Blind Love.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 37, 13 September 1890, Page 4

Blind Love.

By

WILKIE COLLINS.

[The Kight of Translation is Reserved.]

THE STORY. T H lIR ID F E B Io D . CHAPTER XXXVI. THE DOCTOR MEANS MISCHI EK.

EA HLY on theday aft e i L<>r <1 Harry’s description of the state of his mind readied London, a gentleman presented himself at the publishing oflice of Messrs ~ 'ZZA'. '. . Boldside Bros., an, l asked for WB?/ '’'l l ! the senior part.1-.-= .Zl--. - ■V" 1 ! 3 'Z" ; VI v 7~~ ner, Mr Peter 1 1 A 'I. \ Bold side. W I'M \ When he sent \ig llllt -Mm X \ in his card, it /'ffllMK Bn) I,<,re the name zX< W of ‘Mr VimzFin ■WII ''“l-vb.0,,,.. Zwi Wn V/1 11 \\ tunate circum- / 4 Wu 0 ’Mil SI i V I stance am I in7 V n llftr ih ffl dehted, sir, for 111 MlKl 11 l ,,>nour °f AA n —wm 11 y OUI y isit ?’ the Wvfl I ’iR '1 senior partner Wn I 11 1-1 I inquired. His lit i\i 1 \ 11 ingratiating -V | u I manners, his w> u r nial s n iile ’ Z his roundly resonant voice,

were personal Advantages of which he made a merciless use. The literary customer who entered the office, hesitating before the question of publishing a work at his own expense, generally decided to pay the penalty when he encountered Mr Peter Boldside. ‘ I want to implire about the sale of my work,’ Mr Vimpany replied. ‘Ah, doctor, you have come to the wrong man. You must go to my brother.’ Mr Vimpany protested. ‘ You mentioned the terms when I first applied to you,’ he said, ‘and you signed the agieement.’ ‘ That is in my department,' the senior partner gently explained. ‘And 1 shall write the cheque when, as we both hope, your large profits will fall due. But our sales of works are in the department of my brother, Mr Paul Boldside.’ He rang a bell ; a clerk appeared, ami received his instructions : ‘Mr Paul, flood morning, doctor.’ Mr Paul was, personally speaking, his brother repeated — without the deep voice, and without the genial smile. Conducted to the office of the junior partner, Mr Vimpany found himself in the piesence of a stranger, occupied in turning over the pages of a newspaper. When his name was announced, the publisher started, and handed his newspaper to the doctor. ‘ This is a concidence,’ he said. ‘ I was looking, sir, for your name in the pages which I have just put into your hand. Surely the editor can't have refused to publish your letter Mr Vimpany was sober, and therefore sad, and therefore {again) not to be trifled with by a mystifying reception. ‘ I don’t understand you,’ he answered gruffly. ‘ What do you mean /’ ‘ Is it possible that you have not seen last week's number of the paper?’ Mr Paul asked. ‘And you a literary man He forthwith produced the last week’s number, and opened it at the right place. ‘ Read that, sir,’ he said, with something in his manner which looked like virtuous indignation. Mr Vimpany found himself confronted by a letter addressed to the editor. It was signed by an eminent physician, whose portrait had appeared in the first serial part of the new work—accompanied by a brief memoir of his life, which purported to be written by himself. Not one line of the autobiography (this celebrated person declared) had proceeded from his pen. Mr Vimpany had impudently published an imaginary memoir, full of false reports anil •scandalous inventions -and this after he had referred to a trustworthy source for the necessary particulars. Stating these facts, the indignant physician cautioned readers to beware of purchasing a work which, so far as he was concerned, was nothing less than a fraud on the public. ‘ If you can answer that letter, sir,' Mr Paul Boldside resumed, ‘ the better it will be, I can tell you, for the sale of your publication.' Sir Vimpany made a reckless reply: ‘I want to know how the thing sells. Nevermind the letter.' ‘ Never mind the letter?' the junior partner repeated. ‘ A positive charge of fraud is advanced by a manat the head of bis profession against a work which my have published and you say. Never mind the letter.' The rough customer of the Boldsides struck his fist on the table. ‘ Bother the letter ! I insist on knowing what the sale is.’ Still preserving his dignity, Mr Paul (like Mr Peter) rang for the clerk, and briefly gave an order. ‘Mr Vimpany* account,* he said—and proceeded to admonish Mr Vimpany himself.

