DR IZARD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10595, 2 March 1895, Page 2

DR IZARD.

[EX ANITA CATJIEEIITH GREEN, Author of “ The Leavenworth Case,” “ Behind Closed Doors,” “The Forsaken Inn,” “ The- Defence of the Bride ” (poem).J (All Rights Reserved,) Chapter X. Polly uttered a sharp cry and stared at the intruder blankly. He was tall and military looking and had a smooth, well-shaven face. But his clothes were in rags, and his features worn by illness and coarsened by dissipation, were of a type to cause a young girl like her to recoil. “Who is this man?” she cried at last, “and what is ho doing hero ?” “It is the new hermit! The man who has taken up with Hadley's old quarters,” explained one of the neighbour's from the group about Polly. “ I saw him yesterday in the grave-yard.” “ Yes, and there is his dog, Piper. Ho follows every old tramp who comes into town. Don’t you remember how he tagged at the heels of that old beggar with the long beard, who went through hero a month jigo? ” .“This fellow looks as if he were strong enough to work,” whispered one of the women. “ I shan’t give any of my stale victuals to a man with an arm strong enough to fell an ox,” murmured another. Here Clarke,, who had only waited for an opportunity to speak, now advanced to the min standing in the door-way. As he did so ho noticed that the wayfarer’s attention was not fixed upon the persons before him, but upon the walls and; passages of the house they were in. “ Have you come here begging ?” he inquired, “If so you have made a mistake; this is a disused house which we have been opening for the first time in years.” “ I know its every room and its every corner,” answered the haggard-looking tramp, imperturbably. “ I could tell you what lies under the stairs in the cellar; and could point out to you the books which have been stacked away in the garret. That is, if no other hand has disturbed them since I placed them there fifteen years ago.” A cry of astonishment, of despair almost, answered these words.. It came from the blanching lips of Polly. Clarke trembled as he heard it but otherwise gave no sign of concern. On the contrary he eyed the intruder authoritatively. “Tell me your name?” he demanded, “Are you—” “ I will not say who I am, not here, with this sunlight streaming on my back and no friendly eye to recognise my features. I will only speak from under the portrait of Ephraim Earle, I want a witness to the truth of my statements and in that canvas I look for it.” And neither heeding Clarke’s detaining hand, nor the almost frantic appeal which spoke in the eyes of the young girl whose question he had at last answered, he stalked into the parlour and passed directly beneath the portrait he had named. “ Cannot you see, who I am ? ” he asked, rearing his tall head beside the keen-faced visage that looked down from the wall. “The same man grown older,” exclaimed one. “ Ephraim Earle himself,” echoed another. “ Come back from the dead! ”

“ The moment the house was opened! ” “ Are you Ephraim Earle P” demanded Clarks, trembling for Polly, in whose breast a real and unmistakable terror was rapidly taking the place of an imaginary one. “ Since I must say so, yes! ” was the firm reply. “ Where is my daughter ? She should be on hand here to greet me.” “ I have no words of welcome, I never thought of my father being like this. Take me away, Clarke, take me away! ” So spoke the terrified little one, clinging to one of her best known neighbours for support. “I will take you away,” Clarke assured her.' “ There is no good of your greeting this man till he has proven his claim on you. A girl’s heart cannot be expected to crhbrace such a fact in a moment.”

“ O, it’s Ephraim Earle fast enough,” insisted one old woman. “I remember him well. Don’t you remember me, old neighbour?”

“Don’t I? ” - was the half-hearty, half-jeering answer. ' “And I wish I had a pair of your green and white worsted socks now.”

“ It’s he, it’s he! ” vociferated the delighted woman. “ When he was a young man I sold him many a pair of my knitting. To be sure I use blue no w_ instead of green, but they were all green in; his day, bless him! bless liim! ” As this prayer was not repeated by her companions in the room, upon whom his reckless, if not sinister, appearance had made anything but a happy impression, he came slowly from under the picture and stood’ for a moment before the dazed and shrinking Polly,' , “You are not glad to see ine,” he remarked, “and perhaps I do not wonder. I have lived a hard life since I left you a crying child in your mother’s room upstairs; hut I am your father for all that, and you owe me respect if not obedience, look up, Maida, and let me see into what kind of woman you have grown.” At this name, which had been a pet one with her parents and with them alone, the neighbours ■stared and Polly shrank, feeling the iron of certainty pierce deep into her soul. She met his eyes, however, with courage, and answered his demand by a very natural reproach. “ If you are my father, and, alas ! I see no reason to doubt it, I should think you would feel some shame in alluding to a growth which you have done nothing to advance.” “ I know,” he admitted, “ that you have something with which to reproach me. But the secret of those days is not for ears like yours. I loft you, but—never ask me why, Maida. And now, go out into the sun. I should, not like to have my first act to you a cruel one.” ■ Dazed, almost fainting, doubting whether she was the victim of some horrible nightmare or

