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Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ^ signifie "A SUIVRE ", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent §tre film^s A des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour §tre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est filmi d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdihode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 rOPULAll NOVELS. 1 By May Agnes Fleming. I. -GUY EARLSCOURT'S WIFE. II.— A WONDERFUL WOJIAN. III.— A TERRIBLE SECRET. "Mrs. FU.minR'B Btorioa aro RrowinR more and more popu- lar every rcotyper, 145 Si W! Mulberry St., near Grand, N. Y. Vo CHRISTIAN RE ID, AUTHOR OP "V A L Eli IK Ayi.MKRr ETC., TOKEN OF ADMIRATION AND ESTEEM, Story is pED I CAT ED, MAY AGNES FLEMING. Urooklvn, ) cptcmber, 1874. ) iiepu ClIA CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.- II.- III.- IV.- V.- VI.- VII.- VIII.- IX.- X.- XI.- XII.- PAOE Bride and Bridegroom Elect 9 -Wife and Ilcir '8 -How Lady Catheron came Home 27 -" I'll not Believe but Desdemona's Honest " 32 -In the Twilii^ht 39 -In the Moonli-ht 5° -In the Nursery S^ -In the Darkness ^2 -From the " Chesholm Courier " 77 -From the " Chesholm Courier "—Continued 83 -'•Ring out your Bells! Let Mourning Shows be Spread!" 89 -The first Ending of the Tragedy 96 PART II ;o:- L--iMiss Darrell I03 II, _A Night in the Snow "5 HI.— Trixy's Tarty 127 1 V._" Under tlie (laslight" 140 v.— Old Copies of tlie «' Courier " I48 VI.— One Moonlight Night 159 VII.— Short and Sentimental 17° VIII.— In Two Boats I?^ 8 CONTENTS. CnAPl'KR PAOB IX.— Alas for Trix 1S7 X. — How Trix took it 200 XI. — How Lady Helena took it 207 XII.— On St. Partricli,'c Day 215 XIII. — How Charley took it 222 XIV. — To-morrow 231 XV.— Lady Helena's I3all 244 XVI.— "O My Cousin Shallow-hearted 1 " 250 XVII.—" Forever and Ever " 257 XVII I.— The Summons 268 XIX. — At Poplar Lodge 279 XX. — How the Weddin[.j-day IJcgan 2S7 XXL— How the Wedding-day Ended 294 XXII.— The Day After 300 XXIIL— The Second Ending of the Tragedy 310 PART m. -:o:- I. — At Madame Mirebeau's, Oxford Street 320 II.— Edith 330 III How they Met 341 IV. — How they Parted 347 v.— The Telling of the Secret 353 VI. — The last Ending of the Tragedy 365 VII. — Two Years After 373 VIII. — Forgiven or — Forgotten ? 37S IX. — Saying Good-by 383 X. — The Second Bridal 393 XL— The Night 401 XII. — The Morning 405 A TERRIBLE SECRET. CHAPTER I. BRIDK AND URIDEGROOM ELECT. IRF.LIGMT falling on soft velvet carpet, where while lily buds trail along azure ground, on chairs of white-polished wood that glitters like ivory, with i)uffy of seats of blue satin ; on blue and gilt l)an(.-lled walls; on a wonderfully carved oaken ceiling; on sweeping drajjcries of blue satin and white lace ; on h.df a dozen lovely pictures ; on an open piano ; and last of all, on the handsome, angry face of a girl who stands before it — Inez Calheron. The month is August — the day the 29th — Miss Catheron has good reason to remember it to the last day of her life. 15ut, whether the August sun blazes, or tiie January winds howl, the great rooms of Catheron Royals are ever chilly. So on the white-tiled heardi of the blue drawing-room this summer evening a coal fire llickers and falls, and the mis- tress of Catheron Royals stands before it, an angry Ikisli burning dee;) red on either dusk cheek, an angry frown con- tracting her straight black brows. Tiic mistress of Catiieron Royals, — llie biggest, oldest, (lueerest. grandest place in all siuiny Cheshire, — this slim, dark girl of nineteen, for three years past the bride-elect of Sir Victor Catheron, baronet, the last of his Saxon race and name, the lord of all these sunny acres, this noble Norman pile, the smiling village of Catheron below. The master of 10 BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM ELECT. a stately park in Devon, a moor and " bothy " in the Iiigh- laiuls, a villa on tlic A mo, a gem of a cottage in the Isle of Wiglit. " A (larhng of the gods," young, handsome, healthy ; and best of all, with twenty thousand a year. She is his bride-elect. In her dark way siie is very hand- some. She is to be married to Sir Victor early in the ne.