THE SKETCHER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 4748, 3 February 1877, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SKETCHER.

THE WHITE BEGUM; OK, LORD TREGARON'S DAUGHTER, BY MRS. HARRIET LEWIS. • CHAPTER XLV. TEMPER DISPLAYING ITSELP. • conary > bes;ctteasau3Bohemiuj;-4-atK6Tongh.]y unprincipled man under tho gloss and/Veneer oia.fcii uxterior. Ho; Was wont to call himfe?i " a man of the worlcl," and" deemed lu3 ' 'uaacrujulousnoss'a sign 'aird token : o£ cleverjoeas and, adaotability-rbiattiiyen he. i SuoeUed'arid startled by" tlisfc fell bo glibly from the lii^'-|o{^bis/'.fairl.;soft-faced yciing crc&turo-, H«h'tfercsre«eingyoic-j ■.; attri prfpr.iag and look'of. i-hilili.su ir.isor * uance, ,' : ' i ■ . ~He ttartsij from Ivm , .is if .■?*.• .-.■ ''■■-.■■i anctfUuly disclosed the htaci C'i «. Ju...i:i;;.- V tJ . his hanitied vision.. ... .. ....... . ■-,-• -;:-i :

There silence between them, broken only by the ticking of the dainty clock on the mantelpiece. The soft shadows clustered thicker in the corners; the red glow of the fire illumined the centre of the room with a brighter radiance; the ceaseless drizzle of the September rain came with a little gust of wind against the plateglass windows. The girl stood, with head bent forward, her face half illumined, half in shadow, with a wicked look on her soft features, a wicked look in her light blue eyes, •which were now as cold and hard as marble in their gaze.

" Well, what do you say ?" she asked, impatiently, in a shrill whisper. Bathurst recovered himself with an effort.

"I think I must have misunderstood you," he replied. "I could not have heard aright. I fancied you spoke of Lord Tregaron's death as if you longed for it." " Well; you fancied correctly," said Maya, after another long, piercing glance around her and in the direction of the door. "Since I am your wifo I can speak freely to you. Ido not like the coustraint of my new life, while 1 am in love with its pleasures and grandeurs. I'd like to be my own mistress. I'd like to handle my own fortune. Now if he, papa, were dead—"

'' You think that his death would make you mistress of Belle Isle ?"

"No, Ido not. Belle Isle, with the adjoining manor and estate, belong to the heir to the title—a downright shame, too," said Maya; "but I shall have an immense fortune in my own right. I asked papa about it yesterday !" "You did?" '' Yes. And he says that the great tin mine he owns in Cornwall— a Wheal something or other—and other mines he owns in Wales, and bank stocks, and shares, aud three-per-cents, and so on, will all be my very own. And the estate of Ladymead is to be mine also. It's a grand old mansion, you know, with a park and pleasure-grounds. I shall be a great heires3, one of the richest ladies in the county."

Wolsey Bathurst's eyes sparkled greedily. " But how can I enter into possession of all these things while papa lives ?" sighed the girl. " 1 want to be absolutely my own niistreaa. I want to lire like an Eastern sultana. I want to reign as queen over a household of slaves ! I want, moat of all," she added, in alow voice, "to make sure of my splendid inheritance—to possess it! If he were dead, no one could ever take it from me !"

Bathurst looked at her wonderingly. " No one can ever take it from you in any case," he declared. " Why should you have such a silly fancy ?"

A strange look came over the girl's eyes. She did not immediately answer. It was plain to Bathurst that some secret apprehension was at the root of her desire for the death of Lord Tregaron—but what that apprehension wa3 he could not guess. "I am not patient," said Maya, presently. "Ifl am ever to have a thing, 1 want it always upon the instant. And so, as lam to have Ladymead, and all these stocks, and mines, and so forth, I want them now.'"

There fas aaofclier brief silence, during whicß the two studied each the face o£ the other with a keen gaze. "Well?" said the girl at last, impatiently.

