swung round abruptly as he spoke, and came near her no more for the rest of the evening. It was late when the baronet and his antagonist rose from their game of cards, and Mrs. Ingram was floating out of the drawing-room as they made their adieus. She stood for an in- stant on the marble stairs, her silk robe and her emeralds gleaming greenly against the white statues, and looked defi- antly into the face of Angus Macgregor. It was like the challenge of a big, powerful Newfoundland and a vicious little King Charles as their eyes met, or like the grave defiance of two duelists of the Legion d'Honneur, as they used to doff their plumed hats and cry, " Guard your- eelll" before begiiming tlie duel to the death. ** We will meet again," the widow said, with her most inso- lent smile, " and you will show me the pictura of that wicked dead person I resemble so much. Uutil then— good-nightl" CHAPTER XV. IN THE prior's WALK. Colonel Trevanion rode homeward through the black* rainy August night, on his huge black horse Czar, after bid- ding the widow the briefest and coldest of farewells. As he said good-night to Macgregor, the eyes of the two men met — an insolent smile of power in the tenant's, a glare of bitter hate in the landlord's. A child could have seen it was " war to the death " between these two. Charley Lemox tooled the author home in his drag, and for the first two or three miles the hermit of the Retreat puffed away with vicious energy at his Manilla, staring silently into the wet blackness. ** Well," Charley said at last, " you might make an obser- vation, I think, if only on the weather. Speech is silver and silence is golden, very likely; but still, when an auditor is by, capable of appreciating the profoundest remark you con atter« ita WHO wnw? Sotx might break through the golden ruie lor onoe. There li lie widow— suppose we discuss hvr. She's a safe subject; for, •ffadi she's been pretty thoroughly dissectci before this at hall the ainner-tablea in tlio county. Isn't eh" vhic 9 Isu't she charming? Isu't she brilliant? You notic.d her eyes, I sup. pose? Did you ever see their equal in all tao slave-markets of Stamboul, in the head of Georgian or Circassiau? And all those wonderful coils, and braids, and curls, and ripples of midnight blackness! Isn't it a glorious head of hai'*? The hermit laughed his most cvnical laugh. " How old aro you, Charley? Seventeen or eighteen — which? My dear little innocent Eton boy, how much of that brilliant bloom is liquid rouge and pearl white? How much of that starry luster do those wondrous eyes owo to the ghastly 'brilliance of bella'^onna? And how many of those glorious — wasn't that your word? — glorious braids and coils will Mrs. Ingram put away in boxes before she goes to bed? You forgot to notice her teeth, didn't you, when you took stock? And Heaven knows she smiles enough to show them! They are white and even as two strings of pearls. But, my dear boy, I shouldn't in the least wonder if she keeps them in a tumbler of water by her bedside until to-morrow mornhig. Made up! Your widow is a work of art, at the price. But, oh, my Charles, the toilet goes before, and great and mighty are the mysteries thereof." Charley's face of surprise and disgust was capital, but tha darkness hid it. "Juvenal! Diogenes! old dog in the manger! You won't admire her yourself, and you won't let any one else. Aren't the glasses of your lorrjnefte smoked, my friend? You see life through a black cloud, rather, and you hold women a little higher than your dog, a little dearer than your horse." ** And why?" the author replied, coolly. " I hold them as I find them. They are all virtuous, untempted; all faithful, untried; all prudent, unsought. The best of them, the wisest of them, hold the product of the silk- worm, and the skill of their Parisian modisfe, higher than all the truth of earth, the glory of heaven. The most faithful and leal among them will throw over a lord for a duke, a duke for a prince; and the best wife, the most devoted mother in wide England, would feel her head spin and her pulses beat at one smile of * my lord the king.' " " I say, Macgregor," Charley exclaimed, rather aghast at this retsumS, ** don't you ^o a leetle too fast? Whc'a done for joug and when was it? You must have been jilted in cold WHO WIOTT 110 blood by half a dozen, at least, of fhe fair flshere of men, to leave you eo bitterly cynical and sarcastic as this. Suppose they rtre painted ar.d pearl-powdered? What does it signify, when it is so artistically done that we don't detect itP If Mri. Ingram, in the sacred privaoy of her clmmber, be toothless and scrawny, with a complexion like a tallow candle, then, by Jove! let Mrs. Ingram paint to her heart's content. Ap ugly woman is a sight to naunt one's dreams. If an ugly woinan has the art to make herself ' beautiful forever,' then let her crinoline and cosmetique to the end of the chapter. A man don't want his mother or sister or wife to kiss nim with lips on which the rogue still glistens; but, outside of that — oh, by Georgel let 'em go it. We like it on the stage — bright- ens tnem np and keeps them perpetually young. Don't let us make a howling about it on the greater stage of life." Charley delivered all this in his slowest, softest, gentlest tones. The tenant of the Retreat laughed good-naturedlv. ** Really, seventeen years old waxes eloquent on the subject No matter how the result is ohtaind, so that the result Ja pretty, eh? The seigneur of Monkswood seems much of your opinion; he's gone beyond redemption. Do you suppose he has proposed yet?" ** Can't say. Not at all nnlikely. He's fool enough, in my opinion, for anything, and knave enough for more. But it's no go, when he does. She's made up her mind to be Lady Chudleigh, and Lady Chudleigh she'll be, in spito of fate and Sir Rupert." " Well, she flirts with Trevanion very loudly, at least." " My dear fellow, that pretty little Lady Caprice flirts with every one. She goes in for Sir EupiM't when she gets him alone and unprotected, I'll take my oath, and makes pretty, roundabout, feminine love to him mercilessly. It's the nature of the little animal to flirt. I've seen her^ A^ hen there was no better quarry to spring, take hold of an old(;r, uglier, sadder, wiser nian than Sir Rupert, and soften his brains for him in ten minutes. But it's my opinion, Mr. Angus MacgregOFi you know more about her than I do. 1 can not get over that picture. Mrs. Ingram may not be the rose, but she is very like that splendid flower. I mean your * rose full of thorns,' I don't want to be impertinent, but I'll be .langed if I believe you when you say the re^-emblance is only rjocidental." ** Don't get excited, Charley. Resemblances are common enough. They say I look like Trevanion, you know.'