But I will go through with it—if you will only stay by me -to the death."

"God help you, my poor Silcote! God help you! Do you never pray?"

'Not I. I pray. I'll pray to her for forgiveness." "Could you not cast yourself on God?"

"I am too old, I expect. I did not begin soon enough, I suppose."

"It is not too late."

"You are a good woman, but women don't understand that sort of thing. Arthur is the priest of the family. I had him bred for it. When I want a priest I'll send for Arthur, and endure his tongue, which is a sharp one. I paid for his education as a priest, and I have a right to his services. I don't like the amateur style of business at all, neither in law nor divinity. An attorney's clerk may air his opinions before a police magistrate with success, just as you may have your amateur notions about theology. But Arthur has eaten his dinners, so to speak, and you haven't. In either of the professions of Law, Physic, or Divinity, I go in for the regular practitioner against the quack."

"We must leave this greatest business of all alone, then, for the present, and trust to God. Now, have you any proofs? Will you put them in my hands? May I open this black box in your bedroom?"

"You may go and get it."

"You are not angry with me again?"

May God bless you, my dear.

I angry with you? Go and get the box, and let us have it over."

She went, and returned with a little black despatch-box. Silcote was gone when she returned, but soon came back, explaining that he had been for the key. It was a rusty key, not used apparently for a long time. He opened the box with it, and the box was empty!

They looked at one another for a few moments in blank astonishment, and then Mrs. Thomas Silcote burst out laughing. Silcote himself did not laugh, but looked seriously and sadly at her.

She laughed long and heartily, and when she spoke,

said, "Laugh with me, my dear father-in-law, I pray you. There is serious work before us, which we must see out together; but laugh now at the absurd side of the business, just once in a way. You and I shall not have much to laugh at for a long time: let us laugh at this.”

"I cannot.".

“I can, and I'll tell you why. Because here is the darkest, deepest mystery of all: this great Silcote complication come to an end in an empty morocco despatch-box with a morocco lining, and nothing at all in it. This is the dénouement of the great Silcote plot or mystery which has darkened and rendered useless your life for forty years or so. It was through this that you took to keeping your bloodhounds, now as amiable and as foolish as yourself. It was through this that you cut yourself off from society, and made yourself a marked man in the county, delighting in your evil name with all the ostentation of a real Silcote (roturiers as you are). This is the very box on which you told me the devil danced every night as soon as you put out your candle. What a clever devil it must have been to dance on the empty box, while you were routing in bed, and maddening yourself about its contents!"

"Steady with that tongue of yours, my dear," said Silcote. "Steady! Steady!"

"I beg pardon," she said; "I beg a hundred pardons. I thought I had got it in order, but you see I have not as yet. My excuse is that anything theatrically false irritates me, as far as I can be irritated. Your life has been a theatrically false one, and I laugh when I see that it gets a little ridiculous in the end. Well, well. There is work before the pair of us, and I will curb my tongue; and I will not laugh any more. With regard to this preposterous box, on which the devil danced: what was in it?” "The letter which accused my wife of trying to poison me."

“Hah! and it is there no longer," said Mrs. Thomas. "What a thing for a play! And what was this document like?"

"I will tell you something," said Silcote.

"Do" she said, "and I will laugh no more. The farce

of the thing is over, and the tragedy is coming. You and I shall want all our wits. My daily thoughts reappear in my nightly dreams, and always I see the white trampled under by the red and blue."

"But the white will win this time."

"We ought to be there, daughter, if you think so." "We ought to be there, father, for I do think so. is this 'something,' which you were going to tell me?”

What

"About this accusation which was in that now empty box. It was clumsily forged to imitate my sister, the Princess's handwriting. I always knew it was not hers, but I suspected she had something to do with it: that is the reason of our estrangement."

"And of the bloodhounds, and, to put it mildly, of your behaviour to society generally. If you had gone in for writing a play or a novel, I can conceive that you might have resorted to a ridiculous sort of mystery. As it is you are without excuse. Why did not you have it out with her like a man? But I am dumb. I promised to curb my tongue, and I will."

"At what particular period of the future," growled out Silcote, "do you mean to curb your tongue? I should like to know, because, if you would fix the date, I would deprive myself of the pleasure of your company till it came due. If you will stop your tongue-not that I hope for any such happiness-I will tell you the remainder of my something."

"Go on. I will be quiet."

Do. Well, then, my poor sister has stolen this accusation from me. She has thought that I believed that it was really in her handwriting, and she has violated my despatchbox and carried it away. Do you understand?"

"I do not understand. I am neither a novelist, a barrister, nor a play writer, and I do not understand. I know this. That you, who, as a lawyer, ought to have made all things clear, seem in your particular way to have confounded things more deeply. Your foolish sister has scarcely with her active mendacity confounded things more than you have by your foolish reticence. But we ought

to go and see after it, you and I. A woman who could rob her brother's despatch-box is capable of a good deal of mishief. You and I ought to go and look after matters.” "You have sent for your cousin here, have you not?" Yes. I thought it best. I can't trust you out of my sight. Miss Lee comes to-morrow or next day. Where is Arthur? We must not have a meeting here. Is he really gone abroad?"

"Yes, he is actually gone. has sent him to Boppart. at the school, but Dr. F

He is really ill. Dr. F—— He wanted to stick to his work would not have it. If you

Arthur

and I go south, we must pick him up by the way. irritates and bullies me at times, but I love Arthur and you better than any others in the world. As for Thomas, your husband, my dear, he has worn my love out, as he did yours."

"I don't know that," said she; "there are some people so intensely agreeable that they may sin till seventy times seven. There are but few of them, and you are not one; but I doubt Tom is."

A very few words are necessary to explain that the legal recognition of Mrs. Thomas Silcote as Mrs. Sugden had been easily made, and that Miss Lee received her cousin with open arms. Silcote had rather fought shy of meeting his daughter-in-law for a short time, in consequence of the little deceit he had used towards her. He thought that he was wise, in keeping the knowledge of her wealth from her, until he knew her mind about Tom. He thought that there could be no harm in procrastination. In this case it meant ruin.

CHAPTER XLI.

BUT FINDING THEMSELVES RATHER COMFORTABLE, DAWDLE ABOUT THEIR EXECUTION.

"How do I look ?" said the Squire to Mrs. Thomas, as they walked together up and down the hall, waiting for the arrival of Miss Lee.

"You don't look as well as I expected. You look something like a very pugnacious Quaker and still more like a prize-fighter who has turned Quaker. The change is not a success."

It was your suggestion."

"I am aware of it, but the cleverest of us make mistakes at times. They are not a success, and must be changed. Give them to the butler."

They cost six pounds, you know."

"That is a matter of indifference. I will not have you look like a radical grocer. The old grey smallclothes and gaiters were better, bad as they were. You ought to know how to dress like an ordinary gentleman, but you don't." "Go on."

'I am going on, if you will not interrupt me. I wanted you to look well to-day, and you are a perfect figure. When I told you to get a suit of dark clothes from your London tailor, I did not mean you to come out like a teetotal share-jobber. You look as if you had been dressed by a costumier, not by a real tailor. Did you get your clothes from Nathan's? You don't know how ill they become you. I take all the blame, however. She is nearly due now."

Mrs. Thomas had persuaded, or rather ordered, the Squire to dress himself in a way becoming to his age; and he had followed her advice. The result was such as she described it. She was, possibly, slightly acid in temper over this failure in her judgment; the more so, per