" You are a strange woman, Maya !" "Ami? And you are a strange man. I am frank. I say what I think. I was brought up differently from you, but I fancy we are somewhat alike, after all !"

"You arc my wife, Maya," said Wolsey Bathnrst; thoughtfully. " Let us confess to the earl our marriage. He might then uive you your fortune as your weddiug-portion, and we /would settle at Ladyinead, and you would be your own mistress—"

" And he would despise you for marrying me clandestinely, and taking the advantage of my inexperience and lack of knowledge of the world," interposed the girl, hotly; " and if he gave us Ladymead he would be here alone, and his ear would be open to the whisperings of any enemy of mine, and he would be quick to believe evil of me. I won't acknowledge our marriage while he lives ! And I won't leave him so long as he lives ! If you want me for your wife, if you want my fortune, for which you've schemed enough, I'm sure, you will have to wait until papa dies !"

She gave him a sidelong glance that added emphasis to her words. He comprehended that a hideous meaning underlay her declaration, that she actually desired Lord Tregaron's death, and he shuddered. " Give me time !" he said briefly. Maya's face brightened: her manner warmed towards him. "We will talk of this again," she said softly. "I hear a step in the hall—it is papa's. And here he comes !" The door opened and Lord Tregaron, in evening dress, entered. He halted just within the door, and hie gaze penetrated the shadows beyond the circle of light made by the fire and detected the forms near the window.

"All in the dark ?" he said. " Katharine, my darling, are you there ?" Maya came flying towards him, the seeming incarnation of daughterly affection. "I'm so glad you've come, papa," she cried, embracing him. "It is fearfully dull ■without you. Wolsey has been telling me about English life and all that sort of thing, but even Wbleey, kind as he is, is not half so pleasant company to me as you are I"

The earl drew Maya to his side, but her statement, apparently made in childish frankness, somewhat surprised him. He had noticed that Maya had studiously avoided Wolsey Bathurat since their arrival at Belle Isle, and he had thought that Maya disliked the young man. He felt an instinctive distrust of his cousin's son, and had longed forhis departure from the castle, under the impression that hie presence was displeasing to the girL To hear Maya avow her liking for him, therefore, in a frank and sisterly way, was unexpected and bewildering. " Yon think Wolsey pleasant company also, then ?" he asked.

" "Very pleasant. I can never forget that it is to him and to Mr. Elliot that I owe my restoration to you !" cried the girl, with apparenf'fervor. "I shall always like Cousin Wolsey, and I am glad you have made him stay here so long. You must keep him here for the present. And if we had Armand Elliot here and Sinda, I should be the happiest girl in all England." 1F The earl sighed. "Elliot will remain near Miss Sinda for the present," he said. "He cannot give her up entirely to her relations, if such indeed they are!"

■""■IE,--paps' Whv, the relation-!.:-, —-„ proved." .'"'

"There do:* not isosai to be rofim for douut, I know," iioid the carl. "Krdtlie proofs not been eo conclusive-I should r--.' have given her up to Mrs. Biygs. Bnt, in spite ot all the proofs I hurt I.pct. troubled with strange misgivings ever since Mias Sinda left us. " ShiTL} not like Mrs. Biggs. She is, indeed, aa unlike a hot-house flower is unlike a tnisrleT' ■'.-;..

'• Y«s, irira." asset, todMaya, "but the uwi: of resesuMacx- jj nothing Tso very •wvoudwfalj hit'! 5W J Kui" some of the prettiest liiilc beggars London,, and -^foiir. parents ranst have been coarse and ignorant, . you know. Sinda was brought up as a princess, and became a queen. Nothing was thought too good for her in Putpur. The old queen lavished the choicest productions of the country upon her, and Mr. Hudspeth fairly worshipped Sinda. She had the most delicious fruits and viands, the finest linens and silks, the costliest embroideries, and servants to wait upon her, and a gorgeous palanquin and bearers in uniform, andall this ease ftnd luxury would naturally,-I should

