"An insurance !"

"Yes. Were you not apprised of that fact? Mr. Sheldon, with very natural precaution, insured his stepdaughter's life for a considerable sum-in point of fact, as I believe, five thousand pounds; so that, in case of her death prior to the recovery of the Haygarth estate, her mother might receive some solatium."

"He had insured her life!" said Valentine, under his breath.

This, then, was the key to the mystery. The Haygarthian inheritance was but a remote contingency, a shadowy prize, which could scarcely have tempted the secret assassin; but the insurance had offered the prospect of immediate gain. The one link wanting to complete the chain of evidence against Philip Sheldon was found. There was no longer a question as to his motive.

"This man knows of one insurance on her life," Valentine thought to himself; "there may have been more than one."

After a brief silence, in which Mr. Hawkehurst had been lost in thought, the lawyer proceeded to discuss the terms of the post-nuptial settlement necessary for the protection of his client's interests. In the course of this discussion Valentine explained his position in relation to George Sheldon, and stated the demands of that sharp practitioner.

Mr. Greenwood was utterly aghast upon hearing Mr. Hawkehurst's views on this subject.

"You mean to tell me that this man claims a clear half of the Haygarth estate-fifty thousand pounds-in consideration of his paltry discoveries!"

"Such is the demand he has made, and which I have pledged myself not to oppose. He certainly does open his mouth very wide; but we are bound to consider that but for these discoveries of his, my wife and my wife's relatives would in all probability have gone down to their graves in ignorance of their claim to this estate."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hawkehurst. If Mr. George Sheldon had not made the discovery, someone else would have made it sooner or later, depend upon it. There would have been a little loss of time, that is all. There are plenty of men of George Sheldon's class always on the look-out for such chances as this, and for very small chances in comparison to this. Why, I know a fellow, a Frenchman, called Fleurus, who will take as much trouble about a few hundred pounds' worth of unclaimed stock as this man, George Sheldon, has taken about the Haygarth succession. And he has really the impudence to claim fifty thousand pounds from you?"

"A claim which I have pledged myself not to oppose."

"But which you have not pledged yourself to support. My dear Mr. Hawkehurst, this is a business which you must allow me to settle for you, as your wife's legal adviser. We will consider you quite out of the question, if you please; you will thus come out of your relations to Mr. George Sheldon with perfectly clean hands. You will not

oppose his claim; but I shall oppose him in my character of legal adviser to your wife. Why, are you aware that this man executed an agreement with his brother, consenting to receive a fifth share of the estate, and costs out of pocket, in complete acquittance of all claims? I have an abstract of the agreement amongst Miss Halliday's-Mrs. Hawkehurst's papers."

After some further discussion, Valentine agreed to leave the whole matter in Mr. Greenwood's hands. Greek must meet Greek. Gray's Inn and the Fields must settle this business between themselves.

"I am only prince consort," he said with a smile. "I pretend to no actual interest in my wife's estate. I doubt, indeed, whether I should not have felt more complete happiness in our marriage if she had not been heiress to so large a fortune."

At this Mr. Greenwood laughed outright.

"Come, come, Mr. Hawkehurst," he exclaimed, "that really won't do. I am an old stager, you know-a man of the world; and you mustn't ask me to believe that the idea of your wife's expectations can afford you anything but unqualified satisfaction."

"You cannot believe? No, perhaps not," Valentine answered thoughtfully. "But you do not know how nearly these expectations have lost me my wife. And even now, when she is mine by virtue of a bond that only death can loosen, it seems to me as if her wealth would make a kind of division between us. There are people who will always consider me a lucky adventurer, and look at my marriage as the result of clever scheming. I cannot advertise to the world the fact that I loved Charlotte Halliday from the first hour in which I saw her, and asked her to be my wife three days before I discovered her claim to John Haygarth's estate. A man can't go through the world with his justification pinned upon his breast. I think it will be my fate to be misjudged all my life. A tw nonth ago I cared very little about the opinions of my fellow-men; but I want to be worthy of my wife in the esteem of mankind, as well as in the depths of my own moral consciousness."

"Go and finish your honeymoon," said the lawyer, digging his client in the ribs with elephantine playfulness; "the moon must be in her first quarter, I should think. Go along with you; and leave me to tackle Mr. George Sheldon."

BELGRAVIA

JANUARY 1869

MY ENEMY'S DAUGHTER

BY JUSTIN M'CARTHY

AUTHOR OF PAUL MASSIE," "THE WATERDALE NEIGHBOURS," ETC.

ME

CHAPTER IX. LILLA WOULD SERVE ME.

EANWHILE I am free to own that I liked the company of my pretty pagan; indeed, it brightened life very much to me. When I was most lonely and unfriended, these people had been strangely kind to me, and our common poverty and struggles made us-I was almost about to say unnaturally-certainly unusually familiar and friendly. Of course no young man of my age could ever be wholly indifferent to the company of a pretty and attractive girl; and I really grew quite fond of Lilla. I was not in the least in love with her, nor did she, I feel assured, ever think of me in the light of a possible lover; but we were very friendly and familiar, and indeed, in a sort of quiet confident way, attached to each other. A happy Bohemian independence of public opinion emancipated our movements. She and I generally walked out together on Sundays in the desolate suburbs, or across the swamp which was undergoing slow conversion into a park. Sometimes, as I came home in the evening, after giving some music-lessons-or, for that matter, tuning a piano-I met her going towards town, and I turned back and walked with her. Much amazed I used to be at first by her close knowledge of the shortest way to get everywhere, and of every shop where the best things to eat or wear or drink were to be had at the lowest possible prices.

