The Novelist.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 245, 20 May 1876, Page 4

The Novelist.

UNCLE JOHN. Me forethinketh, said King Pellinore, this shall betide, but , 7 , . ~ God may well foredoe destiny. —Morte cl ArthU'i. Chapter XlX. —The Slasher. But before Maxwell could interfere, Perigord had got himself out of the supper-room, and was intent only on identifying the stranger whose voice he had heard in altercation perhaps I should rather say, in explanation with the General at the top of the stairs. Our young gentleman, excited by lights, wine, music, and, as he considered, unparalleled social success, felt his faculties sharpened, his energies aroused, and longed only for an adventure that should bring them all into play. Where had he heard that voice? Like an inspiration it flashed upon him. In spite of fair-haired wig, stoop, and spectacles, this was the man who had been hanging about Lexley’s parsonage the day before his wife’s disappearance, this was the man who had spoken to IVlis. Lexley at the gate when she left her home. With considerable presence _of mind the youth pounced on Mr. Dorimer in the en-trance-hall, now thronged with guests waiting for their carriages, and shook him frankly by the hand. Delaney—we may as well call him henceforth by his right name-seized the opportunity with characteristic promptitude, pleased to show that he was known to one person, at least, in all that assemblage, and walked into the street arm-in-arm with his young friend at the moment Horace IMaxwell came out of the supper-room, where he had been searching for the late Etonian, in obedience to Miss Dennison’s commands.. He had brought no overcoat, his hat was under his arm ; he gave chase without delay, determined to keep the young gentleman in sight and extricate him, if necessary, from the toils of a sharper, shrewdly suspecting this uninvited guest to be one of that fraternity for whose sustenance fools seem especially provided. He followed at a prudent distance, and smiled to observe ■with what a show of intimacy they walked together arm-in-arm. “ Will you smoke ? ” said Delaney, proffering a case full of large high-flavored cigars. “No? Quite right. Bad habit for a young man. I’ve knocked about so much myself in all sorts of climates that I couldn’t do without it. If you like to try one, you won’t find these very strong.” Young Perigord, who, I am sorry to say, smoked a mixture of nigger-head and cavendish in private, resented the imputation of squeamishness by accepting what he was pleased to call a “ roofer,” and, after a dozen puffs, began to think his new friend not such a bad fellow after all, resolving the while to finish his adventure, as he would his cigar, to the bitter end. “ I knew you directly you came down,” said he, “though you’ve a different kind of thatch on to-night, and you had no goggles when I saw you in the countiy. I say, we didn’t think then we should ever meet at such a swell place as that,” indicating by a backward jerk of his head the house they had left, from which the notes of harp and fiddle still reached their ears, while shadows flitted across its window-blinds, bobbing up and down in harmony with the strains. Delaney glanced sharply at him, wondering how much he would swallow. “ The fact is,” he answered, “ I’m obliged to go about in different disguises. I don’t mind telling you. It’s quite unnecessary in society like that we have just quitted, but my life would not be safe if I was recognised in the streets. lam here on business of secret diplomacy, and I have had a hint that the Internationalists are looking after me. You know what that means ! ” He drew his hand across his throat, and gathered from Perigord’s interested face that he had not miscalculated his young friends’s power of deglutition. “You should have called at our place when you were in the neighborhood,” continued the latter, fishing, as it seemed, for further information. “ Lexley is a capital fellow, and we could have shown you some good cricket. Besides, you know Mrs. Lexley, don’t you ? ” “ I never make half-confidences,” replied the other, turning his cigar thoughtfully between finger and thumb. “I am safe with you, but of course this in strict confidence as between gentlemen. I do know Mrs. Lexley. I have known her a long time. The Beds threatened her too. It was to warn her I went down there. In a few weeks the danger will have blown over, but at present she is in hiding—close hiding. Ido not even know where she is myself.” It was the only word of truth ho had spoken in the whole interview, and the only one perhaps the other did not quite believe. Perigord pondered. The adventure, the disclosures, the man himself, all were interesting to the last degree. He must see more before he parted with him of this mysterious individual, so calm, so undefeated, though he had just been virtually turned out of a ballroom, and wore a light wig with spectacles, because agents of the Bed Bepublic were thirsting for his blood. “ I am deuced hungry ?” exclaimed the young gentleman, threwing away the end of his cigar, and chinking two or three sovereigns in his waistcoat pocket. “ Can’t we get some supper somewhere ? I have lots of money. You call ; I’ll pay.” The other laughed. “ I don’t know London very well,” said he, “ but there used to be a place near here where one could get a lobster and a bottle of champagne at any hour of the day or night.” They had drifted, as it were, insensibly along Piccadilly, and had reached the neighborhood of Leicester Square. Horace Maxwell, following with cautious steps, saw them turn into and out of a narrow street, cr dss an alley, and disappear through a door that swung open for all who desired to enter.

