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| ALL RIGHTS IiESER VBV.) -—— I THE LOVE OF A i LADY, I 00, ROWLEY LE BRETON. By ANNIE THOMAS, I Dennis Donne," "Played Out," of Bier,don," &c. ] CHAPTER HI. TJIOBING THE FUTURE. When, in accordance with the dictates of common humanity, Miss Hewlett had secured the services of a doctor for the mistress whom it was her duty to serve, and whom she be- lieved to be badly woutide-1, she turned a ecared, drawn white face up to the heavens, i and asked of the stars, What next shall I do ? To go back to the house where the sym- pathies of every inmate would be engaged by the injured woman would be to drive herself into that abyss of madness on whose verge she seemed to be tottering. Bedlam itself would be preferable to a sigbtof the seductively arranged chamber in which the beautiful Mrs. Marchant was probably lying by this time, surrounded by every alleviating care and attention that love could suggest. She pictured Rowley Le Breton kneeling by Mrs. Mar- chant's side!—pictured him with the dark I gold crowned head pillowed on his shoulder if, as was probable, the owner of that head chanced to be insensible still. She pictured the alluring sigh and drawing smile—the blush that would be rather a suggestion than a fact with which the lovely, languishing invalid would half escape from, half yield to his embrace. As the picture grew and coloured itself before her mental vision her wild, haggard face grew wilder and more haggard. She lifted her thin, cruel, clenohed hands aloft and cursed them both in her bitter, futile fury, "Ruin to you, false woman, faithless wife," she groaned," and to yoi4- you who have been so insolently cold, so heartlessly blind-to you some of the pain that I feel, the pain that scalds and stings, and never, never ceases." You had better go home if you have one to go to-anyway, move on, and don't go play-acting and ranting here," a policeman remarked, as his heavy, official stamp brought him well into the midst of her wild rhapsody. As far as "moving on" was concerned she took his advice, but she sought no roof shelter until long after the sun had risen. Then she made her way to a house that stood at the far end of a new terrace in West Ken- sington-one of those picturesque terraces that lay no claim to belonging to any authen- ticated school of architecture, but that are compromising and attractive in appearance by virtue of their incongruities of style and daring contrasts of white railed balcony against red-brick wall. Miss Hewlett rang at the area bell and desoended the steps rapidly; then stood crossing herself, shuldering-cast- ing haggard glances up at the sunshine until the door was opened. Then she went in with the hasty, scrambling steps of one who would avoid observation. As she passed into a atuffy sitting-room, plentifully decorated with Wax flowers in garish French vases, tam- bourines, musical boxes, fans, and other articles usually to be found in the stock-in- trade of a professed Trance and Clair- voyante Medium," the woman who had let her in bawled out:- Chiquita told me you was coming to-day, Miss Hewlett; but as for giving you a seance now it's what I wouldn't do for no money you could offer me. I was sitting with some m parties till past two o'clook this morning, and I'm that weak now that if I hadn't taken a thimbleful o' brandy in my tea I should have fainted right dead away on the floor now this minute, just as you come to the door." Bat by-aud-bye you'll feel stronger. Don't send me away, Mrs. Maunsell great things have happened since I saw you Uh, I know that; you've no need to tell me that," the Medium interrupted, with an air of contemptuous assurance and knowledge that impressed her already over-wrought visitor hugely. "But what I say is my con- troul won't let me hexhaust my power and bring myself down to this weakness of a new-born babe in a-giving these 'ere casual seances at a moment's notice like to gratify the curiosity of one who ain't too liberal when that curiosity's satisfied. But as several of my spirits is rather partial to you, Miss Hewlett, I don't mind giving you a, seance presently if a gentleman as I am ex- pecting should drop in. Quite the gentleman he is, too! Very 'igh, very 'igh, indeed, none of your beggarly 'aif-crown chaps, but a real slap-up, first-class feller that outs with his sovereign and says, Mrs. Maunsell,' says be, 1 know gold oan't repay you, but gold is all I can give beyond my grateful thanks, for, Bays he, I you are, without any gaff about it, the most powerful physical medium I've hever 'ad the blessing of meeting." 