the snowy night as the traveller had gone before them.

Samuel Pecker attended with the lantern, always dextrously contriving to throw a patch of light exactly on that one spot in the road where it was most unlikely for Darrell and Millicent to tread. A very Will-o'-the-Wisp was the light from Samuel's lantern; now shining high up upon a leafless hedge top; now at the bottom of a ditch; now far ahead, now away to the left, now to the extreme right, but never affording one glimmer upon the way that he and his companions had to go. The feathery snowflakes drifting on the moors shut out the winter sky till all the atmosphere seemed blind and thick with woolly cloud. The snow lay deep on every object in the landscape-house-top and window-ledge, chimney and door porch, hedge and ditch, tree and gate-post, village street and country road all melted and blotted away in one mass of unsullied whiteness; so that each familiar spot seemed changed, and a new world just sprung out of chaos could hardly have been more painfully strange to the inhabitants of the old one.

Compton Hall was situated about half a mile from the village street, and lay back from the high road, with a waste of neglected shrubbery and garden before it. The winding carriage-way, leading from the great wooden entrance gates to the house, was half choked by the straggling and unshorn branches of the shrubs that grew on either side of it. There were few carriage folks about Compton-on-the-Moor, and the road had been little used save by foot passengers.

At the gate Darrell Markham stopped and took the lantern from Mr. Pecker's hand.

"The path is rather troublesome here," he said; "perhaps I'd better light the way myself, Samuel."

It was thus that the light of the lantern being cast upon the pathway straight before them, Millicent happened to perceive footsteps upon the snow.

These footsteps were those of a man, and led from the gates towards the house. The feet could but just have trodden the path, for the falling snow was fast filling in the traces of them.

"Who can have come to the Hall so Late exclaimed Millicent.

She happened to look at Samuel Pecker as she spoke. The innkeeper stood staring Helplessly at her, his teeth audibly chatCering in tue quiet night.

Darrell Markham laughed at her alarm.

Why, Milly," he said, "the poor little hand resting on my arm trembles as if you were looking at the footmarks of a ghost

though I suppose, by the bye, that ghostly feet scarce leave any impression behind them. Come, Milly, come, I see the light of a fire in your father's favourite parlour. Come, dearest, this cold night is chilling you to the heart."

Something had indeed chilled her to the heart, but it was no external influence of the January weather. Some indefinable, instinctive terror had taken possession of her on seeing those manly footmarks in the snow. Darrell led her to the house. A terrace built of honest red brick, and flanked by grim stone vases of hideous shape ran along the façade of the house in front of the windows on the ground floor. Darrell and Millicent ascended some side steps leading to this terrace, followed by Mr. Pecker.

To reach the front door they had to pass several windows; amongst others that window from which the fire-light shone. Passing this it was but natural they should look for a moment at the chamber within.

The light from a newly-kindled fire was flickering upon the sombre oaken panelling; and close beside the hearth, with his back to the window, sat the same traveller whom Samuel Pecker had last scen beneath his own roof. The uncertain flame of the fire, shooting up for a moment in a vivid blaze, only to sink back and leave all in shadow, revealed nothing but the mere outline of this man's figure, and revealed even that but dimly, yet at the very first glance through the uncurtained window Millicent Duke uttered a great cry, and falling on her knees in the snow, sobbed aloud,

"My husband! My husband, returned alive to make me the guiltiest and most miserable of women!"

She grovelled on the snowy ground, hiding her face in her hands and wailing piteously.

Darrell lifted her in his arms and carried her into the house. The traveller had heard the cry, and stood upon the hearth, with his back to the fire, facing the open door. In the dusky shadow of that fire-lit room there was little change to be seen in the face or person of George Duke. The same curls of reddish auburn fell about his shoulders, escaped from the careless ribbon that knotted them behind; the same steady light burned in the hazel

brown eyes, and menaced mischief as of old. Seen by this half light, seven years seemed to have made no change whatever in the Captain of the Vulture.

"What's this, what's the meaning of all this?" he exclaimed, as Darrell Markham carried the stricken creature he had wedded three days before into the hall. "What does it mean?"

Darrell laid his cousin on a couch beside the hearth on which the captain stood, before he answered this question.

"It means this, George Duke," he said at last, it means that if ever you were pitiful in your life, you should be pitiful to this poor girl to-night."

The Captain of the Vulture laughed aloud. Pitiful," he cried; "I never yet heard that a woman needed any great pity on having her husband restored to her after upwards of seven years' separa

tion."

"Can you guess nothing?"

How if I don't choose to guess, Master Darrell Markham? How it I say that whatever you want me to know you must speak out word for word, however much cause you and my lady there may have to be ashamed to tell it. I'll help you by no guesses, I can tell you. Speak out, what is it ?"

