for the nights were passed in fitful dreams, from which he would wake sweat-bedabbled and trembling; dreams in which all the events of that fearful day would pass in review before him; where he saw the bright handsome boy bound to the chair helpless, with a certain knowledge of his doom, but yet brave and defiant; where he felt himself again staggering towards the pond, and once more saw the slow, broad ripple, like a sullen smile, spread over the face of the stagnant water which concealed the dead. But there was a dream which was even worse than these-a dream, in which he seemed to recognize that all the events of that dreadful day were but themselves the figment of a dream-to wake to the stern reality of what was agony indeed.

Strange how the memory of the murder of that handsome, fair-haired boy clung to and haunted the murderer, when other crimes of equal magnitude never gave him an uneasy moment. He had passed years of his life in the house, and from time to time had been in the very room where the old banker had pleaded to him for his life, and died by his hand; he had paid his court to his victim's niece, by whom the dead man's memory was religiously cherished, and had almost succeeded in securing her for his wife, without compunction and without remorse. But these things never troubled him one jot; while the death of Danby was for ever before his eyes, and the pond and its contents exercised over him a terrible spell.

If he could have spoken to anyone about it if he could have told what he suffered, and talked of the fascination under which he lay-it would have been some relief; he felt that, but he knew its impossibility. There was but one man in the world to whom he could have opened his mouth-his old associate Studley; and he was dead. Heath knew that; he had seen the account of the captain's accident, and its result, in the newspaper, and, at first, had experienced a sensation of relief to think that the one man who shared with him the knowledge of the crime was silenced for ever, and there was no possibility now of the confidence being broken. But that feeling soon passed away, and to it succeeded an inexplicable terror. He would have given anything that his old accomplice had lived; anything to have had him there to talk to, and to consult with, to arouse him up and fortify him, no matter how deceptively, to break into the

hell of gloom and silence, in which his days and nights were passed. It was not to be. Studley was gone, and he, though a much younger man, would follow soon-he knew that, he felt it; his nerves were shattered, his health was breaking down, and the end was at hand.

It was night; the night when, in the quiet Bloomsbury lodging, the newly-arrived nurse sat expecting the return of her patient. Deep, dead silence, broken now and again by the staggering footstep, or the hiccuping song of some roisterer rolling homeward from the taverns, reigned over the village of Loddonford; deeper, more dead than anywhere else, was the silence in the jungle-like garden of the cottage. Sitting at the open window of the room in which Danby had met his death was George Heath, his head resting on his hand, his eyes fixed straight before him; an early moon had risen, and its pale wan gleam was shining over the accursed spot, where, as he knew, lay the pond. The fascination of that spot for him seemed stronger than ever that night; he could not take his eyes from it; but sat waiting for nothing truly, expecting nothing, but finding it impossible to turn away. There were lighted candles in the room, but he had put them from him, on the mantlepiece, and was sitting enshrouded in the gloom. Suddenly he raised his head from his hand and bent it eagerly forward. He was not mistaken then, but had heard the creak of the garden-gate, which, by some mischance had been left unlocked. What visitors could come at such a time, save those whose advent he was always expecting and guarding against? The sweat stood in beads upon his forehead, and his breath became short and thick. Silence! No; that was not a man's tramp—the heavy boot of a policeman would awake a different sound; the footfall on the gravel was light and swift, it came quickly towards him; a female figure glided across the intervening strip of moonlight, and was at the open window, facing him.

George Heath started back and pressed his hands upon his eyes. In his fevered state he thought himself the victim of an optican delusion, but, on looking again, there was the figure still.

Its hands, he noticed, were outstretched in an imploring attitude, and one of them was enveloped in bandages. Then a soft voice said, "George !" and he started, as though from the cut of a whip, or the blow of a knife. Hard work, hard living, illness, and bad treatment had not altered that

as he started on his round again after one of these "was I right in coming to you? There was danger in that woman's threat, wasn't there ?" "The greatest danger," he said, quickly stopping and looking at her. "In what she threatens she will do, and my only chance of avoiding instant ruin and death-and death," he repeated, laying curious accent on the word, "is by acting on your warning, and flying from this place at once."

"It is so, then," said Lydia. "Thank God I had the sense to understand her, and the power to come. I wonder what the new nurse is doing now, and what Mr. Burton will say when he finds I am gone. And you have yet time to save yourself?"

"Yes," he said, "if I start at once. I have but few preparations to make, and can get clear off before the morning. But what of you?"

some day, my girl. Now you must have some rest, for I see you are dropping with fatigue." "Oh, no," she said, feebly. "I am all rightI shall do well enough."

66

Nonsense," he replied; "I insist upon your trying to sleep while I nake my preparations. I will arouse you when the moment for farewell arrives."

| "Very well," said Lydia; "under those conditions I will lie down, for I think a little sleep would do me good."

