DEAD LIPS SPEAK.

Evening Star, Issue 7403, 24 December 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEAD LIPS SPEAK.

Author of ' Judge and Judged,' How Some Men Fall,' etc. CHAPTER I. Would daylight never come! Is it not written that when the world was still in its swaddling clothes, the sons of Heaven, wearied of the daughters of Heaven, deserted Paradise, sought the home of mortals, and bartered their immortality for a kiss from Se, daughters of earth ? Was it not proble, then, that the sun, the great mythical cod, tired of the loving but too familiar lace of the earth, had, under the influence of a newborn passion, abandoned his glory for the vcold light of the moon? No. For yonder rifts in the darkness, which, as U it had Become solid and weighty, seemed to be supported by the white minarets qf the Remarkahles, vouch for his faithfulness. Soon as a heavy frown softens into a smile, so the night .passed, or rather relaxed, into day. But as- a "timid bride that shrinks from unveiling herself to the passionate eyes of him she loves, so the earth lay wrapped in a robe, which unlike any artificial texture had dreamlike been woven from nothingin the darkness, and dreamlike would vanish with the light. , Tiros it was that the stin, as he peeped over the back of Mount Pisa, . saw nothing more than the highest peaks and .ridgeW which rose like unsubmerged summits oT sunken mountains from the surface of this ocean that had risen and aeWged all else in the night. But scarcely an hour passed when a wonderful transformation took place. In Nature's laboratory, indeed, the desireß and visions of the alchemist oftentimes become facts. What had been an unbroken sheet of grey fog almost imperceptibly merged, as It were, Into a billowy Burface of the whitest cloud that floats lazily across a aummer sky. Then this changed into' a heaving breaking mass ' of living.gbld, as if light itself had become condensed, had become material. Then again: as the whole broke up, melted, vanished, as if it had been inhaled by the earth whereof it was the breath, it revealed & pari of tb« wiriditig and nigged chanilel of fiie kawarau 1 , hemmed in by precipitous mountains so high that they might almost have ariswered the purpose of the builders of the Tower of Babel; and it also exposed, in one of the numerous hollows or caves eaten put by the iron teeth of ages of winters, a man lying either asleep or dead. Only sleeping, however; for this vaporous sea had been more generous and merciful than that other sea would have been, which refuses to give up even its dead, so jealous is it of its hidden things. His sleep, however, was seemingly a hard-fought battle between consciousness and unconsciousness. He writhed and tossed and muttered and gesticulated. These, no doubt, were symptoms of bodily and not mental uneasiness; for they were probably due to the unsympathetic nature of his rocky bed, of which the angularities must have been most potent agitators, breeding the wildest conspiracies and revolutions amongst his sleepy and consequently untrammelled ideas. So shrill was one of his cries that the echoes of the neighboring crags, and ridges, shrieking, groaning, sobbing in sympathy, half awoke the dreamer. Just at that moment the ferns at the mouth of the cave shook and parted, and in the opening an inquisitive Maoii hen, ignorant of itedaßger, appeared. Ignorance, unfortunately, is synonymous with error. To err, still more unfortunately, is to suffer. Fear, too late, caused the puzzled intruder to turn tail. Tantalised beyond the control of duty, a retriever dog that had been nestling close to its master throughout the night gave a threatening bark and then dashed in pursuit. This cry brought the man to bis feet. An impulse akin to that which -impelled the Romans to the amphitheatre to witness the struggles or the lion and the gladiator, urged him to follow the chase.

After stumbling, sliding, and gently cursing over rocks, and through the tenacious grasp of Scotch lawyers, he found himself close beside the river. But here he pulled up suddenly. For there, on the slate-colored beach, written in a woman's hand, and well written too, was the name " Ethel,"' Nothing strange in that, you say. You arewrong, for this occurred inNovember, 1861, when the highest tide-mark of the Dunstan, rush was fully twenty miles lower down, and when (as this man had every reason to.believe) only three besides himself had been cast or had drifted flotsam and jetsam beyond that limit. And the characters bad beep written by a woman ! Though they would probably under these circumstances have claimed the attention of you or me, yet they would have been little more than mere symbols to our eyes or mere sounds to our ears; but so true is it that

'tis memory that sees and hears, not the eyes and ears themselves, that to this man these,letters were symbols shaded with tints drawn from his past life; sounds full of harmonies and discords. "It may be the same—yet 'tis Ethel, not Alice," were the words thought, not spoken, which summed up the result of a careful examination which he had just made of the writing, 1 , " Yefj, it must be—yet," but here the reappearance of the dog interrupted hiß cogitations. '

Thereupon, after spending about ten minutes in carefully defacing all traces made on the sand either by himself or by his companion, he turned up a creek which emptied itself into the river a few , yards further down. This he ascended , till his progress was arrested by a wall of rock over which the water fell into ,a sunny pool so calm and clear that the movements of the water-flies skating over its surface could be traced by watching their Bhadows crossing and recroashg. the gem-like pebbles at the bottom. Here he paused. There was something in his attitude as he leant against the windswept face -of the rock ; something in the stalwart muscular figure; something in the head! grand and muscular in its outline; something in the flaxen and golden hair that like a crown circled hiß forehead, that irresistibly suggested to the mind the form of Prometheus chained to Mount Caucasus. But in all else where comparison was easy the simile woefully failed. For instance, the most eccentric painter would never have depicted that god clad in a grey shirt and in moleskin trousers, yellow with adhering clay, with a piece of rope around the waist as the connecting link between the two. 'Twas the character of the face, however, that pre-eminently blurred the likeness. There were no fixed furrows in that forehead ; no ugly lines about that impulsive mouth; no shadows under those restless eyes; no hollows in those plump ruddy cheeks to indicate that a suffering brain had ever played discordantly on the nerves and muscles of that face, or that a mind stronger than pain had created in him, as it did in Prometheus, a spirit of endurance that could look suffering calmly in the face. For his evidently was no spirit that could wait patiently, but one that most act impetuously. Every cell in his body seemed saturated with energy, with force far less statio than dynamic. He was motionless now, however. The little silver-eyed linnet that was peering timidly at him from a spray of laurel overhead saw nothing in that quiet face to cause it even a moment's fear. So great was the tension of his mind just then that it seemed to absorb all the energy of his body,- and thus obliterate- action. At length, having satisfactorily solved the questions that had been forqingj upon him, and lukvjjfig, moreover, determined on a certain line of action, he prepared to retrace his steps, intending to return to the cave. But this intention was overridden for a time by an impulse, the external cause of which was simply a spontaneous cry from the dog as it bounded down the gully. Now, noisy dogs, like noisy people, are worse than troublesome when quietness and Becrecy are at a premium. Noisy dogs, like noisy people, most, if necessary, on such occasions be forcibly restrained. A rude muzzle made of a blade'taken from a flax-bush growing near at hand effectually answered this purpose. This done, it was not many minutes before both of them were ensconced in the cave, where they remained till nightnjgift was moonlight, but not a clear, silvery moonlight. It was light enough, unfortunately, to reveal the loneli-