0, never mind him, don't wait for him," Miss Hewlett implored, wringing her hands; 11 do give me a seance see here I will give gold, too. Anything 1 Everything! This ring—my brooch—if only you'll exert yourself to give me a seance to-day The large, loosely-attired, flabbily-fat-gin- loddened medium heaved backwards and for- wards in her chair. I My controul'a in your favour, Miss Hewlett; he'll show bisself vith Hafiz in a few minutes. You sit quiet and be patient, and he'll manifest hisself, and give you better advice than you've had yet. Hafiz is real fond of you. He's a telling me now that if I darken the room he'll answer yoar questions in his .own voice, and float semi-luminous a-top of you. 0, thank him—thank him for me," Miss Hewlett muttered, with abject fervour, where- upon the medium rose to her large, flat, noiso- less slippered feet, and heaved her unwieldy body across to the window, which she effec- tually obscured with a mass of heavy curtains and carefully pinned-up shayiq. ite "Now ask thy questions 'tis JIaEz speaks, said a voice which the medium strove with a commendable effort to make as unlike her own, and as like to that of Hafiz, the Persian poet, as possible. At the sound of this voice -disregarding the fact that its accents were Badly suggestive of the Seven Diab-the fagged-out woman, who was nearly wrecked by passion and credulity, fell upon her knees and sobbed out: (Tell me if the accident of yesterday will deter-will alienate—will separate the man and woman the linos of whose lives are inter- crossed with mine P" This question appeared to be a poser for the Persian poet, for there was a prolonged pause, during which half-suppressed sounds of choking and snorting emanated from the Medium, expressive of the way in which Hafiz was wrestling with some unknown powers by means of her highly-developed humanity. When the silence was broken presently it was by the transparent affectation of a childish treble, which said "Good mornin', pretty pale-faced lady. I'm 'turn 'stead of Hafiz. liii Cbicluita. I help you and tell you tings till Hafiz gain power to materialise. You telinie 'bout little acciden'. He not hear-he busy hard at work, materialising." jjgDown i to the net spread so clumsily for wiping feet went the duge gt once, "I A shot was fired at my employer, Mrs. Marchant, last night. Chiquita. She was hurt. I heard her scream. Will it kill her ? Will it cure her of her wicked wish and endeavour to get back the love of a mac who belongs to another woman f Cbiquita declined to commit herself to any detinite expression of opinion on the subject, but hinted that she would like to hear a little more about the accident as she could then without prejudice assist Hafiz in any investigations he might be pleased to make. He no hear you now at all-he very hard at work forming to show hisself to you," the voice of Chiquita went on, her amiable and adaptable spirit evidently assuming that the language of English babyhood was the correot one in which a young Bengalee ghost should express itself.* Thus urged, Miss Hewlett narrated more of the events concerning the influences of which she had come to inquire, and bared her soul quite sufficiently for the Medium's pur- pose Then Chiquita said goodbye in an infantile voice—a few sparks of fire flashed and floated about the room, the table bumped and creaked ominously, the Medium breathed stertorously, and a thick cloud of grey, opaque something about the length of a bolster-case suspended itself near the ceiling. Ii Touch me not, I am ;Afiz," said a sonorous voice, which, oddly enough, came from the direction of the Medium's recumbent, and, of course, unconscious form. Hask thy questions fear not to 38k or to 'ear the hanswers. 'Tis Hafiz tells thee to do it. Hafiz who his the poet of love." Will the man and woman about whom I ask part after the warning they had last night ?" They may, and they may not," Hafiz re- joined diplomatically. "Will the one who has the right to the woman's obedience take her out of the danger and temptation she delights in ? Hafiz prudently paused before he replied, while Miss Hewlett clasped her hands and raised them in an attitude of earnest supplica- tion to the shape of the bolster-case, which still hovered in mid-air. If the one who 'as a right to the woman's obedience is wise, he will be guided by the words of warning you must give 'im. I see fire-arms and a wound in the air, and I see I worse things around the woman if she is not taken away from the bad influences that surround her. I see money and a quantity of water about you, which means that one who loves you has just come over the sea with treasure to lay at your feet when the women who have been wounded is got out of your way. There's bright crowns and flowers all round you, and now my Medium is getting tired, and I ain't agoin' to wear her out for no one." So abruptly lapsing into the vernacular, Hafiz-the Persian Prince, and Poet and the Chief Controul of Mrs. Maunsell from Seven Dials-went off, and the Medium came back from her trance with a chortling sigh of satis- faction at the thought of the easy way in which she had made her victim play her (the Medium's) game of gaining a sovereign and fooling the giver of it. 11 Well, have it been at all satisfactory, Miss Hewlett ? I know nothing about it, you see, for Hafiz he sent me right off into a dead trance. It's rather 'ard, I often think, that I shouldn't know- nothing of all the little secrets that are talked before me while L'm sitting there like a stock and stones, with the spirits using me for their own purposes. But now 'as it been satisfactory ?" Oh, very, very," Miss Hewlett cried ex- citedly. 