\t month, and .she is as much in love with him as it is at all |)ossi- ble to be. A fair fafesnrely. And yet while the Aii;4iist nij;lit shuts down while the wind whistles in the trees, while the long fmg(!rs oi the elm, just outside the window, tap in a ghustly way on the pane, she stands here, (lushed, angry, impatient, and sullen, her handsome lips set in a tight, rigid line. She is very dark at all times. Her cousin Victor tells her, laughingly, she is an absolute nigger when in one of her silent rages. She has jet-black hair, and big, brilliant, S[)anish eyes. She is Spanish. Her dead mother was a Castilian, and that mother has left her her Spanish name, her beautiful, ])assionate Spanish eyes, her hot, passionate Si)anish heart. In Old Castile Inez was born ; and when in her tenth year her English father followed his wife to the grave, Inez came home to Catheron Royals, to reign there, a little, im- perious, hot-tempered Morisco princess ever since. She did not come alone. A big boy of twelve, with a shock head of blue-black hair, two wild, glittering black eyes, and a diabolically handsome face, came with her. It was her only brother Juan, an in)p incarnate from his cra- dle. He did not remain long. To the unspeakable relief of the neighborhood for miles around, he had vanished as suddenly as he had come, and for years was seen no more. A Moorish Princess ! It is her cousin and lover's favorite name for her, and it fits well. There is a certain barbaric splendor about her as she stands here in the lireliglu, in her trailing purple silk, in the cross of rubies and fine gold that burns on her bosom, in the yellow, perfumy rose in her hair, looking stately, and beautiful, and dreadfully out of temper. The big, lonesome house is as still as a tomb. Outside the wind is rising, and the heavy patter, patter, of the rain-beats on the glass. That, and the light fall of the cinders in the polished grate, are the only sounds to be heard. A clock on the mantel strikes seven. She has not stirred BRIDE AND liRIDEG/iOOiM ELECT. II for ncarl)' an hour, hut she looks uj) now, her black eyes full of passionate ;ingjr, passionate inipatic-nce. "Seven !" she says, in a suppressed sort of voice; "and ho should have been here at six. What if he should defy me? — what if he does not come after all ?" She can remain still no longer. She wa"-'^ across the room, and she walks as only Spani>h women 1o. She draws hack one of the window curtains, ami leaa.j out into - the niiiht. The crushed sweetness of the raiu-heaten roses tloats up to her in the wet darkness. Ni»tliing to be s"en but the vague tossing of the trees, nothing to be heard but the .soughing of the wind, nothing to be felt but the f.ist and still faster failing of tiie rain. She lets the curtain fall, and returns to the fnc. " Will he dare defy me ? " she whispers to herself " Will he dare stay away ? " There are two pictures hanging ovei the mantel — she looks uj) at them as she asks the ipiestion. One is the sweet, patient face of a woman of thirty ; the other, the smiling face of a fair-haired, blue-eyed, good-looking lad. It is a very pleasant face ; the blue eyes look at you so brightly, so frankly ; the boyish mouth is so sweet-tempered and laugh- ing that you smile back and fall in love with him at sight, it is Sir Victor Catheron and his late mother. Miss Inez C'at heron is in many respects an extraordinary young lady — Cheshire society has long ago decideil that. They would have been more convinced of i^ than ever, could they have seen her turn now to Latly Catheron's portrait and appeal to it aloud in imi)assioned words : " On his knees, by your dying bed, by your dying com- mand, he vowed {o love and cherish me always — as he did then. Let him take care how he liilles with that vow — let him take care ! " She lifts one hand (on which rubles and diamonds Hash) menacingly, then stops. Over the s\vee|) oi the storm, the rush of the rain, comes another sound — a sound she has been listening for, longing for, i)r.aying for — the rapid roll of carriage wheels up the drive. There can be but one visitor to Catheron Royals to-night, at this liour and in this storm — its master. She stands still as a stone, white as a statue, waili/ig. She 12 BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM ELECT. loves him ; she has hungered and thirsted for the sound of his voice, the sight of his face, the clasp of his hand, all . these weary, lonely niontiis. In some way it is her life or death she is to take from his hands to-night. And now he is here. She hears the great hall-door open and close with a clang ; she hears the step of the master in the hall — a (juick, assured tread she would know among a thousand ; she hears a voice — a hearty, pleasant, manly, English voice ; a cheery laugh she remembers well. " The Chief of Lara has returned again." The quick, excitable blood leajjs up from her heart to her face in a rosy rush that makes her lovely. The eyes light, the lii)s part — she lakes a stej) forward, all anger, all fear, all