‘You appear, sir, to have no defence of your conduct to offer. I lur firm has a reputation to preserve. When I have consulted with my brother, we shall be under the disagreeable necessity ’ Here (as he afterwards told his brother) the publisher was brutally interrupted by the author :- ‘lf you will have it,’said this rude man, ‘here it is in two words. The doctor’s portrait is the likeness of an ass. As he couldn't do it himself, I wanted materials for writing his life. He referred me to the year of his birth, the year of his marriage, the year of this, that, and the other. Who cares about dates? The public likes to be tickled by personal statements. Very well I tickled the publie. There you have it in a nutshell.’ The clerk appeared at that auspicious moment, with the author's account neatly exhibited under two sides: a Debtor's side, which represented the expenditure of Hugh Monntjoy's money ; and a Creditor side, which represented (so far) Mr Vimpany’s profits. Amount of these last: £3 14s 10.1. Mr Vimpany tore up the account, threw the pieces in the face of Mr Paul, and expressed his sentiments in one opporbrious word : ‘ Swindlers !’ The publisher said : ‘ You shall hear of us, sir, through our lawyer.’ And the author answered : ‘Go to the devil !’ Once out in the streets ajjain, the first open door at which Mr Vimpany stopped was the door of a tavern. He ordered a glass of brandy and water, and a cigar. It was then the hour of the afternoon, between the time of luncheon and the time of dinner, when the business of a tavern is generally in a state of suspense. The dining-room was empty when Mr Vimpany entered it ; and the waiter’s unoccupied attention was in want of an object. Having nothing else to notice, be looked at the person who had just come in. The deluded stranger was drinking fiery potatobrandy, and smoking (at the foreign price) an English cigar. Would his taste tell him the melancholy truth ? No: it seemed to matter nothing to him what he was drinking or what he was smoking. Now he looked angry, and now he looked puzzled ; and now he took a long letter from his pocket, and read it in places, and marked the places with a pencil. ‘Up to some mischief,’ was the waiter's interpretation of these signs. The stranger ordered a second glass of grog, and drank it in gulps, anil fell into such deep thought that he let his cigar go out. Evidently, a man in search of an idea. And, to all appearance, he found what he wanted on a sudden. In a hurry he paid his reckoning, and left his small change and his unfinished cigar on the talde, and was off before the waiter could say ‘ thank you.’ The next place at which he stopped was a fine house in a spacious square. A carriage was waiting at the door. The servant who opened the door knew him. ‘ Sir James is going out again, sir, in two minutes,’ the man said. Mr Vimpany answered : ‘ I won’t keep him two minutes. ’ A bell rang from the room on the ground floor ; and a gentleman came out, as Mr Vimpany was shown in. Sir James’s stethoscope was still in his hand ; his latest medical fee lay on the table. ‘Some other day, Vimpany,’ the great surgeon said ; ‘ I have no time to give you now'.’ ‘ Will you give me a minute ?’ the humble doctor asked. ‘ Very well. What is it?’ ‘ I am down in the world now, Sir James, as you know—and I am trying to pick myself up again.’ ‘ Very creditable, my good fellow. How can I help you? Come, come—out with it. You want something.’ ‘ I want your great name to do me a great service. I am going to France. A letter of introduction, from you, will open doors which might be closed to an unknown man like myself. ‘ What doors do you mean ?’ Sir James asked. ‘ The doors of the hospitals in Paris.’ ‘ Wait a minute, Vimpany. Have you any particular object in view ?’ ‘ A professional object, of course,’ the ready doctor answered. ‘ I have got an idea fora new treatment of diseases of the lungs : and I want to see if the French have made any recent discoveries in that direction.’ Sir James took up his pen—and he hesitated. His illstarred medical colleague had been his fellow-student and his fiiend, in the days when they were both young men. They had seen but little of each other since they had gone their different ways—one of them, on the high road which leads to success, the other down the byways which end in failure. The famous surgeon felt a passing doubt of the use which his needy and vagabond inferior might make of his name. For a moment his pen was held suspended over the paper. But the man of great reputation was also a man of great heart. Old associations pleaded with him, and won their cause. His companion of former times left the house, provided with a letter of introduction to the chief surgeon at the Hotel Dieu, in Paris. Mr Vimpany s next and last proceeding for that day was to stop at a telegraph-office, and to communicate economically with Lord Harry in three words :— ‘ Expect me to-morrow.’ CHAPTER XXXVII. THE FIRST QUARREL. Early in the morning of the next day, Lord Harry received the doctor's telegram. Iris not having risen at the time, he sent for Fanny Mere, and ordered her to get the spare room ready for a guest. The maid’s busy suspicion tempted her to put a venturesome question. She asked if the person expected was a lady or gentleman. ‘ What business is it of yours who the visitor is ?’ her master asked sharply. Always easy and good-humoured with his inferiors in general, Lord Harry had taken a dislike to his wife's maid, from the moment when he ha I first seen her. His Irish feeling for beauty and brightness was especially offended by the unhealthy pallot of the woman’s complexion, and the sullen self-suppression of her manner. All that his native ingenuity had been able to do was to make her a means of paying a compliment to his wife. ‘ Your maid has one merit, in my eyes,’ he said : ‘ she is a living proof of the sweetness of your temper." Iris joined her husband at the breakfast-table with an appearance of disturbance in her face, seldom seen during the dull days of her life at Pussy. ‘I hear of somebody coming to stay with us,’ she said. • Not Mr Vimpany again, 1 hope and trust ?’