Our talk was generally lively enough; but there were days when I became so saddened by my memories and my dull prospects that I really could not brighten; and then Lilla, in order to encourage me, told me all kinds of stories of her own occasional trials and distresses, as well as of people she had known, who, having been reduced to the very depths of despair, fell in with some lucky fortune, and were raised at once to high position and affluence. Most of those stories, to be

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sure, were told of young women reduced to serve in shops, whom some men of enormous wealth fell in love with and married; so that I could scarcely derive much encouragement from their application to my own personal condition. But it was easy to see with what a horizon fortune had bounded poor Lilla's earthly ambition. She had no genius for any work that did not directly conduce to personal adornment, and she had a very strong desire for wealth and ease.

"My only chance," she said frankly one day, "is to marry somebody who has money. I am sick of this place and this life. If I married a rich greengrocer even, I should be far, far happier than I am. I should have a home for my mother, and a cart to drive about in on Sundays, when the greengrocer did not want it for his business; and then mother and I would leave him at home on the Sundays to smoke in the back-kitchen, while we went out for a drive; and we could call for you and take you with us. I must marry somebody with money." "Suppose, in the mean time, somebody without money comes in way, and you fall in love with him ?"

the

"Love? Nonsense. Love is a luxury beyond my means, sir. Besides, do you know, I think debts and poverty make some of us coldhearted or no-hearted, and we are not capable of falling in love. Seriously, I don't think I could be."

"Then I hope no friend of mine will fall in love with you."

"I am sure I hope not-unless he has money. I don't believe I have such a thing as a heart."

"You ought to have told me all this before, Lilla. How do you know what agony you may be inflicting on my heart?"

I thought she would have laughed at this, but she looked at me quite gravely, and even sympathetically.

"Ah, no," she said quietly; "you are safe enough—from me at least; I can see that."

"Why, Miss Lyndon? Pray tell me."

"Don't ask me; but don't think me a fool. Have I not eyes? Can't I see that your heart is gone long ago in some disastrous way or other, and that you can't recover it; and don't you think I am sorry for you? Yes; as much as if you were my brother."

66

Ah, Lilla, you have far more heart than you would have me think. Not your eyes saw, but your heart."

And we neither spoke any more on that subject. But I knew that under my pretty pagan's plump bosom there beat a heart which the love of lobster-salad, and the hopes of a rich husband, and all the duty of dodging duns, could not rob of its genial blood-warmth.

Lilla had, like most London girls of her class and temperament, a passion for the theatre. She knew the ways of every theatre, and something about the private lives of all the actors and actresses, and who was married to whom, and who were not married at all, and who was in debt, and who made ever so much money in the year, and spent it or

hoarded it, as the case might be. She pointed you out a small cigarshop, and told you it was kept by the father of Miss Vashner, the great tragic actress; she called your attention to a small coal-and-potato store, and told you it was there Mr. Wagstaffe, the great manager, began his career; she glanced at a beery, snuffy little man in the street, and whispered that he was the husband of the dashing Violet Schönbein, who played the male parts in the burlesques and pantomimes, and whose figure was the admiration of London. Her interest did not lie so much in the stately opera-houses, or even the theatres where legitimate tragedy yet feebly protested its legitimacy and divine right, as in the small pleasant houses where comedians and piquant actresses could always fill the benches. She knew where the best seats were, and how to make use of an order to most advantage; and, indeed, seemed hardly ever to have gone to a theatre except in the company of somebody armed with such a missive. She had been to parties of all kinds -to Kew, to Richmond, to Vauxhall (yes, I think there was a Vauxhall then), to Greenwich, to Dulwich, to Rosherville. She appeared to have an intimate knowledge of all the places where supper was to be most comfortably and cheaply had in the neighbourhood of each theatre. She had been to the Derby; and she never missed seeing the Queen going to open Parliament, or even the Lord Mayor's Show. She knew all about the great people of London-the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Palmerston, and the like; and, by some strange process of information, she often used to get to know beforehand when grand balls were given in the neighbourhood of Belgrave-square or Park-lane, and she loved to go and watch at the doors to see the ladies pass in. Her uncle, she told me, had often promised to take her to the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Commons to hear a debate; but as yet he had not carried out his promise. He took her to the National Gallery and the Royal Academy's Exhibition; but she did not much care about these places of entertainment, and could not tell the name of any picture or painter afterwards. Mr. Lyndon, M.P., clearly wanted to impress her with the necessity of some sort of mental culture, for he sent her a new piano and a heap of books, and made her promise to learn. She might have mastered most studies quickly enough had she but shown the same aptitude for them which she had for picking-up the private histories of actresses and great ladies, for turning and trimming old dresses, for reviving decayed bonnets, and for stimulating flat porter, by the application of soda, into a ghastly likeness of bottled stout.

I thought her naturally so clever, and indeed I felt such a warm interest in her, that I set to work to teach her something. The piano she played very badly, and that I could teach her; singing I was likewise qualified to instruct her in; and French I spoke fluently enough. These, then, I offered, and in fact was determined, to teach her; and she was very glad to learn, and, when she was in humour for it, very quick and docile. What she went about teaching in the families where