neglect forgotten — a girl in love going to meet her lover. The door is llung wide by an impetuous hand, and wet and splashed, and tall and smiling, Sir Victor Cathercn stantls before her. " iMy dearest Inez!" He comes forward, jnits his arm around her, and touches his blonde mustache to her flushed cheek. " i\Iy dearest co/, I'm awfully glad to see you again, and looking so uncommonly well too." He puts up his eye- glass to make sure of this fact, then dro[)s it. " (Jncom- nioniy well," lie repeats ; " give you my word I never s:uv you looking half a cjuarter so handsome before in my life. Ah ! why can't we all be Moorish princesses, and wear pur- ple silks and yellow roses ? " He llings himself into an easy-chair before the fire, throws back his blonde head, and stretches forth his boots to ihe blaze. "An hour after time, am J not ? But blame the railw.'y l)eople — uon't blame vie. Beastly sort of weather for the last week of August — cold as Iceland and raining cats and dogs ; the very ilickens of a storm, I can tell you." He give the fire a poke, the light leaps up and illumines his liantlsome face. He is very like his i)icture — a little older— a little worn-looking, and with man's " crowning glory," a mustache. The girl has moved a little away from him, the flush of " beauty's bright transcient glow" has died BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM ELECT. 13 )iin(l of md, all life or \v lie is llniuines -a little out of her face, the hard, angry look has come back. That careless kiss, that easy, cousinly embrace, ha\ told their story. A moment ago her heart beat high with ho[)e — to the (lay of her death it never beat like that again. He doesn't look at her ; lie gazes at the hre instead, and talks wuh the hurry of a nervous man. The handsome fiice is a very effeminate face, and not even the light, carefully trained, carefully waxed mustache can hide the weak, irreso- lute moiuh, the delicate, characterless chin. While he talks carelessly and quickly, while his slim white fingers loop and unloop his watch-chain, in the blue eyes fixed upon the fire there is an uneasy look of nervous fear. And into the keepuig of this man the girl with the dark, powerful face has given her heart, her fate! " It seems no end good to l)e at home again," Sir Victor Catheron says, as if afraid of that brief pause. "You've no idea, Inez, how uncommonly familiar antl jolly this blue room, this red lire, looked a monieui ago, as I stepped out of the darkness and rain. It brings back the old times— this used to be licr favorite morning-room," he glanced at the mother's picture, "and siunuier and winter a fire always: burned here, as now. And you, Inez, cara mia, with your gyi)sy face, most fimiliar of all." She moves over to the mantel. It is very low ; she leanes one arm upon it, looks steadily at him, and speaks at last. " I am glad Sir Victor Catheron can remember the old times, can still recall his mother, has a '^l'";ht regard left for Catheron Royals, and am humbly grat^.ul for his recollec- tion of his gypsy cousin. l''iom his conduct of late it was hardly to have been expected." " It is coming," thinks Sir N'ictor, with an inward groan ; "and, O I-ord ! -a'/uit a row it is going to be. When Inez shuts her lips up in that tight line, and snai)s her black eyes in tint unpleasant way, I know to my cost, it means 'war to the kmte. I'll be routei wi th cireat Iful ■.laujhter, ant I i !;.'/. S I goes!" notto is ever, " Woe to the conquer or I ' I Well, here Me looks up at her, a good-humored smile on his good- looking face. " Humbly grateful for my recollection of you I My 14 BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM ELECT. dear Inez, I don't know what you mean. As for my ab- sence — " " As for your absence," slic interrupts, " you were to have been here, if your memory will serve you, on the first of June. It is now the close of August. Every day of that absence has been an added insult to me. Even now you would not have been here if I had not written y(ni a letter you dare not neglect — sent a command you dare nottlis-^ obey. You are here to-night because you dare not stay away." Some of the bold blood of the stern old Saxon race from which he sjirung is in his veins still, lie looks at her full, still smiling. "Dare not!" he rejreats. "You use strong language, Inez. I'ut then \oii have an excitable sort of nature, and were ever inclined to hvperbole ; and it is a lady's jjrivilege to talk." " And a man's to ac:t. l!nt I begin to think Sir Victor Cathcron is something less than a man. 