Lord Harry was careful to give his customary morning kiss, before lie replied. ‘ Why shouldn’t my faithful old friend come ana see me again ?’ he asked, with his winning smile. ‘Pray don’t speak of that hateful man,'she answered, •as your faithful old friend ! He is nothing of the kind. What did you tell me when he took leave of us after his last visit, and I owned I was glad he was gone ? You said : “ Faith, my dear, I’m as glad as you are.” ’ Her good-natured husband laughed at this little picture of himself. ‘Ah, my darling, how many more times am I to make the same confession to my pretty priest ? Try to remember, without more telling, that it’s one of my misfortunes to be a man of many tempers. There are times when I get tired to death of Vimpany ; and there are times when tlie cheery old devil exercises fascinations over me. I declare you’re spoiling the eyebrows that I admire by letting them twist themselves into a frown ! After the trouble I have taken to clear your mind of prejudice against an unfortunate man, it's disheai tening to find you so hard on the poor fellow's faults and so blind to his virtues.’ The time had been when this remonstrance might have influenced his wife’s opinion. She passed it over without notice, now. ‘ Does lie come here by your invitation ?’ she asked. ‘ How else should he come here, my dear ’’ She looked at her husband 1 with doubt too plainly visible in her eyes. ‘ I wonder what your motive is for sending for himshe said. He was just lifting his teacup to his lips—he put it down again when he heard those words. ‘ Are you ill this morning ’’ he asked. ‘ No.’* ‘ H ave I said anything that has offended you ?’ ‘ Certainly not.’ ‘ Then I must tell you this, Iris, I don’t approve of what you har e just said. It sounds, to my mind, unpleasantly like suspicion of me and suspicion of my friend. I see your face confessing it, my lady, at this moment.’ ‘ You are half right, Harry, and no more. What you see in my face is suspicion of your friend.’ ‘ Founded on what, if you please?’ ‘ Founded on what I have seen of him, and on what I know of him. When you tried to alter my opinion of Mr Vimpany, some time since, I did my best to make my view your view. I deceived myself, for your sake ; 1 put the best construction on what he said and did, when he was staying here. It was well meant, but it was of no use. In a thousand different ways, while he was doing his best to win my favour, his true self was telling tales of him under the fair surface. Mr Vimpany is a bad man. He is the very worst friend you could have about you at any time—and especially at a time when your patience is tried by needy circumstances. ’ ‘ One word, Iris. The more eloquent you are the more I admire you. Only, don’t mention my needy circumstances again. ’ She passed over the interruption as she had already passed over the remonstrance, without taking notice of it. ‘ Dearest, you are always good to me,’ she continued gently. ‘Am I wrong in thinning that love gives me some little influence over you still ? Women are vain—are they not ?—and lam no better than the rest of them. Flatter your wife’s vanity, Harry, by attaching some importance to her opinion. Is there time enough, yet, to telegraph to Mr Vimpany? Quite out of the question, is it? Well, then, if he must come here, do—pray, pray do consider Me. Don’t let him stay in the house! I’ll find a good excuse, and take a bed room for him in the neighbourhood. Anywhere else, so long as he is not here. He turns me cold when I think of him, sleeping under the same roof with ourselves. Not with ns ! oh, Hairy, not with us !’ Her eyes searched her husband s face ; she looked there for indulgence, she looked for conviction. No! he was still admiring her. ‘On my word of honour,’ he burst out, ‘you fascinate me. What an imagination you have got ? One of these days, Iris, I shall be prouder of you than ever ; I shall tind you a famous literary character. I don’t mean writing a novel ; women who can’t hem a handkerchief can write a novel. It’s poetry I’m thinking of. liish melodies by Lady Harry that beat I’oin Moore. What a gift ! And there are fortunes made, as I have heard, by people who spoil failwhite paper to some purpose. I wish I was one of them. ’ ‘ Have you no more to say to me ?’ she asked. ‘What more should there be? You wouldn’t have me take you seriously, in what you have just said of Vimpany ?’ ‘ Why not ?’ ‘Oh, come, come, my darling! Just consider. With a bed-room empty and waiting upstairs, is my old Vimpany to be sent to quarters for the night among strangers? I wouldn’t speak harshly to you, Iris, for the whole’ world; and I don t deny that the convivial doctor may be sometimes a little too fond of his drop of grog. You will tell me, maybe, that he hasn’t got on nicely with his wife, and I grant it. There are not many people who set such a pretty example of matrimony as we do. Poor humanity—there’s all that’s to be said about it. But when you tell me that Vimpany is a bad man, and the worst friend I could possibly have, and so foith—what better can I do than set it down to your imagination ? I've a pretty fancy, myself ; and I think I see my angel inventing poetical characters up among congenial clouds. What’s the matter ? Surely you haven’t done breakfast yet ?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘ Are you going to leave me?’ ‘ I am going to my room. ’ ‘’ioure in a mighty hurry to get away. I never meant to vex you, Iris. Ah, well, if you must leave the table, I’ll have the honour of opening the door for you at any rate. I wonder what you’re going to do?’ ‘To cultivate my imagination,’ she answered, with the first outbreak of bitterness that had escaped her yet. His face hardened. ‘ There seems to be something like bearing malice in this,’ he said. ‘ Are you treating me, for the first time, to an exhibition of enmity ’ What am Ito call it, if it’s not that?’ ‘Call it disappointment,’she suggested quietly, and left him. Lord Harry went back to his breakfast. His jealousy was up in arms again. ‘ She's comparing me with her alisent friend,’ he said to himself, ‘ and wishing she had married the amiable Mount joy instead of me.’ So the first quarrel endeJ—and Mr Vimpany had been the cause of it.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. ICI ON PARLE FRANCAIS. The doctor arrived in good time for dinner, and shook hands with the Irish lord in excellent spirits. He looked round the room, ana asked where my lady was. Lord Harry’s reply suggested the presence of a cloud on the domestic horizon. He had been taking a long ride, and had only returned a few minutes since ; Iris would (as he supposed) join them immediately. • The maid put the soup on the table, and delivered a message. Her mistress was suffering from headache, and was not well enough to dine with the gentlemen. As an old married man, Mr Vimpany knew what this meant ; he begged leave to send a comforting message to the suffering lady of the house. Fanny be good