Heath pushed the sofa to the wall, and, going upstairs, quickly returned with some pillows and blankets which he threw upon it, and made into a tolerably comfortable bed. Lydia was already nodding in her chair; but before she lay down Heath insisted on her taking another large glass of wine, which he had poured out for her. As soon as she had swallowed it, she fell back upon the sofa, and in a few moments was thoroughly. unconscious.

George Heath seated himself on the low chair by the side of the couch, and remained for some minutes staring at its occupant with a strange, un

He looked up quickly. There was a mist before his eyes and a thick knot in his throat, as he muttered to himself, "By heavens, she cares for me still!" After a pause, he made an effort to master his emotion, and said, in a broken tone, "Do you mean that do you mean to say that, remembering the way in which I have treated you; knowing me to be what I am, an admitted criminal, whose life is now only to be secured by flight-you would come back to me ?"

"Oh yes," she replied, quite calmly, looking straight into his eyes, most certainly I would. What do I care! Am I not an admitted criminal of another sort? I have loved you for many years, George, and no matter what you are, or may be, to be with you is my idea of happiness." He took her unmaimed hand and pressed it tightly between his own-tightly, quietly, and without any theatrical show. "I believe you, Lydia," he said. "I have heard about returning good for evil, but never saw it practiced before. I ill-treated and deserted you, and now you have saved my life at the risk of your own. Nothing can be more certain than that you shall join me

vening years seemed to roll away like a mist, and he was once more the young clerk with his eighty pounds a year, and she the milliner's apprentice, with her pretty face, and trim figure, and irrepres sible love of dancing. He had scarcely thought of that time since, but he remembered it all now— the gardens and supper taverns, which they frequented, the cheap amusements they patronised, the zest with which they enjoyed everything they did. It was curious, he thought, that those scenes should have come back to his memory now; that the recollection of those bright days of happiness should have recurred to him just when the curtain was about to fall. Strange, too, that she, who had partaken of the pleasures of his life, should be present at that critical period; and that he should owe to her, whom he had treated worse than any one else on earth, the opportunity of escape from his impending doom. He was glad she had come, he thought, as it gave him an opportunity of proving, in one way, at least, that he appeciated her devotion.

He rose as this thought crossed his mind, and going to an old bureau which stood in the corner of the room, opened it with a key which was on his bunch, and took out a compact roll of banknotes, amounting in value to several hundred

pounds. With this packet in his hand he approached the couch, and bending over the pros trate figure, ascertained beyond doubt that Lydia. was sound asleep. Convinced of this, he opened the front of her dress, and, placing the roll of bank-notes inside, secured it with a pin, and fastened the dress again. Lydia remained motionless; and so heavy was the combined state of sleep and stupor into which she had fallen, that she never felt the touch of George Heath's cold lips, as he pressed them on her forehead. As he raised himself his eyes were wet; but he brushed the tears hastily away, and striding to the window, opened it softly. The rain had ceased, the dawn was faintly breaking; and the fresh morning air blowing in, caused the guttering candles to leap fitfully in their expiring agony. Heath turned around and extinguished them, cast one more lingering look at the unconscious figure on the sofa, then, bare-headed, stepped out from the low window-sill, beneath which Anne Studley had fallen down insensible, and walked away into the dim morning, the first twitter of the waking birds breaking the silence as his foot fell upon the gravel path.

Late that afternoon, Banks's fly drew up at the garden gate of Pond Cottage. The old horse, who had not gone at such a pace since the last race meeting, shook his smoking sides, and tucked his trembling legs more than ever under him, while the driver touched his hat to his fare, and requested something extra for himself on the strength of the speed at which he had driven. Clement Burton, the gentleman appealed to, was in no humor to dispute any price which might have been asked, so, flinging the man a coin, he jumped out of the vehicle, and tore at the garden bell. A country wench, with a round red face, on which was a general expression of astonishment, opened the gate, and from her Clement Burton speedily learned that a strange lady, "all out of sorts like," with one of her arms tied up in bandages, was in the cottage at that moment, though how or when she arrived was more than the girl could say. "All I know is, sir," she said, "that there she be, dozing off now and then, then walking up sudden and staring straight be fore her, until it seems impossible for her to keep her eyes open any longer, then off she goes again."

"Is your master with her?" asked Clement hurriedly.

"No, sir, that's just the worst of it," said the girl; "master hain't nowhere to be found. I have been here with him ever since he came back from furren parts, and he never moved out once; but now he's gone out somewhere, and all I can get out of this strange woman that I found in the place this morning is, that he has gone away. Come in and see her yourself, sir. Lord love yer, I am twittered out of my wits, being left with her all alone."

