A CORSICAN VENDETTA.

Evening Star, Issue 7331, 1 October 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

A CORSICAN VENDETTA.

ffiy C. A. Gunter, the successful American 1 * playwright.] '

CHAPTER IX. WILL GOD NEVER GIVE HIM TO ME ? Miss Anatruther is aroused the next morning by the French maid-servant who assists her to dress and makes her comfortable with a cup of tea; and, when she steps from the carriage at the Lyons Railway, finds Mr Barnes waiting to help her out. “ You’re not to trouble yourself with anything from here to Nice; 1 am your courier, he says in answer to the grateful glance and bright “ Good moraine ” of the girl. He takes her to a compartment, tenderly wraps her up in a lot of railroad that the guard brings warned from the waitingroom fire, and, with a slight air of proprietorship that makes her blush a little, says : n Yowre to go to sleep and not wake up till Avignon, at eight; and then I’ve good news for you!” “ Good news! Tell me now! “ And have you to stay awake from happiness ? No good news till eight! ” The girl laughs a little and says “Please?” But Barnes checks her by ; “If you don’t go to sleep, no good news till Marseilles, at eleven!” affecting great firmness of manner. At this she falls to meditating on the curious fact that though many men have bowed down to and worshipped her before, here is the first one who dominates her; then wonders how it is that she rather likes it, and so, after a little, goes to sleep. When she awakes it is daylight, and the sun is shining brightly upon the waters of the Rhone, that flows towards the sea beside them. She looks at Mr Barnes, who is seated opposite, apparently deep in an English magazine, and says with a little rebellions moue; *■ Is it eight o clock ? Can I awake now, tyrant ?” “Not for five minutes ?” replies Barnes in attempted sternness: “ I’ll live up to my title!” He knows that the name she has called him gives more hope and promise for the future, than if she had accepted the tenderest devotion from him as a slave. It is the first really familiar appellation she has given him, and it makes him desperately happy. A little while after he says: “ We shall be in Avignon soon: you look as if you had rest enough, and so I’ll talk to you !” “ Then tell me the good news!” “ The joyful tidings are, that you are no longer a young lady without maid or baggage!” “My trunks! Here?” A little cry of joy, and Miss Anstruther starts up radiant with excitement.

"Yes; Lady Charteris sent your maid and wardrobe by the 7.20 express." As soon as they arrive at Avignon, Mr Barnes brings her servant, a red-cheeked, valuable dumpling of an English girl, who looks with amazed eyes at this man she has never seen before; but who confidently directs her and evidently expects her to obey him. She has a bag with her that Miss Anstruther apparently thinks valuable, as she gives it a most tender glance. Barnes wisely le*ves mistress and maid together, returning, however, with coffee and rolls for both, as he has an idea that servants have appetites as well as other people. This thoughtful attention makes_ the Abigail his slave at once; she metaphorically goes down on her chubby knees to him, worships at his shrine, says to her mistress: " Lawks ! Miss Enid, what a gentleman ! He's such a rusher! He came to me at Lyons this morning, and says ' You're Miss Anstruther's maid ?' ' That I am,' says I. The next instant he has me out of that coach, and your luggage in front of me, and says: 'Get everything that your mistress will need on the train to-day and put it in one bag !' and no more had I done so, than he puts me back in my carriage again and says: ' You'll not be wanted till eight o'clock, and then be sharp !' He ordered things about as he might have been your—your " # " Yes ; all Americans are curious," Miss Anstruther cuts in.

"Ar'nt they?" replies the maid, "and liberal too; he gave me a sovereign, and now he takes care of my victuals, and manages for you just like he was agoing to be your " " Hush, Thompson ! " says her mistress very sharply. " I sometimes let you take liberties with me, but never with my friends," And having crushed her handmaid with this remark, the young lady turns to the gentleman under discussion, as he places his head in the window and hands her a bunch of fresh rosebuds, duplicates of the ones she had worn the day before.

"My favorites!" laughs the girl; "how did you guess?" giving him a look of approval as he exclaims: " You may wish to give some instructions to your maid, so I shall hardly see you till Marseilles. I have telegraphed for breakfast there. No more accidental starvation on your part; if it happened again you would blame me for it, now."