say, make a different looking person in the course of years from that hard-working, beerdrinking old washerwoman. Lord Tregaron smiled. " Your argnment has a foundation of strong common, sense,- Katharine," he said. "I did not know you -were so wise. But eating and ,'drinking, and ease and luxury, cannot account for Sinda's radical unlikeneas to Mrs. Biggs in character. Miss Sinda is refined, a true lady, gentle, pure and sweet—as different from Mrs. Biggs as light is different from darkness. And I sometimes feel as if there had been some frightful mistake—as if Miss Sinda were not the daughter of Mrs. Biggs, nor any relation to her. Your friend bears in her face and in her character the signs of a noble and honourable and outivated ancestry—" Maya started. " Your liking for Sinda warps your judgment, papa," she interrupted, hastily. " Sinda is a good girl, but Mrs. Biggs iff her mother, and Sinda ought to remain with her. A mother has sacred claims on her child, and I would not ask Sinda to leave Mrs. Biggs, who may have some good in her in spite of her beer-drinking. I dare say that Mrs. Biggs looked very well indeed when she was young. But how dark it grows ! Hear the rain beat upon the panes. Cousin Wolsey, ring for lights." . Bathurst obeyed. A servant appeared and lighted the tall wax candles in the candelabra overhead and on the mantelpiece and silently retired. " Get me a bouquet, Wolsey," said Maya, "just a white rosebud with a geranium-leaf or two, please." Bathurst proceeded obediently to the conservatory. The earl sat down in an easy-chair near the fire. He looked grave and troubled, as indeed he had almost continually of late. And it was that look on hia face that had alarmed Maya, and caused her to wish him dead. She knew that his heart had not found rest in her, that he was dissatisfied with her, and, more than all, that the overflowing affection he had bestowed upon her at first had ■waned, and that at times her very presonce was an annoyance to him. She drew up a hassock and sat down beside him, drooping her fair head, with its coiffure curls, to his knee, and looking up into his graud and noble face with apparently warm admiration. "I believe, papa, that I'm jealous of Sinda !" she cried, suddenly. " You seem to admire her so much more than me, and you are always asking mo questions about her, and doubting if she is Mrs. Biggs's daughter. I can't stand it ! It was always so. She was first with the old queen of Khalsar—first with Mr". Hudspeth—first with the ladies of the court —first with Arraand Elliot—and, for aught I know, she is first with you! I have always been obliged to give precedence to her. I hate her !" exclaimed the girl, in a quick, rising passion. "I do hate her !" • " Katharine !" cried the earl, in a shocked voice. " And I wish I had left her in Putpur !" continued Maya, reckless of consequences, now that her wrath and envy had at last broken bounds and found expression in words. "The Rajah Wansee wanted to : make her his wife. I wished I had refusec to let her come with us. She has stood in my way all iuy life, and even you like her best. I hate her ! I hate her !" "Hush ! Katharine, you knoiv not what you say !" exclaimed the earl. " Miss Sinda was your friend, your sister; she loved yon, she loves you still—" " I don't care," said Maya, sullenly. " I hate her !" "Hush !" said Lord Tregaron, sternly. " Have you no gratitude for the noble girl who shared all her joys ind advantages with you ? Instead of hating her, you should emulate her truthfulness and gentleness, her loveliness and goodness, Katharine, and you will win hearts as easily as she. I admire her lofty and elevated character, and I wish that yours resembled it. I hope that your faults are only those resulting from an undisciplined nature—that they are not radical defects. But you grieve me, } r ou shock me, by your strange utterances—" " I am only a child yet," said Maya, beginning to repent her indulgence in anger. "My faults are ihose of a child. But do not let Sinda come back. Let us stay by