* ** So you do, and yet you ilonH, You are bearded, and ito WHO WI»Sf there is nothing to be seen of you but a straight nose« two black eyes, and a tremendous frontal develoj)ment. Ouf cousin ^yril is the fortunate possessor of a straight nose and two dark eyes, also; but there the resemblance ends. His head tapers up like a sugar-loaf, and his forehead slopes back and contracts at tha temples in a way that does not speak flatteringly of the brain behind it. And apropos of that, did you ever notice the insane way he glares, and the gah^anio twitches of his face at times? He may not be absolutely mad, but, in the elegantlv allegorical language of the day, * his head's not level.' " - *' Charley," Macgregor said, with some hesitation, ** it is a tolerably well-known fact that your sister used to cherish his memory, to esteem him very highly. Is it impertinent to ask if she does so still?" " No," said Charley, decidedly. ** Distance lent enchant- ment to the view. Sybil has been c:etting disenchanted since the iSrst moment she set eyes upon him. That little episode of the bull finished him in her estimation. A woman is ready to forgive seventy times seven almost any crime a man can commit; but she wonH forgive, if she is any way plucky her- aelf, an act of cowardice. Trevanion showed the white feather horribly that day, and not all the memories of battles fought and won, in India and Russia, can counterbalance the flight from the bull. He offei-ed some kind of limping apology — recent illness, nerves, etc., and my Lady Sybil listened with that cold, proud face no one can pat on to more perfection, and responded by a high and chilling bow. There is a sort of armed peace between them, and she unmistakably despises him for his infatuation about the widow. No; Sybil's hero is Sybil's hero no longer. I rather think you have usurped his place." The face of Angus Macgregor flushed deep red in the dark- ness, but his steady voice was as cool as ever. " Not at all unlikely. We — brethren of the pen and ink- bottle — generally are heroes in tho eyes of young ladydom. They read our books; our dreamy, misty, rather trashy poems; our sensational novels, full of subterranean passages, sliding Sanels, mysterious murders, and dashing, slashing, reckless, auntless, magnificent heroes, with flashing eyes, and raven whiskers, and flittering cimeters, and they picture us grand- iose creatures, baring our white brows to the midnight blasts, and raving, a la Bvron, of the perfidy of woman and the base- ness of man. They're disappointed sometimes, when we nddenly appear before them with sandy haur and mild bio? WHO wan? vn MS, a tendency to perpetnal blushes, and as insipid as a mug of milk and water. Miss Trevanion is a hero-worsiiiper of the most approved kind; and when one topples from his pedestal, she elevates another. Here we are at the Retreat. Thank at whist last time, and she is panting for revenge. Until then, att revoir. Don't dream of the widow; it's dangerous." Cliarley whirled away in the darkness, and the author en- tered his domicile. Very pleasant the lighted windows looked against the rainy blackness of the August night, and very S feasant was the old-fashioned parlor, lighted up with a h^ ozen wax tapers. ** Dream of the widow!" muttered Macgregor, between his teelh; *' widow forsooth! No, I shall leave that for — Cyril Trevanion. My faith! but they both play their little game well. And she'll hunt the baronet down, until she bewitches him into marrying her, if she's let alone. She's a clever little devil, and I could almost admire her pluck, in fighting fate to the last and holding her own against such tremendous odds; but when I think of her living under the same roof, clasping hands, and breaking bread with Sybil Lemox, by , he swore a deep, stern oath — '' I can feel no mercy. My beauti- ful, pure, proud Sybil! if you only knew what that woman is, and has been, you would recoil from sight of her as you would from a hooded snake— a deadly cobra. And I thought her dead, and she thinks me dead, very likely. How tenacious of life venomous reptiles are! I believe Rose Dawson has more lives than a cat. She stood as much ' punishment ' from Dftwson, before she did for him, as any member of the P. R. in England; she has faced starvation, hanging, sickness; she has been knocked about like a football, through every corner of the Continent, and she turns up here in the end, hand- somer, younger, more elegant, more insolent in her fadeless beauty than ever! But clever as you are, and handsome aa you are, my little fascinating Rose, I think you have met your match this time. For fifteen years you have been conqueress; but the big wheel spins around, and you on the top go down and I rise up. It's my turn now, and I'll show you the same mercy you snowed me — the mercy you showed that poor devil, Dawson. I'll spare you no more than I would a raging tigress broken loose from her jungle. I wonder where Lady Lemos picked her up. I'll ascertain to-morrow. But first—" He took up the portfolio as he spoke, drew out the water* m WHO wnraP color sketch, and with a pen-knife that lay near, cnt *t up into morsels. He laughed grimly as he flung them out into the rain. ** I am afraid you won't see the picture of that ' wicked dead person ' when nest we meet, my dear Mrs. Ingram. And we'll take our masks o£ &t that meeting, and I'll show you that dyed tresses, rouge, pearl-powder, and a splendid toilet, can not change Rose Dawson out of my knowledge.*' Mr. Macgregor presented himself next day at Trevanion, as the long lances of sunset were glimmering redly through the brown boles of the oaks and elms and the atmosphere seemed a rain of ijnpalpable gold dust. He was looking unutterably patrician in his evening-dress — tall, strong as some muscular Apollo, going rapidly over the ground with his swinging, soldierly stride, and his Livonian at his heels. For Mr. Mac- gregor had been a soldier in early youth — he told Miss Tre- Tanion so one day — had held a commission in a crack cavalry corps, and had served in India. ** You never knew my cousin there?" E^bil had said, thoughtfully. ** It is singular, too; Colonel Trevanion must have been serving in India about the same time." The queerest smile came, and faded, ou Colonel Trevanion'g tenant's face. ** I beg your pardon — I u know, (yyril doesn't seem to recognize his oldest friend — he seems to recall no circumstance of the past " — an involuntary glance at her ring — " the old familiar land- marks even appear strange and unknown. It is so very, very odd! Loss of memory mitst be the reason." The hermit of the Retreat laughed — a laugh that puzzled and provoked the heiress — and that knowing light in his dark ayes seemed to deepen. "You rind your cousin very much changed, then? Many say that, and — not for the better. Fifteen years is a long time to be an alien and a wanderer, a homeless pariah, with a bitter sorrow and disgrace in the past, and very little in the future to look forward to. Disgraced by a vile woman, an old and honored name, tainted, disowned pnd disinherited, shut out IroxK^ the world in which all that is best and brightest liye^ WHO wijsrsp IZ9 faith \o8t in man and woman, nothing left to wish for but six feet of Indian soil, and some friendly bullet — ah I Miss Tre- yauion, fifteen years of that sort of existence is likely to change any man. " Sybil looked at him in surprise. He had begun lightly enough, but he had grown strangely earnest ere he ceased. The handsome bronzed face, too, was a shade paler than its wont. '* You speak for Colonel Trevanion very earnestly," she said, " and yet — I beg your pardon — but I fancied there was a bitter hate between you two." Once more the author slightly laughed. *' My dear Miss Trevanion, how very subtle your instincts are, or else — how stupidly our faces must show our feelings. We hate each other, we could blow each other's brains out with all the pleasure in life; but we don't make scenes in these latter days. We meet and we bow, and the conventional smiles and small-talk are in full play; and if we lived in the pleasant Italian-Borgian times, we would invest twenty scudi in a medi- cated rose or dagger for the man we accost so politely. Why, the vendetta is the style no longer, even in Corsica." *' Mr. Macgrcgor, what has my cousin ever done to you? Why do you hate him like this?" ** Hate him! 1 don^t hate him, Miss Trevanion — he rather amuses me than otherwise. I find him a most interesting study, and think him the cleverest person I know of. It is the other way — lie hates me.'' Beyond this Miss Trevanion could get nothing from Mac- gregor, and she was too proud to ask questions. The tenant of the Retreat was almost a daily visitor now at the Park, where Lady Lemox had taken a decided liking to him at once. Indeed, it was hard not to like the agreeable hermit of Monks- wood Waste, with his frank, handsome face, his brilliant con- vsrsational powers, his universal knowledge of persons and E laces and things, and the unutterable