And he turns away towards the smoking car, to take a day-dream behind a cigar. Here he sees, opposite to him, the two men the girl had pointed out the evening before. They, apparently, do not wish to attract his attention; and at the first stoppage change their compartment. Barnes gives little heed to them. He thinks, possibly, Miss Anstruther mistook their conversation ; as they look rather innocent bourgeois ; at all events, he is with her, and he'll back himself against the two men any time. Thus they move down the beautiful Rhone among its vineyard hills and olive plantations; and then, crossing the country, run into Marseilles.

On going to Miss Anstruther to take her to breakfast, he finds that, by some inexplicable feminine process, that young lady has got rid of all the general languor and dilapidation incidental to a long railway journey, and, with the fresh rosebuds pinned on her bosom, is as bright, fresh, and dainty as when he first saw her in the salon the morning before. He astonishes the maid by telling her she is to breakfast with her mistress; for this is a case in which he feels the proprieties must be carefully preserved ; and very shortly has the pleasure of seating his divinity before as luxurious a meal, both in menu and attendance, as she can well imagine. They make a merry party of it, for the girl is in the highest spirits; and Mr Barnes, metaphorically, is enjoying nectar and ambrosia, ana has his pet goddess beside him.

But they are soon en route again; and, now that the young lady is thoroughly at ease mentally and physically, the American, thinking the time has arrived to get what information he desires about her brother, turns the conversation towards her family. Miss Anstruther, from being the Sphinx of yesterday, is now a perfect oracle of information as regards its past, present, and future. She tells him, with many little details of interest, that her father and mother are both dead, and she has two brotkers now living. One, the youngest, a schoolboy at Harrow; the other, who is older than herself, a lieutenant in the British Navy, who only awaits his promotion to the rank of commander to resign* from the service and come to the family estates, to be an English country gentleman, as his ancestors have been before him, for many a generation. " When he became a sailor, of course, he was not the heir; bat Harold died years ago and Edwin reigns in his stead. I have made up my mind just what his future is to be," says the girl. "Indeed ! Let us hope you have given him a happy fate!" " He is to marry some nice English girl of his own rank and be the Squire of Beechwood ; and perhaps when that horrid old destructionist Gladstone goes out of power, represent our county in Parliament. It was honor enough for his father, and it should be for him!" " Most the young lady be English ?" asks Barnes. " Certainly; I don't like foreigners." " Do yon class Americans as foreigners ?" A tinge of anxiety is in his voice. "For marrying purposes,.for my brother, yes. I want his wife to have no thought out of England, which must be her home." "And for yourself, I suppose, nothing but English also?" "Oh, I—l shall marry the man I love, whoever he is," says Miss Anstruther ; and she begins to play with the flowers in her

bosom—then suddenly says : " You Americans are a curious people. Do you always travel without any luggage ?" This is turning the conversation into the wrong channel for Barnes, who has not so much as a hand-satchel with him, is even minus an overcoat, aud has been compelled this morning to seek variety of toilet by arranging his necktie in another manner, and cleanliness by reversing his cuffs. "No," he aays slowly, "I sometimes carry a cane going trips, but I was called to Nice suddenly telegram, business important." "Well, you do very nicely without luggage," says Miss Anstruther, "so forgive my impertinent question." After this she goes back to her brother again; sings his praises how he was wounded in Egypt, and was nursed in the hospital by a beautiful Italian girl, and, when he got well, wrote some wild romantic letters about her that frightened her for fear he would return with a foreign bride. Then tells what a coming home his will be; how Beechwood Towers, their country seat, will make it a gala day, " And so will dear old Hampshire itself!" says the girl, her face flowing with the thought, " for the county loves our family, and is proud of Edwin, too; he won the Victoria cross in Egypt." "Has he served on many ships?" suggests Barnes. " Oh, ye?! oceans of them; the Monarch, the Topaz, the Cleopatra, but now Gerard is upon the Sealark !" " Gerard ?" Barnes is much interested. " Yes, I sometimes call him by his second name. My brother is Edwin Gerard Anstruther, V.C., and we are all very proud of him and love him very much, and so will you when you know him, which I hope will be this evening." " Was he ever on the Vulture 1 " asks the American. "No—l think not."