11 I have had such beautiful advice, and seen Hafiz's form quite distinctly—his face was concealed in vapour, but it has been such happiness to see his form, and to feel that he is interested in me." Then she shook out two gold pieces from her purse, and went on her way rejoicing. Sh3 kept her place unwaveringly on the platform till the one she watched for—Mr. Marchant—alighted. Then she strove to speak the warning which should frighten him into taking his wife away out of the pernicious atmosphere of Rowley Le Breton. But, as has been already told, he would not listen to her. So Hafiz, Prince of Persia, had given himself considerable trouble for noth- II ing, apparently. It was the second morning after Mrs. Marohant's accident. The greater part of the guests in the house were assembled at the breakfast table, and the silence which accom- panies the reading of one's morning corre- spondence was weighing heavily upon the few who had no letters to read. Mr. Le Breton was running through his letters oarelessly, when suddenly he came upon one that, in the fullest meaning of the word, caused him to sit up. He looked at the envelope, saw that it had been addressed to him at his club, and so delayed on its journey, It was from his wife ''•< v. He commenoed the perusal of it with the stagnant, half-hearted interest which is apt to be the dominant sensation of one who is compelled by a sense of duty to read a stale letter. But he quickly grew excited over its contents—brief as they were. This was what she wrote in a steady, firm hand, that betrayed neither variableness nor shadow of turning 11 My dear Rowley,- Through a very unexpected source I have heard of your return to England, and I wish you to know at once that I have been brought to see the criminal Colly of tho arrangement we entered into four years ago. Our place is side by side, our duty is to be together. God has joined us together, and neither man nor woman can put us asundor. You will find my old liome-ou)- old home—unchanged. You will find me changed in respect of being more tolerant to some prejudices of yours that I foolishly allowed myself to be offended by formerly. Cousin Agnes has arrived unexpectedly, and will stay with me for the remainder of the summer at least. Always your true aud affectionate wife, HKLEN LE BRETON, The Rest, SurLiton." It was a letter that promised well for his future peace and comfort, honour, and happi- ness-could he but have read it aright. But this he failed to do. Instead of seeing in it a good, pious woman's desire to do her own duty and help her husband to do his in a blameless way before God and man, he re- garded it as an outburst of jealous but justifiable tyranny. "She's within her rights in ordering me back just as she was in ordering me off," he grumbled, but no reasonable woman can expect a fellow to put his head into a bridle that she herself has once taken off. Poor Helen if she knew how much happier she would be without me she wouldn't piously order me back." lie had no friends among the people who sat with him at the board, therefore; he did not deem it necessary to disperse the gloom which overspread his face aud manner in order to disarm their criticism. He bated the idea of going back to the wife who had bored him in the first months of their marriage, I, and to the home which had seemed dull even before he had tasted the freedom and golden elixir of life in great American cities and graciously free American society. She with her Puritanic notions, as he called them (she was the reverse of Puritanic, by the way, having decided proclivities towards ceremo- nial and gorgeous ritual, but Rowley massed all piety together under the name of Puri- tanism), she with her Puritan notions would be miserable in the atmosphere of his cigarette smoke and emancipated ideas. While as for himself, misery would be but a poor, feeble word to desoribe hia state when he found himself back a forgiven husband!