He determined to wait a few minutes before he presented himself, but remained at a short distance carefully on the watch. A policeman turned his bull’s-eye on him, and continued his beat. Everything was orderly and quiet outside. Everything seemed equally well conducted within.

If Delaney, as his manner inferred, was a perfect stranger, the waiter deserved infinite credit for the rapidity with which he brought the champagne and shell-fish on a clean napkin covered tray, even before these refreshments were ordered. The billiard-marker in the next room, too, must have had some intuitive sense that detected the arrival of a proficient in his favorite game, to exclaim triumphantly, “Here’s a gent as will give it, Captain!” And the person so denominated—an ill-favored reprobate in yesterday’s shirt-sleeves, ragged whiskers, and a profusion of Mosaic gold—must have been strangely wanting in confidence to withdraw so readily his offer of playing any man in the room for a sovereign who would allow him five in a game of fifty up ; while two or three gentlemen of equally unprepossessing exterior winked at each other, no doubt from weakness of eyesight or the force of a bad habit.

Erom the table at which Delaney sat with his young acquaintance, the billiard-players could be seen through an open door passing to and fro in the enjoyment of that delightful pastime. Perigord, who drank a tumbler of vile champagne with a zest the elder man could not but admire, began to fidget in his chair long before the lobster was finished. “ Hang it ! let’s have a game,” said he. “ I don’t know your form, but I’ll play you even, and the loser shall pay for supper.” Now in a nature like Delaney’s the predatory instincts are never dormant. He was a swindler, he was a sharper, a man of extraordinary cunning, shifts, and resources, but he was also a gambler to the backbone. He would play for hundreds if he could afford it, but was no less greedy for pounds, shillings, and even pence. He would have cheated at schoolboy out of his marbles no less eagerly than a duke out of his acres. All the rapacity of his character had been roused by the mere chink of two or three sovereigns in Perigord’s waistcoat-pocket, and he could no more resist his longing to possess them than a hawk can help tearing the prey she has struck down. But the hawk is unwilling to share with other hawks, and Delaney had no idea of allowing his pigeon to be despoiled ever so little by birds of his own feather. “ Billiards,” he observed, tapping thoughtfully on a lobster’s claw. “It wouldn’t be quite fair. Few men can give me odds at billiards. I had rather play some game of chance, if you won’t allow me to consider you my guest. Something like heads and tails, odd and even. "What do you say to beggar-my-neighbor ? ” ' “Too childish !” exclaimed Perigord indignantly. “Blind hookey ; lansquenet ; continued the other. “ Ho. All these require a certain number of players. I can’t think of nothing but dearth.” “ I’ll play you at dearth,” said the lad, who considered himsely exceedingly skilful in that game. “ Play you for the price of our supper, and the winner shall stand brandy-and-soda for two. Here, waiter, bring a pack of cards.” “ Hush,” exclaimed Delaney. “ This is not a club, and I dare say they would be puzzled to find such a thing in the house.” But while he spoke the waiter had put them on the table.

One of the unprepossessing gentlemen, peering through the door, nudged another unprepossessing gentleman, and laughed. “ The Slasher’s still on the same lay,” he whispered. “ It’s the old story. He has caught a green one to-night ; green as grass.” “ Green be hanged !” was the reply. “ He’s too simple by half. More likely a bonnet than a flat.”