ness and dreariness that darkness Would have hidden'. The rocks and ridges and peaks stood out like huge piles of darkness* against the sky, across which ill-shapen blaok masses were scudding, panio-stricken, before the wind, which was, however, unfelt below. Though the tent-fly stretched across the mouth of the cave shut out the vast, farstretching space with nothing human in it, yet it also refused admittance to any friendly beam that might otherwise have ventured into the gloom within, and might thus have dissipated the morbid feelings that were growing in the mind of this man; for with the darkness a sense of unrest crept into his brain, and growing stronger and stronger shadowed all his thoughts with a dread of something so intangible,-so hazy, so outside of bis own memory, that it seemed to him as if he were looking in on dust-covered Eiotures hung in hitherto hidden niches of is brain that had never been painted by his experience in this life, but perhaps by 1 his experience in another. It was when his mind was in this unhealthy state that he saw I something which paralysed for a moment or two his power of thinking.

What he saw was the shadowoutline .of a man, distinct on the tent fly. After the first numbness of fear passed he set himself to discover what was the substance behind the shadow. The nbstance—the man—must be standing som« where between the moonlight and the screen. Cautiously he crept on his hands and knees to the canvas, and with his knife made a small peep-hole. Nothing save irregular masses of rock was visible in the vicinity, and through the openings between these rocky walls were to be seen nothing more than the opposite side of the gorge, and the river a thousand feet below. The only sounds his taxed ears could catch were the distant murmurings of the riverand the noise of the creek, each atom of which, eager to join his companions in the great river, eager to mingle with the vaster waters of the ocean, afraid of the icy grasp of winter, afraid of being chained to the mountain peaks, dashed, quarrelling, grumbling, striving over moss and stones, over rooks streaked with white quartz, in and out through tangled shrubß arched over the gully —down down into the Kawarau below.

Could he have been deceived ? No. There it was as before. There was only one inference to be drawn, and that he had already done. But stay! May it not be his own shadow? Maybe the moon was shining through a crevice in the walls of the cave. This supposition could easily be tested. If he moved, the shadow must move. He crossed from one side of the cave to the other, but there was apparently no corresponding movement. He repeated this several times with like results; but as he looked, the outline glided off the screen. " 'Twas someone," he muttered, unconsciously addressing the dog whose upturned almost human face was so suggestive of a sympathetic listener that what would otherwise have only been thought thus shaped itself into words: "He must have seen me this morning and tracked me." This was no hasty conclusion on his part, but one that summed up the result of a of reasoning which he seemed either unwilling or powerless to stop, and which, starting from what had just occurred, dragged him back and set him face to face with many things that he had thought or done or spoken during the previous three months. Peeping again through the slit in the canvas which he had made, he saw out there against the sky the moving figure of a man, who was soon swallowed up by the darkness and the distance.

"To-morrow —at daybreak, Nip," he said, restraining the dog, which seemed impatient to discover who their visitor was. To-morrow, at daybreak, he had determined to make that discovery for himself. Throughout the night his determination to awake at sunrise took fantastic shapes in his dreams. Time after time it was overridden by some newly-suggested idea. Only once Derore tha darkness was still thick and heavy, did his volition get a momentary mastery. In that moment of consciousness one by one, by the association of ideas, the events of the preceding evening came to his memory, and, though dim as dreams, one circumstance, however, was only two well remembered the shadow the apparition. In his half-unconscious state the dread that he had experienced a few hours before returned with redoubled force, now unchecked by his reason. Fear, alas, cripples enterprise. He therefore decided to wait for the full light of morning. When he awoke, however, the sun had already travelled about one-third of its apparent path, from one side of the gorge to the other. It was about ten o'clock. Such a sun-charmod day, when a few truant clouds float lazily in a sky of distant blue ; when the shadows lie plain and well outlined; when insects fly as languidly as the dancing motes; when webs, bearing idle spiders, glisten like threads of glass ; when, in short, happiness is synonymous with inaction. So motionless did the air become that the gentle gliding of the clouds could be traced only by the corresponding motion of their shadows on the mountain's side. 'Twas cool within the cave, however, tho rocky ceiling of which cast a twilight of its own.

Again this man's caution and his previous determination came into violent collision. The one urged him to wait for the mask of night; the other suggested that by taking advantage of the gully and rocks to screen himself, he would leave little room for discovery. When the scales are equipoised a breath will give preponderance. A very weak impulse threw itself into the scale in favor of caution. It was one of those undefineable feelings that arise in the shadow land of the brain. In short, it was what timid people call a warning. Influenced by this, he would have remained there, but just at that moment he espied his dog moving down towards the river. To call him back would be to court discovery. Every ridge, every crag, every rock would find an echoing voice. To let him go on would be just as risky. The best plan was to follow and bring him back. The pursuit led him very near the edge of the Dank, whose face ran sheer down fully a hundred feet into the river. Here the dog was seen crouching beside something that was partly hidden amongst the grass and ferns. The spot was a small grassy area enclosed on three sides by a horseshoeshaped wall of rock about ten feet high, with the exception of a narrow and arched breach, in which the dog's master stood unseen. The fourth side, which was not enclosed in any way, was bound by the edge of the cliff. Above the head of the watcher a redlegged spidor was waiting in a crack till a captured gnat became more and more entangled in the meshes of its web. Satisfied of this, the spidor crept out of its hiding - place. Simultaneously the man stealthily stepped out from behind the rock. The spider glided gently along its thread. The .man moved hesitatingly across the soft grass. The gnat on which the spider's eyes were fixed shrank back in fear. The object on which the man's eyes were fixed lay motionless. 'Twas a sleeping child. A little thing with golden hair lying carelessly over its face. About two or three years old; that was all.