'J'Ik; Catheron blood has bred many an outlaw, many bitter, bad men, but to day I begin to think it has bred something infinitely worse — a traitor and a coward ! " He half springs up, his eyes llashing, fhen falls back, looks at the lire again, and laughs. " Meaning me ? " " Meaning you." " Strong language once more — you assert your ])reroga- tive royally, my handsome cousin. l''rom whom diil y^ni inlierit that two-edged tongue of yours, Inez, I wondrr ? Yoiu' Castilian mother, smely ; the women of oiu- house were riever shrews. And even vcw, niy dear, may go a little too far. Will you drop vituperation and explain? How have I been traitor and coward? It is well we should ini- derstand each other ful'y." He has grown |)ale, though he speaks (|uietly, and his blue eyes gleam dangerously. He is always (piiet when most angry. "It is. And we shall understand each other fully befue we part— be very sure of that. \'ou shall h arn what I have inherited from my Castilian mother. You shall learn BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM ELECT. 15 whether you are to play fast and loose with me at your sov- ereign wiU. Does your excellent memory still servo you, or must 1 tell you what clay the twenty-third of September is to be?" ' He looks up at her, still pale, that smile on his lips, that gleam in his eyes. " My memory serves me perfectly," he answers coolly ; " it was to have been our wedding-day." Was to have been. As he speaks the words coldly, almost cruelly, as she looks in his f:ice, the last trace of color leaves her own. The hot fire dies out of her eyes, an awful terror comes in its place. WiUi all her heart, all her strength, she loves the man she so bitterly reproaches. It seems to her she can look back upon no time in which her love for hina is not. And now, it was to have been ! She turns so ghastly that ho springs to his feet in alarm. "Good Heaven, Inez! you're not going to faint, are you ? Don't ! Here, take my chair, and for pity's sake don't look like that. I'm a wretch, a brute — what was it I said? Do sit down." He has taken her in his arms. In the days that are gone he has been very fond, and a little afraid of his gipsy cousin. He is afraid still — horribly afraid, if the trudi must be told, now that his momentary anger is gone. All the scorn, all the defiance lias died out of her voice when she speaks again. The great, solemn eyes transtix him with a look he cannot meet. " Was to have been" she repeats, in a sort of whisper ; "was to have been. Victor, does that mean it never is to be?" Ill" turns away, shame, remorse, fear in his averted face. He holds the back of the chair with one hand, she clings to the other as though it held her last hope in life. "Take time," she says, in the same slow, whispering way. " I can wait. 1 have waited so long, what does a few min- utes more matter now? IJut think well before you speak — tliere is more at stake than you know of My whole future life hangs on your words. A woman's life. Have you ever thought what that imi)lies? ' Was to have been,' you said. Does that mean it never is to be ?" 16 BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM ELECT. Still no reply. lie hoUls the back of the chair, his face averted, a criminal before his judge, "And wiiile you think," she goes on, in that slow, sweet voice, " let nie recall the past. Do you remember, Victor, the day when I and Juan came here from Spain ? Do you remember me ? I recall you as plainly at this moment as though it were but yesterday — a little, flaxen-haired, blue- eyed boy in violet velvet, unlike any child 1 had ever seen before. 1 saw a woman with a face like an angel, who took me in her arms, and kissed me, and cried over me, for my father's sake. We grew up togetlier, Victor, you and I, such happy, happy years, and I was sixteen, you twenty. And all that time you had my whole heart. Then came our first great sorrow, your mother's dealii." She pauses a moment. Still he stands silent, but his left hand has gone up and covers his face. '• You remember that last night, Victor — the night she died. No need to ask you ; whatever you may forget, you are not likely to forget that. \V^e knelt together by her bed- side. It was as this is, a stormy summer night. Outside, the rain beat and the wind blew ; inside, the stillness of death was everywhere. We knelt alone in the dimly-lit room, side by side, to receive her last blessing — her dying wish. Victor, n\v cousin, do you recall what that wish was ? " She holds out her arms to him, all her heart breaking forth in the cry. liut he will neither look nor stir. " With her dying hands she joined ours, her dying eves looking at you. With her dying lips she spoke