“ You never know what the Slasher is up to,” said the first speaker in a tone of admiration. “ Now who’s this chap ? He looks like a real swell. This must be a pal of the Slasher’s who stands in.

The last observation was elicited by the appearance of Horace Maxwell, who now walked in with perfect equanimity, ordered a brandy-and-soda, crossed over to the table at which the dcartd players were seated, and while he studied Delaney’s face, figure, and general appearance, narrowly watched the progress of the game.

The Slasher, as they called him, from the scar on his left hand, sat with his back against the wall. He had played dcarte too often in doubtful company to permit the overlooking of his cards by a bystander. Horace, therefore, posted himself behind Perigord, who, wholly unconscious of his presence, continued his amusement, playing with fair average skill and that extraordinary luck which so often attends the gambling ventures of the young. Delaney, frowned on by Fortune, had recourse to Art—a mistress who never fails her suitors, and who, though she must be wooed with untiring perseverance, won at last, is won for ever. At the third game he dealt, and turned the king. “ Hold !” exclaimed Horace, in a loud voice that startled the billiard-players. “ Stop the game. You’re cheating, sir, and my friend shall not pay !” Delaney, little moved by the familiar accusation, threw all the cards in a heap, to the middle of the table.

“ Who the are you, sir ? ” said he. “ And what do you want here ? ” Perigord, recognising Maxwell and wondering how he got there, looked from one to the other, in helpless astonishment. “Never mind who I am,” returned Horace, buttoning up his coat for a row. “ Who you are, is more to the purpose. You cheated, I’ll swear. My friend shall not pay, as I said before, and the sooner he comes out of this with me, the better for you and your confederates ! ”

“ What do you mean by that, sir ? ” exclaimed the Captain, as he was called, swaggering into the room with the other billiard-

players. “You’ve no gentleman, you ain’t ! and—and —I’d knock your ugly head off for half a farthing.” The Captain was obviously considered the champion and bully of the party ; but there might be detected a quaver in his. voice, that belied the warlike tendency of his denunciations.

“ Get your hat,” said Maxwell to his young friend, whose name, however, he carefully abstained from pronouncing—“ button up your pockets, and come with me. As for this gentleman in a dirty shirt,” he added, turning fiercely on the Captain, who retreated a step, “if he wants to knock my head off, he had better try. Perhaps he will find it rather an unpleasant job.” “ This low and vulgar abuse is nothing to the purpose,” interposed Delaney, whose presence of mind had not the least forsaken him, and who spoke in the bland accents he had learned to consider as the tone of good society. “ This is a matter it is impossible to overlook, but that cannot be settled to-night. You have made an accusation against me, sir, that no gentleman can submit to—as unjustifiable as it is impossible to substantiate. The affair cannot rest here, and you will, of course, furnish me with your name.” He turned to him while he spoke, with an air that almost caused Horace to disbelieve the evidence of his own senses, but for young Perigord, who, not deficient in mother-wit, had now gained time for reflection. “There’s something queer about this fellow,” be whispered ; “ the General kicked him out of his house not an hour ago, and he’s got a wig on to look like somebody else !” “ Name !” repeated Horace, in high disdain. “You infernal scoundrel? If I did right, I should give you in charge to the policeman outside. He’ll get you before long, I’ll take my oath. Stand back, there, and let me pass ! You will have it, will you ? Take it then !” With that, straight from the shoulder, he gave the Captain one between the eyes, that cut his own knuckles to the bone, and dropped the bully where he stood. Bunning his arm through Perigord’s, he hurried the boy downstairs, and in half a minute both were breathing freely in the street.