merely plunged info a strait so cruel (hat any she had hitherto anticipated sank into insignifi. cance before it, she let hers ell'be led away to where the sun shone down on the lilacs of the overgrown garden. But no sooner did she realise that the man of her dread had been left in the house with her neighbours, than she urged Clarke to return at once to where he was. “Let him bo watched,” she cried; “follow him ns he goes about the house. It is his;,! feel that it is his, but do not lot us succumb to Ms demands without a struggle. He has such a wicked face, and bis tones are so harsh and unfatheriy.”

Clarke, who had come to a similar conclusion though by other means than herself, hastened to obey her. He found the self-styled Earle in the midst of the group of. neighbours, chattering freely and answering questions with more or less free and easy banter. Though privation spoke in every outline of his face and form, and poverty in every rag of his dress, ho betrayed those evidences of refinement which naturally belong to a gentleman, and no one, not even Clarke him-, seif, doubted that if he were put to the tost he would show himself to he at least the wreck of the once brilliant scholar and man of resource. He was drawing the whole crowd after him through the house and was hazarding guesses right and left to prove the excellence of his memory.

“Let us see,” he cried, as they one and all paused at the top of the staircase, before entering the rooms on the upper floor. “ I used to keep niy hooks here—such ones as I had not discarded and stacked away in the top-most storey. And I used to pride myself on knowing where every volume was kept. Consult the shelves for me now, and see if on the third one from the bottom and nearer to tbc loft than to - the right there is not a volume of Bacon’s Essays. There is ? Good ! I knew it would ho there if someone had not moved it. And the ten volumes of Shakespeare are they not on the lower shelf somewhere near the middle ? . I thought so. A capital old edition it is, too; printed by T Bensley for Wynne and Scholoy, Paternoster Eow. And Gibbon’s Else and Fall, with a volume of Euripides for a companion ? Yes ? And on the topmost shelf of all, far out of the reach of any hand but mine, a choice edition of Hawthorne —my favourite author and sometime friend. Do you see them all ? lam glad of that; I loved my books . and often when very far away from them, used to recall the hour when I had them under my eye and within reach of my hand.”

“ I wonder' if he used to recall the child he left) tossed helpless upon the mercies of the town ? ” murmured one of the neighbours. “ Is my desk here and has it ever been touched ?” ho now asked, proceeding hastily into the workroom. “Ah, it all looks very natural,” he remarked; “very natural! I can' -scarcely believe that I have been gone more than a day. O! there’s the model of the torpedo I was planning! Let me see,” and he lifted up the halfcompleted model, with what Clarke could not hut call a very natural emotion', looking over it part by part and finally putting it down with a sigh. “ Good for those days ! ” he commented; “but would not answer now. Too complicated by far; explosives should be more simple in their construction.”

And so on for half an hour; then he descended and walked away of his own accord to the front door.

“ I have seen it all,” he blandly observed, “ and that is all I expected. If my daughter sees fit to acknowledge me she will seek me in the wild spot in which I have made for myself a home. Here I shall not come again. I have not returned to the place of my birth to be a bugbear to my only child.”