" 'Tis hers," he said quietly. " 'Tis as I thought—she is here !" "Come, Nip (this to the dog). I must hide till she comes." He turned. " Mrs Eaynor!" "MrHendrickl"

In the archway, like a beautiful picture, or rather like a statue in a dark heavy frame, a womaa, almost a girl, stood. Her dress, made of some soft delicate material, clinging negligently about her, displayed a figure characterised by symmetry and freedom. Yes, it was a statuesque figure indeed, But for all that, there was nothing Erimly artistic in her short brown hair anging wild and caressingly over her forehead and about her neck; neither was there anything coldly classioal in the contour of that loving face. It was a face which in her babyhood must have irresistibly won kisses from everyone that saw it; it was a face which in her girlhood must have drawn forth—notcommanded, for there was nothing imperious in or about her the respectful homage of every sshool-boy that knew her. *T was a face that now in her early womanhood riveted her husband's love, and often drew soft little arms about her neck, and soft childish lips to hers, It would have been a

useless task to endeavor to analyse and to discover in what feature or features that power lay. You and I, strangers to her, would probably have fixed it on those eyes that dominated everything else (> . But it we're uselesa in the way of description to say thatthey were blue, clear, soft, intelligent, for these adjectives hopelessly, fail to express my meaning. There was, in short, a memory in them which ypu or I, without the key to her life before, .could not hope to understand. His tone was slightly sarcastic : hers was that of surprise. His face was unmarked by any emotion; he might have been asleep, with his eyes open, for all his facial barometer indicated. Hers, on the other hand, embodied the conflicting emotions of fear and surprise. Her lips were pressed tremblingly together, while her eyes, which at first opened wide and then fell, were now fixed, with a shrinking, piteous look on his face. For a second or two neither spoke. " I have found you," he said at length, quietly, but still in the same sarcastic tone. i "'Tis truej as he has often said, that for a man who has sinned like he has there is no turning over a new leaf—'tis hard; but what does Nature care for one man ?" she said, neither answering nor addressing him, 1 but pursuing the subject that was occupying her thoughts, as if she had been speaking aloud all the while and to someone else. " I have found you," he repeated. " You have dogged us!" she said bitterly. He answered nothing to this. " How did you trace us?" He told her of his search, of the writing on the sand, and of his shadowy visitor of last night. " I surmised it was he," he remarked, watching her closely, in somewhat the same way that a shrewd lawyer watches a doubtful witness whom he is cross-examining, and in somewhat the same way that a doctor watches a patient whose symptoms he does not clearly understand. "Who?" "Your husband." " You are mistaken."

Her reply puzzled and worried him. "Could it have been someone else? No; the probabilities were against it. Could it no; that would be going back to bogie-dom—yet." But here he branched off to another line of thought. " She is deceiving me. But what is her objeot ? She is too shrewd to think to hide where he is from me by such a subterfuge, when her own Eresence is a sufficient indication in itself of is whereabouts." At this point the word "indication" suggested to him the writing on the sand.

" Who is Ethel ?" he consequently asked. She said nothing, but simply pointed to the sleeping child. Her answer satisfied him, for it was only the name that he had forgotten. " Would you know why I am here?" he said, abruptly and inquiringly. " Why does that spider keep near that gnat ?" she answered, contemptuously pointing to the web above her. " Prettily put, indeed," was his laconic rejoinder. Suggested by the gnat entangled in the meshes of the web, the thought that she might escape, that she might warn her husband, who was then at work on his claim about a quarter of a mile up the river, flashed across her mind. Tho futility of it did not strike her, for anxiety and agitation blinded her to the difficulties of such an attempt. Her quick glance behind, however, and a spasmodic but unconscious movement in the same direction suggested by her thoughts, did not unfortunately escape his keen glance. " Stay," he said, quietly pointing towards the sleeping child. As she came forward to raise her little one, he shifted his position so as to be between her and the archway—the only means of egress. " Let it sleep," he said quietly, but significantly. She obeyed him, "I want to tell you why I could not rest down uicro , -wUyi utaaAmpaUpA to abandon my claim—a rich one it was, too—in order to seek you ; why, in order to avoid meeting your husband, I waited and hid all yesterday in that wretched whole up there; and why I have sought to meet you, and you only. His manner startled her a little. "I want to hear nothing," she said wearily. " Why ?" This was interjected not curiously, not vaguely, but mechanically, for he knew too well her reasons.

" Because I know everything now—he has told me." " Indeed !' "You had him in your power—at your mercy. In your hands was the evidence by which he could bo convicted of forgery." " True, clearly Btatcd." Heedless of the interruption, she continued in the strained and tremulous tone that characterised her speech throughout the whole of the interview. "That knowledge was your capital. Three weeks ago, when he discovered that rich run of gold, who was it forced him to share it ?" " I did." " Even then your greed was not satisfied. You must have all, and you therefore drove him by threats to take shelter'in flight." " The ' therefore' is wrong," he remarked dreamily, as if communicating with himself. " Now, you must follow us and prey on him again," she said bitterly. " Not so; you misunderstand mo," he said ; and there was something in his voice and manner that she vaguely felt to be so strange, so foreign to him hitherto, that she spasmodically [started back a step or two. "Have you no pity for us?' she cried passionately and pleadingly. .«• Pity for you?— Yes. Pity for him?—l am afraid not." He spoke as if under restraint. " What harm did ho ever do you ?" " Nothing, intentionally; everything unintentionally. " I do not understand you ?" Ages ago the vines crept over Vesuvius and the flowers smiled on its slope. But it only slept. One night the fiery _ energy within burst forth and transformed it into a great fire-god. Somewhat similar was it with this man. His assumed indifference and placidity broke down. His words poured from his lips like molten lead from a furnace. " Why do I not pity that husband of yours ?" She shrank back with a cry of alarm. A plump lizard, basking on tbe edge of the cliff a few feet behind her, started, slipped over, and fell through the air into the water far below. " Does he not come between me and the only woman that I ever loved?" he continued, impetuously and passionately. "Alice, I have said it now—l love you. You must love me;" and, with this imEassioned cry on his lips, he tried to take er in his arms. She staggered back. " Husband! George !"

Her shrill and piercing cry, wrestling with the roar of tho river, fighting the distance inch by inch, but growing weaker and weaker, never reached the ears of her husband, George Raynor, who, unconscious of the tragedy that was being just played out, and unconscious even that his enemy was near, rocked his cradle and washed out his gold not more (as has already been mentioned) than a quarter of a mile away. The next instant she fell headlong over the cliff. The dog, who had before this wandered to the beach, instinctively attempted to resoue her, but she was forcibly torn from him by that terrific rush of water.

CHAPTER 11. Anxious to hurry away from the cold gorges and snowy peaks where it had its birth, the dull, slate-colored Kawarau, swollen by the heavy rainfall, roaring, foaming, and panting between the opposing masses of rocks that there formed a natural bridge, caught up in its muddy rolls something that had lain there on the beach week after week; something with the grey river sand in its ears and eyes. Three miles higher up' the bank, near an open tent, a man leaning on a long-himdled shovel looked down the gorge. Such a strange light was in his eyes. 'Twas a look that, seemed due to the memory of some fearful, suffering, rather than to the actual existence of it.