The Captain was in no hurry to get up. Pushed forward, though exceeding loth, by his backers, .he had put himself into a posture of offence, little thinking his opponent would join battle so readily ; and, having felt the weight of that opponent’s hand, he wisely lay still, so long as there was no chance of the punishment being repeated. It was not till the late visitor’s footsteps died away that he lifted his head and began to stir. His friends applied a tumbler of brandy-and -water to his lips ; he emptied it at a draught, sat on end, and iooked about him. The marker burst out laughing, and the fallen man, rising to his feet with a sullen shake, addressed himself to Delaney. “ Slasher,” said he, “ you have not done good business to-night. It seems to me, we have had six to five the worst of it.”

“ You have,” returned the other goodhumoredly. “ Nobody pitched into me. The young.one staked and paid honorable ! Three sovereigns isn’t much, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. This has been a fatiguing day. What say you, gentlemen ? Let us shut up shop and make everything snug for the night. I’ll stand a bowl of punch and cigars all round.” Such a proposal could not but meet with general assent. Even the Captain forgot his damaged beauty, and the party, drawing their chairs. together, prepared to enjoy the small hours in the way that pleased them best. “ What on earth induced you to go to such a place as that ? ” was the first question Maxwell asked the lad, whom he still held by the arm, as they emerged on the open space of Leicester Square. “ I never saw such a den of thieves in my life. Why those fellows would have thought nothing of hocussing your liquor, turning your pockets inside out, and perhaps lending you a heave over one of the bridges, if they thought you would be troublesome when you came to yourself. You’ve had a squeak, young man ; don’t go so near the edge again ! ” “ I believe I have,” answered the other, much delighted with the perilous nature of his experience. “But I had often heard fellows talk of London night-houses, and I wanted to know what they were like. I never can resist a chance of seeing life.” “Of seeing death, you mean,” answered Horace. “ I can’t conceive a better chance of being robbed and murdered. It’s lucky I came in when I did.”

“ You’re a good fellow,” answered Perigord, “ and a deuced hard-hitter for an eleven-stone man. He was just in distance, wasn’t he ? I never saw a fellow go down so plump ! But how long had you been there, and what made you come ? I didn’t know you were in the room till just before the row.” Horace explained how Miss Dennison had requested that he would keep an eye on her young friend, dwelling with unnecessary prolixity on the kindliness, good sense, and other angelic qualities of this incomparable young lady. “ When I saw you go away arm-in-arm with that awful snob,” he concluded, “ I thought you had taken leave of your senses, and it was time for your friends to interfere. However, it’s all right now, though I think you must admit we are deuced well out of it.”

“ I have not half thanked you,” replied the other. I’m not good at thanking fellows ; but I won’t forget if I live to a hundred. I wonder if I shall ever be able to do something for you in retui'n.”

“ Will you do what I ask you now ?” said the other. “Let me take you to your own door, and promise me you will go straight to bed. Have you a latch-key ? ” But the young gentleman had not got a latch-key, old Perigord holding that the possession of such an instrument might lead his son into bad company and many temptations ; so a sleepy butler had to be aroused, who scanned his young master narrowly while he let him in, wondering, perhaps, that any free agent should go to bed so decently sober.

“ Good night, young one,” said Maxwell, when they parted. “ Mind you put your candle out. And, I say, don’t go to any more of these night-houses—you mightn’t get off so easily another time.” Then he jumped into a cab and drove to Ilia own night-house, an exceedingly pleasant resort at no great distance from Pall Mall, where from midnight till about 2 a.m. he was sure to find kind looks, hearty greetings, pleasant acquaintances, and familiar friends. Chapter XX.—A Nicht-house. The resort Maxwell affected, though in many respects comfortable and even commodious, can bear no comparison in size and magnificence with those spacious clubs, which are nevertheless deserted for its attractions. On a hot night —and nights are sometimes very hot in St. James’s-street towards the close of the London season—it disgorges its members so freely that these may be seen thronging the entrance, and even overflowing the narrow street into the thoroughfare it joins. Emerging from his cab, Horace found himself in the centre of a familiar group who greeted him with less ceremony than welcome, lavishing no small measure of that sprightly conversation young people call “ chaff,” while carrying lighted cigars in their mouths and beakers of cooling drinks in their hands.