He stirred the fire with the toe of his boot, striking the coals into a blaze, in order that the light might shine upon his rival's face, and that whatever trouble or humiliation Darrell Markham might have to undergo might not be lost to him.

"What is it?" he repeated, savagely. "It is this, George Duke-but before I speak another word, remember that whatever has been done has been done in opposition to your wife."

The pain he had in calling the woman he loved by this name was not lost on Captain Duke. Darrell could see it reflected in the malicious sparkle of those cruel brown eyes, and nerved himself

'Suppose we leave her and her blamelessness alone," answered the Captain, "until you've told me what has been done."

"Millicent Duke, being persuaded by her brother in a letter written on his dying bed, being persuaded by every crea ture in this place, all believing you to be dead, being persuaded by her old nurse and by me, using every prayer I knew to win her consent, against her own wish and in opposition to her own better judg ment, was married to me three days ago in the church of St. Bride's, London."

"Oh, that's what you wanted me te guess, is it?" exclaimed the Captain: "by the heaven above me, I thought a much! Now you come here and listen to me, Miss Millicent Markham, Mrs. George Duke, Mrs. Darrell Markham, or whatever you may please to call yourself-come here."

She had been lying on the sofa, never blest by one moment's unconsciousness but acutely sensible of every word that had been said. Her husband caur hold of her wrist with a rough jerk, and lifted her from the sofa.

"Listen to me, will you," he said, "my very dutiful and blameless wife? I am going to ask you a few questions, do you hear?"

"Yes."

She neither addressed him by his name nor looked at him as he spoke. Gente as she was, tender and loving as she w to every animate thing, she made no shor of gentleness to him, nor any effort to conceal her shuddering abhorrence of him

"When your brother died, he left you this property, did he not ?" "He did."

"And he left nothing to your cousin Mr. Darrell, yonder ?"

Nothing-but his dear love." "Never mind his dear love. He didn' leave an acre of land or a golden guines eh?"

"He did not."

"Good! Now, as I don't choose to hold any communication with a gentleman who persuades another man's wife to marry him in her husband's absence, against her own wish, and in opposition to her better judgment, I use his own words, mark you-you will be so good as

to tell him this. Tell him that, as your husband, I claim a share in your fortune, whatever it may be; and that as to this little matter of a marriage, in which you have been so blameless, I shall know how to settle accounts with you upon that point, without any interference from him. Tell him this, and tell him also that the sooner he takes himself out of this kouse, the pleasanter it will be for all parties."

She stood with her hands clasped tightly together, and her fixed eyes staring into vacancy, while he spoke, and it seemed as if she neither heard nor comprehended him. When he had done speaking, she turned round, and looking him full in the face, cried out, "George Duke, did you stay away these seven years on purpose to destroy me, body and soul?"

"I stayed away seven years, because ten months after I sailed from Marley Water I was cast away upon a desert island in the Pacific," he answered, doggedly.

"Captain Duke," said Darrell, "since my presence here can only cause pain to your unhappy wife, I leave this house. I shall call upon you to-morrow to account for your words; but in the meantime, remember this, I am yonder poor girl's sole surviving kinsman, and, by the heaven above me, if you hurt but a hair of her head, you had better have perished on one of the islands of the Pacific, than have come back here to account to Darrell Markhamı!"

"I'm not afraid of you, Mr. Markham. I know how to treat that innocent lady there, without taking a lesson from you or any one else. Good night to you."

He nodded with an insolent gesture in the direction of the door.

To-morrow," said Darrell. "To-morrow, at your service," answered the Captain. "Stop!" cried Millicent, as her cousin was leaving the room; 'my husband took an earring from me when we parted at Marley, and bade me ask him for it on his return. Have you that trinket ?"

She looked him in the face with an carnest, half-terrified gaze. She remembered the double of George Duke, seen by upon Marley Pier, in the winter moonlight.

her

The sailor took a small canvas bag from his waistcoat pocket. The bag contained a few pieces of gold and silver money, and the diamond earring which Millicent had

given George Duke on the night of their parting.

"Will that satisfy you, my lady ?" he asked, handing her the gem.

"Yes," she answered, with a long, heavy sigh; and then going straight to her cousin, she put her two icy hands into his, and addressed him thus:

Farewell, Darrell Markham, we must never, never meet again. Heaven forgive us both for our sin; for Heaven knows we were innocent of evil intent. I will obey this man in all things, and do my duty to him to my dying day; but I can never again be what I was to him before he left this place seven years ago. Good night."

She put him from her with a solemn gesture, which, with the simple words that she had spoken, seemed to him like a dissolution of their marriage.

He took her in his arms, and pressed his lips to her forehead; then leading her back to George Duke, he said,—

"Be merciful to her, as you hope for God's mercy."

In the hall without, Darrell Markham found Mr. Samuel Pecker, who, crouching against the half-open door, had been a patient listener to the foregoing scene.