ourselves, papa, with Wolsey Bathurst, of course, as our guest, and I will be all you desire. Is it a bargain ?" She held up her face for a kiss. The earl grave and sorrowful, did not seem to see her motion, and did not respond to it. Her soft face clouded again. "I hope that your explanation is the true one, Katharine, and that you are only a child yet in character," he said. " Yet yon are twenty years of age—" "I'm so quick-tempered, papa !" " Yet, even in your infancy, I never saw you gave way to passion as you have but just done. Yon were quick-tempered, perhaps, but so generous, so sunny of disposition, so gentle, that you could not have borne to harm a fly !" " You ought to make some allowances for the way in which I was educated !" "And shall I make allowance for Miss Sinda also ?" "Sinda again! I will not hear it. What wonder that I hate her ?" " You are in a strange mood to-night, Katharine. As I see raore and more of your disposition, you seem utterly strange to me. I could even doubt at times that you are the child of my sainted Agnes. You are totally unlike the lovely child Topee stole from me. The Sepoy had his revenge. He preverted your nature, changed your disposition, made you—but enough of this. If you are but a child still, as you have said, it may not be too late to eradicate these faults—" " It is not too late, papa," said the girl, having regained her coolncs- , , yet annoyed at her recent loss of self-possession. "Remember that 1 have not had a mother's training !" " I feel strangely worn of late, unfit to train you, Katharine, and develop the good which I know is in you," said the earl. "But you shall not be neglected. There must be noble soil under this hideous growth of weeds. You have no mother. A go verness —" "I won't have a governess !" "Then I shall send you to a ladfes' finishing school. I have thought the matter over. There are excellent schools where but few pupils are taken. I will find one where the pupils are well-born, the teachers gentlewomen, the school a home. I will put you under the charge of these ladies, and among tho refined associations, and in the companionship of young ladies—" " I won't go !" Yet even as Maya flashed forth her defiance, sho encountered the calm, sorrowful, and steadfast gaze of the earl, and she knew that in a war of wills his must inevitably conquer. "My child," said his lordship, " every word you speak goes to confirm my resolve. I have decided to send you to a suitable school, and to morrow I shall engage in a search for one !" Maya was defiant, but she might as well have assailed a rock. Then she grew meek and pleading, and wept and coaxed, but Lord Tregaron was not to be cajoled out of what he believed to be his duty to her, and her entreaties were wasted. As the girl made up her mind that her folly had brought upon her a fate she deemed terrible, she grew sullen and thoughtful. Bathurst returned with her bouquet. She received it in silence. Dinner was announced. She refused to take the earl's arm, and walked at his side with a clouded visage. Throughout the dinner she sat silent, but it might have been observed that she devoted herself to the viands svith her uaual appetite. She was very fond of eating, and •iir.-.'-yring, and lounging, and dressing, and no or anger ever affected her <1; ;,i;ht in these things. •-■ tter dinner, she returned to thedrawing-ro-.Ci, but she remained sullen and con--1. ** i kc a J?°««h child. She retired eiu.y, and spent hours in planning strange aud wicked schemes which should S -fw.EeT thebonda e e the <** contemplated . "'.'lf he were only dead!" she thoucht when ahe finally laid her head pillow. "A school for me ! Restraint obedienue, tasks, study—bah, I'd rather die ! It won't do. I won't go. I let my foolish temper betray me into this scrape, but I'll get out of it. Wolsey must do something. I vow I'd rather own my marriage than go to school. Perhaps I can persuade him to give up the project. I'll play tho hypoerito tomorrow. I'll be as sweet and lovely as Sjnda—and, if all fails, perhaps—he'll— die '."