“ Why here’s Horace !” exclaimed the yonngest of the party, a beardless champion belonging to the Household Brigade, with the frame of a child, the courage of a lion, and the audacity of a Queen’s Counsel. Horace—coat toi’n, hand tied up ! having skedaddled, no doubt, from the fight, like his Boman namesake, and left his shield behind him, wisely but not well.”

“ What do you know about shields, you little beggar !” was the reply. “ I could cover the whole of your body with my flat hat.” “ Flat hat, or hat belonging to a flat,” i*etorted the other ; “it might then protect some small allowance of brains, which it has never done yet. But a truce to this fooling, Horatius Flaccus. Stow your chaff, and give an account of yourself. If sober, tell us all about it. If drunk, go home, and go to bed.”

“Don’t bother,” answered Maxwell. “There is no story to tell ; and if there was I couldn’t speak till I have had a drink.” “ Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will wink with mine,” sang the tiny soldier, in an exceedingly sweet voice, putting his own beaker of gin-sling to the other’s lips, who half emptied it at a draught. “Is it cooling ?is it refreshing ? Does it cut all the way down like a saw ? Speak now, and stick to the unvarnished, man of brute force and ungovernable passions. You’ve been fighting like blazes, and you’ve been licked like fun.” “You’ll be licked like fun yourself,” answered Horace, laughing, “if you won’t hold your tongue and give the others a chance. No, I did think I should have had to fight once to-night, only fortunately for me, my man wouldn’t stand up.” “ Tlieu you must have hit him when he was down !” said the other, pointing to stains of blood on the handkerchief Maxwell had bound round his hand. “ Quite right, Horatius—safe, prudent, and effectual, if un-English. Thus, I am convinced, did your namesake keep the bridge so well

‘ In the brave days of old.' ”

“ Stop that noisy little beggar’s mouth with a cigar, somebody,” said a stout good-natured-looking man joining the group. “Let’s hear all about it, Horace. Did you drop into a general scrimmage, or what ? Was it a rough and tumble, or a regular set-to ?” Maxwell had now got an audience in and about the porch, to whom, nothing loth, he detailed his night’s adventure. Everybody likes to be the hero of the hour, and a man who tells his own story must be a bad narrator, if he cannot, at least, convey by implication, the fearlessness of his conduct and general nobility of his nature. I do not suppose Sinbad ever told his audience what a funk he was in when the Boc carried him high in air over the Valley of Diamonds, or allowed them to suppose he was in any way over-mastered by the Old Man of the Sea, and couldn’t have kicked him off whenever he pleased ! Nobody can see his own character but as it is reflected in its effect on his neighbors. To gain the highest opinion of a man, it is only necessary to read his autobiography, and if my friends would think well of me, they have but to appraise me at the value I set upon myself. So Horace, with many interruptions, detailed his own doings throughout the evening, touching on the incident that had disturbed the propriety of Mrs. Pike’s ball.

When he arrived at the mention of that festivity, Percy Mortimer, cigar in mouth and tumbler in hand like the rest, joined the circle from within, as did also our friend Captain Nokes, on leave from Middleton, between returns. These gentlemen listened in profound silence—Percy, because he seemed a little out of spirits ; Nokes, because no man acted more conscientiously up to the spirit of that Eastern proverb, which declares “ Speech is silver, but truly silence is gold ! ” Not so the young Guardsman, who exclaimed, “ Why, that’s the chap we turned out of Hurlingham, who said he had been asked by the Peruvian Minister! A good-look-ing, bad looking fellow, wasn’t he—with dark hair and an eye like a hawk ? ” “That’s not my man,” answered Horace. “ I don’t know what his eyes were like, for he wore spectacles, but he seemed to look pretty sharp out of them ! And his hair was as light as yours. He might have been your elder brother, only he was twice as big, not half so noisy, and much better behaved. “ That’s impossible ! ” returned the other. “ You have now destroyed your last hold on our credulity. After such a statement nobody will believe another word ! ” “ When the General turned him out,” continued Maxwell, “ he never moved a muscle of his countenance ; I thought then it was really a mistake. There was something of the Yankee, too, in his accent, and I made up my mind he was an American gentleman who had

Come to the wrong house. X am satisfied now that he is a sharper of the highest calibre.” “So ami,” observed Percy Mortimer. “I’ll tell you why afterwards. Go on.” Horace continued.

