you?"

you

bed, perhaps. However, you propose to return to Dorsetshire to-day, don't

I stammered some affirmative answer, no doubt.

“But your school-days have pretty well come to an end. Six months ago you were a child still ; now I see you are a woman, Margaret. Your very face is different to me. It is a bothering change, and I must tell you I have been thinking very seriously about what we are to do with you. What do you think of it yourself ? "

I did not know. The question had never come into my head ; and, altogether, I was a little frightened.

“But you haven't thought about it at all, I daresay. Well, then, who was the gentleman you were walking with yesterday? I may ask, mayn't I, Margaret?"

“ Mr. Lamont, sir."

“So I was told! But I was informed too (we are in the same house), that Mr. Lamont has not been here more than a fortnight. And had never seen him before. And yet, you know, I think you called him * Arthur' when you bade him good-by!”

“ That was only because he asked me! He is madame's son! He is unfortunate! They drive him off into the world again as soon as he comes home! You would pity him if you knew_if you knew he went away penniless, last night !”

“What I do know is, that I heard him order an excellent breakfast this morning!"

My answer to that I recall very distinctly. It was nothing but an empty “ Oh !" for the intelligence fell upon me with all the effect of a mortifying disappointment. Why Arthur Lamont, having postponed the beginning of his journey till daylight, should not breakfast well, was a question which I was not then of an age to entertain. I had fancied him plodding out of the town wretched as he came into it; instead of that he was comfortably seated at an excellent breakfast! It was a little shock.

" And so," Mr. Denzil continued, “you really thought he had gone off last night!"

“I did, indeed !"

“And it was not with any expectation of seeing him this morning that you came out so early-for once ? "

" Believe me, it was not !

“ Then you don't know he is coming this way at the present moment ! Got his baggage, though," he added in an under tone, and speaking to himself.

It was as my guardian had said. I had not observed him look back, but when I did so, there I saw Mr. Lamont, marching along valise in hand.

Perhaps he had not recognized us before; but he knew us now as could be told by his coming forward in a slow, hesitating way. He

wished to avoid a meeting, apparently, and saw no help for it-especially as we loitered and looked toward him. But presently he stopped at a place where the coastguard had cut a steep and giddy stair upon the face of the cliff, waved a farewell salute with his hat, and disappeared.

He disappeared, and I ceased to tremble: but only for a moment.

“Margaret," said my guardian as I turned to walk on-his face all listening and pale--" do you know what has happened? Your friend has missed his footing and fallen from the cliff! Don't scream, my dear," (he did not understand that I could not scream)—" there's no great harm done, I daresay; but we must go and see."

Hurrying away while he spoke, he, too, disappeared down the giddy stair, where I dare not follow him. But it was impossible to remain where I was; it would have been foolish to run home with a frightening tale which might prove exaggerated. Besides—but I need not say what besides. There was a safe way to the beach not far distant; and I ran round, with my heart ready to faint, but determined to do nothing of the kind; and in good time I came to the place where Mr. Lamont lay apparently lifeless, with my guardian kneeling at his side. No other creature was visible, far or near,

a

CHAPTER XI.

OMEN.

Any one who looked upon Arthur Lamont's face then-so very white, so very calm-would have cried, as I did, “He is dead!"

"Not at all !” said Mr. Denzil. “ He has fainted from pain; and I've only just found out where the pain is. Another hatful of water, since you are here, Margaret."

I took the hat, and ran ankle deep into the tide to fill it. When I returned, I found that my guardian had cut one of Mr. Lamont's boots from the swollen foot. “Now,” said he,“ do you saturate your handkerchief, that I may bind up this unlucky limb!"

,

It was done—some water was thrown upon the sufferer's pale face, and then he began to recover life : his ghost returned, how ghostly!

Rising upon his elbow, he pressed his hand upon his side, as if the pain was there, and fixing upon me a pair of unawakened eyes, terrible

, for what they did not see, he said, " Ma blessure, n'en pensez pas

c'est rien !

Mais lui? Touché? .... à mort, dites-vous? Ah, mon Dieu ! La belle vengeance! ... la belle chose que c'est l'honneur! C'était le diable qui s'en mêla !”

In the midst of such broken exclamations as these he sank back again, consciousness returning fast; so that in another moment the vision faded, the words died away, faltering, and he no longer lay wounded in Algeria, but only bruised and torn on Brighton beach.

.

.

.

.

for a

“Ma'msclle," he said, the blood rushing back into his face, "I think I was cursing just now, but I did not know what I talked, and how could I dream you were here? Am I hurt ?"

“ Not much," said my guardian (roughly, I thought), “ though there's something wrong with this ankle. Let us see if you can stand on the other leg."

Assisted by Mr. Denzil, he made the attempt; but the pain of the wounded foot when it hung unsupported was too great for endurance. “ With your permission, sir, I think I'll sit down again," he said. “ Thank you very much. Of course I did not know you at the hotel,-you areyou are this lady's guardian ?”

“I am, sir ! " Mr. Denzil replied. " And she must be yours few minutes, I suppose, for I must go and get a chair, or something to carry you back to the town.

If Mr. Lamont faints again, Margaret, you know what to do: dash his face with water. And the less he talks, the better !"

As soon as my guardian had gone, Mr. Lamont said,

“But I promise you I will not faint, Miss Forster; so be not alarmed about that. Only you must let me talk enough to tell you it is not my fault that you are troubled with me again. I am never permitted to do what I wish, you see, even when I would rather not do it. My fate is always perverse."