The next morning, in puiisuanco of this resolve, Maya came down in anamiable mood. After breakfast, she followed the earl to the

library, and professed her penitence for her behavior o£ the previous night, and implored pardon.- > The earl granted it, with a kiss upon the fair, upturned forehead. " : • " Then it's all right ? criedMaya. "lam not to go to school ?" "Yes, dear. I think it best," said his lordship, gravely. "I have written to Mr. Sharp, my London lawyer, to find a suitable school for you. A few months under the motherly care of some gentle lady will be of great benefit to you!" "But I can't bear restraint. I have been my own mistress all my life long. Papa, I cannot go !" The earl patted her head softly, but made no response. Evidently he did not intend to change his resolve. The post was brought in. Prom the letters and newspapers filling the bag, Lord Tregaron singled out a letter for Maya, and another for himself. The former was from Sinda, the latter from Armand Elliot. Sinda wrote cheerfully and uncomplainingly from her new homo at Haigh Lodge. Her letter was brief but sisterly. Maya read it through and flung it upon the table.

"I sha'n't answer it!" she said, coolly. " Our stations in life are different. I have nothing in common with a washerwoman a daughter. What does Elliot say, papa ?" " That he sees Miss Sinda often, that she is brave and true to her notions o! duty, but that some new trouble seems to have come upon her, and that he has not yet learned what it is. He is very anxious about her. He says she is thin and looks as if her heart were breaking. I think, after I shall have placed you in school, Katharine, I will run down to Haigh Lodge and see if I cannot make this young girl's lot more tolerable. If I could make terms with the mother, I would adopt her as my child, and so give to you a sister."

Maya turned away to hide a scowl. Her sky had suddenly become overcast. Her honey had turned to gall; her joys to bitterness. To leave this magnificent home, to give up her freedom, to undergo the restraints of school-life, to study her tasks like a child—this would have been utterly intolerable. But to have her hated rival brought in to share her inheritance—this was still worse !

The girl turned aud quitted the room in a deadly, silent rage. There was a murderous glitter iu her pale-blue eyes—a murderous smile on her lips—the spirit of murder in her heart ! "He shall see!" she muttered, as she went up to her rooms. "He shall see ! I'll not go to school—but he shall die I" CHAPTER XLVI. A CHANCE DISCOVERY. Thomas Bathurst waited nearly an hour at the Charges Hotel for the return of the cab iu which Mr 3. Elliot aud her servant had departed. Vehicles came up and went away, and his impatience became a perfect fever as the miuutcs wore on. He called the attention of the clerk to every arrival, and had begun to think that tho man was playing him fake and that ho had been bribed bv the fugitive lady to conceal her destination, when a sudden exclamation from the young mail sent new life bounding through his veins.

" That's the cab !" the clerk announced. " That four-wheeler ! It's drawing up at this moment."

The Calcutta merchant dashed down a sovereign upon tho desk aud hurried out upon the pavement. He hailed the cabman, who, believing that he had a faro, descended from his perch. Mr. Bathurst displayed a half-crown. "Seehere, cabby,".he said, confidentially, "I've been waitiug for you this hour. I'll give you this for answering me a question fair and square." " All right, guv'nor. Heave ahead !" " Tlie lady you just took away from this hotel is a dear friend of mine just from India. I came here to call upon her and found her goue. To what place did you take her ?"

" To the Euston Square Railway station," was the prompt reply. "Sho had a furrin servant, a sort of heathen, along of her, but no luggage except a hand-bag !" Bathurst studied the driver's face keenly. Makiug up his mind that the fellow had told the truth, he dropped the coin in his hand, and exclaimed :

"It's all right, then. Take me to Euston Square also."

He entered the cab, and performed the journey. At the station he renewed his inquiries at the booking-office aud interrogated also the station-master and porters. "^

He discovered that no lady with a servant, answering to the discriptions Tie gave, hail procured a ticket or departed on a train.

"The cabby has played me false, after all," lie muttered, " There's a chance that Agues has doubled on her own track. I'll see !"

Ifo went to the ladies' waiting-room. It was well-tenanted. By dint of inquiry, lie discovered that a Ilindoo servant had boon seen there an hour or two earlier in close attendance upon a lady who was fashionably attired and who wore a thick veil.

"It's lucky for me that her servant is a Hindoo," he thought. "Her nationality makes her a marked personage. I'll trace Agnes through her vary easily."

Further inquiries elicited the information that a veiled lady, with a veiled servant, had taken a cab at the station, that they had no luggage excepting a hand-bag, that the lady was handsomely dressed, and had a stately bearing, aud that the servant had a servile air.