At a little distance from him was a little golden-haired child, two or three years old, lying asleep under the shadow of a lichencovered crag. In one little hand was a wreath of faded ferns that seemed to have been woven by delicate fingers, at least some weeks before. . Then the wind arose. Unlike the rushing river, it appeared in no haste to quit the mountains. For hours and hours it had swept through gullies against blocking precipices and into talking caverns. It was certainly an uncivilised wind that had never swept down crowded streets. It was certainly an unsociable wind, that had never come in contact with human beings before. . Hushed into a gentle breeze, it flapped the folds of the tent apart, looked on the emptiness within, and then changing into a whirlwind, snatched the wreath from the relaxed hand of the child, and bore it away. The wrench awoke her. " Look! " she cried. The man turned abruptly, and, looking in the direction indicated, saw tho_ wreath trying to free itself from the tenacious hold of a Scotch lawyer. Before he could even attempt to get it, the wind caught it up again and dashed it into the river. "Curse you," ho muttered, gazing moodily at the river; "you must take everything." " Gone, father," was the child's plaint. " Gone," he replied, placing her on a rock whenco the water could be seen. "Gone," ho reiterated in a loud and angry voice, as he pointed at the river. " Oh!" was the child's doleful interjection. Then she smiled; for would not mother make another when she back ? Then the smile faded again. Why was mother so long ? Why did she never come back ? " I want mother. Where's mother ?''

"Gone," was the reply, accompanied by a motion of the hands and body—his face rarely changed—which could mean nothing else than that the river had taken her too. Unknown toeitherof them, thatwreath was an unconscious offering on the grave of that wife and mother, whose soulless body, like a log of driftwood, was even then being borne away from them. Onward that dead burden was hurried, mile after mile ; then passed the foremost tent, then another and another; and now it approached the Kuwarau Junction—since called Cromwell—an array of canvas huts with two or three cor-rugated-iron buildings, so arranged under a terrace on each side of an unformed tussockcovered street, that one row seemed to defy the other to mortal combat. This bellicose aspect was enhanced by the banner-like signs painted in gorgeous and intoxicated characters that were hung in front of some of the more imposing buildings. Undeveloped as this township was, yet its funcsions were not despicable. It was in short the brain, the co-ordinating centre of the social system of the river and the flat, whereof, to carry the analogy still further, the line of tents that straggled away from it along the river was the spinal cord. So for example, when any part of that body was ill, was homo-sick, was love-struck, was disputatious, appeal was invariably made to headquarters, respectively to Dr Embly, to the Post Office, to Jean the pretty barmaid, and to Mr Hendrick the quasi-lawyer and mining agent. To-day the population of the Junction and the Flat, with the exception of the women, and they numbered only six ; of the sergeant and the constable, who were both employed in close attendance on Magenta Joe, who, under the influence of drink and of a residence for some months in a lonely gully, had made the discovery that he was the true Job, and the other an impostor; of the Warden, whose inclinations were of a mothlike nature, pretty Jean being the candle ; of the Doctor, whose affections were likewise —though for other reasons—centred in Dobie's bar ; and of a few whose duties kept them imperatively at home—had deserted the township and the tents, and were now lined out along the edge of the river catching the drift-wood which the Kawarau, swollen by the heavy rains, bore down on its bosom.

Tjuao«- +w» tawnohin. and closo beside tlio punt, Tommy Sticks and Dick Pickup, partners in a large heap of wood, were standing at a point where the current rushed into the bank and then out again. Both were expectantly watching an approaching object that was being rolled over and over by the surging waters. Both, as it came within reach, thrust out each his polo, and by means of the bent wire at the end drew this thing to the shore. "By God !" ejaculated Dick, "it'sabody —a woman's too.

With eager fingers his companion grasped it by the head, roughly and coarsely. " Have some decency, man," said Dick, lifting the dripping form tenderly on to the stones.

" D the decency ; 'tis the Gov'mcnt reward* I want," exclaimed his partner in a thick tone, whose thickness was more than probably drawn from tho bottle of old torn lying on their pile of wood. It was not long before a small and quiet crowd had gathered around them. Tommy, with a kindness strangely inconsistent with his last remark, took off his old coat and laid it gently over her. Then coat after coat was silently handed to him for the same purpose. " Where's the Doc. ?"raid one, but why he knew not. Perhaps it was that death and the doctor were so closely associated in his mind, that it seemed the proper thing that he should be inquired for. " In Dobie's bar," replied another, hazarding a guess. Then a cry instantly went up for the " Doc." from a dozen and more lusty lungs, rang up and down the river, over the flat, and into the bar where the worthy medico himself was seated on the edge of a barrel. Soon a little pear-shaped man, with a huge head, came puffing and panting down the Punt road. "He ! he! boys, have you some more mending for the old Doc. ?" he wheezed out as the group opened to let him in. " Poor girl; she has been long passed my clumsy mending," he remarked after bending down and glancing into the uncovered face.

" Look ! Doctor," exclaimed Dick, pointing to somo peculiar scars on the throat and arms.

"The infernal eels, that be," exclaimed Eely Dan, emphatically, starting to relate to those willing to listen his experience of tho biting propensities of these fish. The Doctor was evidently puzzled, judging from tho following commentary on his examination of these marks:

"Strange!— Finger marks? No.—Devilish strange, Dick.—Accident? Think not. —Foul play ? ' Tis murder !" To most of them the speaker was a stranger; to the few who knew him a little he was the Mad Hatter.

" Who is she ?" cried several, appealing to him. But they received no answer. A few days after this the Junction seemed strangely restless and agitated. This uneasiness displayed itself in many and sometimes eccentric ways. For example, it led Jim Pin, the baker, to improve his bread by the addition of some kerosene, mistaken for yeast; and Flash Charlie, the aristocrat, to don a clean pair of moleskins and to apply an extra coat of grease to his watertight, in the mistake (as he assured the sceptical Dick Pickup) that it was Sunday. This agitation reached a crisis when, hidden by a cloud of dust, the coach dashed around the spur of the mountain near Hartley's Beach. Seated on the box beside the coachman, Sroud and important to-day, was a lady ressed in black. The rumor that the sister of the woman whose body had been found in the river was expected to arrive to-day was true, then. Before the coach pulled up on the other side of the Clutha, at the top of the track leading to Hill's Footbridge, there was not an individual there whose duty did not ostensibly call him to some spot or other from whioh this passenger could be seen. Amongst the most curious was Tommy Sticks, who, after priming himself at the expense of the Junction with sundry " nips," perched himself on the side of the road at the place where the passengers usually got down. A few others, emboldened by such a valorous example, also gravitated thitherward. " A stunner ! a reg'lar heart stirrer" was the spasmodic criticism forced from Tommy as she alighted. " Thunder and lightnin'! If that there long-legged mad hatter hasn't taken her in tow," was his noxt ejaculation.

