can discover it when the secret lies only betwixt myself and the dead?), and all will be well.

Thursday.-There is a ball at our hotel this evening. I am engaged to Minna for the first dance. Afterwards I intend to lead her from the 'madding crowd,' and the brilliant rooms, out upon the little terrace fronting the flower-gardens, and there, in the misty light of the stars and the solemn hush of evening, plight my troth.

Friday.-Minna is dead. How coldly I write the words! All sense of her loss is effaced by the terrible calamity that has befallen me. Nemesis is upon me at last. Fool that I was, to dream of a tranquil Eden for such as I!

Scarce a moment had we stood together, Minna and I-her little hand, upon which I had just slipt a ring, in mine-when, to my horror, the old dreadful sensation, from which latterly I had been free, stole over me. The heavy weight upon my chest; the deadness of my limbs; the fire in my hands and feet, were intensified, and accompanied by a loud whirring noise, which beat upon my brains until I fell prone before my love upon the

terrace.

Her shriek I faintly heard ring out into the soft night air, bringing crowds of men and gaily dressed women from the ballroom; then the things around me faded from my sight, and there arose in their place a being it would be impossible for me to describe; a being whose terrible countenance struck me with ineffable dread. He was a giant in form, and, though so terrible, there was beauty in his face-a beauty which, however, my soul instinctively loathed. Dumb I lay at his feet, while in monotonous accents he spoke thus :

'You have committed sins--culminating in the murder of your brother-of which it were impossible for mortal to bear the burden and live. You live because the oppression entailed by them has, by occult influence, been thrown off your sensibilities, creating me. But, though apart from you, I still have power over you, increasing or decreasing according to the evil or good motives swaying you; and in natural sequence I bring you misery, retribution for the suffering you have caused to others. The less corrupt life you have lived since leaving England stayed for a while my avenging hand. Had you revered the purity of this innocent girl (now lying dead at your feet); had you hesitated to sacrifice her to your selfish purposes, to take advantage of her ignorance and her parents' ambition to bind her to a man with your past; you might never have seen me, never have provoked my utmost vengeance. But you did not hesitate and

when her lips touched yours; when the ring upon her finger proclaimed her yours; when the love-light in her eyes proclaimed her yours; when you did not waver in claiming your sacrifice; then, your exceeding sinfulness called forth my greatest force. Her purity, because unappreciated by you, proved a curse instead of a blessing to you. As she fell, horror-stricken by the sight of your countenance, upon which was reflected every evil passion you had cherished, the magnetism of her purity, working under my guiding influence, as surely as the gravitation of the spheres, drew the remnants of good from you, leaving you, because undiluted evil, at my mercy, and myself visible to you. The shock of the discovery of your true character was too much for her. She is dead; one of the many guiltless sacrificed for the vices of the guilty.

You are mine. Your passions have enslaved you to me. But, so obstinate is your temperament, you will refuse to acknowledge your bondage: you will fight against me with all the might of your inflexible will. So be it. There must be conflict. But, sooner or later, I shall completely overpower you.

'Upon the third night of each month I will meet you. You cannot escape me. In whatever place, with whomsoever, you are, my grasp will be upon you; and as my hold over you strengthens, the more often shall I be with you, the more protracted will be my stay.'

Tuesday.—I have chosen a house to which I may retire to battle with my foe, and behind the doors of which may be concealed from the world the knowledge of my misfortune. In case my courage deserts me, and cowardice inclines me to flee from Him, thus acknowledging his mastership and hastening my ruin, I have contrived that the room in which I shall meet him shall be, on occasions, my temporary prison. The door closes with a spring to be worked only from the outside, and I shall be compelled, by the consciousness of my inability to escape, to disregard any momentary weakness, and confront him bravely.

I have engaged an old woman to be, unwittingly, my jailer. I think I can safely trust her to appear and open my door at a given hour, but if I see reason to doubt her, I can take measures for enforcing her obedience. I can confine her to the house, as I have to guard against tattling (if I may so speak in connection with a dumb person)-confined her within the boundary of the garden walls; and, her life being dependent on me, she will not dare run contrary to my commands. I shall keep the secret of the door (I secure it each time on leaving, in a manner which renders

it impracticable she should notice the spring), and she will never dream that I am her prisoner.

My room is luxuriously furnished, and is arranged so as to defy any curiosity Mrs. Searle may manifest. . . .