- in the handsomely maintained old home, over which it was bit wife's will that be should seem to reigi £ -"< I'm a cur to go back and pretend to pick I up the threads of life where we broke them off yearB ago." he thought. She in her saintliness will believe that the worst thing I've done is to shrink from the sight of Dora and the sound of her name, and that horrible cousin Agnes of hers will follow me about with her great haunting eyes and haggard form, and hang on my words like a tiger-cat in hopes of oatching me tripping Well! I must answer this dutiful and magnanimous epistle. And then I must see Dora-for the last time. He went on his way upstairs moodily to his room as he thought this, and was met at the top of the stairs by Mrs. Marohant's maid. My mistress told me to give you this, sir," the woman said, handing him a note. He opened it and read, traced in shaky characters, the following words: Come to the back drawing-room in an hour. I have something rather strange to tell you about my missing companion.— DORA." CHAPTER IV. >Vf :\Iy DAY IS Oi-Eit.,7 < nen Rowley Le Breton joined his quondam love in the back drawing-room he found her busily piuning together a torn letter. Look! this was found thrown carelessly into the grate in Misa Flewlett's room, Rowley. Kead it! it's a revelation to me." He had no great interest in anything that concerned Mrs. Marchant's companion, but Mrs. Marchant's wounded limb had a pathetic fascination for him. So he sat down on a low chair in front of her sofa and began making tender inquiries in his best tenor tones," with the soft pedal down." Head this she interrupted curtly, hold- ing out a book on which the pieces of torn letter were arranged, and he read in writing, that he knew only too well, the following words Dearest. Agnes- I see in the Morning Post that Rowley has re- turned from India, and is about to publish his im- pressions of Indian Society-' My days, as you know, are numbered. I must die at peace with my husband. Therefore, I have written to ask him to come back to me, to forgive and be forgiven.' But I feel I need your sustaining presence, so come to me, dear cousin. Leave that wickod syren who lured him to sail upon the treacherous sea of her false love, and then left him wrecked upon the rocky 81iore of dessrtion and disappointment, and come bick to soothe the last days of your loving cousin. "HELEN LE BRETON." From my wife !-By Jove he exclaimed, his bronzed face flushing hotly, his blue eyes flaming with a fire that might almost have scorched the piece of paper on which they were rivetted. "To my companion—my 'confidential' companion! Little I thought I bad I chiel among' my most treasured secrets taking notes Rowley, that ghastly woman has wormed herself into the innermost reoesses of my mind! Now she will go and tell her cousiti--you)- wife—all the silly things I have said about you." My wife will not encourage her to talk scandal. I must do Mrs. Rowley Le Breton the justice of saying that she takes little or no interest in what other people may feel or say about me." The lovely woman on the sofa turned a provoking glance of unbelief upon him. Now, would you mind," she said very softly," would you mind telling me why such an unexacting wife and you parted ? "That is my wife's secret. She gave me her confidence. I am bound to respect it!" >• So you are—and you will do it! I felt that before I asked, and I like, and respect, and admire you more than ever, Rowley, for your courage in doing what is right, though in doing it you administer a snub to my un-' warrantable but not unwomanly ouriosity." Then she paused, allowing these two flattering clauses to work well into his mind, almost to the exclusion of the more prudent portion of her appreciative speech. In short, he found it difficult to bear in mind that she rea- peoted" him for his reticence, while the thrilling tone in which she said she admired him was ringing in his ears. There was a brief pause, during which he played with the pieces of his wife's letter and wished Mrs. Marchant safely back at Walm- sey, while she went through one or two of the private qualms which assail a woman when she first realises that her day is done." At last she broke the silence. I thought it more than likely that the Cousin Agnes,' whom she trusts, whom you loathe, and who I begin to understand hates me, might have had something to do with the estrangement between Mrs. Le Breton and yourself P' "1 think not. Miss Hewlett very rarely came to The Rest wbile-I was there. She was a woman whose presence gave me no pleasure-an emotional middle-aged woman, with big eyes that are alternately humid and fiery, is too great a strain on my very mode- rate dramatio instincts." I shouldn't despise her if I were you. She vanished from here by a curious coincidence simultaneously with my being shot at; she intercepted my husband on his way to me and tried to pour the poison in his ear, and now she is invited by your wife to sojourn under the