*A reward wm given for eveiy body that was moorered.

Who was this man so designated ? Here is Diok Piokup's description of him : "A fellow that lives like a wild cat up the gorge in a bit of a cave covered with some wild creepers and with' scrub. A quiet chap enough, and one that seems to know a speck of gold from mica; but they say he is a bit weak in his upper storey for all that."

Yes; the general opinion was that he was mad, and hence his name. But, as is not unfrequently the case, the voice of the people of the Junction was not the voice of God, but the voice, of a demagogue, by-the-bye called Lack. Now _ this director of public opinion had once persisted in thrusting one of his theories down the throat of the Hatter,, who, refusing to swallow the indigestible morsel, placed it in the inflexible jaws of a syllogism, whence it issued miserably crushed and torn. The Junction at that moment almost swerved from its allegiance to their sago, and was barely saved from the disgrace of desertion by this countersyllogism, only one degree more tottering than its intoxicated originator, Tommy Sticks: . "Isay Lacksh head's screwed right—you say Lacksh a fool j d you, yoush mad." Their trust in Lack, which was oil, wheels, axles, motive power—everything in their social machine—endorsed Tommy's remarks, and thereafter the Hatter was to them the Mad Hatter. [ "What did Bhe say to him, Tommy ? " inquired one of the men that had gathered round him.

"Man alive! Would you believe it? She a-slided up to him, and took his hand nervous-like between hers, and says inquir-ing-like to him: ' John'" " Have a Bhandygaff," suggested one of the listeners, interrupting the speaker and thus ludicrously filling up the sentence. "Then she called him Mr Beezly," Tommy continued, turned aside t from what he had intended to say by the interruption. " And then, man alive, would you believe it? that there mad Hatter oalled her Dora."

"What else did they say?" queried another. " Could'nt hear." " Must have known her before, I'll bet," suggested someone else. He was right. Years before the current of their lives had met, had flowed on for some time side by side, and then had diverged only to meet again on this day. The ties of friendship—indeed, of something closer and warmer than that—had been overstrained, though, it is true, never broken by the tension of little differences of thought, of desires, of actions. " Them two seem as friendly as two ants that are fetchin' home a seed together." This was said by Jim the goatman, whose favorite pastime was, while keeping an eye on his goats, watching the manoeuvres of these little insects that overran some parts of the Flat. "I wouldn't mind knowin' what them two are sayin'," he continued, thoughtfully. Just at that moment the visitor was saying to the Hatter, as they crossed the bridge which here spanned the boiling cataract a short distance above the confluence of the Clutha and the Kawarau : " I understand now why you refrained from telling mc in your letter what had become of Alice's husband. I heard the coachman tell someone on the way up that George had been arrested for her murder. Is it so ?" " Yes."

" Do you suspect anyone ?" she asked, after waiting in vain for him to supplement his monosyllabic answer. " Yes." " Whom ?" "A man named Hendrick," he replied. But there was a ring of doubt in his reply. It seemed as if her question had coincided with another that had been lately troubling him, and to which no certain answer was forthcoming. " Whj ?" Now how was she to know that her terse question was as irritating as a host of mosquitoes. How was she to know that that self-same " why," clad in divers disguises, had boon haunting him for weeks past. " I cannot tell you just now," he replied, curtly and somewhat irritably. Pained by his curtness, sho walked on a few steps in silonco. But her anxiety almost instantly rose above all other feelings. " What use are suspicions," she exclaimed impetuously. '' We must have facts to clear him—to prove him innocent." "True, we must have facts," was his echoing response. "The facts will come soon enough. Thero are but few things hidden from a man who, firm in his purpose, and clear and methodical in his plans, Ecta himself to the solution of a mystery." But—but it makes one feel like a bloodhound," he muttered, addressing himself. "Surely you will not spare him, John." And revengeful and pitiless enough was she at that moment.

" Spare him ? What is gained by carrying out the ruthless command 'a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life ?' The murderer is as his ancestors and surroundings have created him," he said musingly, as if communing with his own thoughts. This was a peculiarity of his, arising out of the fact that for months he himself had been his only auditor. " Why do you wish to spare him ?" Instinctively she felt that something had occurred which had appealed Btrongly to his sympathy. ■ "I will tell you. Acting on my suspicions, I set myself to watch this Hendrick. There was nothing, however, to be gleaned from his habits." '* Nothing at all!" she exclaimed in a disappointed tone. " Yes, there was one thing. Do you see yonder tent under the terrace ?" "Yes."

Well, night after night, Hendrick visited that tent. From cautious inquiries which I made I learnt that the occupant, an old man called Kent, had been rescued by Hendrick from a eaved-in tunnel, and that he still suffered from the accident. But a man groping in the dark like I am must make sure of every inch of ground ; accordingly I followed him one night, and through a slit which I cut in the tent "

"Well; what did you Bee?" she interjected, interrupting him in her impatience. "This: An old man, haggard and wretchedly pale, was lying in his bunk with his head resting on the arm of Hendrick, who was bending over him, more pale and anxious than Kent himself."

" Was he dying, John ?" " I thought so." " Hendriok," I heard him say quietly, "I feel screwed up." Then he continued aB if addressing himself: "I faced him without a budge in tho tunnel, but I'm a bit shaky now." " Who was the ' him,'" she whispered. "Death, 1 think." "Kent," said his companion huskily, " don't be afraid of him, for— for—" He could not finish, for his voice growing strangely hoarse failed him. Then the old man, forcing himself to Bmile, seemed to be saying something to cheer his companion ; but he spoke so weak and low that I could only catch these words: " It will pan out all right at the great wash-up." After a long pause, he said faintly but very anxiously : " I could look him full in the face if you would pray for mo, I think. Will you?" I could see Hendrick's trembling lips trying to frame themselves into a prayer. Then I heard these words : " God help d n it, Kent, I cannot." " I felt like a sneak, Dora, and I crept away." "Spare him, John, for Kent's sake." The tears were in her eyes. Then she asked curiously " Did he die ?" "No, hot yet." Then a pause followed. "John," she said abruptly, "you will take me to see her. She is my sister, jou know." She spoke pleadingly. " No !" and he spoke firmly, almost roughly. He did not mean to be hasty—far from that; but he had never acquired the power of wrapping up a refusal or an objection in gilt paper. " John, you mußt. Why should I not ?" "You cannot." Again he answered abruptly. His thoughts at that moment were out of tune, and his words were in unison with them. He was thinking of that wan, shrunken face looking up with its lustreless eyes to the roof of the shed, which sometimes served for a morgue. It was the decision on his part that tho dead woman and her sister should never be brought together that gave apparent harshness to his.' answer*. '""'