to you : ' Inez- is dearer to me than all the world, Victor, except you. She mu it never flice tlie world alone. My son, you love her — l)romise uie you will cherish and protect her always. She loves you as no one else ever will, rromise me, Vlctcjr, that in three years from to-night you will make her your wife.' These were her words. And you took her hand, covered it with tears and kisses, and promised. " We buried hi.'r," Inez went on, "and we parted. You went up to Oxtbrd ; 1 went over to a I'aris pcnsioiuiat. In the hour of our parting we went up together haml in hand to her room. We kissed the pillow where her dying head had lain ; we knelt by her bedoide as we had done that other BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM ELECT. 17 night. You placed this ring upon my finger ; sleeping or waking it has never left it since, and you repeated your vow, t)iat that night three years, on the twenty-third of September, I should be your wife." She lifts the betrothal ring to her lips, and kisses it." "Dear litde ring," she says softly, "it has been my one; comfort all these years. Though all your coldness, all your neglect for the last year and a half, I have looked at it, and known you would never break your plighted word to the livint^ and the dead. " 1 came home from school a year ago. You were not here to meet arid welcome me. You never came. You fixed the hrst of June for your coming, and you broke your word. Do 1 tire you with all these details, Victor? 15ut I must speak to-niglu. It will be for the last time — you will never give me cause again. Of the whispered slanders that have reached me 1 do not speak ; 1 do not believe them. "Weak you may be, fickle you may be, but you aie a gentle- man of loyal race and blood ; you will kee[) your ph-.ucd troth. Oh, forgive me, Victor I Why do you make me say such things to you ? 1 hate myself for them, but your neg- lect has driven me nearly wild. What have 1 done?" Again she stretclies forth her hands in eloquent appeal. " See ! 1 love yon. What more can I say ? 1 forgive all the past ; 1 ask no (jucstions. I believe nothing of the horrible stories they try to tell me. Only come back tome. If I lose you I shall die." Her face is transfigured as she speaks — her hands still stretched out. " O Victor, come I " she says ; " let the past be dead and forgotten. My darling, come back !" iUit he shrinks away as those soft hands touch him, and pushes her off. " Let me go ! " he cries ; " don't touch me, Inez ! It can never be. You don't know what you ask ! " Ht: stands confronting her now, pale as herself, vith eyes alight. She recoils like one who has received a blow. " {.'an never be ? " she repeats. " Can never be I " he answers. " I am what you have called me, Inez, a traitor and a coward. I stand here per- jured before God, and you, and my dead mother. It can I8 WIFE AND HEIR. never be. I can never rnarry you. I am married al- ready ! " Tlie blow has fallen — the horrible, brutal blow. She stands looking at him — siie hardly seems to comi)rchend. There is a pause — the lirelight ilicliers, they hear the rain lashing the windows, the soughing of the gale in the trees. 'J'hen Victor Calheron bursts ibrlli : " I don't ask you to forgive me — -it is past all that. 1 make no excuse ; the deed is done. I met her, and I loved her. She has been my wife for sixteen months, and — there is a son. Inez, don't look at me like that ! I am a scoun- drel, I know, but — " He br:aks down — the sight of her face unmans him. He turns away, his heart beating horribly thick. How long the ghastly pause that follows lasts he never knows — a century, counting by what he undergoes. Once, during that pause, he sees her fixed eyes turn slowly to his mother's picture — he hears low, strange-sounding words drop from her lips : " He swore by your dving bed, and see how he keeps his oath !" Then the life that seems to have died from her face flames back. Without speaking to him, without looking at him, she turns to leave the room. On the threshold she pauses and looks back. " A wife and a son," she says, slowly and distinctly. *' Sir Victor Catheron, fetch them home ; I shall be glad to see them." CHAPTER H. WIFE AND HEIR. ^N a very genteel lodging-house, in the very genteel neighboihood of Russell Square, early in the after- noon of a September day, a young girl stands im- patiently awaiting the return of Sir Victor Catheron. This girl is his wite. It is a bright, sunny day — as sunny, at least, as a London id al- WIFE AND HEIR. 19 day ever can make up its mind to be — and as the yellow, slanting rays pour in tiirough the muslin curtains full