“But”—cried someone’in protest, “you are poor and you are hungry.” “ I am what fate and my own folly have made me,” he declared. “ I ask for no sympathy, nor do I feel disposed to urge my natural rights.” “If you are Polly Earle’s father, you will be fed and you will be clothed,” put in Clarke, hotly. “ There is a meal for you now at the tavern, if you will go there and take it.” But the proud man, pointing to his dog, drew himself up and turned scornfully away. “He can procure me as much as that,” said he. “ when my daughter has affection and a cMld’s consideration to show me, then let her come to Hadley’s cave. Food! Clothing ! I have had an apology for both for fourteen years, but love never; and all I want just now is love," - Polly, who was not many steps off, heard these words, and moved by fear or disgust, dropped her hands which she had instinctively raised at his approach. He saw end smiled grimly; then with a how that belied his aspect and recalled the old days when a bow passed for something more than a perfunctory greeting, he moved sternly down the walk and out through the stiff old gate into the dusty high-road. A half-dozen or more of the most eager witnesses of this extraordinary scene followed him down the hill and into the town, anxious, no doubt, to set the town ablaze with news of Ephraim Earle’s return and of his identity with the newly-arrived hermit at Hadley’s cave. Chaptee XI. Dr Izard had of late presented a more cheerful appearance. His step was lighter and his face lets generally downcast. Ho even was seen to smile one morning at the antics of some children; an unprecedented thing in his history, one would think, from the astonishment it caused among the gossips. He had been called away several times during the month and the card with the word ‘ Absent on it, was very often to be seen hanging beside his door. People grew tired of this, though they knew it meant fame and money to the doctor, and the newly-fledged physician from Boston whose office was at the other end of the town, prospered in consequence. But Dr Izard only seemed relieved at this, and came and went as I have said, with a leas gloomy, if not positively brightened countenance. He had always kept for himself one solitary place of resort in the village; Without this refuge it had often seemed to him he would die. It was—strange to say, for the Izards had always been aristocratic the humble house of the village shoemaker, a simple, hut highly respected man, who with his aged wife, had been, from sheer worth of character, a decided factor in town for the last twenty-five years. The little house in which he lived and plied his useful trade, stood on the hill-side a few yards above the Fisher cottage, and it was in Ms frequents visits to this spot that Dr Izard had seen so much of Polly.

The window in which he usually sat overlooked the Fisher garden and as his visits had extended over years, he had had ample opportunity for observing her growing beauty, from the time she was a curly-beaded imp of four, to the day she faced the world, a gay-hearted damsel of eighteen. It had been a matter of some mystery in the past, why Dr Izard with his trained mind and elegant tastes, affected this humble home and sought with such assiduity the companionsMp of this worthy but by no means cultured couple. But this, together with other old wonders, had long lost its hold upon public attention, no one thinking of inquiring any longer into the cause of a habit that had become so fixed that it was regarded as part of the village’s Mfltory. One effect, however, remained. Ho one thought of entering the shoemaker’s shop while Dr Izard sat there. It would have been thought an intrusion by both guest and host. Mr and Mrs Fanning, who had themselves long ceased to wonder at Ms preference for their society, invariably stopped their work when he entered, and greeted him with the same words of welcome they had used fourteen years ago when he had unexpectedly taken a seat in the shop without having been summoned for professional purposes. After which necessary ceremony, they turned again to their several labours, and the doctor sat down in his especial seat which, I have said, was in one of the windows, and lapsed into the silence he invariably maintained for half his stay. The time chosen for his visit was usually nightfall, and whether it was that the

charms of Mature were unusually attractive to him at that hour, or whether something or somebody in the adjoining gardens secretly interested him, he invariably turned his eyes outward, with an expression that seared the heart of the old lady who watched him and caused many a glance of secret intelligence to pass between her and her equally concerned husband.

Not until it was quite dark and the lights had been lit in the shop would the doctor turn about, often with a sigh too unconscious to be repressed, and face again the humble couple. But when ho did so, it was to charm them with the most cordial and delightful conversation. There was even sparkle in it, but it was only for this aged pair of workers, whose wit was sufficient for appreciation, and whose heart responded to every effort made to interest them by their much revered visitor. After a quarter .of an hour of this hearty interchange of neighbourly comment, ho would leave the house to come again a few evenings later. But one evening there was a break in the usual order of things. The doctor was sitting, as ho had sat a hundred times before, in his chair by the window, and Mr Fanning was hammering away at his bench and Mrs Fanning reading I'he Watchman, when there came a sound of voices from the front, and the door burst open to the loud cry of—- “ Oh, Mrs Fanning, Mrs Fanning, such news! Fphraim Earle has come back. ‘Ephraim Earle whom we all thought dead ten years ago.” Mrs Panning, who, with all her virtues,, dearly loved a bit of gossip, and who knew, or thought she did, everything that was going on in town, ran without once looking round her to the door, and Mr Fanning, who could not but feel startled also by an event so unexpected and so long looked upon as impossible, started to follow her, when something made him look back at the doctor. The sight that met his eyes stunned him, and caused him to pause trembling where ho was. In all the years he had seen Dr Izard he had never seen him look as he did at that moment. Was it surprise that affected him, or was it fear, or some other incomprehensible emotion P The good old man could not tell; but he wished the doctor would speak. At last the doctor did, and the hollow tones he used made the aged shoemaker recoil. “ What is this P What are they talking about ? Then mentioned a name ? Whose name? Not Polly’s father’s?” "Yes,” faltered his startled companion. “ Ephraim Earlo: they say he has come back. Shall ! go and see.” The doctor nodded; it seemed as if he had no words at his command, and the shoemaker, glad to be released, hastened, hobbling, from the room. As his half-bent figure vanished, the doctor, as if released from a spell, looked about, shuddered, grasped the table nearest to him for support, and then burst into a laugh so strange, so discordant, and yet so thrilling with emotion, that had not a dozen men and women been all talking together in the hall, it would have been heard and commeuted on. As it was he was loft alone, and it was not till several minutes had elapsed that Mrs Fanning came rushing in, followed by her dazed and somewhat awe-struok husband.