"May I see her husband," she asked, quietly and somewhat coldly. His reticence and abruptness hurt her. '• No r and he spoke as firmly as before. " Very well. 'Tis your old way; you say no, and you think it needless to give a reason," Bhe cried, warmly. He said nothing. What was there to be gained by telling her that Mr Raynor, reduced to a state of mental as well as bodily weakness by his troubles, was unfit to bo visited ? He knew that painful knowledge must come to her sooner or later, but why anticipate trouble. As they passed through Dobie's crowded bar-room he caught a glimpse of the doctor, to whom he wished to speak, but refrained just then, as he did not wish to detain his companion any longer than possible in that spirituous atmosphere. CHAPTER 111. "Pardon me, Dr Embly, would you spare me a moment or two?" said the Hatter, returning to the bar. " Certainly, certainly,' l "Come this way then," and he led the way into the little parlor behind the regiment of bottles on the bar shelves. " Dr Embly," he said, when that gentleman had taken % seat by the table; "I have a strange favor to ask you." "He, he! old boy; only too glad to oblige you." " You hold a post mortem on Mrs Raynor to-day; do you not ?" "Right." " Could you let me have the brain for a few hours ?"

"The Devil!" ejaculated the little doctor, starting back against the calico partition, and causing the bottles on the other side, to frantically embrace each other. If that person so addressed had at that moment strolled into the room clothed after the fashion of his country, the plump, convex face of the Doctor could have expressed no greater surprise than it did then. "I have a theory regarding this murder which I wish to test by means of it," he continued, after waiting a little for the other's reply. " Mad—speaks as solemn as a judge, too —calm enough also—pulse as steady as a pendulum evidently." Such were some of the disconnected thoughts that raced pellmell through the Doctor's mind. "Do not refuse my request, Doctor. A man's life may hang on it." "Can't do it."

"Why?" This monosyllabic query offered no chance of escape, and gave no scope for a strategic reply. " Well, it is such a strange thing, you know. And you may '"' " May be mad," the Hatter quietly broke in, while- a smile crept over his face. Then he continued, not giving the other time to invent any ingenious explanation : " The fact is, Doctor, you aro afraid that I might do something outlandish with the brain, and you do not care to risk your reputation. But that difficulty can be easily overcome. You yourself can remain with me during my examination of it. As I have already said, a man's life may depend on it. Doctor, I know your heart's in the right place. Will you do it now ?" "Yes."

This arrangement was satisfactory for two reasons. His curiosity as a doctor was aroused. Though he could not effectually divorce the idea from his mind that his strange companion was weak-minded, he nevertheless felt that the Hatter might possess some knowledge worth acquiring. Then, again, since this was the only sittingroom in the hotel, there was a probability that the lady recently arrived might favor him with her presence during the two or three hours he would have to wait. When the Doctor returned to the barroom he was assailed by questions of various kinds, couched in divers provincialisms and accents. The opportunity was good to be lost. Then was drawn from his elastic and capacious imagination answers that added fuel of the most inflammable nature to the general excitement. "Doctor, did he say anything about Raynor ?" The speaker was Hendrick. " Yos, old boy." "What?" " Said he was innocent; that was all."

Tho opinion of the Hatter was evidently not the opinion of the Junction. " Well, Benjamin, son of Melchizedek, what is your opinion ? —Guilty or not guilty ?" Thus spoke Dick Pickup to Moss, the draper's assistant, who was standing with his back to the wall, wedged in between two hogsheads, which wore very little smaller than himself.

"Not guilty." A gasp of surprise seized this motley crew. "On the barrel with him. Let Jeremiah prophesy," was ejaculated by two or three. Accordingly hie was placed thereon, " Ho is vright, and you are vright, and I am vright, and ve be all vright," he Baid, earnestly, albeit laughingly. . "Butvhcn you say dat man up dere (here ho pointed in the direction of the little gaol on the terrace) murder his vife you are vrong, pon mine vord. He is innoshent."

" A second Daniel come to judgment," exclaimed Dick.

" If you vas seed him you vould say de same, pon mine vord. Dere he vas, avalking, avalking from one side to.de utter Side of de cell, vide ish child in his arms, like dis, pon mine vord, I speak de tropt (here grotesquely, but very earnestly, he imitated the prisoner's actions;. 'Twas a laughable performance, yet no one saw it in that light. "He kept alv»ys.avalking, pon mine vord. Den he stopped and ho opened his mout and de vords rushed out like dis." Here the speaker excitedly taking a tumbler of gin from the astonished Doctor, who was standing just beside him, and igniting the alcohol, poured out the liquid^fire. " What did he say, Mosb ?" said Dobie; as he handed the disappointed medico another glass. " Vife, vife !" he cried, "de say. I killed you ! 'Tis a lie ! 'Twas him." Here the speaker unintentionally and excitedly pointed at Hendrick. " Hah ! said that gentleman, "he was shamming mad, Benjamin." " You may be vright, but your vords is vrong, pon mine vord. I vill bet dish vatch dat he is innoshent."

His words had slightly changed the current of opinion. Not a few thought, though they knew not why, that a mistake had been made somewhere. In his interview with the Hatter, Dr Embly promised to arrange a meeting for that night between himsolf, the Hatter, Mr Hendrick, and the Warden. " Nature's out for a spree to-night," the Doctor remarked to the Hatter, as he and his companions, dripping wet, entered tho parlor, now lighted by a decrepit lamp that bung from the rafters, and by two discontented candles stuck into bottles on the table; but the three lights barely sufficed to keep the heavy darkness outside. The wind howling with joy as it escaped from tho jaws of the gorge, eweeping over the fiat and inciting a fellow spirit of liberty in one or two illconstructed tents, swooped down along with the rain on the Junction; lashed each and millions of raindrops with a metallic click against the iron roof of the hotel; forced its way through the oracks in the walls, under the rattling sash under the door; frightened the candles to death; struggled with the lamp, which grew black in anger; seemed doubtful whether it should carry the whole building away, but changing its mind swept up and out into space through the chimney, making the flames roar and dance in sympathy. ThatMrHendrick stretched himself on the colonial sofa was not at all an accident. The sofa afforded these two advantages, It enabled its occupant almost unseen to scan the face's of the others, and also bestowed upon him an air of negligent unconcern. The Doctor and the Warden Bat close up at the table, smoking. The curiosity and the anxiousness of each of the three were in geometrical progression, . whereof the common ratio was very large indeed; the Warden's presenting the first term, which closely approximated to zero; the Doctor's the next, and Mr Hendrick's the last.