on face and figure, you may search and find no flaw in either. It is a very lovely face, a very graceful, though petite ligure. She is a blonde of the blondest type : her hair is like spun gold, and, wonderful to relate, no Yellow Wash : no (lol- den Fluid, has ever touched its shining abundance. Her eyes are bluer than the September sky over the Russell Square chimney-pots ; her nose is neither aquiline nor Gre- cian, but it is very nice ; her forehead is low, her mouth and chin " morsels for the gods." The little figure is deliciously rounded and ripe ; in twenty years from now she may be a heavy Britisli matron, with a yard and a half vvid waist — at eigliteen years old she is, in one word, perfection. Her dress is perfection also. She wears a white India muslin, a marvel of delicate embroidery and exquisite text- ure, and a great deal of Valenciennes trimming. She has a pearl and tui![ loise star fasteniiv; her lace collar, pearl and turquois drops i;i her ears, and a half dozen diamond rings on her plump, boneless fingers. A blue ribbon knots up the loose yellow h..;r, and you may search the big city from end to end, and fiii.l nothing fairer, fresher, sweeter than Ethel, Lady Catheron. If ever a gentleman and a baronet had a fair and sufficient excuse for the folly of a low marriage, surely Sir Victor Catheron has it in this fairy wife — for it is a " low marriage" of the most heinous type. Just seventeen months ago, sauntering idly along the summer sands, looking listlessly at the summer sea, thinking drearily that this time next yea,r his freedom would be over, and his Cousin Inez his lawful owner and iwssessor, his eyes had fallen on that lovely blonde face — that wealth of shining hair, and for all time — aye, for eternity — his fate was fixed. The dark image of Inez as his wife faded out of his mind, never to return more. The earthly name of this dazzling divinity in yellow ring- lets and pink muslin was Ethel Margaretta — Dobb ! Dobb! It might have disenchanted a less rajilurous adorer — it fell powerless on Sir Victor Catheron's infatuated ear. It was at Margate this meeting took place — that most 20 WIFE AND HEIR. popular and most vulgar of all Knglish watering-places ', and the Cheshire baronet had looked just once at the ])each- bloom face, the blue eyes of laughing light, the blusliiiig, dinii>ling, seventeen-year-old Hice, and fallen in love at once and forever. He was a very impetuous young man, a very selfish and unstable yowng man, witli whom, all his life, to wish was lo have. He iiad been spoiled by a doling mother from his cradle, spoiled by obsequious servants, spoiled by Inez Catheron's boundless worship. And he wished for this "rose of the rose-bud garden of girls" as he had iiever wished for anything in his two-and-twenty years of life. As a man in a dream he went through that magic ceremony, " Miss Dobb, allow me to present my friend, Sir Victor Catheron," and they were free to look at each other, talk to each other, fall in love with each other as nuu:h as they l>leased. As in a dream he lingered by her side three gol- den hours, as in a dream he said, "Good afternoon," and walked back to his hotel smoking a cigar, the world glorified above and about him. As in a dream they told him she was the only daughter and heiress of a well-to-do London soap- boiler, and he did not wake. She was the daughter of a soap-boiler. The paternal manufactory was in the grimiest ipart of the grimy metropo- lis ; but, remarkable to say, she had as much innate i)ridi..-, self-respect, and delicacy as though "all the blood of all the Howards " flowed in those blue veins. He wasn't a bad sort of young fellow, as young fellows go, and frantically in love. There was but one question to ask, just eight days after this — " Will you be my wife ? " — but one answer, of course — " Yes." But one answer, of course ! How would it be possible for a soap-boiler's daughter to refuse a baronet ? And yet his heart had beaten with a fear that turned him dizzy and sick as he asked it ; for she had shrunk away for one in stant, frightened by his fiery wooing, and the sweet face had grown suddenly and startlingly pale. Is it not the rule tluii all maidens shall blush when their lovers ask tlie question of questions ? The rosy briglitness, the smiles, the dimples, all faded out of this face, and a white look of sudden fear crossed it. WIFE AND HEIR. 21 The st.irtled eyes had shrunk from his eager, flushed face and looked over the wide sea. I'or fully five minutes she never spoke or stirred. To his dying day that hour was with him — his passionate love, his siek, horrible fear, his