“ Oh doctor, it is true! it is true! I have just seen him; he is standing at the corner by Fisher's. Polly is up'at the house—you know she was to open it to*day. They say she is more frightened than pleased, and who can wonder ? He looks like a weather-beaten tramp! ” “Ho, no,” shouted someone from the room beyond; “ like a gentleman who has been sick and who has had a lot of trouble, beside.” “ Como and see him,” called out a shrill voice, over Mrs Fanning’s shoulder. “ You used to know him, doctor. Come and see Ephraim Earle.”

The doctor, with a curl of his lip, looked up and met the excited eyes that were contemplating him, and slowly remarked: “Your wits have certainly all gone woolgathering 1 . I don’t believe that Ephraim Earle has returned. Some man has been playing a trick upon you.” “ Then it’s the ghost of .Ephraim Earle, if it’s not himself,” insisted the other, as the whole group, sinking their awe of the doctor in*the interest and exilement of the moment, came crowding into the shop. “And a very vigorous ghost too! He is bound to have his rights ; that you can see.” “ But he won’t annoy his daughter. Hid you hear what he said to the child up there by the lilac bushes?”

And then they all chattered, each striving to give his or her own views of the situation, till a sudden vigorous “ Hush ! ” brought them all to an abrupt standstill and set them staring at the doctor -with wide open eyes and mouths. “ You are all acting like children,” protested that gentleman, with his white face raised and his eyes burning fiercely upon them. “ I say that the man is an impostor! Why should Ephraim Earle come back? ”

“And why shouldn’t he?” asked another. “Answer us that,~Dr Izard. Why shouldn’t the man come back. Hasn’t he a daughter here ? ” “With money of her own? Just the same amount they say as he onceran off with? ” “ I tell you again to be quiet! ” * It was still the doctor who was talking. “If you are daft yourselves do not try to make other people so. Where is this fellow? I will soon show you he is not the man you mention.” “ I don’t know how you will do it,” objected one, as the group fell back before the doctor’s advancing figure. “ He’s as like him as one pea is like another, and he remembers all of us, and even chattered with Mother Jessup about her worsted socks.”

“ Fools!” came from beneath the doctor’s set lips, as he strode from the door and passed rapidly into the highway. “Here, you!” he cried, accosting the man who was the centre, of a group some rods away. “ Come up here! 1 want to speak to you,” The hermit, or shall we call him Ephraim Earle, like the rest, turned as the doctor’s voice rang down the road, and recognising the somewhat rough summons, stepped obligingly up the road. The neighbours who had flocked .into the street to watch the meeting, saw the doctor’s lip curl as the wretched figure advanced. This man, Ephraim Earle! Why had he called these credulous creatures fools ? They were simply madmen.. But in another moment his countenance changed. The miserable fellow had paused and was standing a few rods off, surveying the doctor with what could not be called other than a look of old comradeship. “I do not wonder, * sunne meg,’ that you are

loth to recognise me," he cried. "You have walked the straight and narrow path, since I left you, while I—” n He made no attempt to hide the depth to which he had fallen, but sought to pass it off with a smile.