placidity with which e allowed my lady to win his shillixigs at long whist. He played cards a good deal, certainly, and lost a grrat mauy shillings; but he found time to stand beside the piano also, and turn over Sybil's music, and listen to the full soprano tones rising and falling silvery. In the rich warmth of the August nights, with the ivory moonlight brilliant in the rose- gardens and on the lawn, tie stood looking down again and again into the pale, beautiful face, the darK eyes inexpressibly tender and soft and dewy. As he came striding thrcu^^ the lont; English grass, whist* m WHO WIKSf ling the **Macgregors' March," he saw a slender, girlish figure on the lawu, a tall figure in floating, misty rohes, of black, a necklace and cross of jet and gold her only ornameat, a spray of white lily-buds twisted in the dark richness of hor hair. That willowy figure, with its indescribably proud, high- bred air, was very familiar to the tall Macgregor. It turned at his approach, and the color arose to the delicate cheeks, and added light to the lovely violet eyes, as she frankly held out her hand. " Good-evening, Mr. Macgregor — mamma has been fidget- ing unpleasantly all day for fear you might not come. She likes to utilize her evenings. Cyril, down, sir! Sybil, hold you.* noisy tongue! don't you know Herr Faustus before this?" For Miss Trevanion's poodle and mastiff were making ag- gressive demonstrations toward tlie long, lean wolf-hound, who showed his formidable teeth in one long bass growl. " Cyril and Sybil are evidently on the best of terms with each other, at least," Maegrc;;or said, with a glance at their mistress that deepened the carnation; "'and they look upon Doctor Faustus and his master as unwarrantable intruders. Apropos, I met the original Cyril, with Czar, in full gallop, making for his divinity, the most witching of widows. Did he eter read Pickwick, I wonder, and the immortal warning of the great Weller?" Miss Trevanion laughed, but rather constrainedly. Cyril Trevanion had been her hero once, her cousin always; he bore the grand old name, the same blood ran in his veins, and now the merest mention of him mad" her wince. "Gwendoline was here today — poor/ dear Gwen! Mrs. Ingram will be her death, and she told me you were at Chud- leigh Chase last night. You met Mrs. Ingram, and you like her, 0* course?" ** I don't perceive the * of course.' . Yes, I met Mrs. In- gram (she chose rather an aristocratic cognomen this time), and I recognized a voman I knew fifteen years ago." ** Then her name is not Ingram, and she u an advent- uress!" Sybil cried. " I thought sol I thought so! I never believed in her from thn first." "Yes, Miss Trevanion, she is an adventuress, one who should never sleep under the same roof or eat at the same ta- ble with 1/ou. A bad, bold woman, a dangerous woman, an unscrupulous woman, and a deadly fee. Your mother brought her here — where did her ladyship Huo. her?" " In Scotland, at Gtrathbane Castle. She was companion to tba daohess; and when her grace died she came to nriammtt. WHO wnref IM It was at Baden or Homburg— some one of the German Bada —that the duchess met her first." " A most likely place. Now, Miss Trevanion, if you will not think me impertinently intjuisitive, 1 should like to heap all the story of General Trevaiiion's mysterious disappearance. I heard your mother once hint that, in some way, you blamed Mrs. Ingram. lip to the present I have heard but a very garbled account of that disappearance. I was absent from bpeckhaven at the time it occurred. It Mrs. Ingram had any motive in making away with the general, Mrs. Ingram woul^ no more hesitate over the deed than would Lucrezia Borgia. Will you tell me the story of that night?" *' Most willingly. But, Mr. Macgregor, really you are enough to make one's blood run cold. Surely Mrs. Ingram can not be the fiendess you* paint her. And then there was no motive — there could be none. Ajid, besides — Oh! Mr. Mac- gregor, it is the darkest and most impenetrable of mysteries. How could she, one weak Avoman, make away with General Trevaniou.^ If the earth had opened and swalloived him, be could not have vanished more completely." " I should like to examine the room in which he lay — the ' Adam and Eve,' was it not? I loill examine the room. And Mrs. Ingram was alone with your patient all that night?" " By no means. Mrs. Telfer was in the chamber with her; Cleante in the dressing-room adjoining. But they both slept 80 soundly that — Heaven forgive me I — I have sometimes fan- cied they may have been- drugged. I had gone to my apart- ment, and, weary with watching, had fallen soundly asleep. Precisely at midnight I woke, by hearing, or fancying" I heard, a bell tolling." ** Ah!" Macgregor said, " the ghostly bell of the Trevan- ions. And then?" " I was silly and superstitious, I suppose — nervous, certain- ly. I got up, threw on my dressing-gown, and hastened to the sick-room. Cleante and Mrs. Telfer were asleep, as I said, and Mrs. Ingram was bending over the bed, where my uncle lay in a deep stupor, searching, as I imagined, under the pillow for the will." ** The will? What will?" " A will he had made a day or two before— a will that leffc all his fortune, as it should have been left, to his only son. He kept it under his pillow, and I at first imagined she wa» trying to find it. But that, of course, was absurd. What earthly use was the will to her? Before I could speak, to my horror^ the sick man sat up in bed, and grasped her by th# tn WHO wisnif wrist, crying out to take her away, she was trying to murder him. He fell back, with the words on his lips, in dull stupor once more, and Mrs. Ingram turned round and saw me." "Yes. Well?" He was vividly interested, you could see. " Mrs. Ingrain looked startled for an instant, and very, very pale; but she was herself again directly. She explained that she was settling the pillows, and that he had been resting oui- etly all along. I wished to remain — ah, would to Heaven tnat I had! — but she would not listen to me. She insisted upon my going back. She was not in the least tired or sleepy; she would watch until morning. I let her overrule me. I went back, and again slept, and slept soundly. It was late when I awoke and went back to the sick-r^om. The valet and house- keeper still slumbered, and this time Mrs. Ingram also. And the bed was empty— the will and the dying man gone! My scream awoke Cleante and Telfer at once, but not Mrs. In- gram. *t When she did awake, alter a sound shaking, she was ut- terly bewildered — could tell nothing. She had dropped asleep, unconsciously — her patient was all safe in bed the last she re- membered. She knew no more." Macgregor listened in silence, his brows drawn, a look of dark intensity in his face. . *' You have heard of the search that was made," Sybil con- tinued; " long and thorough, and in vain. The secret of Monkswood Waste is its secret still — ^r'ell kept. I know noth- ing against Mrs. Ingram. Common sense in every way proves it to be an absurdity that she can in any manner be impli- cated. And yet — Oh, Mr. Macgregor, help me if you can. Fathom this terrible mystery, and I will thank you forever! I thought when Cyril came — But Cyril /tas come, and what does he care? The woman who slept on her post, by his fa- ther's dying bed, holds him fettered body and soul. He has no thought, by night or by day, but for her." The passionate, impetuous tears started to her eyes. She turned away proudly, lest he should see. But Macgregor's dark eyes saw most things, and his face clouded a little now. ** And do you care?" he asked in a deep, intense voice, ,** whom he loves or whom he hates? Can it signify to Miss Trevanion?" The question might have been insolent on any other lips, and haughty Sybil might have turned upon him in amazed anger. But, somehow— ah! v/ho knows why? — it was Mac- gregor who spoke; and the delicate face drooped away, and WHO wisrif i«r the lovely, transient g/ow arose and faded^ and the haughty heart fluttered under her sable corsage. ** No/' she said, "it is nothing to me — less than nothing. But I loved my uncle very dearly, Mr. Macgregor, and Cviil is his son. Once I loved him, too— long ago — a little child of four— when he was, oh, so different. He gave me this ring. I have worn it for his sake for fifteen years. I will never wear it again!