enough to say that he had made inquiries on the subject of Mr Mountjoy’s health, before he left London. The re[>ort was still favourable ; there was nothing to complain of but the after-weakness which had followed the fever. <tn that account only, the attendance of the nurse was still a matter of necessity. ‘ With my respects to Lady Harry,’ he called after Fanny, as she went out in dodged silence. ‘ I have begun by making myself agreeable to your wife,’ the doctor remarked with a self-approving grin. ‘ Perhaps she will dine with us to-morrow. Pass the sherry.’ The remembrance of what had happened at the breakfasttable, that morning, seemed to be dwelling disagreeably on Lord Harry's mind. He said but little—ami that little related to the subject on which he had already written, at full length, to his medical friend. In an interval, when the service of the table required the

attendance of Fanny in the kitchen, Mr Vimpany took the opportunity of saying a few cheering words. He had Come (he remarked) prepared with the right sort of remedy for an ailing state of mind, and he would explain himself at a fitter opportunity. Lord Harry impatiently asked why the explanation was deferred. If the presence of the maid was the obstacle which caused delay, it would be easy to tell her she was not Avail ted to wait, The wary doctor positively forbade this. He had observed Fanny, during his previous visit, and had discovered that she seemed todistrust liim. The woman was sly ami suspicious. Since they had sat down to dinner, it was easy to see that she was lingering in the room to listen tothe conversation, on one pretence or another. If she was told not to wait, there could be no doubt of her next proceeding : she would listen outside the door. ‘ Take my word for it,

the doctor concluded, ‘ there are all the materials for a spy in Fanny Mere.’ But Lord Harry was obstinate. < 'haling under the sense of his helpless pecuniary |>osition. he was determined to hear, at once, what remedy for it Vimpany had discovered. ‘ We can set that woman s curiosity at defiance,* he said. ‘ How ?’ ‘ When you were learning your profession, you lived in Paris for some years, didn’t you ?’ ‘ All right !' ‘ Well, then, you can't have entirely forgotten your French ?’ The doctor at once understood what this meant, and answered significantly by a wink. He had found an opportunity (he said) of testing his memory, not very long since. Time had undoubtedly deprived him of his early mastery over the French language ; but he could still (allowing for a few mistakes) make a shift to understand it and speak it. There was one thing, however, that he wanted to know first. < ould they be sure that my lady's maid had not picked up French enough to use her ears to some purpose ! Lord Harry easily disposed of this doubt. So entirely ignoiant was the maid of the language of the place in which she was living, that she was notable to ask the tradespeople for the simplest article of household use, unless it was written for her in French before she was sent on an errand. This was conclusive. When Fanny returned to the dining-room, she found a surprise waiting for her. The two gentlemen had taken leave of their nationality, and were talking the language of foreigners. An liour later, when the dinner-table had been cleared, the maid's domestic duties took her to Lady Harry's room to make tea. She noticed the sad careworn look on her mistress’s face, and spoke of it at once in her own downright way. ‘ I thought it was only an excuse,' she said, ‘ when you gave me that message to the gentlemen, at dinner-time. Are you really ill, my lady ?’ ‘ I am a little out of spirits,’ Iris replied. Fanny made the tea. ‘ I can understand that,' she said to herself, as she moved away to leave the room ; ‘ I’m out of spirits myself.’ Iris called her back : ‘ I heard you say just now, Fanny, that you were out of spirits yourself. If you were speaking of M>me troubles of your own, I am sorry for you, ami I won t say any more. But if you know what my anxieties are, and share them ’ ‘ Mine is the biggest share of the two,’ Fanny broke out abruptly. ‘lt goes against the grain with me to distress you, my lady ; but we are beginning badly, anti you ought to know it. The doctor has beaten me already.’ ‘ Beaten you already?’ Iris repeated. ‘ Tell me plainly what you mean ?’ ‘ Here it is, if you please, as plainly as words can say it. Mr Vimpany has something—something wicked, of course—to say to my master; and he won’t let it pass his lips here in the cottage.’ ‘ Why not ?’ ‘Because he suspects me of listening at the dooi, and looking through the keyhole. 1 don’t know, my lady, that he doesn't even suspect You. “ I have learnt something in the course of my life,” he says to my master ; “ and it's a rule with me to be careful of what I talk about indoors, when theie are women in the house. What are you going to do to-morrow? 'he says. My lord told him there was to be a meeting at the newspaper oftice. The doctor says : “ I’ll go to Paris with you. The newspaper oftice isn’t far from the Luxembourg Gardens. When you have done your business, you will find me waiting at the gate. What I have to tell you, you shall hear out of doors in the Gardens —ami in an open part of them, too, where there are no lurk-ing-places among the trees.” My master seemed to get angry at being put off in this way. “ What is it you have got to tell me?” he says. “Is itanything like the proposal you made, when you were on your last visit here?’’ The doctor laughed. “To-morrow won’t he long in coming,” he says. “ Patience, my lord--patience. ’ There was no getting him to say a word more. Now, what am Ito do? How am I to get a chance of listening to him, out in an (•pen garden without being seen? Theie’s what I mean when I say he has beaten me. It’s you, my lady—it's you who will suffer in the end.’ ‘ You don't know that, Fanny.' ‘ No, my lady hut I'm certain of it. And here 1 am, as helpless as yourself ! My temper has been quiet, since my misfortune -. it would be quiet still but for this.’ The one animating motive, the one exasperating influence, in that sad and secret life was still the mistress’s welfare—still the safety of the geneious woman who had befriended and forgiven her. She turned aside from the table, to hide her ghastly face.