At the emile, and at the cabalistic words which he had used, a word which recalled a past event known, ns he could swear, to no one else save Polly’s father and himself, the doctor reeled and surveyed the speaker with something like horror; then he stepped firmly up to him, and looking him squarely in the eyes, vociferated with stern emphasis:

“ I don’t know who you are nor what your name is, but you are not Ephraim Earle nor are you Polly’s father, I knew that man too well to he deceived by you.” tf Indeed! ” was the sarcastic return. “ Well, you are not the great physician they call you, or you would know what fourteen years at French gaming tables can do for a man. You don’t want to know me, Oswald Izard, my wife’s death was too sudden and too peculiar.” - It was a master-stroke, that last insinuation, whatever gave it its point and venom. The doctor, who had worked himself up to a white heat, flushed as if a blood vessel had burst in his brain, and drawing back, stepped slowly from before the other’s steady and openly triumphant gaze, as one would retreat before the eye of a basilisk. Xot until he reached the outskirts of the crowd, did be recover himself, and then he stayed only to cry, with a wild sweep of his arm: “ He looks like a tramp, and he talks like a villain. Be careful what credit you give him. And above all, look after Folly JEarle ! ” Chapteb XII. It was now nearing eight o’clock; and as Hr Izard strode on through the village streets, seeing no one, and hearing no one, though more than one person respectfully accosted him, the twilight deepened so rapidly that it was quite dark when he passed the church and turned up the highroad to his own house. It was dark and it was chilly, else why should so strong a man as ho shiver?—so dark that the monuments over the wall wefo hardly to be dis'cerned, and be had to fumble for the gate he usually, found without trouble. Yet when his hand finally fell upon it, and ho mechanically lifted the latch, he did not pass through at once, butlingered, almost with a coward’s hesitation, finding difficulty, as it seemed, In traversing the dismal path before him to the no less dismal door beyond, and the solitude that there awaited him. But he passed the gate at last, and groped his way along the path towards his home, though with lingering footsteps and frequent pauses. Dread was in his every movement, and when he stopped it was to clutch the wall at his side with one hand, and to push the out before him as though to ward off some threatened danger, or avert soma expected advance. In this attitude he would become, as it were, frozen, and several minutes would elapse . before he stumbled on again. Finally, he reached his door, and unlocking it with difficulty, threw himself into the house shuddering and uttering an involuntary cry as a limb of the vine clutched him. Ashamed of his weakness, for he presently saw what had caught him hy the arm, he drew a deep breath and tried to shut the door. But it would not close; Some obstruction—a trivial one no doubt—had interposed to stop it, and he being in an excited state tore at it with loots of horror, till his strength conquered and he both shut and locked the door. He was trembling all over when he had accomplished this, and groping for a chair, he sat down in it, panting. But no sooner had he taken his seat than the dim panes of the window struck his sight, and bounding to his feet, he drew down the shade, as if he would shut out the whole world from his view, and the burying-yard first of all. Quite isolated now and in utter darkness, he stood for a few minutes drawing deep breaths and cursing his own fears and pusillanimity. Then he struck a light, and breathing easier, as the familiar interior broke • upon his sight, he sat down at his desk and tried to think. But though he was a man of great intellectual powers, be seemed to find it difficult to fix his thoughtabr even to remain quiet. From moment to moment he would start and peer over his shoulder—always in the direction of the graveyard, as if he feared to hear some sound there or dreaded the approach of he hardly knew what.. Suddenly he leaped up, went to a mirror and surveyed himself. But the sight only frightened him, and he came back to the desk, took up a book and sought to read. Bat the attempt was futile. With a low cry he flung the book aside, and, rising, to his feet, began to talk, uttering low and fearful words from which he seemed himself to recoil without possessing the power of stopping them. The name of Ephraim Earle mingled often with these words, and always with that new short laugh of his so horrible to hear. And once he spoke another name, but it was said so softly that only from the tears which gushed impetuously from his eyes, could it he seen that it stirred the deepest chords of his nature.

The clock, which lagged sorely that night, struck eleven at last; and the sound seemed to rouse him, for he glanced towards his bed. But it was only to cry, “ Impossible! ” and to cast a hunted look about the room which seemed like a prison to him.