Then Clement Burton followed the girl into the house, and there half reclining on the couch from which she had attempted to rise, he found Lydia. An examination of the pupils of her eyes and her tongue showed the surgeon, at once, that she had been drugged. Indeed, she failed to recognise him, and, in reply to all his questions, gave but one answer, that "Mr. Heath was gone away.' Between long lapses of silence and stupor she uttered those words, but would make no other avowal. Clement Burton recognised at once the fact, that Lydia had comprehended sufficiently of what had been said by Anne to understand that Heath was in danger; that she had fled to warn him; and that, profiting by her readiness, he had escaped. A hasty glance around the house, however, made it evident that Heath had taken nothing with him; and Mr. Burton was debating within himself the possibility of the criminal's return, as soon as he imagined the storm had blown over, when the village constable, whom he had called in to assist him in his search, reported that, on examination of the garden, he had found footmarks on the soft earth margin of the pond. A sudden light broke upon Clement Burton's brain. The idea that Heath would have committed self-destruction had never before occurred to him, and even now, such a step could only be accounted for by the supposition that in his recent illness his mind had become unhinged. There was, however, but one thing to do. The hue and cry was raised throughout the village, the services of some of the fishermen were secured, and the pond was thoroughly dragged. The men worked with a will, and before the shades of evening fell they had found, not merely the body of George Heath, but the ghastly remains of Walter Danby!

BOOK III. CHAPTER XI. THE LAST SACRIFICE.

THERE is little need to tell that Anne Studley, when she gave up the charge of the poor maimed woman, whose revelation had made such a difference in her life, at the same time abandoned her assumed name of Gaynor, and took up her abode at the Hermitage with Grace Middleham, " to remain there for life," Grace said, as she welcomed her long-lost friend; but Anne smiled quietly, and shook her head. She said nothing, but she had her own notions that an alteration in the domestic affairs might possibly be made soon, when a re-arrangement of the household would be necessary.

And before she had been an inmate of the Hermitage for a month, that which had been a shrewd suspicion grew to be an undoubted certainty. Anne Studley saw that the measure of her sorrow was not yet full, and that there was still another sacrifice which it was necessary for her to make. When, in the depth of her despair, she had abandoned the quiet family in the little German town, where, up to that time, what had been the most peaceful, if not the happiest portion of her existence, had been passed; and arriving solitary and friendless in London, had determined upon pursuing the avocation of a hospital nurse, as the one which, by entirely engrossing her time, would give her no scope for reflection or recollection, she found she had miscalculated her powers of endurance, and but for one circumstance would have retired from her newly-elected occupation in disgust. The chance meeting with Clement Burton, brought about in the mutual discharge of their professional duties, induced her to persevere in her original idea. The intelligent young surgeon not merely recognized that Anne's clear head and practical sense would be of great value in the calling she had chosen, but reading between the lines, he was enabled to perceive the necessity for her immersion in some daily routine which should prevent her thoughts from dwelling on her past career. With much gentle skill and judgment, and without the least appearance of busying himself with her affairs, he contrived to let her see the importance he attached to her assistance, and gradually won her to regard her duties with interest. That interest was not limited to her occupation, but extended to him who had been the means of procuring it for her. Meeting daily as they did,

Anne had every opportunity of observing Clement Burton's noble qualities-his kindness of heart, his patience, his devotion to the humblest of those who were brought under his care. It had never previously been her lot to meet with such a man and it was not difficult to guess the result. Her early appreciation of his goodness deepened by degrees into a stronger feeling, and long before, at his suggestion, she had gone in attendance on Lydia Walton, she knew that her heart, which had refused to listen to the honest pleadings of Franz Eckhardt, and had never before been touched was hers no longer. She loved Clement Burton with a silent, deep, but entirely hopeless love; hopeless, not merely on account of the barrier erected between them by her previous marriage, but from the fact, which she did not attempt to disguise from herself, that of her passion there was, on Clement's part, no return. He appreciated her, respected her, liked her-she knew that; no brother could have treated her with greater regard; but the feelings by which he was actuated were plainly different to hers, and never could become the same.

She acknowledged all this before she knew of Clement Burton's acquaintance with Grace Middleham; but from the time that she first saw them together, she knew that whatever little remnant of hope had remained concealed in her bosom must be given up, and that her fate was fixed. The barrier of her marriage had been broken down by Lydia Walton's disclosure, but one quite as impassable reared itself in the vacant place. Her clear eyes saw in an instant that Clement loved Grace, and that his love was returned, and a very little study of the case showed her exactly how matters stood between them; her lengthened intercourse with the young man had given her a keen insight into his character. He had often talked freely with her himself and his affairs; she knew his firm sense of honor, and was certain that he had never so much as hinted to Grace the state of his feelings towards her. Had the woman he loved been in a different position, it was probable, Anne thought, that Clement would long since have asked her to share his lot; but the fact that Grace was an heiress had kept him silent. He was in a good gractice and position now, and could well afford to maintain a wife out of his professional earnings; but he was aproud man, and keenly sensitive, and would shrink from the idea that even the