same roof with you Don't despise her, but find her out!" "She's hardly worth investigating!" "But, like other crawling things, she de- serves to be swept out—exterminated," Mrs. Marchant exclaimed with sudden angry energy. Look here, Rowley You and I are parting now, and it's not likely we shall ever meet again. We are parting in safety and honour, and comparative happiness. If that woman gets a chance she will report one or all of these things for both of us, and in doing so she will not be seeking the welfare of your wife. She has some other end than cousinly affection for Mrs. Rowley Le Breton to serve. Per- haps you can tell me what it is?" "She had a stupid delusion at one time," Rowley said, colouring vividly through his covering of Indian bronze. A delusion of which it would not become you to speak P" Mrs. Marchant made her inquiry in a politely impersonal way that would have struck a stranger as being the effort of a casual acquaintance to interest herself in the current man in most open mere seeming. But Howley Le Breton was not a stranger to the woman he had loved. Her meaning was as clear to him as if she had expressed it in words, A delusion for which I as a man was not to be blamed, while at the same time she as a woman was to be profoundly pitied, not despised or carelessly condemned." In other words, she fell in love with you Mrs. Marchant spoke more bluntly than was her wont. The absurdity of the idea which she wa3 wording grated roughly upon her finer female sense, and jarred her into making a discordant utterance. She fell in love with you she repeated contemptuously; she—a woman ten or fifteen years older than you—a woman with a personal appearance that must even in her youth have been calculated to rasp the nerves of a man who bad such a worship of beauty as you had-and have! Horrid woman that she is to have cultivated such a ridiculously unnatural feeling-for a married man, too! — her own cousin's husband." You're rather harsh. Even assuming that what you assert, but I haven't admitted, were true, Miss Hewlett wouldn't be the first woman who has wished to mate her 'crabbed age to gay youth.' But 1 don't want to waste the time in talking about a middle-aged spin- ster and her perplexing delusions. I want to know when you will be well enough to travel. Mrs Jtfarehwt*" 3 -1 You seem anxious that I should go." She I was too staggered by the subtle change that had come over him that she failed, for onoe, to try and fascinate him. "As your going will mean that you have recovered from your acoident ?-- Y es! I am anxious that you should go. Moreover, I want to discharge my responsibilities, and see vou safely out of this before I go my- self." You mean to leave ?'' In a day or two. My wife" (he struggled hard to say the words smoothly)- my wife writes to tell me that our establish- ment at The Rest is in working order again, so I shall re-join her there directly." Mrs. Marchant made the supreme effort of her life. She lifted herself from among the cushions among which she was becomingly reolining-disregarded the fact that her hair was unbecomingly disordered by the move- ment—and stammered out:- Rowley, I can travel very well. You shall eee me off to Walmsey to-day. My husband was quite right when he said he left me in safe hands when he left me in yours. I shall tell my maid to pack now, and by-and- bye, perhaps, I may have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Le Breton at Walmsey." They were standing up opposite to each other as she spoke. She with her shattered shoulder and syren face; he with his strong, young purpose not to be subjugated by her! Each was to be pitied She because she was learning to love him more each moment she knew him; he because he was learning the harder lesson that honour taught! She was his neighbour's wife," and he would not accept even so much as sympathetic friendship at her hands, lest the world should misunderstand the nature and value of the gift! They were so young Life was so long before them still; to all outward seeming everything was so fair for both of them! Yet in this moment each knew that the delicate aroma which had once pervaded love's young dream for them had evaporated, and could never be restored again. Feeling that it is always unwise," to say the least of it, to stretch delicate barrier- cords too tightly, ltowley Le Breton did not accept this invitation ti Walmsey on behalf of his wife. He managed to say something reasonable and to the purpose respecting his wife's health, and then he went away, leaving Dora to thetaskof direoting bermaid's packing. An hour later he was banding Mrs. Marchant into the little brougham which was to take her to the station—and out of his life for ever," so they were both resolved. Ten days after this Mrs. Le Breton was awaiting the