Here the maid, whom they have both forgotten, puts in her word and says "Asking your pardon, Miss Enid, I once carried a letter up to your room with ' Vulture' or ' H eagle' printed on the henvelope." "Oh ! of course ! Much obliged, Tompson," continues Miss Anstruther. "He went out to join his ship, which was in Egypt, as a passenger, by the Vulture. He wrote me twice on board her; from Malta, and from—what's that little place where the people kill each other, and Bonaparte was born ?" " Ajaccio!" " That's the name!"

" I should like to see your brother this evening; I rather think we have met before," says Barnes seriously. " I'm glad of that!" The girl's eyes show that she means what she says; and Barnes goes into a brown study, for he knows the name on the ship's pistol is that of Miss Anstruther's brother, and that he must be told some unpleasant and unexSected news that evening, and given a ecided caution. "In fact," thinks Barnes, " the sooner Edwin gets out of this part of the world the better. I hardly imagine the Vendetta would flourish in matter-of-fact England. I admire Marina, but don't want any Corsican nonsense, and in affairs of this kind a chap must stand by his family!" With this he glances at the beauty opposite to him, as if he owned her, and imagines how the fellows in New York will envy him ; thinks he will again see if Enid will recognise him as the Barnes of the picture, and attempts to assume the attitude of horror and the look of sympathy of the canvas.

This has an unexpected effect on the two women. Miss Anstruther seems to choke in an endeavor to restrain her laughter, while the maid in an anxious voice exclaims : " Mercy, sir, are you very ill ?" " No ?" says Barnes sulkily, "but it's hot, and my—my collar is tight!" "Oh, is that all?" replies the young lady. " You looked in such agony, I feared it was tight boots !" She gives a little laugh, and Barnes thinks himself a romantic fool.

Seeing his best game is himself and not his picture (which he concludes must be " a cursed bad likeness") the young man devotes himself to making the day pass pleasantly, and succeeds. Everv want of his charge is provided for, in advance, with the forethought of experience, and the power of a long purse ; and when the pleasant railway journey across southern France, with its orange groves here and there, fleeting views of the Mediterranean, and glimpses of tropical vegetation that make it so picturesque, is finished, and the girl stands on the platform of the station at Nice, t»ars of gratitude are in her eyes and a blush is on her face, as she says, eagerly extending her hand : " You have been awfully kind; you have changed what would have been a terrible journey, for me, into the most delightful trip I've ever had ; every dilemma, every disaster, in your hands became a pleasure to me !" " Even the loss of your dinner !" laughs Barnes, seizing her hand and giving it % tender pressure; and then blushing himself, for he imagines it is returned very slightly. "\es, even the loss of try dinner. Do you know I once guessed that you had something to do with that guard's stupidity ?" " Great goodness, why did you imagine that?"

" Because you looked so pleased when I had only two gumdrops to eat," says Miss Anstruther, as he puts her and her maid into a cab, and tells the driver Hotel des Anglais, for that's where his divinity is to stay.

After he has seen the last of her, he goes to the Hotel de la Mediterranee in a melancholy way ; for with her departure he feels as if something had gone out of his life, is lonely and depressed, and has his first fit of amatory blues, a peculiar disease that makes him curse the waiter—for he thinks his dinner is bad—when it is only that Enid Anstruther is not beside him, eating it also. About eight o'clock he meditates: " She said she wished me to meet her brother this evening; strange she does not send for me. She can hardly expect me to intrude upon her when it is their first evening together for two years; but of course she'll think of nothing but him to-night." He jumps up and strolls past the Hotel des Anglais into the public gardens, hoping to catch a glimpse of his goddess at some window. Not succeeding in this, he begins to get jealous of her brother for keeping her from him; and, working himself up into a dangerous temper, looks about for somebody to vent it upon; and to his joy, finds one to his hand.