" Agnes and old Rannelec again," he thought—" with the Hindoo veiled. They intend to remain in London. They c.imc to the station to throw mo off the track, aud have doubled on their course. Now to find the cab."

lie hurried forth and inspected tho rank aud file of waiting vehicles and made inquiries. Ho was soon further enlightened. A policeman had noticed tho depiirture of the lady and the maid in question, aud was able to give him valuable information. He stated that a four-wheeled cab had driven up with a family party, that the lady whom l'athurst had described had signalled it, and had departed in it with her servant. He had not heard any address given. Here was a check in the pursuit. Mrs. Elliot was iu London, but it was impossible to trace her. The cab in whicli sho had gone from the station could not bo found. It might belong to some suburb of London, or in the heart of the City. The trail was lost.

The Calcutta merchant quitted the station in no enviable frame of mind, and returned to his lodgings, where hia valet awaited him.

The two consulted together. " it is plain that she has hidden herself in lodgings," said the valet. " She feels safer in London, where tho appearance of her servant is not so likely to excite comment and attention."

" You are right. I had thought of that myself," said Mr. Bathurst. "She must have secured lodgings during the day, and proceeded ; directly to them from Euston .Square. To find lodging 3 she must hnve studied the morning newspapers. Get tho Times, Telegraph, and the rest of thom." The valet' went out upon his errand, presently returning with his hands full of newspapers. Bathurst cut out the lists of advertised lodgings. "Take these," ho said, giving the man two of the lists, " and go to the addresses given. You may say that you are looking for lodgings for your master, who is an invalid. And make good use of your eyes and ears, aud discover by questioning, if need be, if a lady with a Hindoo maid lodges in tho house. Be off with you. Take a cab. You can visit several addresses this evening."

The valet hurried away upon hia errand. The Calcutta merchant, with the remaining lists iu his possession, secured a hansom, and set forth on a similar errand.

He visited several lodging-house 3 that evening, and made cautious inquiries, and examined rooms, and had his trouble for his pains. He failed to find any clue to hor whom he sought. The next clay he prosecuted his search with vigour. He was busy from early morning until night, going to Camden Town aud Notting Hill, to Brompton and Bayawater, aiid. various streets about Kensington Gore, and still ho found no trace of Mrs. MHot.

. Curse the luck !" lie thought that night, in desperation. " Every day, every hour of freedom puts her farther out of my power. If she should examine an old army list—if she should look over the latest issue of IJebretts Peerage! Stranger things often happen ! If she did either, then, in spite of me, she'd learn that Nugent Elliot* is still alive, and that he is the possessor of the

great Earldom of Tregaron and the richest man in Cornwall. And she'd hurry to Belle Isle and find her husband and her child 1 Heavens ! What a frightful risk j I'm running !" ; He had not yet visited all the that were advertised in his lists, and devoted the next day to those that remained. The fugitive Mrs. Elliot was not found at any*of them. His valet's exertions had been equally fruitless. They were balked in their search, and knew not which way next to turn their pursuit. " I must find her !" thought Bathurst, in mingled fury and despair. " I have got a dbge prepared and in waiting for her. Then I'll capture the girl and bring her to her, after securing the girl's silence about her father, and then Agnes will be mine. She swore an oath to marry me if I would restore her child to her. I'd impose a strange girl, whom I could pick up in London streets and train to my purpose, upon her, but that Agnes says there is some mark on her child by which she could identify her ont of a million. Not knowing what the mark may have been, I cannot counterfeit it upon the person of another. I'll secure Agnes and then seize the girl and bring her to her mother. And then —"

His exultation in his prospective triumph yielded to his despair over his present defeat.

