animals. Other animals are born warriors, they fight in a dogged and determined sort of way; the stag is naturally timid, trembling, vibrating with every sound, flying from danger, from the approach of other creatures, halting to fight. When pursued its first impulse is to escape; but when turned to bay and flight is impossible it fronts its enemies nobly, closes its eyes not to see the horrible bloodshed, and with its branching horns steadily tosses dog after dog up one upon the other, until overpowered at last by numbers it sinks to its death.

It seems to me, as I think of it, not unlike a picture of his own sad end. Nervous, sensitive, high-minded, working on to the end, he was brought to bay and at last overpowered by that terrible mental rout and misery.

He wished to die in his studio-his dear studio for which he used to ong when he was away, and where he lay so long expecting the end, but it was in his own room that he slept away. His brother was with him. His old friend came into the room. He knew him, and pressed his hand

As time goes on the men are born, one by one, who seem to bring to us the answers to the secrets of life, each in his place and revealing in his turn according to his gift. Such men belong to nature's true priesthood, and among their names, not forgotten, will be that of Edwin Land

seer.

Zelda's Fortune.

CHAPTER VII.

ZELDA WINS.

UT, as Harold Vaughan would have said, it is Fate that disposes; and his Fate incarnate, Zelda, had still her part to perform. Claudia believed she was the opponent of Aaron in the game-she was in truth the adversary of an unknown player who held unseen and unsuspected cards.

The words "I am not his sister" literally scorched her like fire. What was she then, if, without any intelligible tie of blood between them, he was nevertheless more to her than all the world? She demanded the old tinker's hospitality with the air of one who had just stepped from the invisible universe, and who preferred her claim with the authority of no earthly queen. Then she set out to bring him-him who was not her brother-to the tents of those who were his people and but half hers. But she did not reach him-she sat down under the bush again.

What could it all mean? She had worshipped Harold Vaughan without knowing or heeding why, and had accepted their supposed bond of blood-relationship as a mysterious but still all-sufficient cause. Now that this was swept away, she was driven to look below the surface of her life and, with a quick rush, every word that Lord Lisburn had spoken when he offered himself to her came back filled with most intense meaning. She was incapable of thought, but her mind saw-and it saw that what Lord Lisburn asked from her she had already, even then, given ten times over to Harold Vaughan. That was why the Earl's words had not

touched her that was why she had been unable to recognise the name of Love when used by him. It is hard to speak of such a revelation as one of joy-yet what other word can be used, however much it may be mingled with a thousand unrealised shames and self-reproaches, when a woman first learns from her own heart what Love means? If it had not been for this, she would have lived and died, and never known her own soul. And yet, over the joy itself there hung a shadow. She was no martyr to give all and receive nothing in return beyond a brother's tolerance. He must know her even as she knew herself, and what would his answer be? What if her answer to Lord Lisburn should recoil upon ner own head, and if her discarded lover should be thus terribly avenged? She had looked forward to their being so happy together in the relationship that she thought it, in her ignorance of all such things, to be the key to all her hopes and desires; and now the key had proved as useless as that of Mrs. Goldrick's strong-box, and her treasure as much like Fairy-gold. Even to pass her life with him, unless under new and perhaps impossible conditions, would now be far worse than her life before she knew herself-for the first time in her life she knew what she desired, and for the first time she almost despaired.

She rose at last with a throbbing heart, and found him, resting obediently where she had bidden him wait for her.

"You are back at last, Zelda! Why what has happened?" he asked, suddenly observing a second transformation in the strange being whom he had passively given up trying to understand. The first transformation, that flashed upon him when she raised her veil, had been the result of the birth of the mind; what he saw now was the final struggle of the heart into the first glorious moment of self-consciousness before the joy is wholly lost in pain. Their wanderings in close and constant companionship, and in a belief that birth had made them more than mere companions, had necessarily brought about much familiarity between them. She was never absent from his side, and used to sit as close to his feet as a loving spaniel. Now she stood far off and looked towards him with tender and timid eyes.

"Nothing," she answered. "We are at our journey's end. I have found food and shelter-that is all."

I am dark enough to pass for "Indeed I wish I had been born

"Among your people, the Gipsies-I see. Well, so be it. That, for a time, will serve us for a new world. one myself," he said with a half-smile. one, with all my soul."

"Would you live with them always?"

"I would live anywhere, Zelda; all places are alike to me." "Where Claudia is not," his heart added; and, though she only heard his words, she sighed.

"You are not happy," she said. "How happy I would make you,

if I knew how!"

"You are a dear and good girl, Zelda. I judged you all wrongly.