say; but no further preparation for my coming. I don't think they ever do lock the doors at Marchbrooke, by the bye; but as Slingsby is a collector of bull-terriers, the burglars allow him to enjoy his old silver. He has been giving five-and-twenty shillings an ounce for candlesticks lately."

"A more civilised taste than I should have given him credit for," murmured Sir Jasper, toying complacently with a bonbon-box, which had, or had not, been given by Louis XIII. to Madame de Chevreuse.

So Mr. Holroyde stayed at the Abbey, and gratified Sir Jasper amazingly with his conversation; or perhaps still more so by the graceful manner in which he listened to Sir Jasper's discourse. He slept in the blue bedroom, in the bed by which Godfrey Pierrepoint had lifted his soul to heaven in the passionate prayer of his blighted manhood. And yet no uncomfortable dreams haunted the placid slumbers of the elegant and easy-going Arthur Holroyde. It had been his habit to take life lightly, and not to think too much of unpleasant things. He brushed the re

cord of his sins and follies off his memory almost as easily as he brushed the dust from his coat in these latter days when he had no valet to do it for him.

CHAPTER V.

DIABOLICAL SUGGESTION.

MRS. HARDING entered the cosey little paneled chamber, which was used as a breakfast-room, very early on the morning after Mr. Holroyde's visit. But although the Abbey-clock had not yet struck eight, she found Arthur Holroyde standing in the bay-window, contemplating the woody landscape, beautiful in the sunlight of a delicious September morning. Men who lead actively wicked lives are generally early risers. It is only your passive, negatively bad man-your Charles Stuart, or your Rochester-who lie late o' mornings. must be waking early when he has the burning of Rome to arrange for his evening festival; and Marie Marguerite d'Aubray, Marchioness of Brinvilliers, can have little leisure in which to oversleep herself. Arthur Holroyde's life had been a very

Nero

active one, and the earliest glories of the eastern sunlight generally shone upon his waking eyes and found him busy planning the campaign of the day. He was the younger son of a younger son, and had never had any money of his own worth speaking of; yet he had lived, and had lived the sort of life which, in his estimation, was a very pleasant one. He had patronised the best tradesmen, and had been hunted by the best sheriff'sofficers, and had taken flight to the pleasantest Continental cities, when the dark hour of insolvency came upon him. He had been outlawed, and had spent many years of his wicked existence. in those foreign resting-places where Vice assumes her most graceful shape, and flaunts her brilliant image in the very face of poor humdrum Virtue. And he had contrived to enjoy himself very tolerably, living from hand to mouth, and picking up his money in all manner of crooked ways, but preserving the whiteness of his hands, the perfect symmetry of his slender feet, and the gracious sweetness of that smile which had been irresistible

to weak womankind ever since the penniless under

graduate had left the University with an ineffable belief in his own powers, and a profound contempt for his fellow-men-a contempt which he was wise enough to hide under the mask of good-nature. There is nothing more easy to acquire than a reputation for good-nature; and, in running for the prize of popularity, the man who says agreeable things will always win the race against the man who only performs benevolent actions. The fortune of a millionaire will not allow the benevolent man to give every body as much as he asks for ; but the pleasant-spoken man will make himself agreeable to the universe, and be none the poorer for the transaction, but in all probability very much the richer. All the substantial goodness of a Douglas Jerrold will not counterbalance one stinging witticism in the mind of the victim who has been stung. Mr. Holroyde had chosen his path in life at the outset, and had never swerved from it. For him Rochester's epitaph on his gracious sovereign might have been paraphrased. He was a man who never did a civil thing, and never said rude one. He turned as the widow