return of the husband who had been absent so long-" so suspiciously," their world said; but Helen Le Breton would not permit herself to listen to the strictures of the world. She was alone, or, rather, no mortal was present with her. But she firmly believed that she was surrounded by a motley group of dear friends departed this life, who, though intangible and impalpable, were full of intel- ligence and sympathy, and who still, curious to relate, took the most intense, not to say inquisitive, interest in many unimportant sub- lunary matters. In short, Helen Le Breton was a confiding jSpiritualist of an advanced order, greatly under the influence and guidance of her more enthusiastic, cleverer, and wickeder cousin, Agnes Hewlett. She made a pretty picture of credulity as she sat in a low chair with both her white, thin hands planted lightly on the small table that she used as a means of communication with the denizens of another world. At the present moment she was anxiously awaiting an answer that was to be spelt out by taps to a question she had asked respecting her husband. As she knew what she wished the answer to be, and as there was no counteract- ing influence or pressure on the table, it may safely be assumed that the reply to her in- quiry would have been in every respect satis- factory had not Miss Hewlett intervened. I But that lady swept into the room gustily just as Helen Le Breton was patiently wading through the alphabet for the fortieth time, with the question falling agitatedly from her lips:— "Who is with you, Helen? Anyone who knows Rowley p Yes, one of your spirits, dear." Helen Le Bretcn, who would not have uttered a false- hood to save her life on any other subject under heaven, firmly believed now that she was stating a fact, and that the vibrations and jerks of the little table were the develop- ment of some other force than her own. "Ah! then it's Chiquita," said Miss Hewlett rapturously. Let me sit with you, dear Helen she will gather force from me and answer you more readily." Then she seated herself, and began gabbling over the 'alphabet after the manner of an expert of the occult art. Before she bad added her force to the seance for ten minutes Mrs. Le Breton's doubts and distrust of her husband were in full possession of her again, and her confi- dence in her cousin, Agnes Hewlett, was strong, as only the confidence of a dupe can be in a cunning and unscrupulous deceiver. It's strange, but they all tell you the same thing about your will, dear Helen. If you leave your money to Rowley he will use it to his own destruction and dis- honour," "My wealth shall not be an agent in his downfall," poor deluded Helen said solemnly. "I shall be guided by my controul.' All that I have shall be left in trust to you, dear Agnes, to be used as you are directed to use it for Rowley's welfare." Even as she was speaking the door opened, and she rose with difficulty-for her weakness was no delusion-and went forward, looking almost as ethereal as one of the spirits whom she had been invoking, to meet her husband. If it were not for my work the position would be absolutely intolerable to me. As it is, it's more hideous than I can describe." So Rowley Le Breton remarked to his only safe confidant-himself-when he bad been at home about a week. His wife was uniformly kind, patient, and forbearing in her demeanour to all mankind. But when these excellent qualities were brought to bear on him specially they nearly goaded him to madness. There was something exasperating, too, to the man of impulse and action in the atmosphere of calm resignation which surrounded Helen like I p a halo. He would have felt almost grateful to her if she had shown jealousy, or spite, or curiosity about Mrs. Marchant. Anything would have been preferable, he felt, to the expression of saintly placidity with which she regarded him among other earthly matters. Until he came into daily intercourse with his Helen at this period-until she gently, but firmly, caused him to pose as the forgiven husband-Rowley bad blamed himself bitterly for having permitted the germs of his old in- fatuation for Dora Marchant to remain in his system. Now be had successfully eradicated those germs. His conscience was as unbur- thened, his fancy was as free concerning Dora as even legitimately exacting Helen Le Breton herself could have required. But it palls upon the most patient, it taxes the staying powers of the least criminal of husbands, to be perpetually forgiven for being innocent of an imaginary crime. Rowley was, perhaps, neither the most patient nor the least innocent of husbands. Accordingly, it was not alto- gether an unnatural or even an astounding thing that he found his wife's pardoning and uncomplaining attitude almost, if not altogether, unendurable. (7o le continued') 1