** She drew it off. There was a sparkle of light; then it was flung impetuously into the depths of the fish-pond, a glittering morsel for pike and perch. " Let the waters take it," she said, " less faithless than he! And you promise me, Mr. Macgregor, you will do your best to help me in this dreadful ""'^rkness which shrouds the poor gen- eral's fate?" ** I promise. Miss Trcvanion. I will do my utmost, and succeed, if J. can, where the best detective of Scotland Yard failed. The mystery of Monkswood will be a mystery no lonsrer, if mortal man can solve it. I will do my best, I prona- ise.''' He held out his hand. He had long, slim feet and hands — intensely patrician — and Sybil laid her delicate rose-leaf palm therein, with still another roseate blush. It was quite a new trick on Sybil's part — this blushing — and became her beautifully. •* How kind it is of you!" she said, grateful tears standing in her eyes. She seemed so utterly alone, poor child, in her axixiety, and this matter was so very near her heart. '* They say, Mr. Macgregor, all authors are more or less like their work; but you are not in the least like yours.''* " Nicer, I hope?" the author suggested. " Ever so much nicer!'* the young lady answered, saucily. " I don't half like your tone in print; and the sneering, sar- castic, bitterly cynical way you speak of women is simply false and detestable. You may say what you please, sir — you and the rest of the cold-blooded cynics — but there are women alive — hosts of them — true and tender and faithful, and good 10 the core." How beautiful she looked! the cheeks brightly flushed, the violet eyes flashing, the proud little head thrown back, Ah^ Angus Macgregor, your cynical heart needs a triple corselet 6f steel to ward olf the blind god's arrows shot from those killing eyes of blue I " I believ^ it now," he said, very quietly. ** I did not hv* «» w WHO wnni? i; 2ord. I spoke of women as I found them. I can neyer epeak oiE them like that again.'' And then he lifted the fair white hand to his lips and kiesed it, and let it full. And the diuner-bell rang, and Charley's serene face appeared suddenly through the hazel bashes skirting the fish pond near. *• Are you two flirting or fighting? You look tremendously in earnest; and really, how oup is to be in earnest about any- thing, with the thermometer at boiling heat— Let's go to dmner." The effort of speaking had exhausted him; he was unable to finish his own sentence. They went to dinner, where my lady greeted them, and did the most of the talking. For the heat ad wilted Charley, and left him nothing on earth to say; and Sybil, in a ** tremor of sweet blisses," falling fatally in love, though she did not know it, eat something — who knows what? — and hardly looked across once at the dark tenant of the Ke- treat. Lady Lemox and Mr. Macgregor sat down in the lamp-lit drawing-room to their eternal whist; and my lady made a good thing out of the author's preoccupation, and won two or three handfuls of shillings. And Sybil, away m a corner where the piano stood, and the lamp-light never came, played dreamy improvisations, with a quiet, tender happiness in her face. The moonlight fell on the graceful, girlisli figure, the stately little head, the delicate, perfect profile, and the ftuthor's eyes wandered often from the cards to that fairy vis- ion. It was late when he went away, and Sybil said good- night with a shy grace all new, and " beauty's bright tran- sient glow " coming and going in her exquisite face. It was late when he left, late when he reached the Betreat, his pretty home, hidden as the covert of a stag amid the towering elms and beeches; but not too late for working and smoking, it ap- peared. He threw off his dress-coat, lighted a cigar, drew a pile of MSS. before him, and sat down to writs; and while the summer night wore on, he smoked and he wrote, the pen scrawling at a railroad pace over the paper, the only stoppages when he paused to ignite a fresh Havana. The rosy glimmer of the new day was lighting the east wheu he pushed the MSS. from him and arose. ** Four o'clock," he said. ** Time for a constitutional under the trees, before coffee and turning in." , He put on his shooting-jacket and went out. The early Angusv morning, down there in the heart of Monkswood, was InexpreBsibly peaceful and stiU. The dew glittered on grass WHO wurs? 1X9 and fern, the soaring larks bnrst forth in their matin psalms^ the air was sweet wjth its freshness and woodland perfume, and the stillness of some primeval wilderness reigned. The author turned in tne Prior's Walk — the grand old ave- nue where so often the hmjted monks had paced, telling their beads. He had sauntered about half-way down, when he sud- denly stopped and drew back, for at the other opening a man and a woman stood, where, at that hour, he would have looked for no one — where, at any hour, few ever came. They were standing very still, talking very earnestly, and in the man, tall, dark, and muscular, he recognized at first glance Cyril Trevanion. But the woman — who was she? Surely not the widow? No. She turned her face toward him even as the thought croseed his mind, and self-possessed as Macgregor was, he barely re- Eressed an exclamation of amazement as his eyes tell upon her ice. CHAPTER XVI. UNDER PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT. iT was old Hester— Crazy Hester, the witch, the fortune- teller — who stood facing the lord of Monkswood Priory, in the rosy dawn of the new day, leaning on her staff, with her weird face and weird, witch-like dress, looking very like one of the three beldames who accosted the Thane of Cawdor on the blasted heath of Fores. Angus Macgregor barely repressed a whistle of intense sur- prise. Then suddenly his face cleared and brightened. " Hawksley told me there was. an old grandam somewhere, and, by all that's sensational, it turns out to be old Hester. the witch! I always fancied there was method in the cute old fortune-teller's madness;' and, by Jove! if she is the grandam, she's the cleverest old lady in England. Shall 1 play eaves- dropper for once? It is for Sybil's sake. I am not a partio ularly humble Christian, but I think I could stoop to even lower degradation— if there le a lower deep than eavesdrop- pinff — for her sake." He stood quite still, screened completely by the huge branches of a giant elm, seeing them plainly, yet all unseen. The tableau was worthy more spectators. The old woman--* withered, wrinkled, Indian-colored— i^tood wiih both hands clasped on the head of a stout cane, a red cotton handkerchiel knotted under her chin, her locks of eld fluttering scantily b^ neath, two piercing black e^s fixed fiercely on the ta^ iboft 'm ido WHO WIKSf her. And Cyril Trevanion stood with folded ftrms, silent, moodv, sulky, his eyes fixed on the creensward, a look of sul* len fmr in his swarthy face. He had muttered something Burliiy between his teeth, and the old ^"Oman's glittering eyes flashed fire, and the whole face flamed red with anger. *' You're a fool, Cyril Trevanion!" she cried, passionately, striking her stick upon the ground; " too great a fool to try and play knave. Worse, you're a coward! Do 3'ou ihinki don't know how you ran like a frightened school-boy the other day, and left the girl, who thouq^ht you a hero, to face an angry bull alone? Another man cime to her rescue, and you — you cut a fine figure, coming crawling back, shame- faced and sheepish! You a Trevanion, forsooth! 