"It was according to the directions of Sarah," he said, apologetically, as Darrell emerged from the parlour, and surprised the delinquent. "I was to be sure and take her word of all that happened. Poor young thing, poor young thing! It seems such a pity when Providence casts folks on desert islands, it don't leave 'em there, snug and comfortable, and no inconvenience to themselves or anybody

else."

It seems as if, upon this particular night, Mr. Pecker was doomed to meet with inattentive listeners. Darrell Markham strode past him on to the terrace, and from the terrace to the pathway leading to the high road.

The young man walked so fast that Samuel had some difficulty in trotting after him.

"Excuse the liberty, Mr. Markham, but where might you be going?" he said, when at last he overtook Darrell, just as the latter dashed out on to the high road, and halted for a moment as if uncertain which way to turn, "humbly begging your pardon, sir, where might you be going?"

Ay, where, indeed ?" said Darrell, looking back at the lighted window. “I don't like to leave the neighbourhood of

this house to-night. I want to be near her. My poor, poor girl!"

"But, you see, Mr. Darrell," urged Samuel, interrupting himself every now and then to shift the lantern from his right hand to his left, and to blow upon his disengaged fingers, as it don't happen to be particular mild weather, I don't see how you can spend the night here about very well; so I hope, sir, you'll kindly make the Black Bear your home for such time as you may please to stay in Compton; only adding that, the longer the better for me and Sarah."

There was an affectionate earnestness in Samuel's address which could not fail to touch Darrell, distracted as was his mind at that moment.

"You're a good fellow, Pecker," he said, "and I'll follow your advice. I'll stay at the Bear to-night, and I'll stay there till I see how that man means to treat my unfortunate cousin."

Samuel led the way, lantern in hand. It was close upon ten o'clock, and scarcely a lighted window glimmered upon the deserted village street; but half-way between the Hall and the Black Bear the two pedestrians met a man wearing a horseman's cloak, and muffled to the chin, with the snowflakes lying white upon his hat and shoulders.

Samuel Pecker gave this man a friendly though feeble good-night, but the man seemed a surly fellow, and made no answer. The snow lay so deep upon the ground that the three men passed each other noiselessly as shadows.

"Have you ever taken notice, Mr. Darrell," said Samuel, some time afterwards, "that folks in snowy weather looks very much like ghosts; quiet, and white, and solemn ?"

串

Left alone in the solitude of the bar, Mrs. Pecker, lost in dreamy reflection, suffered the fire to burn low and the candles to remain unsnuffed, until the long wicks grew red and topheavy, smouldering rather than burning, and giving scarcely any light whatever.

The few customers, who had been drinking and talking together since six or seven o'clock, strolled out into the snow, leaving all at one time for company, and the business of the inn was done. The one waiter, or Jack-of-all-trades of the establishment, prepared to shut up the house; and, as the first step towards doing so, opened the front door and looked out to see what sort of night it was.

As he did so, the biting winter breeze blew in upon him, extinguishing the candle in his hand, and also putting out the two lights in the bar.

"What are you doing there, Joseph ?" Mrs. Pecker exclaimed, sharply. "Come in and shut up the place."

Joseph was about to obey, when a horseman galloped up to the door, and springing from his horse, looked into the dimly-lighted hall.

"Why, you're all in the dark here, good people," he said, stamping his feet and shaking the snow from his shoulders. "What's the matter ?"

Mrs. Sarah Pecker was stooping over the red embers, trying to relight one of the candles.

"Can you tell me the way to Comptc Hall, my good friend?" said the traveller to Joseph the waiter.

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'Squire Markham's that was?"

Ay, Squire Markham's that was." The waiter gave the necessary aireetions, which were simple enough.

"Good," said the stranger; "I shall go on foot, so do you fetch the ostler and give him charge of my horse. The animal's hard beat, and wauts rest and a good feed of corn."

The waiter hurried off to find the ostler, who was asleep in a loft over the stables. The stranger strode up to the bar, in the interior of which Mrs. Pecker was stil struggling with the refractory wick of the tallow candle.

"You seem to have a difficult job with that light, ma'am," he said; "but perhaps you'll make as short work of it as you can, and give me a glass of brands, for my very vitals are frozen with a twenty-mile ride through the snow."

There was something in the stranger's voice which reminded Sarah Pecker of some other voice that she knew; only that it was deeper and gruffer than that other voice.

She succeeded at last in lighting the candle, and placing it in front of the bar between herself and the traveller, took up a wine-glass for the brandy.

"A tumbler, a tumbler, ma'am," remonstrated the stranger; "this is DO weather for drinking spirits out of a thimble."

The man's face was so shaded by his slouched hat, and further concealed by the thick neckerchief muffled about his throat, that it was utterly irrecognisabir in the dim light of Sarah Pecker's one tallow candle; but as he took the glass