‘ Pray try to control yourself.’ As Iris spoke, she pointed kindly to a chair. ‘ There is something that 1 want to say when you are composed again. I won’t hurry you ; I won’t look at you. Sit down, Eanny.' She appeared to shrink from being seated in her mistress's presence. ‘ Please to let me go to the window,’ she said; ‘ the air will help me.' To the window she went, and struggled with the passionate self so steadily kept under at other times ; so obstinately conquered now. ‘ What did you wish to say to me?’ she as k e< 1. ‘ You have surprised you have perplexed me,’ Iris said. ‘ I am at a loss to understand how you discovered what seems to have passed between your master ami Mr Vimpanv. You don’t surely mean to tell me that they talked of their private affairs while you were waiting at table?’ ‘ I don t tell lies, my lady,’ Eanny declared impulsively. ‘ They talked of nothing else all through the dinner.' ‘ Before i/om /* Iris exclaimed. There was a pause. Eear ami shame confessed themselves furtively on the maid’s colourless face. Silently, swiftly, she turned to the door. Had a slip of the tongue hurried her into the betrayal of something which it was her interest to conceal ? ‘ Don’t he alarmed,’ Iris said compassionately ; ‘ I have no wish to intrude on your secrets. ’ With her hand on the door, Eanny Mere closed it again, and came back. ‘ I am not so ungrateful,' she said, ‘as to have any secrets from you. It’s hard to confess what may lower me in your good opinion, hut it must be done. I have deceived your ladyship—ami I am ashamed of it. I have deceived* the doctor— and I glory in it. My master and Mr Vimpany thought they were safe in speaking Erench, while I was waiting on them. I know Erench as well as they do.’