1 tell you," striking her stick again, and raising her voice to a shrill, cracked treble, *' I am ashamed of you myself!'' " Hadn't you better arouse the parish?'' Oyril Trevanion said, T-ith a suppressed oath. "IE you only sent for me heie to begin your old nagging, you may as well let me go. If I'm a coward, I must have inherited it from your side of the house. The Trevanions, at least, were never that." *' Nor ingrates," cried the old woman, bitterly. ** But a fool and a coward is ahuays an ingrate. \V^ab did you come to this place for? Tell me that. Was it to woo and win the heiress of Trevanion, with her splendid beauty, her splendid dowry, her grand old lineage, or not? And what do you do? You see a wax-doll widow, a penniless adventuress, and you go mad and blind and besotted lor love of her. Fool! dolt! driveler! Why did I nob leave you to starve, or rot, or die a dog's death in a ditch, as you deserve? You allow the golden prize to slip through your fingeis, between your idiocy and your cowardice, and you run after this painted, penniless gov- erness, who laughs at you for your pains!" The rage flaming in the fierce old face, in the flashing old eyes, in the high, cracked voice, was something quite appall- ing. The man before hei* shrunk like a whipped hound. Hib fear of her was unmistakable. ** I will endure it no longer — not one day longer!" old Hester went vehemently on. '* Drop the widow and win the heiress, or dread the consequences! You aro afraid of me, Cyril Trevanion, and you have re;:iSon to be!" " I have reason to be afiaid of a good many people," the heir of Monkswcod retorted, stung into sullen defiance. " I believe in my soul I'll go down to the sea yonder, some fine day, and make an end of it all. What with your nagging and my own plotting, and runoing the lisk of discovery every hour WHO WINSP m of the day, my life is not bo pleasant, Lord knows, thit I should wi^n to keep it. 1 met a man last night-— oune himl —and ho knows who I am as well as you do.*' ** Where did you meet him? Who is he?*' ** I met him at Chudleigh. He calls himself Ansai Mao> gregor — an autlior, or something of the sort — and ne is the tenant of the Retreat. That stupid fool, Reedworth, rented it before I came here; and he as good as told me, last night, he had seen me at — " He stopped and grasped his throat, like a man half choke'd. ** At Toulon," Unislied the old woman, coolly. ** Very likely he did. Pve heard of him, and he has been a great traveler. He may fancy he has seen you. He will find it difficult to prove it, and he will hesitate before slandering a gentleman in your position. But you're an idiot, as I told yon, and worse than an idiot, to linger here at all. Marry SybiB Lemox and take her out of the country. Avoid France and England as you would a pestilence. The Co:.tinent is wido. You may snap your fingers at the whole world, if you possess common prudence, with General Trevanion s heiress for your wife.'* ** She will not marry me,** Cyril Trevanion said, moodily. " She disliked me from the first; she barely tolerates me now. I believe in my soul,'* with a deep oath, *' she is half in love- with that infernal Macgregor ever since — ** " Ever since ho saved her life — ever since jow ran away," interrupted the fortune-teller, with sneering emphasis. ** It is very likely indeed. Gh, poor, weak, miserable cowardi Why did I not disown you at your birth? You, with all the chances ever man had to win and marry her out of hand, let them slip one by one, and allow a stranger to step in and bear off the prize! No wonder she hardly tolerates you — moody, sullen, silent, making an infatuated fool of yourself about a simpering doll of a widow, and treating her, the proudest girl in England, with gloomy indifference. But I tell you to beware of me ! Don't rouse my anger any higher — aon*t, I warn you. You know what I am. Give up your sickening folly; devote yourself to Miss Trevanion; woo her, win her — old love and smoldering embers are easily rekindled —marry her; take her out of England, and do it at once." She struck her stick fiercely into the yielding sod and turned to go. The man before her stood motionless as a fig- ure of dark marble. " And if she refuses?" he said, between his teeth. ''Then look to yourself. It will be my turn toaot thSBt Itl WHO WIK8? and yoa will eee what mercy I will show yon. If she refusoa, and pereists in refusing, there will bo no one on earth to blame but yourself. I will show you then how I treat fooli and ingrates!'' She nobbled away; she reached the end of the avenue; then she turned round. Cyril Trevaiiion still stood whore she had loft him, his fuco literally black with rago and fear and hatred. " When Sybil Lemox Trovanion says yes, come to me and tell me," she said. " I don't want to see your face before that." " And if she says no ?'* ground out through his set teeth. " Then I will come to yov; and Iho day that sees me come will make you wish you had novcr boon born!" She turned this timo and hobbled out of sight; and Cyril Trevanion threw one arm over the branch of a tree and laid his face thereon. ** * Wish I had never been born!' " he repeated, with in- describable bitterness. **MyGod! how of tun have I wished that ! Th'^.y say my mother died raving mad. I think my mother's son is likely to follow her c lamplc. Plester — Mac- greeor — Mrs. Ingram; I have reason to fear the three; aud Sybil Trevanion — beautiful, gentle, and sweet — I fear most of ail." He stood there so long, motionless, his face lying on his arm, that Angus Macgregor came out from his leafy screen, coolly struck a match, and lighted a cigar. " JPoor devil!" he said; " it's not a bed of roses. This poor wretch who fights with fate, according to his light, and tries to 'better himself,' like a man's valet, gets badgered and both- ered and hunted down on all hands, until even his worst en- emy might afford to pity him; and I suppose / ought to be that." He sauntered out up the avenue, deliberately, to the spot where Cyril Trevanion stood. At the sound of the approach- ing footsteps, the heir of Monkswood lifted his head and stared at the unexpected apparition, with the wild, hunted look of a stag at bay. *' Colonel Trevanion, I believe," Macgregor said, quietly, as though it were noonday and the Prior's Walk the high- road. " I had no idea vou were fond of day-break constitu- tionals. We poor devils of scribblers, who sit up half tho night over our foolscap and our last highly sensational chapter, find this sort of thing necessary. Don't let me disturb you, I'm going back, and going to bed. Good-moixnug.** i( WHO WZ2CS f in He strolled away, puffing energetically. His landlord htd not spoken, nor attempted to speak. Ho v. is ghastly pale. *' I have eased ray conscience a little by showing myself," Macgregor said, enteriiig his domitnlo. " I can^t say I find listening pleasant. And so he's to woo and win Sybilr Ah, well, we'll seel As the Turks sav, Kismet ! What is written, is writtenl" CHAPTER XTII. THE WIDOW Or^NS THE BATTLE. On that rainy night, while Charley Lemox drove the tenant of the Ketreat through the darkness, the elegant widow had eailed away to her room, her tiiiken splendor trailing behind her, always serpentine in its glimmering twists, her jewels sparkling, her ribbons fluttering. She kissed Miss Chudleigh, on the upper landing, andgayly bid her " Good-night, and pleasant d reams,'' as she swept mto her own room. Perhaps the agreeable widow had her charitable wish, for Gwendoline's dreams were apt to be pleasant, with the angelio faces of the cornets and ensigns from Speckhaven beaming luminous through the rosy clouds of sleep. But her own dreams, waking and sleeping, were not pleas- ant. She sunk down into a chair, a miracle of amber satin and downy puffiness, and the smiles, and the radiance, and the happy brightness dropped away from face and eyes, like a mask, and left a dark, brooding, careworn countenance in their stead. She elevated her slim, arched feet, clad in the daintiest of high-heeled bottvAca, upon the steel fender, and frowned thoughtfully into the fire. For all the rooms at Chudleigh Chase were vast, and apt to be chilly, and Mrs. Ingram was as fond of warmth and light as a tropical. bird. So, these August evenings, a wood-firo glowed in the grate, and rendered super- fluous the wax tapers burning on the dressing-table. Long after all the household were at rest, long after Mr. A"^gus Macgregor, her bugbear, was sleeping the sleep of the just. Miss Chudleigh's governess sat there, with that darkly frowning face, staring at the red coals. " Who is this jnanr" she thought — ** this mysterious hermit of Monkswood Retreat, who knows me, and who knows that other impostor calling himself Cyril Trevanionr' Can it be — could it be, in spite of all, the real Cyril Trevauion, alive and in the flesh?" 