Suddenly he flew towards the green door, and began to pull at itsclasps and fastenings. Eeckless of the result of these efforts, he shook a small heathen god from its pedestal, so that it fell rattling to the floor and lay in minute pieces at his feet. But he did not heed. Eecklessly he pressed open the door, recklessly he passed into the space beyond, but once out of the room, once in another atmosphere than that peopled by his imagination, he seemed to grow calmer, and after a short survey of the narrow hall in which ho found himself, and a glance up the tiny spiral staircase rising at his right, he stepped back into the office and took up the lamp. Carrying it with .him up the narrow 'staircase, he set it down in the hall above; and without looking to the right or left, almost without noting the desolation of these midnight halls, he began pacing the floor back and forth, with a restless, uneven tread far removed from his usual slow and dignified gait. At early morning he was still pacing there. Chiptee XIII. “Oh, Clarke, wait! there is the doctor now.’ It was Polly who was speaking. She had come as far as the church in her search after Dr Izard and had just seen him issuing from his own gate, “ He has a bag in his hand; he is going oaone of his journeys.” “No, no,” she protested, “I cannot havedt?” And bounding forward, she intercepted the doctor, fust as ho was about to step into his buggy. “ Oh, doctor, you are not going awav; you are noticing to' leave me with this dreadful.trouble; don’t, don’t Ipray.” , Tho doctor, who in his abstraction. had not noticed her approach, started at the sound.ot her voice, and turning, showed her a very haggard face. “Why/’-ahe cried, stepping baekj “you ere ill yourself.” “No,” he answered shortly, drawing himself up with his old reserved manner, “I had but little sleep last night, but I am not ill. What do you want, Polly ?” “ Oh, don’t you know what I want ? You of all the town have said he was an impostor ! To you then, I come as my only hope; speak, speak, is he not my father P” The doctor, with a side glance at Clarke who had remained in the background, drew the.girl’s hand within his arm and led her a few steps away. But it seemed an involuntary on his part, for he presently brought her back within easy earshot of her lover. “He does not look to me like Ephraim Earle,” he was saying. “He has not his eyes, nor does his voice sound familiar. I do not see why any one acknowledges him.” “But they can’t help-it. He knows everybody and everything that%asiin the house., I—l. thought you had some goodreason, Brlaard, something that would make it easydbrmre to<leny his claims.” “ You ” —the doctor’s ‘sleepless night-seemedto-have had a strange effect upon him, for he stammered in speaking, he who always'was so cold and precise—youthought—” he began; but:

presently broke into that new, strange Jtojgh of his, and, urging Polly towards her lover, he addressed his questions to the latter. “ Does this man,” he asked, “make a serious claim upon the Earle name and its rights? ” Clarke, who was always sensible when in Dr Izard’s presence of something intangible but: positive, that acted like a barrier bstween them', and yet who strangely liked the doctor and revered him, summoned up his courage, and responded with the respect he really felt. “Yes,” he said, hut with a certain reserve “ that is our best reason, perhaps, for believing him.' He promises not to molest Polly, nor to mate any demands upon her until she herself recognises her duty.” The frown which darkened the doctor’s face deepened. “ He is a deep one, then,” said he, and stood for a moment silent, ■

“Ifho is an imposter, yes,” assented Clarke “ hut Lawyer Crouse who talked with him half-an* hour last night, accepted him at once ; and so did Mr Sutherland.” ;

.'Mr Sutherland was the baptistminister, asi* very-much-thought-of man in this qidet place? ; ' ■}■

“The fools! ” muttered the doctor as, much in anger as amazement; “has the whole town reached its dotage?” Clarke who seemed surprised at the doctor’s vehemence, remarked quietly: - . ; '

“ You were Mr Earle’s best friend. If you say that this man is not he there would, of course, be many to listen'to you.”

But the doctor, resuming his accustomed expression of reticence, refused an answer to this suggestion, at which Polly’s face grew very white, and she grasped his arm imploringly, saying as she did so; 1

I cannot bear this uncertainly; I cannot bear to think there is any question about this matter. If he is my father I. owe him everything; if ho is not——” " - ,