“ Old Pike, who is as good a fellow as ever Btepped, was quite deceived by the man’s manner, and apologised freely ; but a young fellow named Perigord, a capital boy not long from Eton, smelt a rat, and followed him out of the house, I suppose, to see that he didn’t make away with the spoons.” “ Bravo, Pieman !” interrupted the small soldier. “ Perigord was my fag—l taught him all he knows.”

“I followed the young one, to sea he didn’t get into mischief,” proceeded Horace, “and ran the couple to ground in a queer billiardplaying kind of place—No. 991,, Cheap-street, Haricot-lane. I had plenty of time to learn the address, for I waited outside ten minutes and more, considering the next move.” “ Eunking, no doubt,” said his small tormentor. “Go on, Horace, the more you looked at it the less you liked it, I’ll take my oath.” “ I blundered on, at any rate,” replied the other, “and found this young beggar, fresh from Eton, settled down to dearth. Ecarte if you please ! with my friend in the spectacles ! I need not say I watched him pretty closely, and he showed no inclination whatever to play on the square. It’s an old joke enough, but I never saw a fellow pass the king so well. He did it while he sneezed, and I don’t believe, though I was watching, I could have detected the action but for a scar on his left hand, that I couldn’t keep my eyes of. A deuced ugly seam it was, from the knuckles right up to the wrist.”

“That’s the man!” muttered Percy Mortimer. “ What fools the cleverest of these scoundrels are !”

Nokes, listening attentively, removed the cigar from his mouth and emitted a volume of smoke. Nothing more. “ When he marked the king it was my turn,” continued Horace. “ I told him he was a thief; and that brought his '* pals’ upon me. I told them they were all thieves, and I might as well have saved my breath, for they must have known it before. One chap tried to cut up rough, and butted his stupid head against my knuckles. Hang him ! he has taken all the skin off ! There was a good deal of bad language, but not much of a scrimmage, and I brought my man out only three sovereigns the worse, gave him some good advice, saw him safe home, and came on here. This is a long story. Let us talk of something else. Nokes, my boy, how does the world go on at Middleton ! ”

But Captain Nokes, wrapped in profound silence, had disappeared from the circle, and was already bowling along Pall Mall in a cab, on his way to Scotland Yard. “ Let’s walk home,” said Percy Mortimer, running his arm through Maxwell’s as they emerged in the fresh air ; “ I sent my brougham away when I came here. It’s a fine night, or rather morning,—and look here, old fellow, I’ve got something to say to you.” “ Now for it,” thought his friend, “ he’s engaged !—he’s going to tell me so. Goodbye, Annie. Perhaps he’ll ask me to be his best man.” But it is only justice to say that he resolved to bear the trial without wincing, and honestly from his heart to congratulate the man he liked, on winning from him the woman he loved. Percy’s manner, however, was anything but that -of a successful suitor. It was impossible for one so sleek, composed, and self-contained, to look really disturbed, but he seemed about as much ruffled as does a well-groomed horse, when its coat stares in an east wind. “ I never thought that scoundrel would come to England again,” he began ; whereat Horace, with his thoughts fixed on Annie Dennison, started in surprise. “ But your description is quite enough for me. The man who tried to rob young Perigord to-night is a sharper I have known for years. I am ashamed to say he did me out of seven hundred pounds at a sitting by the very trick you detected so cleverly. I wasn’t sure till you described his hand. Shall I tell you how he came by that scar ? He was playing cards at San Francisco with a clean, close-shaved, sharp-featured man, who looked like a cross between a steeplechase jockey and a Methodist parson, but was really what was called ‘ a sportsman’ in the States—a fellow who will play with and cheat you at any game you like to mention. Seeing it was a case of diamond cut diamond, with a heavy stake on, our friend had made up his mind to win, right or wrong. He had kept a card up his sleeve, which at the critical moment he concealed under his left hand, stretched carelessly on the table. The game went on, and his left hand never moved frem its place. Suddenly there rose a scream of pain, an oath, and a rush of all the company towards the players. Blood was spouting over the cards, and our friend’s hand was firmly nailed to the table by the blade of a bowie-knife, its haft still quivering from the force with which the steel had been driven through flesh and tendons and pasteboard, into the wood. ‘lf the ace of spades ain’t sticking on my toothpick when you take it out,’ said the sportsman, ‘ you shall do as much by me. If it is, you’re a bloody cheat, you are ! and it’s no more than you deserve !’ The ace of spades was transfixed by the bowie-knife, and everybody said the cruel, quiet, clean-shaved man had done right. Long before this I had dropped the swindler’s acquaintance, but I could not leave him in a foreign town to die of lock-jaw, as seemed highly probable. I sent for a doctor, had him taken care of, and his wife nursed him patiently till he got well. Very soon after they were separated. She was a handsome resolute woman, to all appearance a thoroughbred lady. Why she ever married him or how she could stand it so long as she did/often puzzled me exceedingly, for though I did not know her well, I could detect in every word and gesture that she belonged to quite a different class from her husband. The man’s name was Delaney. Gan you guess, Horace, who his wife is ?”