Barnes has just turned back in the gardens, after many fruitless glances at the windows of the des Anglais. As he does this rather suddenly, it brings him face to face vi'h one of the men Miss An'truthur t minted out as following her. This person is now apparently dogging his footsteps. His temper breaks out in a moment; striding up to the offender he hisses under his breath : " You miserable snake!" and, before the man knows what is to happen to him, he finds himself knocked out of time and flung aside off the walk into a thicket of rosebushes that seem to him all thorns and no flowers. In,a moment the Frenchman struggles from them, and, after several deep curses between his clenched teeth, mutters: "You miserable ADglais, there are others who will avenge me—your days are numbered !" This is unheard by Barnes, who, feeling he has made a fool of himself, doesn't wait for explanations, but continues his walk to his hotel, where he goes to bed in a very glum sort of way. A bad ending to a very pleasant day, but suck are the u-ps and downs of passion. The next morning, however, hope and confidence have returned to him. After dressing as elaborately as he can on one suit of clothes—making variety of costume by a new necktie and fresh linen he had purchased the evening before—he wanders out to the Hotel des Anglais and breakfasts there, hoping in some way to get a glimpse of the face for which he now hungers; but is disappointed, and goes to smoke his cigar in the gardens, taking a position that commands the hotel. At one time he thinks he sees her at a window, but soon discovers he has been complimenting a chambermaid by mistaking her for his enchantress. This has scarcely happened when even Miss Anstruther is knocked out of his head by what comes to him through some neighboring shrubbery. "Then we have found him at last," says a feminine voice, that in its' intense passion takes him back to the death scene at Ajaccio.

" Undoubtedly, Mademoiselle, he was greatly agitated at the picture; he followed an English girl here ; I heard them speak of the navy. These markß on my face prove him to be of that brutal nation !" This last comes from a man.

" Yes," says the female voice again, "he struck my brother in the fame cruel manner; liia blow was on Antonio's face when he died. You will point him out to Tomasso and me on the promenade des Anglais today. His hotel, you aay, is La Mediterranee. What is his name ?"

"He refused to give it to us in Paris at the Salon. Last night I would have looked at the hotel register; but after he assaulted me I knew he was on his guard, and very dangerous, and so I did not dare to ask." " Then meet me at two o'clock ; if your report is true, I will make you rich !" says the lady. The man walks away and has hardly passed out of sight, when Barnes, turning the corner of the shrubbery, finds himself in the presence of a young girl who is dressed in deep black, and who raises her head and gives a little cry as she sees him. Old Tomasso is standing a short distance behind with a look of longing joy in his expressive old face. "Mademoiselle Paoli," says the American, raising his hat, " I am very happy to see you in Nice !" The girl seems staggered with surprise for a moment; but finally articulates "It is Mr Barnes, is it not ? lam very glad to see you—you were kind to him. Tomasso, this is the good gentleman who tried to save my brother—you remember ?" The old Corsican only nods his head, but his gaze is kindly. " i T ou have not been here long?" suggests Barnes.

" No! only this morning." "And come ?!' " For pleasure ! To-day is the first time for a year that lam happy !" cries the girl with a peculiar laugh. " I never like to spoil sport," echoes Barnes in grim humor, " but lam afraid you will be disappointed. I can tell you the man who will Be pointed out to you as the slayer of your brother!" " Ah—who ?" —Marina is a picture of joy. "It will be me.'"

You, she gasps. '' You! They have been following you! Will God never give him to me!"

Tomasso has not spoken till now, but he mutters "Some day ! and then—!" here the old man's countenance takes an expression that makes the American think of the maneating tiger of India, whose face is the incarnation of the desire to kill. He turns to Marina and says: " I have something to say to you from your brother, a message from the dead; when can I deliver it ?" The girl looks at him with a white face and answers " To-day—at any time—Hotel Sebastian !" And as Mr Barnes leaves her, she puts her head between her hands and sobs bitter tears of disappointment, the eld Corsican trying to comfort her in vain. CHAPTER X. THE ANGEL OF THE EGYPTIAN HOSPITAL. The Hotel Sebastian is on one of the out-of-the-way streets of Nice and far from the fashionable quarter. It is little more than a boarding-house, though it has a dingy office and small billiard-room, with dirty tables and worn-out cushions. A mixture of Italians, Spaniards, and Sicilians patronise the house; English or Americans are never seen there. To this place Mr Barnes goes early in the afternoon and sends his card by a slovenly Italian servant-girl to Mademoiselle Paoli. As he is about to go up, Count Musso Danella comes hurriedly down stairs, and taking him by the arm says "My dear Barnes!" and shakes his hand. " Old comrade, it seems long since we shot moufllon together in Corsica ! "