“Do not say so! you might have been killed, Mr. Lamont !"
“ Exactly. There again you perceive how fortune treats me!”

Language like this was dreadful to me then. I could not forbear exclaiming,

“ You should not say so! It is wrong."

“ Is it? Well, if you believe it may have been a lucky accident that I was not killed, I shall begin to think so too. I do believe it !--Omen!” he cried a moment afterward, in a voice so loud and full of pleasure -he lying there so full of pain — that it startled me. His face, too, was flushed with boyish pleasure as he added, extending his right hand, clenched as I had seen it at first—"Do you know what I have here?"

"No!" I answered, wondering much.

“ Nor did I till this instant. Well, you have heard of the invader who stumbled from his boat on landing, and how his companions were dismayed at the omen, and how he rose and showed them his hands full of the soil he had taken possession of ?--you have heard of him. Now see what I grasped when I came to the ground here !”

He opened his hand, and there lay the flower which Mr. Denzil had thrown from the cliff !

“Has not that some meaning ? To be sure, I have crushed it " (and so he had : the white petals were bruised by tiny pebbles snatched in with them)—“but that could not be helped. I am not to blame this time. Or is it a part of the augury that the flower is crushed ?"

He spoke as if he expected me to answer, but I could not, for I was more troubled than the Conqueror's soldiers, because my dismay was indistinct, indefinable. They "murmured," says the story: I was dumb. If Mr. Lamont thought there was something ominous in his seizing on this wretched flower when he fell, what should I think, who knew so much about it that he did not know? He said no more.

Glad was I when I saw my guardian approaching with two boatmen to Mr. Lamont's assistance. They took him in their arms, those two, and carried him as tenderly as might be over the rough shingle. Mr. Denzil and I remained to gather up the contents of the valise, which had burst. When everything had been assembled apparently, I descried something glittering at the mouth of a soft leathern purse. It was a watch, rich, elegant, costly, with M. W. in little clustering diamonds at the back.

"A pretty toy for a penniless man !" my guardian muttered. And I wondered much as we wended home whether Arthur Lamont had that jewel in his valise when he came into the town, so poor! In my youthfulness, in my ignorance, this was another little shock. I, too, began to doubt whether Mr. Lamont was a sincere man; and the doubt made me no happier.

[For my part, I had never much question about it, though this affair of the watch, when explained (though it never troubled me personally), showed nothing of that sort. At the same time, if I had been treated by W. as L. was treated, I think I should have been a little more sincere in my hatred, and a good deal quicker in dealing with him. Not that that shows I'm a better man-far from it, as Margaret has told me a dozen times. Only it does show what I mean about Lamont. He was insincere because (according to me) he was neverl ong of a mind-vacillating; either too hot or too cold. I don't think I mean insincere, after all, but irresolute.

It was I who threw the bouquet into the road; and I confess that at the moment when Margaret came up to me as I knelt by Lamont's side on the beach, I was trying to wrench open that clenched hand! I saw the stem of the flower protruding from the fist; and though it was only a stem, I knew full well what the fist hid, and how it got there. Now it seems that both Lamont and Margaret had some superstition as to this wonderful accident; but I who always had a seaman's weakness about omens, judge how it affected me! First, I cast the thing away because -let me explain.

It was six months since I had seen Margaret, and, indeed, I never did see her more than three times a year. And I'll tell you what I felt like when I did see her: like that man who stole the great diamond, whenever he dared to unwrap the rags he hid it in. I was glad, but I was afraid! This beautiful creature, who was the only one in all the earth who ever had an affectionate word to say to me, was not mine-I knew that well enough; and I had her hidden as secretly as the thief had his

jewel. To be sure, there appeared nothing extraordinary in the secret at first, and while Margaret was a child; but when she grew up to be so clever, and so very beautiful, and so good, and a woman, I began to wish I had never stolen the pleasure of a little girl's love, or gratitude, or whatever it might be called.

No doubt there seems to have been a simple way of avoiding any difficulty. Why did I not publicly acknowledge Margaret as a child of my adoption? Why? Because of my disease! The disease I caught in Bermuda! The wickedest woman the sun ever shone on!

Of course I know it's considered a crime worse than mutiny to say anything ill of a wife, even though you could prove she came from I won't say what place (and I don't mean Bermuda). But wives are women—the best of them; and some women are bad as some are good; and wait, wait till we have come to the end of this history.

Not that there is likely to be any record here of my own proper troubles. Margaret never heard of them, and I am glad enough to forget them when I can. I only say, once for all, that from the day my wife landed in England, bringing with her the body of her son, who had died on the voyage (he was not my son too-she was a widow when I married her), my life was infested with miseries-petty miseries which bred daily like vermin. Not but that a woman who had a plan for disposing of husbands by a regular course of damp linen, was capable of doing great injuries ;* but what I had to complain of up to this time was being treated like I have read in witch stories, where the witch made a wax image of a man's heart, and stuck needles into it, one every day; and melted it little by little before the fire: the poor wretch's own heart bleeding away all the time, and melting in sickness, he never knew how. That was my case; only there was no secrecy about it, and no laws against it. God help every man who lives as I did: and I believe there's a plenty !

But what accounted for her behaviour ? Well, it's easier to account for