Polly?” the doctor spoke coldly, but not unkindly. “ Marry Clarke ; go with him to Cleveland, where he has the promise of-a fine position, and leave this arrant pretender to settle his rights himself. He will not urgo them long when he finds the money gone for which he is striving.” “ You bid me to do that? “Then you know he is not my father.” But the doctor, instead .of answering with tha vigorous yes, she had expected, looked aside, and murmured carelessly: . “I have said-that X saw no likeness in him to the man I once knew. Of course my judgment was hurried ; our interview was short and I was lanouring under the shock of his appearance. But if everybody else in town recognises him as Ephraim Earle, I must needs think my opinion was warped by my surprise and the indignation I felt at what I considered a gross - piece of presumption.” “Then you do not know,” quoth poor Polly her head falling lower and lower on her breast. - “No,” cried the doctor, tuming.shortly at the word, and advancing, "once more towards' the buggy. ■ But at this move she-sprang and sought again to-detainhim. . “But you will not.go and leave.me in-this dreadful uncertainty,” she pleaded.; “ You will stay and have another talk with this man and satisfy lyourself and ;me that he is indeed ‘my father.” , '^9 But the stern lino into which lip* settled, assured her' that in this regard heaaw not to be moved; and frightened, overawed at tha prospect before her, she turned to Clarke and cried 5 • “Take me home; take me hack to' youf mother; she is the only person who can' give me any comfort.” ' , The doctor, who 'was. slowly-proceeding to hil horse’s head, looked back. “Then you don’t like my advice? ’* ha smiled. She stared; remembered what he-had. Mid, and answered indignantly; “If this poor, wretched, wioked-eyed'-fluuaU my father, and! should never have doubted it if you had not declared before all tha townpeople-io the contrary, then-I would be a coward to desert him and seek my happiness in a place where ’he could not follow me.” . . “ Even if ho is wicked as his looks say ? ” “ Yes, yes, even if he is wicked. Who can stysay what caused that wickedness ? ” . The doctor, fumbling with the halter, stopped and seemed to muse. “ Did you ever see your father’s picture-hang* ing up in the old cottage ? ” “ Yes, I saw it yesterday,” . “Did that have a wicked look?” “I do not think it had a good look.’ 1 ' This was said very low, but it made the doctor start. “ So!” he exclaimed. “It made me feel a little unpleasant, as if 'something X could neither understand, nor sympathise with, met me in my father’s smile. It made him more remote and prepared me, perhaps, for the heartless figure of the man who in the next few minutes claimed me as his daughter. “ Strange ! ” came from tho*doctor’« lips; and hiafaco which had been hard- to read fremthe first, became more and more inscrutable. ‘‘ My mother, who is as wise as she is gentle, advises Polly to give up the cottage to her father; but not tolivein it with him, till fais character is better understood; and his intentions made manifest.” 1 “Then your mother,” began.the doctor,-‘sees this mania the same light as others do?’ “Shethinks him to be Ephraim Earle,certainly. It is not natural for herto think. otherwise underthe circumstances.” . “I do indeed stand alone;” quoth : the. doctor. “When I told her what you had 1 -*aid,- she looked amazed, but she said nothing to show She had changed her opinion. Ido not; think anyone was really affected by your words.” Something in the tone in which-this s wan said showed where Clarke himself stood. A .bitter smile crossed the doctor’s lip, and heseemedmort than ever anxious to begone. “I,shall be away,” ho said,.“eeverahidays.. When I come back I shall hope to 1 see thJKthdnf settled.” : "''f'xf “I hate Kim,” burst from PolJy’rlip*.“ i-ain,, terrified at the thoughts of him, batdttnfy&BW consciousness 1 know him to he myifilitiejj *mdX shall try and do my duty by’%an,isiaD» JPtidt* Clarke?” Clarke, who had feltJiimselfalmoafcuaneoessary in this scene, grasped at the opportunity:?wtedj this appeal gave him, and took hen'ionflWljW’od his arm.' “We will try and do our- duty^.f^ictcorwcted, “ praying Providence to help us.” , And the doctor, looking at the two?4pNߣ'infft his baggy and was driving off, when, M«se«ad flung back at them this final worAofSpatofMfi : advice: “Ho is the possession. Det him prove ■himielf’to -be thei4a he says.” Clarke, dropping Polly’s arm, sprang-aftewthe doctor. “ Wait one moment! ”he cried. i “WhatdO you call proof? You wfceknew iriinkffwellin the past, tell us how to make sure-that his plb* tensions are not false!” v. The doctor, drawing up. hi# horse, paused for P. moment in-deep thought. « Ask him,” he whispered-, at. last*/ 4 where Hie medal is which was presented to him - by' the French-Government. It waa of bronze, and useless to raise money upon. If, then, .ho is Ephraim Earle, he will be able to produce it. Till he does, lad-vise you to cherish doubts j.ancUaboveallito keep that innocent and enthusiastic fyoungigirl out of his clutches.” And with a smile it woulck,take,.nior».'.th*n Clarke’s young experience * witliittheworld to*to« dcrstand,muchless to«xplain,th&doctorwhipp«d Up his horse and diaappeareebdown-thu road tot ■ ward the station. (To be continued.)