This is rather effusive and affectionate for Danella, who is generally self-contained arid contemplative in his manner, and is a Burprise for the American, who rejoins " Hello, Musso ! old boy ! you here ? Thought you wouldn't be far off when I saw Mademoiselle Paoli this morning !" In truth he is surprised very much to see the girl's guardian here; for he knows Danella, though a Corsican, is a man of the world, and hardly imagines he will permit Marina to run about France with a romantic idea of revenge and murder in her brain that may some day bring her fair young neck, that ho knows is very dear to Musso, dangerously near the guillotine. " Yes," says the Count, growing serious, and drawing him into a room that is evidently bis own, as he locks the door and offers Barnes a chair, "/ brought Marina here!" " What! and knew her errand ?"

" Precisely." " That she was in pursuit of the man who killed her brother with the purpose of murdering him!" " Precisely," says Musso, who seems to have grown younger in the time since Barnes saw him, an expectant happiness being on his face that smooths out several wrinkles that his gay bachelorhood in Paris has brought him with his forty years of life. " And you are a sane man and permit the girl, whose only counsellor you are, to throw away her glorious beauty and her young life on a chimera of vengeance that might be accounted romantic in the ago of theßorgias, but to-day means the executioner or the gaoler—and yet you pretend to love her ?" Barnes's face has a rather disagreeable sneer upon it which changes to & look of amazed horror as Danella's reply comes to him, and his mind grasps its cruel significance and insidious import. "It is because I love her that I aid her. At first I merely pretended to assist her to find the man who had murdered her brother, thinking that it was only a girl's whim, and would pass away from her like a foolish fancy of childhood. Soon I discovered my mistake—that her resolve and steadfastness was that of a woman who had made a righteous vengeance the governing motive of her existence. After a time I saw she began to doubt the sincerity of my assistance, and hated and, detested—my God—me! the man who loved her! She ran away to Egypt without me, and, if I had not followed her, might have forgotten her oath and me!" The Count looks very gloomy, but continues: "I arrived in time to prevent that And then I made a compact with her that when I found for her the man she sought, and hate was satisfied, that love should begin and she should marry me, who had given to her vengeance."

"And she consented to Bell herself—for your assistance ?"

"Not at first," says the Count with suppressed sigh, " but after a struggle she said yes ! She doos not love me now—she can love no'man no«r —but when she has no longer her oath upon her, then she will turn to the one being who loves her well enough to take her even with a murder on her soul," and his delicate face becomes bright with a dream of future passion. "But you forget this is the nineteenth century; and the executioner will have a prior claim upon your bride ; in fact, you, yourself, Danella, as accessory before the fact, will stand a very good chance of a rather long imprisonment; and, with your luxurious habits, I shouldn't think convict life would be a very pleasant prospect." Barnes imagines he has knocked the Count's plans ints chaos. "Bah!" says the latter, "In England, yes ! But in that case I should contrive that old Tomasso, who hates, with all a Corsican's fervor, should do the active work in the matter. But if we find him in France— No! No French jury would ever, under these romantic circumstances, convict a girl of Marina's beauty of murder. At the worst she would not be imprisoned more than a year or so. The Press would most likely make her a martyr; and the public, her cell a bower of roses. But if we can lure him to Corsica and kill him there, Marina Paoli will be blessed by a native jury as the guardian angel of her brother's tomb."

Barnes casts a. mental eye over the latest French criminal jurisprudence, and concludes the Count has very eood reasons for his statements, then quietly remarks "I should judge your victim had better remain in England." .'? He will be safer there—but the world is small!" says the Count. " And now," replies Barnes, " how is it you 1 dare to make mc a party to your crime by telling mo your plan ?'' " Because you told her " —here the Count indicates Marina by a gesture of his.hand—-

"that you had a message from the dead to deliver to her. It is to ask you if it tends to turn her from her purpose not to give it. You are my friend—my whole soul has but one desire—to gain her; and my only hope of winning Marina Paoli is through her longing for revenge." After a pause of contemplation Mr Barnes says calmly : " I shall report this matter to the authorities and so prevent your mad plan bringing danger to the English officer!" ; "I considered that matter very carefully before I spoke to you, and do not think you will!" remarks the Count confidently.