The Hatter, a man about thirty, was standing at the head of the little table. His attitude was rigidly straight. Everything about him partook of the nature of straightness. His body was tall and straight, his nose was straight, his hair black and

straight, his fingers long and straight, the wrinkles on his forehead horizontal and Btraight, his mouth firm and straight, his eyes looked at you straight, and his words .went straight to their mark. "DrEmbly, what was the result of the post mortem?' inquired the Hatter, abruptly. The Doctor, looking inquiringly towards the Warden, but gleaning no indication from the latter's demeanor whether to reply to the question or not, guardedly answered: " That's hardly a fair question." "Why?" Again the other glanced at the Warden, whose face this time, however, wore an encouraging expression, which translated read: " Tell him—no harm ; perfectly legal." " She was murdered," he Baid, ignoring the' Hatter's last query and only responding indirectly to his first. "By whom?" "By her husband, no doubt," remarked Hcndrick, in that tone which anyone would use if he were ever called upon to combat the assertion that two and two did not make four, but five. " Not so !" was the Hatter's emphatic but" quiet interjection. Here the Doctor and tho Warden interchanged glances. Both of them thought very much like this: "Weak-minded-eccentric— dominated, as insane people often are, by some fanciful idea ; speaks and acts sanely, however ; kept in check doubtlessly by the weight and importance of some imaginary discovery which he thinks explains the murder. Hendrick's mind, on the other hand, ran in another channel. Those words "Not so" supplemented and echoed his own thoughts. Each chord within his brain was vibrating to one note, and it accordingly could catch up only such ideas as were in unison with it. "On what grounds do you base your opinion," queried the Warden, in a slightly magisterial tone, which the nature of his duties had made his own.

"On valid piemises," was the unintentionally pedantic reply. " Let us hear them," demanded the occupant of the sofa, raising himself on his elbow so as to scan his companions' faces more easily and more closely. "In order to throw light on what I intend to tell you I will give you a brief outline of some of the views held by modern psychologists." The abruptness, and disconnectedness of this answer was in harmony with the Hatter's nature. Then he briefly described the nervous system in its relation to mental processes, the nature of thought, and the growth of ideas. " How does all this bear on the murder," remarked th§ Warden, who, influenced by the speaker's knowledge of a favorite subject and by the latter s seriousness and earnestness, was gradually losing his doubts as to the other's sanity.

" What does it lead up to," echoed the Doctor.

" To this fact, that every thought, feeling, and volition is accompanied by a molecular and permanent change in the brain-matter." " Well !" " That in this way, every brain contains a physical record of all its thoughts." " Well!"

" That here (then he drew back the cloth that covered the brain which was lying on the table) is the life history of the murdered woman." " Well!'

" In short, here is a Baby lonic cuneiform whose characters unfortunately are meaningless without their key.'' " Very clever, indeed, but who has the key," said the occupant of the sofa sarcastically.

" I have." " He, he, old boy, then read it for us," ex claimed the Doctor.

"One word of explanation first. The more vivid the idea the easier the translation. Those thoughts that vibrated through that brain just before death were most painfully vivid, and accordingly it is those that I have deciphered best. At this point the Warden and the Doctor exchanged not only glances, but smiles. Hendrick, however, was puzzled. "Does this man know anything?" he thought. The knowledge of his own guilt made that knowledge more possible to others. "I gut material," continued the apeaker, " whereby the locality of the murder can be determined.'' Then he purposely described the spot very vaguely. "13ah," said Hendrick, "anyone could have told us as much." Theso words were an impulsive reply to his own thoughts, aloud.

" Have you been there, sir ?" Mr Hendrick's prudence dictated a denial. " No, never," he accordingly replied, emphatically. The emphasis was a child of deception. "How, then, do you know that anyone could have told as much ?"

" Because your description would fit hundreds of spots for miles around," was his ready answer. " True; I will be more definite. Here is the cliff"—he drew his finger along the edge of the table. " Here is the murdered woman, 1 think "—he put a glass near the edge. " Did you read that there?" queried the Doctor, pointing to the brain. " The bare facts, nothing more," replied the Hatter.

"The murderer stood there " —he placed the Doctor's smoked-out pipe a few inches from the glass. Meanwhile Hendrick had risen from the sofa and was standing near the door. " Here," he continued, " was a little child asleep." He took his watch and placed it between the pipe and the glass. " Well!" ejaculated the Warden and the Doctor, now both deeply interested. "Suddenly the man rushes towards her, and she falls headlong into the river." Here he struck the glass, which broke into fragments on the floor. "Well!" " The' murderer's dog springs in after her!"

"Bless me!" ejaculated the Doctor. "These marks I understand now. He !he ! old boy," he said to himself, " you have it." Saying this, he excitedly left his chait, and seizing Hendrick's dog by the jaws forced open its mouth. " Teeth —dog's teeth—made those marks on that woman's arm. Look! teeth like these. Good God! These are the very teeth ; this is the very dog; one tooth out and that projecting tooth." " You are right, Doc," said the Warden, examining them, " they fit like a die fits the penny it stamps out." Then they both turned simultaneously to the Hatter.

"If you can tell this, you know more ; you may even know the murderers' name," exclaimed the Warden. "Do you ?" "It is written on that brain as plain as yonder name," he said, purposely turning his back to them, and pointing out through the little bar window, and past the row of bottles in front of it, to the sign of the White Horse Hotel on the other side of the street.

" Who is it ?" they both exclaimed, in one breath. " 'Tis " " Gone !" ejaculated the Hatter. " Slithered !" exclaimed the Doctor, " Levanted!" cried the Warden.

How was it with Hendrick? Checkmated by his own conscience, he felt, before the Hatter had gone very far with his translation, that he was in the centre of a ring of fire, narrowing and narrowing around him. There were two paths open—to stay or to flee. Flight he knew would court suspicion. To stay seemed equally hazardous. The latter course, as we have seen, he adopted; his intention being to reach the punt and place the river between himself and them. Just then he thought" I would like to see his kind, old face before going. . I will risk it." , u Just as he entered that tent under the terrace which has already been spoken of the ominous cry " Look to the punt and the bridge !" rang through the darkness. " Kent, they are after me !", The old man, looking up from his bunk, scared and puzzled, tottered to his feet. At that moment the thought flashed across Hendrick's mind that in his tent was a paper by which his guilt could most conclusively be brought home to him. "For God's sake, Kent, cutaway to my tent, pull up the bunk post near the head, burn the papers, and keep the goldyouraelf."