184 WHO WINS? The next moment she could have laughed aloud at her own foUv in even supposing such an impossibility. Cyril Trev anion sleeps his last sleep under the mighty Pacific. On this earth he will trouble us no more. This man Macgregor may have known him, may have seen my portrait. But what can he really do? He can't have me tried a^ain for that deed done nineteen years ago in Leamington WccJ. A stolid British jury sat on that before, and twelve pig-headed jurymen brought in a verdict of not guilty. And except that once I never left myself amenable to the majesty of the law. No, I may safely defy this Mr. Angus Macgregor, I think, in spite of his knowledge — and he canH be positive as to my identity. He may tell the baronet all he knows — that I am an improper person — a murderess " — she shuddered slightly at the word — " the intriyiianie who entrapped Cyril Trevaniou into marriage — a wicked, worthless adventuress. But v/ill the baronet believe the monstrous tale? Cyril Trevanion is here. Ijet him ask Cyril Trevanion if I am the dreadful creature he married so many years ago. I will deny all, and Cyril Tre- vanion will deny all, and 1 defy the clever author to produce proofs. Perhaps, also, he may say the Cyril Trevanion of the present is not the Cyril of the past; and in that case, I fancy Sir Rupert himself will be the first to set him down a mad- man. Suppose I take the initiative, and concoct some clever stjry for the baronet to-morrow? I have staked all upon the last throw of the dice, and I am willing to abide the issue. I will never go back to the old life — to that horrible region where all the women are false as their painted faces, and all the men are knaves and brutes. I will be Lady Cliudleigh in spite of fate and Angus Macgregor!" She arose at last — it was past three by her watch. The fire had smoldered out — the wax-lights cast flickering, fantastic shadows upon the dusk oak paneling, and the widow shivered with a sense of chill. She walked over to the toilet-table, and began to remove her jewels and laces, looking angrily at the pallid, haggard face her mirror showed her. '' What a faded wretch I look!" she thought. ** And if I lose my beauty, what have I left? In a few years I will be an old woman — old, ugly, wrinkled, and — great Heaven! what vj'iW become of me men ?" Mrs. Ingram disrobed, and leaving all the candles burning, went to bed. It was years and years — so long, she shuddered at the dreary retrospect — since she had dared to sleep in the dark. For a dead man's face rose up in the spectral gloom— paie^ menacing, terrible-^to haunt her remorseful dreamjs. She WHO Tfiosni? 188 nestled down among the yielding pillows, to-night, with an unutterable sense of weariness, and misery, and awful dread of tlie future. ** I begin to believe that sad old Arabian proverb," eht thoaghfc, bitterly, ** * Man is better sitting than standing, ly- ing down than sitting, dead than lying dawn!' " The breakfast hour was late at Chudleigh Chase, and Sir Rupert's guest met Sir Rupert at that matutinal meal with a face as bright and cloudless as the sunlit August sky. The white cashmere robe, with its cherry-colored trimmings, cord- ed about the slender waist, seemed even more becoming than the many-hued silks ana moires she donned in the evenings. It was a teie-d-feie breakfast this morning. Miss Chudleigh bad been up and off for a breezy morning gallop over tne golden Sussex downs long before father or governess thought of opening their eyes. " And how do you like my friend Macgregor?" the baronet asked, putting the very question the widow was wishing to hear; '' very clever fellow, Macgregor, though he does support the most far-fetched theories and deny the most palpable facts. Very brilliant conversationalist, isn't he?'* The widow raised her dimpled, sloping shoulders, and wched the slender black brows. " Dear Sir Rupert, will you think me the dullest of here- tics and recusttUts if 1 say 1 don'i like Mr. Macgregor? And will you permit me ask you a few questions concerning him?** " A whole Pinnock*3 Catechism, if you choose, madams.*' ** Then did you ever know Mr. Macgregor before he ap- peared in Speckhaven, two or three months ago?** "No.** ** Was he presented by any friends of yours, or did you pick him up, as Sairey Gamp would say, * promiscuous *?" ** I picked him up promiscuous. 1 saw he was a most in- ; telligeut and agreeable fellow, and intelligent and agreeable/ fellows don't hang on every bush, like blackberries. A gen- tleman can tell another gentleman when he meets him, even although there be no third party on hand to repeat the invari- able formula, * Sir Rupert Chudleigh, allow me — my estima- ble friend, Mr. Angus Macgregor, celebrated traveler, distin- guished author, etc., etc' So, Mrs. Ingram, 1 picked the her- mit of the Retreat up, and a very delightful and social hermit I find him.** ** Yes,** Mrs. Ingram said, quietly; " Mr. Macgregor, as he chooses to call himself, is a very pleasant companion^ and yet—" I 186 WHO VfTSSf <« And yet — you * damn him with faint praise,* my lady. And he * chooses to call himself Macgregor/ dees he? Pray, what then ought he call himself, and what on earth do you know of the man, Mrs. Ingram?" "Sir Rupert," the lady said, earnestly, "I recognized Colonel Trevanion's tenant, last night, as a person 1 met in Vienna many years ago. A man — it sounds incredible, I fear, but it is true — a man sane on all points but one — 7nud on that. In short, a monomaniac. It was during my husband's life-time; business had taken him to Vienna. I accompanied him, and one night, at some social assembly, I met this man. I really forget the name he bore then, but it certainly was not Macgregor. His monomania was well understood among his Viennese friends — it was in mislaJdnfi identities. For in- stance, he would meet you and be suddenly struck with the idea that you resembled some person he had seen before. He would brood over the idea a little, and finally insist that you were that person. I heard maiiy most laughable anecdotes of his hallucination at first, but it came home to me unpleasantly when he insisted that I was a Mademoiselle Eose — something, a ballet-dancer he had known in England. Last night, at first, I hardly knew him; that vast beard alters him greatly; but when he mounted his old hobbj^-horse and told me I was like that — I forget what he called her — and Colonel Trevan- ion the very image of a galley-slave in Toulon — I remem- bered him at once. It sounds strange, I admit, but it is pos- itively true; the man, sane and intelligent, and talented in every other way, is viad on this subject. And yet, it is not so very remarkable, either. Physicians narrate more marvelous cases of mania every day." The widow paused. Had she not had so much at stake, she could have laughed outright at the baronet's face. Blank bewilderment, incredulous surprise, dense dismay, were writ- ten