liis could hardly believe what she heard. ‘Do yon really mean what you say ?’ she asked. ‘ There's that much good in me,’ Fanny replied ; * I always mean what I say.’ ‘ Why did you deceive me ? Why have you been acting the part of an ignorant woman ?’ ‘ The deceit has been useful in your service,’the obstinate maid declared. * Perhaps it may be useful again.’ ‘ Was that what you were thinking of,’ Iris said, ‘ when you allowed me to translate English into French for you, and never told me the truth ?’ ‘At any rate, I will tell you the truth, now. No ; I was not thinking of you, when you wrote my errands for me in French I was thinking again of some advice that was once given to me ’’ ‘ Was it advice given by a friend ?’ ‘Given by a man, my lady, who was the worst enemy I have ever had.’ Her considerate mistress understood the allusion, ami forbade her to distress herself by saying more. But, Fanny felt that atonement, as well as explanation, was due to her benefactress. Slowly, painfully, she described the person to whom she had referred. He was a Frenchman, who had been her music-master during the brief period at which she had attended a school ; lie had promised her marriage ; he had persuaded her to elope with him. The little money that they had to live on was earned by her needle, and by his wages as accompanist at a music-hall. While she was still able to attract him, and to hope for the performance of his promise, he amused himself by teaching her his own language. When lie deserted her, his letter of farewell contained, among other things, the advice to which she had alluded. ‘ln your station of life,’this man had written, ‘ knowledge of French is still a rare accomplishment. Keep your knowledge to yourself. English people of rank have a way of talking French to each other, when they don’t wish to be understood by their inferiors. In the course of your career, you may surprise secrets which will prove to be a little fortune, if you play your cards properly. Anyhow, it is the only fortune I have to leave to you.' Such had been the villain’s parting gift to the woman whom he had betrayed. She had hated him too bitterly to be depraved by his advice. On the contrary, when the kindness of a friend (now no longer in England) had helped her to obtain her first employment as a domestic servant, she had thought it might be to her interest to mention that she could read, write, and speak French. The result prove to be not only a disappointment, but a warning to her for the future. Such an accomplishment as a knowledge of a foreign language possessed by an Englishwoman, in her humble rank of life, was considered by her mistress to justify suspicion. Questions were asked, which it was impossible for her to answer truthfully. Small scandal drew its own conclusions—her life with the other servants became unendurable—she left her situation. From that time, until the happy day’ when she met with Iris, concealment of her knowledge of French became a proceeding forced on her by her own poor interests. Her present mistress would undoubtedly have been taken into her confidence, if the opportunity had offered itself. But Iris had never encouraged her to speak of the one darkest scene in her life ; and, for that reason, she had kept her own counsel until the date of her mistress's marriage. Distrusting the husband and the husband’s confidential friend—for were they not both men ?—she had thought of the vile Frenchman's advice, and had lesolved to give it a trial ; not with the degrading motive which he had suggested, but with the vague presentiment of making a discovery of wickedness, threatening mischief under a French disguise, which might be of service to her benefactress at some future time. ‘And I may still turn it to your advantage, my lady,' Fanny ventured to add, ‘if you will consent to say nothing to anybody of your having a servant who has learnt French.’ Iris looked at her coldly and gravely. ‘Must I remind you, she said, ‘ that you are asking my help in practising a deception on my husband ?’ ‘ I shall be sent away,' Fanny answeied, ‘if you tell my master what I have told you.’ This was indisputably true. Iris hesitated. In her present situation, the maid was the one friend on whom she could rely. Before her marriage, she would have recoiled from availing herself, under any circumstances, of such services as Fanny’s reckless gratitude had offered to her. But the moral atmosphere in which she was living had begun, as Mrs Vunpany had foreseen, to exert its baneful influence. The mistress descended to bargaining with the servant. ‘ Deceive the doctor,' she said, ‘ami I will remember that it may be for my good.' She stopped, ami considered for a moment. Her noble nature rallied its forces, and prompted her next words: ‘But respect your master, if you wish me to keep your secret. I forbid you to listen to what my lord may say, when he speaks with Mr Vimpany to-morrow.’

‘ I have already told your ladyship that I shall have no chance of listening to what they say to each other, out of doors,’ Fanny rejoined. ‘But I can watch the doctor, at any rate. We don’t know what he may not do when he is left by himself, while my master is at the meeting. I want to try if I can follow that rogue through the streets, without his finding me out. Please to send me on an errand to Paris to-morrow.' ‘ Von will be running a terrible risk,' her mistress reminded her, ‘ if Mr Vimpany discovers you.’ ‘ I take my chance of that’,’ was the reckless reply. Iris consented. (TO BE CONTINUED.)