Day after day he explored the surburbs of the great overgrown metropolis, and visited the West End, and threaded lonely and secluded streets, and pretended to seek for lodgings, but he was still unsuccessful. Seized with an apprehension that the worst had befallen him, he journeyed to Cornwall and to the village of Tregaron. But Mrs. Elliot had not presented herself at Belle Isle. The goesips of the village discussed in the inn parlour the affairs of the inmates of the castle with friendly freedom, and Bathurst learned that Lord Tregaron and Lady Katharine Elliot, with Wolaey Bathurst, were at Belle Isle, but that there were no guest save the latter, and that no visitor had been at the castle of late.

"They've turned Miss Sinda adrift," he thought. " She's too beautiful for my Lady Katharine to tolerate. I saw that Katharine hated the. poor little Begum when we were all in Calcutta. And Elliot is gone after Miss SinJa, and Wolsey stays on, dancing attendance on my lady. Lucky dog ! He'll win his game !" The merchant was standing upon the porch of the Tregaron Arms as he thus commented, and his gaze was fixed upon the distant towers of Tregaron Castle rising from its stately park of ancient trees. The sound of wheels came to his ears. Hβ started back into the shelter of the doorway iustinctively, and a barouche came bowling along the pleasant country road, and passed so near to him that he could see the faces of its occupants and even hear their voices and words.

It was the Tregaron barouche. Upon the wide back-seat was Maya, in full carriage costume, with a dainty little hat decorated with a long andsweeping white ostrich plume, and with a blue silk dress and jacket elaborately embroidered. She held a blue silk embroidered parasol in her hand, and a short white veil was drawn closely over her face, ending at her mouth. Beside her was Lord Tregaron, and opposite her, with hia back to tho horses, was Wolsey Bathurst. Thomas Bathurst surveyed tho three in turu, but his gaze rested longest upon the earl, his cousiu, whom he had not seen before many years.

Lord Tregaron possessed a grandeur and stateliness that young Captain Elliot had lacked. He had a military air that sat well upon his commanding visage. He was gray and careworn. His noble features wore a look of sadness that puzzled tho watcher in the shadow.

" He has a title, vast wealth, honours, influence," thought the Calcutta merchant, "and has recovered his daughter. What more can he want? ft is plain to see he is unsatisfied. Is he still mourning for Agnes ? Or is ho disappointed in his child ? Something's wrong. What is it 1"

He watched the equipage out of sight, and re-entered tho inn and ordered a chaise to convey him back to Lostwithiel.

Hb journeyed to London that night, and arrived in town in the gray dawn of a pleasant morning.

He procured a cab and proceeded to his lodgings. Ho had seen that Agnes Elliot had not yet gone down to Belle Isle, and that her husband's continued existence was still unknown to her.

" It's like hunting for a needlo iu a haystack, this looking iu London fora woman," he thought. "If it were not for the marked appearance of her servant I should have no hope whatever. Bnt I can't think that, after holding Agnes as my prisoner for thirteen years, I am to lose her uow. Her destiny and mine are too closely interwoven for mo to lose her !"

His words were prophetic. What effort had failed to do, accident was to accomplish. Upon the very evening after his return from Belle Isle, he was sauutering aloug Ox-ford-street, musing upon tho great question that absorbed all his thoughts, when fate threw the cleu in his,.hands for which he had so vainly sought. The night was dark—a thin mist filled the air. The hour was early. Cabs were rattling over the pavement, aud pedestrians were hurrying to evening amusement or to their homes. The merchant scanned every woman he saw with the inquisitivenesa that had now become his habit.

Suddenly, as he ncared a pastry-cook's shop, he started and his face lighted up with a swift and sinister delight. Coining from that shop was a veiled woman, with a parcel in her arms The veil could not conceal the identity which the lithe, gaunt figure, and gliding step, and the peculiar carriage so thoroughly betrayed. " lianneleu ! ho whispered to himself, jubilantly. "It's the Hindoo sure enough. I'm on the track ! I've found my prize !"

The woman shot a quick, sweeping gaze up and down the street, and mingled with the throng, hurrying swiftly onwards. The human sleuth-hound came after her, silently, with quick and hurried breathing, gleaming eyes, and a soul swelling with sinisister exultation. -{To bo continued. 1