“ Margaret, for your sake I do as I am bid; let that suffice. Heaven will judge us in his own day . . ; . let that suffice!”

With this, his head sank upon the table again; while Charlotte (herself glad to terminate an interview which was wringing the last drop of blood from her heart) said with a last effort, “ There, Margaret, you understand the case.

First, Mr. Lamont consents to be maligned for my sake, and when he is no longer permitted to enjoy that merit, he maligns himself for your sake. Let that suffice!”

I afterwards remembered that not once from the moment I entered the room to the moment I quitted it, did Charlotte Lamont, any more than Arthur, look me in the face. At the time, indeed, I noticed nothing consciously; and the scene was so brief, so strange, so startling, that when I got fairly back into my own little retreat—the lamp burning, the music open on the piano, all so natural—I scarcely knew whether I had not been tricked by my senses. Reflection, even then, was quite out of my power; or bow was it that, instead of trying to understand what I had or had not seen, what I had or had not heard, I went to the piano and continued the hymn, just as if the interruption had been trivial and momentary ?

But here I am a little confused, because next day it was found that I had taken Charlotte's malady, and had a rambling mind. And may be, because that same mind was already overburdened and could bear no more, an instinct of self-preservation stifled all power of thinking, and led me to sit down and go on with my hymn. Or may be I was under more blessed guidance, that made me sing it to save him from self-destruction. Or may be it is all a delusion of a mind which had begun to ramble already. But it is so real to me, that now again I can hear myself quietly singing those verses from end to end, —

a

There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Immanuel's veins,
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief

But they need not be repeated. When they are done I stand and tremble in the silence that follows. And I fancy I hear a sobbing at my window; and I pull aside the curtains; and there is Arthur Lamont kneeling on the ground with the rain beating upon him, and his face laid upon the stone sill. The outpouring light startles him; he looks up, and what a terrible painful face it is, the lamp shining full upon it-a white mask upon the black night!

Since he extends his hands to me, what can I do but open the window? I open it, and the rain beats in upon me also.

"Oh Margaret, Margaret, I'll live! I came here to look at you through the window if I could, or if not, to kiss the wall, before I killed myself. And you, you who know nothing, commence to sing your innocent hymns and drive the temptation away! I'll live, but how miserable I am! One of these days you shall learn—when I am dead, and gone to reckon with Him for my sufferings here! Bid me farewell ! Kiss menot for love, dear child—for forgiveness !"

And I pity him so much, and am altogether so bewildered, that I kiss him. The rain comes driving in, and I close the window, for he is gone.

What happened to me after that I am still less clear about. Some there are who, in trying times, faint away body and spirit ; others there are from whom the spirit seems rather to depart, or to take refuge in some secret chamber in the brain, while the senses continue to carry on the business of living, by the mere accumulated impulse of wont and use. I think I must belong to the latter class; for though this scene eclipsed my last glimmer of consciousness, I got to bed without exciting suspicion that anything extraordinary had happened. Lisabeth afterwards remembered, indeed, that I looked “ peculiar," when she passed me, candle in hand, upon the stairs—so peculiar that she did not like to speak to me; but she had good reasons for knowing I might have been "put out,” and did not wonder much at a very white face or a pair of bright eyes " like artificial.” What I remember only are two things : first, an exquisite sense of refreshment when my burning face was laid upon the cold pillow; and next, my waking in the night. To fall to sleep as I did was grateful beyond descriptionto wake as I did, more terrible than words can tell; but what I saw when I woke must be prefaced by an explanation of what was going cn between Charlotte and her brother, while contagion and mental disorder were surely preparing for me the fever which was blown to a flame through that open window. How I came to know what did pass between them is explained by Arthur Lamont's last words,—" One of these days you shall learn

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DUELLISTS.

I have said in what mood these two went into the house togetherpale, with heads downcast, and hearts full alike of passion and of misgiving: though as for Charlotte, determined neither to forgive nor to believe. They went to the room where I found them, where they sat down, I fancy, like duellists who fight over the table where they have quarrelled at cards. They quarrelled with a game at which neither had won: it was an invisible devil who held the winning hand.

“ Begin," said Charlotte.

But it seems that, whether from cowardice, or from guilt, or from an over-tenderness of heart, even then Arthur Lamont hesitated. But indeed he had reason enough to do so without being either guilty or a coward ; or, perhaps-half believing, as he did, in a fate constantly mocking and adverse—he felt that a crisis had come too tempting for the mocker, and that the interview might end in an evil way for him after all.

"Begin," said she," or do you prefer to spare yourself the humiliation of repeating your mean and foolish fables to me? Plead guilty at once, and have done with dishonesty!"

He replied that if he hesitated it was only to spare her (" That ruse is discovered !" she exclaimed, interrupting him), and warned her that she had better be content to believe or to doubt as much as she had already heard, than insist on a vindication which would cost him much pain to make, and her more to listen to. She laughed; answering, she supposed the pain he talked of was self-contempt for his share, and shame for hers.

“ But may be,” she continued, "you will contrive to find an easier way out of the difficulty—the difficulty, I mean, of substantiating your inventions—if I tell you that Miss Forster is really nothing but a governess now."

“ What then ?"

“Why, then, there is no longer a prospect of her endowing any one with Mr. Denzil's fortune, and you need descend to artifice no longer to secure it. Do I speak clearly? Because I wish to show you that your plans are futile as well as wicked: though they were always too plain to succeed. Still, I could not have dreamed that you would have been base enough to make for yourself a false character out of the ruins of your friend's honour. You might have spared yourself the pains, too. Margaret was ignorant of the particulars of your career; she knew nothing of the folly (as I suppose you call it) which you have endeavoured to turn into romance by fixing it as villany on him.”