irresistibly in his astonished features and wide-open eyes. ■ " My dear Mrs. Ingram! Good heavens! What an extra- ordinary declaration. Macgregor mad! The man that can handle every topic of the day, from the destinies of nations to the coloring of one of Etty's flimsiest sketches; the man who can beat me in an argument — j^es, I own it, who can beat me at chess and ecarte, vingt'et-tin and whist: the man who writed the most readable books of the period, who — Mad I My dear Mrs. Ingram, you'll excuse me, but that is all non- eeusel" *' Very well. Sir Rupert," the widow said, perfectly un- ruffled. '*I don't want to shake your faith in your friend* conce the j bent five! Per mark, Whoa So WHO WINSf a«? Believe him sane as long as he will allow you. I am very willing. Only if the mania doei^ show, if he does insist upon mistaKing me for all manner of improper and unplea«nt per- sons, I look to you for protection. Perha{)S I am silly, but I really don't like to be told I am the livin^^ image of ' a woman BO vicious and unprincipled that he would not let her caress a dog he cherished. He said as much last night, you remem- ber. And I don't think Colonel Trevanion felt flattered when told he so vividly resembled the galley-slave at Toulon.'* Again that look of perplexity and dismay overspread the baronet's face. '*Gad!" he said; ** you're right; it can^the pleasant; and it's rather odd of Macgregor, 1 allow; yet, as to being mad^ my dear Mrs. Ingram, it's impossible for me to credit that.'* Mrs. Ingram bowed. " As you please, Sir Rupert. 'W6 will wait and see. Do you wish me to answer those letters for you you spoke of yes- terday?" *' If you will be so very good," the baronet murmured, plai' tivply. *' The wretched state of my health, my — " ** J 'ear Sir Rupert, I know. It is a pleasure, 1 assure you; and dearest Gwendoline's lessons can wait. Why should you fatigue yourself writing, when I am ever delighted to save you the trouble? And if you feel inclined to listen, I will finish that treatise of Ilolbacli's I commenced yesterday." Mis. Ingram knew as well as Sir Rupert himself that there was nothing on earth the. mutter with him, except chronic lazi- ness; but it suited her book very well to make herself indis- pensable; and when they adjourned to the library, she was tenderly solicitous on i,he subject of draughts, and wheeled up his easiest of easy-chairs, and arranged his footstool, and draped the curtains to shade the light, as a mother might have done by a dying child. And the pretty face looked so sweetly concerned, and the long, black eyes so tender and dewy, and the pei'fumed hair brushed his hand, as the handsome head bent over her tasks, that— oh, calm-beuting pulses of sixty- five! no wonder you quickened to the speed of a trip-hammer. Perhaps Thackeray was right, after all, in his sarcastic re- mark, that '' The woman who knows her power may marry Whom She Likes.'' The capitals are his own. So Mrs. Ingram ssct down before the baronet, looking like some exquisite cabinet picture, and wrote his letters and read aloud, while the hot August morning wore on, and the birdi sung in the green darkness of the mighty oaks and beeches^ and the bees boomed drowsily in rose and lily-cup. fj'^n m WHO WlSlf " In the spring a young man's fanof Lightly turns to thoughts of love, * says Mr. Tennyson; and in the sultry heat of Augnst, a lazy, beaaty-admirius old man, with nothing else to do^, and a pret* ! ty woman ever before him, may turn his fancy h'ghtly in that direction, too. Certain it is that Sir Eupert kissed the wido»ir*a hand, with a glow on his tliin, high-bred face rarely seea there, as she arose to go. " I know you want your noonday nap, and I have finished M. Holbach,'' she said', gayly. *' I shall go in search of mv runaway pupil now, and give her her music lesson. Farewell." And then the elegant little lady sailed away, and Sir Rupert closed his eyes and lay back in placid ecstasy. " That woman is a jewel; I appreciate her more and more every day. What a pretty little soft voice she has! And those wonderful eyes — soft, luminous, melting!'* The bar- onet smacked liis venerable lips. '* And her smiles make one think of tho Mussulman's houris — * not made of clay, but of pure musk.' And she never bangs a door, and she never bores one when one doesn't want her, and her manners are perfect, and she is past mistress of the high art of dress, and her singing is enchanting, and — in short, 1 hope she won't take it into her head to ' better herself ' by getting married, or any nonsense of that sort, for some years to come. 1 wisli that noodle, Trovanion, would cease hunting her down, and marry his cousin, as he ought to do." Mrs. Ingram conscientiously sought out Gwendoline and dragged her to the piano, and held her captive there for two mortal hours. Then it was luncheon-time, and directly after luncheon Miss Chudleigh was marched off to French and drawing, bitterly against her will. It was past four, and the afternoon sun was dropping low, before the governess con- sented to liberate her wreLched serf. She stood alone in the school-room, among maps and black- boards and v/riting-de°ks and scattered books, after G wendoline had rushed frantically away, leaning against the marble chim- ney-piece, with that grayish look of worn pallor that always overspread her face when alone. The broad road may be strewn with roses at first sight; but when we come to tread it, we find the tliorns pierce through the rose-leaves sharply enough. Standing there, Mrs. ingram looked wearied of hfe, of the world and all therein. ** When will it all end?" she wondered, drearily; ** or am I to go oa forever like this— stretched on the rack? Will rest wfio wnfsf lai uevsr come in tlils world, or must I wait for it until they laj ine yonder in the church-yard?" The door opened; a servant entered. Mrs. Ingram lifted np her wan, haggai-d face. ** What is it, Mary?" she asked, listlessly. " Colonel Trevanio' > ma'am. He is in the white drawing- room, which he says he wants to see you, ma'am, most par- ticular." *' Very well; I will go down." The girl disappeared, soliloquizing, as she descended to tho lower regions: " They calls her *andsome, they does— master and the gen- tlemen from Speckhaven I wish they could see her now. If /was to paint and powder and dress up like she does, they might call me 'andsome, too. She looks forty years old this minute." Mrs. Ingram walked over to the glass. Gwendoline kept a mirror in the school-room to refresh herself, amid her dry-as- dust studies, by an occasional peep at her own rosy face. ** I look like a wretch," the widow thought — " old and hag- gard and hollow-eyed. Very well; V\\ go down as I am; it may help to cure this idiot or his insane passion. He can do me good service as a tool; he is only a nuisance as a lover. I shall come to a final understanding with him, and have done with it." She descended to the white drawing-room, one of a long and Bjilendid suite, and found Cyril Trevanion pacing to and fro with his usual moody face, while he waited. He stopped as she entered, staring at her pale, worn look. " You have been ill — you are ill," he said, in alarm; " you are looking wretchedly. In Heaven's name, what is the mat- ter?" Mrs. Ingram sunk down in the white velvet depths of a fauteuil, and made an impatient movement of her slender nand. '* There is nothing the matter — you see me as T am, that is all. If my wretched looks disenchant you, I shall be obliged to them— for once." Cyril Trevanion set his teeth, his dark face growing darker with anger. *' You are merciless," he said. ** I love you, and this is how you meet me. I came here to-day to ask you to be my wife." Mrs. Ingram laughed — a laugh of indescribable scorn. '* Much obliged. I ought to feel flattered^ I suppose; but '^ .'