The old man, ill and weak, staggering out

into the wind and rain, fell heavily against the bank. "Good-bye, Kent," said Hendrick, huskily, after tenderly raising him, now stnnned by the fall, and placing him in bis bunk. r ■ Then, as he stood for a moment at the opening of the tent, his thoughts, by some • hidden association, travelled back to the shadow that appeared to him the night before Mrs Raynor'a death, and now for the first tine he connected, the Hatter with it. Soon he found himself at the apex of a triangle, whereof one side was the Clutha, the other the Kawarau, and the base a line of pursuers, drawing closer and closer. Before him was the swollen confluence of the two rivers, with the darkness thick upon it. Each river seemed a thing with. fife. Like two contending reptiles of the mammoth age, they and rolled,, and panted, and Bofc v their struggle, was no sterner than/ that within his mind; He was no longer himself, but a beingrwho was forced to lojbk, as a Spectator, on a battle -soldiers were his thoughts and impulses, and the battlefield his memory. ..? He could hear the shouts of those who were hunting him down, :racPsee the lights which they carried flitting hither and thither, as if they were floating and dancing in and upon the darkness. . Should he trust to the.- mercy of chance, • and let himself be taken ? No. He was a strong swimmer, and the current might be merciful. Taking off his coat and watertight boots, he quietl3P>>on«« feet in the water. , -., - K ~,.-,. „-. , Just then a mass 5 'oflgravel, andjstones, loosened and detached from the'"bank above by the hurrying feet of someone, slid past him and shot into the river. He did not try* to console himself by cursing his ill luck, for >he knew too well that he had been the victim not of Providence, not of fate, but of himself.He hesitated and still hesitated. Perhaps he felt himself on the bank of a greater and darker river, whose current was ■ to bear him, as it had borne.'the woman whom he had loved so passionately, but "so selfishly, on and on into a shoreless ocean overhung by everlasting mists. When a few of the searchers at length reached the place where he had sat they saw no one but a Chinaman standing beside his tent, which was almost hidden from sight in a worked-out sluicing claim. "Ma Hoy, man, run, run—you savee," said one of them, running himself a few yards with a most frightened look on his face, in order to enlighten the Celestial as to his meaning.- \ "Me unstati; him fool; him lun lite in. Him fool." "Did he come out, Johnny," said another, who thought it might be a "dodge." "Him no, come back tell answer," replied Ma Hoy impatiently as he entered his tent. Nor did he ever, oome back to tell answer, for just then, about half a mile down in the eddy formed just'.;' beside Nick Trevathen's tailings, an object,' * which you or I would have probably taken for a log of wood, was being carried around and around by the current, and which was, weeks afterwards, found by Kent on a beach between the Junction and Dunstan, and was buried in the little graveyard on the Flat. Here on a slab of wood, which he placed at the head of the grave, the old man painted, partly in capital and partly in small letters " Hendrick." Vaguely recalling the inscriptions he had seen on tomb- ■ stones, he would have written " In memory of " ; but he could not rely on his spelling of the long word. Had they not once laughed at him at the store when he wrote "Mr Kent" Mr Cent. He wished no laugh ' to pass over that • grave. But there were these strange letters I.H.S. which had always seemed to : him to sum up all the mystery and awe of the epitaph. These he wrote, but they appeared thus :

HIS HBnDr i C k. True, the dead man had been his Hendrick. In Hendrick's, tent under the post of his bunk, was found a rough draft of a fall explanation of the way Mrs Raynor. was killed. This explanation, it would seem from a sentence or two in, it, Hendrick, himself first leaving the Colony, had intended to send to the Judge should circumstances tell : too strongly against Mr Raynor. A few nights after Hendrick's , flight, Tommy' Sticks was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse, through the little bar . window, of the following scene : "Dora, : ' the Hatter was saying, "he seems to have forgotten his troubles," The, "he" referred to Mr Raynor, who . , was standing beside the. mantelpiece, on which he had playfully stood little Ethel,; who had expressed a wish to admire herself in a small pocket mirror hanging, over the fireplace. " Yes, John; do you know he thinks I , am Alice come back to him." ~ While she was. speaking the door, unex-, pectedly opened,' and in filed a half-dozen or more representatives of. the Junction, . hereof the Doctor, who,, to tell the truth, ; was sheepishly ashamed of .his equivocal position, was spokesman.' With serious and . solemn mieja £hey formed a semicircle around the surprised. Hatter and Dora. I was fprgetting, however.. On the face of 'one there was a Bmile of innoeent and bland .. expectation. This representative was Ah Wee. '. Ethel, espying, the smiling face of the latter, and having:previously experienced his generosity, at' once associating his appearance with ifae promise of Chinese nuts, Chinese ginger, and other Chinese . delicacies, exclaimed eagerly and inquiringly , "Ah Wee! J^utsr^djikins*—me (point- - ing to herself in order to emphasise the "me"). .'■,-.' , .:, Ah Wee, forgetful of the dignity of a representative, would there and then have, supplied "her wants jbnt, receiving a reproving glance from Tack Pickup, who was groaning at his levity, exclaimed "All lite, Etel, byjri-by." "Ladies and gentlemen," the Doctor nervously said, "I have been asked by . these representative citizens to present to , you this testimonial, which will explain itself." Then, gaining courage, he launched out in praise, of the Junction, the Hatter, his friends, and the representatives, who , smiled approvingly. Then he concluded thus: "We had, however, one difficulty. It was this: As we know you as the Mad Hatter only, we were forced to leave a blank for your name and that of your lady. Then he bowed, and the whole company (previously drilled) bowed in unison. I am again forgetting, however. Ah Wee remained erect. The Hatter thanked them in a few words. Then the deputation, solemnly shaking hands with each of the occupants, and placing something on the mantelpiece at the feet of the child, filed out into the bar.

It was a heterogeneous offering, that at the shrine of little Ethel; two nuggets unintentionally accompanied with, a couple of dice, a gold ring, a Chinese wrapped up in a pound note, a miniature Bible with the ace of hearts as a book-marker, and a little pile of money. The following was the testimonial : " We, the representative citizens of the Junction, have taken this opportunity of expressing our sympathy with Mr Raynor, Mr , and Mrs - in their trouble, etc." .

Dora looked'up at her companion and laughed nervously as she read Mrs -r—. He, however, not looking at her, took a pen and filled in Mr John Becsely. He then suddenly looked up. In his eyes she saw a light she instinc-, tively expected and longed for. Silently he took the pen,again and wrote in Mrs John Beesely. " John!" and her hand rested tremblingly on his arm.

•' Dora, you knew 1 Joved you." No answer came from her ftps, but it came from, her actions. She crept closer to him till both their faces nestled together and both their lips met. Not many days afterwards the same bells that rang in the New Year in their native English village rang in also their wedding morn at the Junction. / ,

* Her pronunoMjion of tt» nama of a Ohimn nut.