“She knows it all now, at any rate."

"Your account of it, which you are about to oblige me by contradicting.”

“Pardon me; that is not the errand which brought us into this room."

“But you will comply before you leave it, I am persuaded." " And if I do not ?"

“Why then—but let me first explain why I insist. Nearest to my heart is the determination that his good name shall be cleared by the voice that slandered it."

“ In other words, you are determined not to believe you were deceived eighteen years ago."

“I am, on any testimony but his own, and that I shall never see. Next, it is my duty, as well as my mother's, not to allow Margaret Forster to be deluded into running away with Poverty, even though Poverty be Arthur Lamont; and that also will be best accomplished by your admitting that you have practised on her sympathies by maligning a truer man than yourself.”

“ That is for our discussion presently. But you have not said what is to happen if I do not comply."

“In that case I shall ask you to prove your truth; or else to secure the poor girl whom you have already half-ruined-yes, half-ruined !—for

what do you think has induced Mr. Denzil to abandon his guardianship of her but a dread of being marked down as a prey by adventurers ?—to secure her, I say, from absolute ruin, by keeping your word never to see her again; and to keep it either in another country or in a debtor's prison! I am in earnest, you see—as a woman usually is who has been outraged. Choose between proof, denial, or arrest.”

"I choose proof. And if, in doing so, I give you pain, remember that you put me to the trial. Consider that if you loved Godfrey Wilmot, I love Margaret Forster, governess or no governess. He trifled with youshe cares not for me ; but I value her good opinion as well as you cherish what

you call his good name, and I will not permit that she think me a rascal because you would have him thought to be heroic ; or even because it is my misfortune to have punished him."

" Punished him !"
“ Too much, my sister!”

“And here,” says Mr. Lamont, from whom this narration came long afterward, when all was over and done, as his misfortunes were, she had so dreadful a look, and my own conscience smote me so sorely, that I was in danger of giving in yet once more. Though truth be expelled with a fork, it returns; and I believe that from the beginning, my unhappy sister half anticipated what she would not be convinced of. When I said I had punished you know whom (Heaven forgive me !), perhaps all the truth rushed into her mind. What do we know ?”

Arthur Lamont then took from his pocket a satchel, which contained, among other things, a certain soft leathern purse: the other things were two letters—one sealed, the other open. These he placed upon the table ceremoniously-watching my sister's face, with a desperate hope that she herself would yield the dispute where it stood, and remain in doubt rather than encounter the proof when it appeared thus formidably arranged before her. The distress which I myself felt I saw plainly reflected in her, which encouraged me to trifle with those things—placing and displacing them, folding and unfolding papers, pretending to search my pockets for others. “If I delay a little while, thought I, she will break down; and then I can reserve all this for madame, who can reveal it to her more kindly —as much of it as she pleases. But I overdid my part. Charlotte either detected my purpose or misinterpreted it; and 'Go on!' said she, looking up and trying to smile. If you are not afraid, I am not.' The time had come: there was no help for it.

“Do you know whose writing is this,” said I, showing her the open letter at a distance.

“ His, or a forgery." “Of that you shall judge at leisure presently. But if it is not a

a

forgery, you behold here what you thought never to see-Wilmot's own testimony to the truth.”

“ The truth of what? That he cheated you-robbed you at play ? ” “ That he dealt ill with me in money matters !”

" And does the same paper contain a confession that he wilfully tricked and betrayed a gentlewoman ?”

“ By implication, without doubt.”

“ Implication is a juggler's word, and without doubt your confession is forged! Other men have been base enough to do what you accuse him of, but no man ever avowed the baseness." “ Have patience; you will be convinced only too soon.

What do you think of this watch ?”

“I think it very pretty. Did Captain Wilmot steal it ? "

“It is a lady's watch, as you see ! Look at the initials at the back. W. stands for Wilmot, but M. does not begin Godfrey !"

“ That I have learned, but what is it you wish me to understand further?"

“ The watch belonged to Wilmot's wife! He married within two months after your engagement ended.”

What unutterable mortification this intelligence must have been to her, we know; but was it a surprise ? I doubt. If she was hit, she did not fall. She took the watch into her hand with little appearance of curiosity; but she could not conceal the pallor of her face, and her voice was faint when she said, after a silence,

" What else?”
“Nothing, if you are convinced.”

“ Convinced ?" she repeated, in a tone which I had not learned to interpret yet, “I have to see the confession first. Your words prove nothing. This trinket proves nothing."

“Nor this?" and here I exhibited the sealed letter, whereon was written (as you know, Margaret), "For my daughter, Magdalen Wilmot ? "

A different thing this ! Now the unhappy woman my sister rose up, and stood trembling like a spear cast into the ground.

“ Arthur, it is my turn to warn you! Carry the plot no farther : this is not Godfrey's writing !”

“Or rather, it is what you persuade yourself he could not have written."

“ I am persuaded that I know his hand. He never wrote in this careful and tremulous way. It is a fabrication !" "Pardon me, I will explain. He wrote love-letters to you-neither

careful nor tremulous, as may be well understood. This is a love-letter of another sort-to his daughter."

“ And how should a letter to his daughter get into your possession ? When?" “I am coming to that, Charlotte, since you will have it.

On the day when I got this bullet in my side ! ”