*j 140 WHO WIKS ce ? really I can't eay that I do. You want a wife, do you? and you want to marry me, on the principle that what won't keep one will keep two. What do you propose, Mr. Cyril Trevan- ion? Will we go to Monkswood, among the rats and the f hosts, and subsist on the memory of the family splendor gone y, and the bounty of our rich friends? Or shall we set up a public-house, like one's maid and valet, and call it the * Tre- vanion Arms,' with you ' hail fellow well met ' amid all the clowns in the county, and I, in a cap and ribbons, making my- self fascinating behind a greasy bar, dealing out gin and water? My dear Colonel Trevanion, I knew your intellect from the first to be none of the strongest; but, upon my word, I never thought you would fall to such a depth of idiocy as this, much less propose it to me." ' She looked up in his face, fully and boldly, with insolent defiance. And the craven soul within the man made his eyes fall, even while he ground out suppressed blasphemies be- ^ tween his teeth. " Listen to me, Cyril Trevanion," the widow said in an altered tone, " and don't be a fool, and don't be angry. I do not love you, as you very well know; yet, if the '"ealth that has gone to Sybil Leraox were yours, I would marry you to- morrow. But it is hers beyond redemption, and you and I can never be more to each other than friends. Your friend I am very willing to be, if you take my advice and act wisely. I know you ! Don't make an enemy of me. You have one already, and a dangerous one, in that man Macgregor," " Curse him! yes." " He saw you at Toulon. Do you remember him?" ** No — that is — do you mean to say you believe me to be the convict he spoke of last night?" " Colonel Trevanion, don't bluster — it is ever the sign of a coward. Yes, I do. You are that escaped convict, and you bear the brand on your arm, or shoulder, or somewhere, if you only liked to display it. You are an impostor and an escaped convict. Will you tell me what you are besides?" **Ko,l shall not!" " Just as you please. I'll find out for myself, then. Shall I tell you what you are? Stoop down; walls have ears." There was an unpleasant tightness about the pretty mouth, an unpleasant, steady glitter in the black eyes. One little hand grasped the man's wrist like a steel fetter, and drew him down. He bent his head, and she whispered half a dozen words — no more — in his ear. But they sent him recoiling, with a tremendouo c£% WHO wnrsf HI be- Shall " Who told you?" he cried, hoarsely. ** Are you a femalt tWl, or what ?'* *' Something very like it," replied the widow, with ft haiti little laugh. ** And you thought to outwit »n«f Now, shail fre be friends or enemies?" He stood glaring down upon her for a moment, with that lurid, maniacal light in his eyes that Charley Lemox had once before remarked. I " You are mistress," he said, in the same hoarse wfty. ** What do you want?'' " Only your good and my own. I want you to marry your cousin Sybil and her splendid dowry, and I want — see how frank I can be — I want to marry Sir Kupert Chudleigh my- ielf." Cyril Trevanion broke into a harsh, discordant laugh. ** Sybil Lemox is a lady; she won't marry me. And Sir Rupert Chudleigh is a gentleman; he won't marry you. Bar- onets don't marry their daughters' governesses, except in a lady's novel." "How rude you are!" Mrs. Ingram murmured, reproach- fully. ** Baronets don't espouse governesses, as a rule, I ad- mit; but I am no ordinary governess, neither am I treated as such; and this particular bai'onet will marry me. And I am going to be the most charitable of Lady Bountifuls — a mother to the poor for miles around, and a s^e;j-mother to that dread- ful romp, Gwendoline. Yes, Colonel Trevanion, I am des- tined to be Lady Chudleigh, and I will move heaven and earth to see yo2i the happy husband of our queenly Sj'bil." *' What the deu^e do you want me to marry her for?" the ffentleman asked, relapsing into his habitual sulkiness. " What is it to you?" *' It is a great deal to me. Don't you know I hate her?" Cyril Trevanion stared. The evil glitter was very bright now in the black eyes, the evil smile dancing on the thin lipa. " Yes, I hate her," Mrs. Ingram said, airily, " as only one woman can hate another. You want to know why, do you? Well, take a woman's reason: I hate her lecaiise 1 hate her. She is younger than I am, handsomer than I am, richer than I am — purer, better, happier than I am. And I hate her, and she hates me. " " And because you hate her, you want to see her my wife?" *' Exactly. I need hai'clly ask a better revenge. If she mar- ries you, it will not be yav — the man — she marries. It will be her own ideal, Cyril Trevanion^ whom she has loved from m III I lit Hi WHO irnrsf childhood, who lies dead at the bottom of the Southsm Sea By the bye, is it indisputably certain that he is dead?" " Would / venture here else? J tell you I saw the ship my. self burn to the water's edge, and every soul on board periali with her. The * Eastern Light * went to the bottom two yean ago, and Cyril Trevanion among the rest." ** Then you are quite safe, in spite of Angus Macgregor. If he doubts your identity, they will set him down a madman. Now, you see, theie is no alternative. You can't marry me; you mnsi marry Sybil, the heiress. And when she is your wife, and you have her fortune within your grasp, tell her who you are, and come to me for your reward." " And you?" The widow laughed — a mocking peal. " Oh, I. will go with you, then, and we will live in splendor on tho spoil — that is, if Sir Rupert will be obstinate, and won't malke me * my lady. * Now we understand each other. Obey, and I will be your friend; refuse, and I will be the first to tear your mask off, and show you to the world as an im- postor — a base-born wretch — an escaped galley-slave. Shall we say adieu for the present? It is time to dress for dinner. Not being Lady Chudleigh as yei, I really can not take it upon myself to invite you to slay. And if I could, I wouldn't Sir Rupert is jealous, poor dear." She laughed again as she rose — a sv/eet little laugh — and held out her white hand. " My dear colonel, pray don^t look quite so much like a death's-head and cross-bones. That iflippant Gwendoline calls you * The Knight of the Woful Countenance,' and really you deserve it. Don't hope to win the handsome heiress with that moody face. Try to look amiable, if you can. It's just as easy, and ever s'> much pleasanter." He caught the hand she held out in a grasp that made her v/ince. *' And this is the end? There is no hope? I must obey you, or — " " Please let so my hand; you are crushing it to atoms. Yes, you must ooey me, or — We won't finish, for you will obey." ** And if Sybil Trevanion refuses to marry me?" The widow shrugged her sloping shoulders, and moved to the door. ** Look to yourself, then. Poor, weak hearti don't you know your Shakespeare yet* TV, WHO wrnnf 148 -and ** * Th9 man that bath a tongue, I say la no man, If with that tongue be can not win a womani' Farewell for the present. When you have proposed, and she has accepted, come back, and let me be the first to congratu* late you." The words were strangely like the farewell words of old Hester. She was gone, with her soft, sliding step and insolent smile, while yet she spoke; and the darkly menacing glance, the look of baffled love, of bitter hate combined, which Cyril Trevanion cast after her, was all unseen. It might have warned her, if on the dangerous road she was treadmg there had been any turning back. CHAPTER XVIII. COLONEL TREVANION OBtYS ORD7IR8. Cyril Trevanion rode slowly homeward chrough the sultry gray of the August evening, his gloomy face set in an expression of dark, dogged resolution. It was " written, *' it was his fate; those two women, so unlike in all other things, BO like in this one fell purpose, were driving him headlong to his doom. They had him hopelessly under their heels; there was no alternative but blind obedience. " I will do it, shice I vuii