Saturday (November 1871).-I have been compelled to unbosom my secret to Mrs. Searle. My conflicts with Him have become more prolonged, and I cannot now accurately state the hour at which she may safely come to me. The other day she received a severe shock. Entering my room at the appointed time, she found me struggling fiercely with Him. She did notso she tells me see him; but my face, distorted with frenzy, and my actions, frightened her almost out of her wits. .

The verdict returned at the inquest held over the body of Sir Cyrus Dreird was, that the deceased committed suicide while in an unsound state of mind.'

A. SHERWOOD.

470

"Noblesse Oblige.'

DICK MIDDLETON closed the door softly behind him, and stood for a moment reflecting upon the new turn of affairs. As a matter of fact, the result of the interview had been just what he expected, and yet he felt aggrieved, baffled, humiliated. Mr. Carpenter, he was forced to admit, had spoken nothing but the truth. Unfortunately, the truth, in Dick's actual frame of mind, was precisely what he was least disposed to listen to. He had been prepared to offer such a boundless prospect of good resolves in the future, that it was irritating to find Mr. Carpenter resolutely determined to consider nothing save the experience of the past.

'It's deuced hard,' Dick muttered to himself as he slowly descended the stairs. 'One would think I was an out-and-out blackleg, instead of an ordinary, easy-going sort of a fellow, with no worse vice than a turn for billiards, or a fancy for a hand at ecarté. I don't know that I've accomplished much good in my time, but I'm equally sure I've done no great harm. And it isn't every one,' he added, with a grim little laugh, 'can boast as much in our set.'

On reaching the hall, Dick halted again. Evidently he was in no hurry to go, as was shown by the careful manner in which he slowly drew on one glove after the other. Presently the reason for this deliberation became apparent. A side door was cautiously opened, and the face of a curly-headed young girl made itself visible.

'Dick,' said its owner in an agitated whisper, 'Dick, how did he take it?'

'About as bad as any one could,' returned the young man, with a disregard of grammatical nicety that may have been the result of nervousness.

'Oh, Dick!' said the girl, with something like a sob, 'what shall we do? Come in, and tell me all about it.'

Thus adjured, Dick laid aside his hat, and followed the other into the room where she had been waiting the termination of the discussion between the two men upstairs. A look of alarm overspread her face as she observed the gloomy expression on her lover's features.

'There's not much to tell,' said Dick dolefully; 'the odds were against me from the start, and the governor, I'm afraid, takes the cake.'

'You mean that papa has refused his consent?

'Yes,' replied Dick; that's about what it comes to.'

'But why-why?' cried the girl with a stamp of the foot, while a deeper colour mounted to her face. What were his reasons? how did he justify himself?'

The question, if it was to be truthfully answered, placed Dick in an awkward position. It was bad enough to be told by Nellie's father that he was a lazy, good-for-nothing scapegrace, who would never achieve anything in this world but the expenditure of his meagre income of four hundred a year upon his own selfish pleasures, to the support of which, by the way, Mr. Carpenter sternly declined to contribute. But to be forced to repeat such brutal sentiments to Nellie was, Dick felt, a little beyond human endurance.

'Your father,' he said at last with a certain touch of constraint, ' objects to the smallness of my income.'

'Is that all?' said Nellie, breaking into a relieved smile.

To Dick the obstacle, it must be allowed, had appeared of sufficient weight, but at the moment it seemed to him unnecessary to give to his opinion the prominence it doubtless deserved.

'As if that could make any difference!' she went on, with a proud little gesture. Rich or poor, you will always be the same How could you believe otherwise?'

to me.

Poor Dick! After all, he was at heart a gentleman, and he knew, better even than Mr. Carpenter, that the idol which Nellie so fondly worshipped was in truth fashioned of very inferior clay. Had he followed his natural impulse, he would at that moment have taken her to his arms, and vowed that neither father, nor friends, nor the world's opinion should ever part them. But somehow a feeling, of which he himself was only vaguely conscious, prevented him from carrying into effect an intention which, he seemed to recognise intuitively rather than by any process of reasoning, lay without the range of perfect loyalty to the girl who thus placed her trust in him.

He retreated a step or two, unable to meet Nellie's glance. 'It won't do,' he said at length. I have no right to prejudice your future like that.”

For an instant the girl's eyes filled with tears, and her breath came quickly. But she speedily recovered herself. 'Ah,' she cried; 'I understand; you would sacrifice your happiness to mine, Dick. But you are wrong, quite wrong, if you think it is to be gained by running away. Surely I am old enough to judge what is best for me.' She laughed with a toss of her pretty head. 'And now I'm going to papa myself; he has never yet refused me