“ Not Miss Biair !”—not Mrs. Lexley !” exclaimed the other. “Good heavens, Percy ! what a complication !” “Itis a complication,” said Mortimer. “ I had always understood the scoundrel was dead, and Mrs. Delaney free to marry again. Poor Lexley ! he seemed foolishly fond of her. What a sword is hanging over his head !” “ She has left him,” answered Horace, “ and I suppose nobody in the world was ever so terribly cut up. I hear he has been almost out of his mind.”

“Left him?” repeated Percy; “not to go back to this fellow?”

“ I don’t know,” replied the other, loth to betray the confidence Laura had reposed in him, but desiring above all things to ask his friend’s advice. “Don’t you think one ought to find out ? Don’t you think one ought to tell Lexley ? He’s a dear friend, I can’t bear to think he is so miserable. I am at my wits’ end. What would you advise ?” Percy pondered for a few seconds, looking very grave and wise in the grey light of the summer morning, then he shook his head and delivered the following opinion : “ I should wait. When in doubt what to do, he is a wise man who does nothing. In the moral as in the material world the negative force is strongest of all. Dead weight must will in the long run. Where a woman is concerned, as in the present case, nothing is really to be trusted but the chapter of accicents. So much the more reason for waiting, as old Dennison says, to see what turns up. The sex won’t bear hurrying, I’ve always said so, and yet I believe I upset the apple-cart to-night solely through furious driving. Horace, I’ve something to tell you. Hang it ! I wouldn’t tell it any fellow in the world but you!” “ Out with it, old man !” said Maxwell, while his cheek turned a shade paler in the morning light. “ You and I have each been in a scrimmage since dinner,” was the metaphor in which Mr. Mortimer thought well to convey his confidence. “ You’ve given a facer, and I’ve had one. Do I look as if I had been knocked down ? I feel like it. Will you believe it, Horace, I proposed to a woman not three hours ago and she refused me !” “ Refused you !” Horace could not have added a word to save his life. “ Asked her in so many words to be my wife, and she said * No,’ as plain as I am speaking now. It’s a deuced odd thing, unaccountable, and all that, but there’s no mistake about it. I will do Miss Dennison the justice to say I think she knows her own mind.” So heavy was the weight taken off his heart that Horace felt as if he must fly up into the air. Loyal to the last, however, he made shift to stammer out : “ I’m sorry for you, old fellow, at any rate ; but won’t you try again ?” Mortimer shook his head. “Never allow a woman another shot,” said he. “ She mightn’t miss with the second barrel. I believe the girl is quite right. She had my interest at heart, and perhaps I’m better off as I am.”