" And you suppose that I will be an accessory to your crime ?" " Not at all, in a strictly legal sense," is the reply ; " but at present, at bast, you will say nothing. You are in love with an English girl—Miss Anstruther—very much in love. You need not start so—you adore her, my dear boy. You have followed her to Nice. She was alone all one night on the railway, and at Lyons you confessed to the guard you were iprit with her; persuaded Her to lay over at Lyons, and took her in person to the Hotel de PEurope." j " What do you mean ?" says Barnes in a hoarse voice, and with a very dangerous look on his face, for within him is the passion of Gain. " Nothing derogatory to the young lady's character, for which I have the nigh est esteem ; but I want you to have the same consideration for it; and if you should make any declarations to the authorities in regard to Marino or myself the private detectives that we employ, and who dogged every step of your way from Paris to Nice, must go on the stand. Their evidence could hardly be pleasant to Miss Anstruther. There is nothing you Anglo-Saxon Puritans fear bo much as scandal, and one would lose her to you for ever. Therefore I am persuaded you will say nothing, my dear fri&nd -" , , .v. * Barnes thinks this over, and knows that the Count is right, "Nevertheless," he says, " I shall speak to Mademoiselle Paoli." "Certainly, if you insist," returns Musso with a gracious bow, unlocking the door. "Nothing you can tell her, I am confident, will ever change Marina from her purpose," and he laughs a little silvery laugh that is not becoming in him, and calls out after the American "Au revoir t old comrade ; run over and have a game of baccarat this evening." " I have other business, thank you, says Barnes. " Ah, I see. Love's young dream ! third door to the right, first floor!" follows him in Danella's soft Franco-Italian voice, as he goes upstairs to meet Marina. The Count steps back to his room in great apparent good humor, and looks at a memorandum from the deteotives who have followed Barnes. He reads it over, and wonders what that gentleman and the young English girl had to interest them in the English Navy. Meditating upon this, he remembers that Miss Anstruther herself had been curiously impressed by the picture of the duel; and, after turning the matter over in his mind, he goes out for a walk; and, chancing to wander down to the harbor and the Hotel des Anglais, asks some rather pertinent questions, and obtains some interesting information which sets him to thinking deeply, and in the end produces peculiar results; for Musso Danella reasons on the Italian principles of Machiavelli, which are derived direct from Satan himself. Barnes takes the Count's advice as regards directions, and the door is opened for him by Marina herself. She is still in deep black ; in fact she never wore anything but mourning from the day of her brother's death until some time after this great change came into her mind. Her figure, that the close fitting dress displays in a series of curves of beauty, is perhaps a little fuller and more rounded than a year ago. If so, it has lost no charm of grace or suppleness. Her face has a tinge of suppressed sadness upon its mobilo features, save when some wave of varying passion sweeps across it, and then it is the impersonation of that passion itself, without a trace of any other to weaken its intensity. As Barnes confronts her he notices the superb vigor of her manner and excitable changes of her emotion. "Ah!" Bhe cries, "at last! I have waited for you. You have for me the last words of my brother-No ! I have his last —his cry of welcome to me—Marina !—that was all for me—that was his adieu to earth, was it not ?" The question at the end is asked in pathetic sadness in complete contrast to the excited rapidity of her first exclamations.

" It was," replied Barnes, softly. " But his other words; the message from the dead—and you did not tell it to me before—long ago —you could let a sister wait ?"

" When I left Corsica, mademoiselle, you were delirious from brain fever, and would not have understood me."

" True," the girl says slowly, and then, suddenly, "Forgive me. The cruel disappointment of to-day has made me thoughtless ; but to have sought that assassin for one long year, day by day and night by night, over half the world, and never found him, and this morning, when I was blessing God for having given hiui to my hand, —to again find nothivy nothing! NOTHING!!" In an ecstacy of disappointment the girl throws herself upon a chair, and after a moment makes an effort and says to Barnes, who has been watching her in silence ; " You cannot understand ; you are of a race that thinks and does not feel. Be thankful that Heaven has blessed you with no heart, only a brain !" " But you have not heard the message I bring. It may temper your disappointment!" . .

" Then don't give it to me now ! It is what I feared ! I forbid you to say it now! First see what I have done—How faithfully I have struggled to perform my oath—How I have labored to find the man upon whom my hand shall fall then if you think that even Antonio's words could change the consecration of my life, deliver my brother's message!" This last she speaks as if inspired, but not from God; and.as Barnes does not answer her, brings him a large book of memoranda compiled with the system and accuracy of a detective, showing, that with all its hate, her pursuit has been carried out with a logic that indicates some subtle mind has been brought to bear upon the matter. Barnes concludes wisely that it is that of Musso Danella. He is delighted to have the opportunity of studying her investigations, as it may help to judge if Enid's brother is in immediate danger of discovery. The first document before him is— LIST OF 0F F I|C ER S. H.M.S. Vultdrb, 1882. John Lenox Ward, Commander Henry Lawson T. Edgerton Rsede Walter Montrose Phillips >• Lieutenants Nelson Trowbridge The Hon. Malhew Lennox U»yeJ George Hodrpur, Navigating Lieutenant Thomas F. Fearing, Chief Engineer Mortimer N. Douglas, Paymaster Wellington Elenwood, Surgeon Arthur William Horrick, Assistant Engineer. And then follow the names of about eight midshipmen, junior engineers, etc. " That list was obtained from the office of the Admiralty," says the girl, " and is absolutely accurate, like other official statistics." Barnes notes here to himself that Edwin Anstruther joined the Vulture at Gibraltar as a supernumary, consequently his name does not appear on the list sent from England, ani now knows how Marina has failed to discover him.

The next thing that meets his eye startles him. It is an elaborate description of each officer on the list, with his photograph attached.

" How did you get these ?" cries the American in surprise. "Time and money did it —but what use?" says the girl sadly. " Any being of reason would say it must be one of these men whose faces I look on in this book; gaze upon them with me; you saw his face that fatal day, and know it is not one of those who is the murderer that I seek !" " How do you know that ?" ,

" How ? I have seen every man on this list but the engineer who was suddenly ordered to China; this one who is on the Gold Coast of Africa, and Reede who was detached to the Ruby in the South Pacific, I have talked with them as I have with you to-day,, and they all say that they were too busy with official duties for any of them to get leave the day the Vulture left

Ajaccio. And then I went to the captain, a close-mouthed Scotchman, who promptly told me that no officer of his left his ship that day. ' Catch me giving leave on the morning of sailing—not to a royal prince, by Heaven, madam!' And thsn I knew that there was some conspiracy among them, even including the captain, to keep the matter secret, for they feared a court-martial for their comrade. Had it been in the French navy I could have discovered, because a duel would have brought no punishment; but with these men who cling together, and always fight shoulder to shoulder, I could do nothing." " And so you despaired." " Despaired ? You would not say that if you knew me. I took another way—the hospitals. When men are sick and wounded in that hot Egyptian climate they sometimes rave, and in delirium there is often truth. I have been by the bedside of some of them, and one died in my arms and yet gave no sign!" Barnes is staring at her; in his mind is a vision of the seventeenth century and de Brinvilliers. But the girl continues, "Though I couldn't find the man whose life I wanted, I found lives to save, and nursed the poor victims of the war and fever, and did some little good—for they said I was gentle, and called me ' the Angel of the Hospital!' and one, a sunny-haired Saxon giant, whose pale face was kind as a child's, and who, they told me, was brave as he was gentle—for he had a cross upon his heart—the one so many of them die to gain. When they brought him in wounded—l—l said ' He shall go back to his English home ; perhaps he has a sister like my poor brother had, who is waiting for him in that far-off land ;' and I —they said I saved his life—and he—he used to call me his—his—" Barnes, whose eyes have been upon the floor, raises them and sees before him, instead of an angel of vengeance, an angel of pity, and, perhaps, of love; for the girl has now a blush upon her face. She concludes, after a moment's pause of emotion, with a little effort—"He called me his Princess of Mercy—and used, after he was stronger, to walk with me in the moonlight in the Khedive's gardens, and tell me he owed to my kind hands his life. And when he was well he grew to look like a god—Edwin—" " Edwin !" cries Barnes. " Yes, Edwin Gerard An—the last is a curious English name, difficult for a southern tongue to pronounce—but I have his card." And she produces for him the name of Enid's brother, and cries: " You know him too ? Is he not glorious !" for she notices some sign upon Barnes's face, that makes her think this. " No, I have only met his sister." " Yes, she is beautiful, like him—l saw her, too, in Paris before my pioture—you love her, don't you ? " and Marina looks curiously at him. To this Barnes makes no reply, but changes the subject back to the original one, saying: "And afterwards?" " Afterwards ?—Count Danella took me away from Egypt almost by force ; he said the climate was killing me. And then I painted the duel—it was a work of love and a work of hate. I thought perhaps some one in the vast multitudes that throng the Paris Salon might give some sign before it, and by that I might discover. A private detective stood, night and day, near by, but all that it has brought me was the pursuit of you—" "And after all this?" " I should have gone to China to see the lieutenant who is there—but lately the Count has received some curious information from Gibraltar that makes us think there were other officers on board the Vulture whose names are not upon that list —Oh, I pray Heaven that he may not have died before I reach him ! I want him to know that Antonio Paoli has a sister!" The girl is now once more a picture of intense hate. Barnes, who has been studying Marina's face, and pondering how to bring her brother's words home to her, here s*ys, " When you were thinking of your noble work in the Egyptian hospitals, I should have given you the message from the dead." Then lie tells her earnestly but quietly the story of how her brother died in his arms, and that his last solemn words to him were: " I had sooner my sister forgot me, than that the memory of my death destroyed her life," and asks her, if she, with all her talent, and all her beauty and goodness, has no better work in life than seeking that of another. The girl answers him calmly : " I have thought of that so often, but I am a Corsican. Old Tomasso would despise me, and I could Dot look my neighbors in the face in my dear old Island—for they know my dead brother was murdered. You talk to me just as de Belloo did." " Ah, you have asked him ?" "Of course ! I took all these pictures to him and begged him to point out the guilty man." " And he ?" continued Barnes, for Marina has paused and is beating the floor with her foot in petulant passion. "He!" cries the girl, "He! the pretended friend of Antonio, refused to even look at them to aid my vengeanoe ! He said the duel was as fair a one as ever fought, and the young English officer was a gentleman of great honor and bravery !" " So it seemed to me also !" "Ah! you agree with him! —Fair? Brave ? when the man who killed my brother wore armor!" "Who told you that?" gasps Barnes. " Mateo, the innkeeper. The man was shot in the side and would have died like his victim, but for his cowardly protection."

Barnes here explains to her the incident of the lucky penny, telling her she painted it in her picture, , Upon this the girl interrupts him with a cruel little laugh, and says, " I had no idea my painting was so bad; I meant it to represent a scale of armor broken off by the bullet."

" Then you will not forget ?" " Not while I have these to remember him by !" and Marina points to a portrait of her brother that hangs upon the wall, then brings the American the broken pistol and gasps "It is stained with his blood !" and, taking from her bosom a little leaden ball that hangs about her white neck, cries,- her lips trembling , with sorrow: " The bullet that killed my dear brother! By this I will remember my oath." "You are young yet," replies Barnes, sadly. " Some day you'll know it is happier to love than to hate."

But Bhe answers, rising as if to end discussion : " While I live I shall know but one passion, and that is hate. Until this is finished, not if all the men upon the earth asked me, would I know love." "Not if, in the gardens of the Khedive, Edwin Anstruther asked you ?"

Marina starts and staggers as if he had struck her; a great wave of blood rushes over her face, and then leaves it deadly, pale with misery, and/sinking down, she utters a cry of agonised longing. And thus Barnes leaves her, his own phlegmatic nerves a little shaken, for he has had more surprises than he cares for this day; and meditates in a startled, dazed sort of way: " Great heavens! If those two meet, and Bhe should ever know !" (To be continued.)