that he had a will, and that his will meant something. She could not know how little strength, will, and resolution had hitherto meant with him, though she was right enough in her instinct that he had them all; and more right than even instinct could tell her, that, if he had never had them before, he had them now. She was inspiring a knight-for so common a thing there is no need that the lady should be the beau idéal of her sex, or the knight a Bayard. He may even be a struggling adventurer, preying upon the refuse and garbage of the world's great doings, like Gideon, and she may be no better or nobler than Helen Reid. It may be that the brigand, or even the pickpocket, draws as much inspiration of strength or address from the eyes or voice of his mistress as the knight errant from those of his lady-and of the same kind, though to a somewhat different end. And surely the woman does not live who does not know when and whom she inspires, and who, when she knows it, can help a little pride. She may feel a little frightened, also, but in that case she feels yet more proud. Helen had been too much used all her life to seeing broad shoulders and strong arms to think anything about them, or to take them as the outward and visible signs of anything beyond themselves. But she felt that there was something about Gideon's build which made it the sign of something to which she had not been accustomed, either in her father or in Alan. It was much more than that he by no means fulfilled her ideas of a gentleman. She had no objection to him on that score. The circumstances of her own birth prevented any pride; and then she had taken Waldron for a gentleman-so huge a mistake, that she might be equally mistaken in taking Gideon Skull for

none.

"Yes," she answered him absently. "But we have different ends-and different ways. You can have no hand in anything I may find to do; and I, heaven knows, can be of less use to you than you can be to me. Mr. Waldron does happen to be my enemy. But he is too mean for hating. Why do you hate him?"

"You do hate him, Miss Reid. A girl like you does not hate or love by halves. You hate him with all your soul. And I—you ask me why I hate him? Who does not hate hypocrites, and scoundrels, and liars? I can't content myself with looking down on snakes. They are more dangerous than tigers. . . . . We are something more than allies, Miss Reid, you and I. You mean work, and I mean work too. We must not be in the dark about one another. Two people looking for the same thing in the dark are apt to jostle, and to spoil everything. That must not be. At

present, I own myself at sea, without a plan. I am thrown out by the want of that will. But you have one, and I have a right to help you."

Helen certainly began to be a little afraid of the honest tradesman whom she had believed herself able to twist round her little finger. He was taking ells without having been allowed inches, and now he was claiming them as his due. She by no means wanted an ally who would claim a right to her confidence, would compel her to speak out what she was not reconciled to feeling, and probably end by sliding into the place of director and master.

"I have no plan," said she.

"No?"

"No. And if I had-it should be my own. If I wanted help

"You would come to me. Miss Reid-you distrust me. Why?"

"Indeed I do nothing of the kind. There-we have said all that has to be said, and done all that can be done. Thank you for all your trouble and all your good will. think. Good-bye."

This is my way home, I

"No; it is not your way home yet. Yours is still several turnings farther on. Do you suppose for one instant that I think you are giving up Copleston? And do you think I can stand by and see a girl like you, who knows nothing of the world-thank God !preparing to get aground on all sorts of quicksands and run her head against all sorts of stone walls? I don't guess what you mean to do, for I'll own you're likely to be ten times cleverer in laying plans than I am. But laying plans is one thing, and carrying them out is another. You must have a man's counsel. And since your brother is gone, there is nobody to give it you but me."

Helen might have smiled at the idea of any man's thinking he could help her in carrying out her half-made scheme. But he had brought her face to face with it, and she could not smile. Though she felt what it was well enough, there is probably no reader of her story who could not put it into words better than she. It was to fascinate the enemy, obtain, by craft or surprise, the secret of his fraud, and then save herself—if she could-from selling herself for Alan. Of course, if she failed she must fail; but no absolutely last resource ever looks desperate: hope must hang to something, and if there be nothing left but a straw, then to a straw as completely as if the straw were a barge. How could she breathe a whisper of such a scheme even to a dearest friend who shared her inmost wishes with

her? She knew well enough what she would have called any other girl who should make any such confession-outrageously vain would have been her lightest word. And she had been asked, nay, ordered to make her confession to Gideon Skull !

"I hate Waldron much," he said, "but I should hate myself ten thousand times more if I let you do yourself any harm. If it were any girl, I should feel very much the same," added the Quixotescorner, without being in the least troubled by his want of consistency. It did not even strike him that the sentiment was not original and entirely his own; and one feels wonderfully honest and generous while one is saying generous things. He did not wish to see Helen Reid become quite of his world-he only wanted to find her sufficiently of it to be reasonably within reach of his arm. "Promise me, when you find yourself in any trouble, to trust to me. Forget, if you like, how much I am with you in heart; remember only that I am your brother's friend. Whenever you want help, send a line to me at the Argus, and I will never fail you-be quite sure. Whenever I have anything to say, I shall let you know it."

"There must be an end of this," thought Helen, wishing she had left herself any right to be angry at the suggestion of a secret correspondence with Gideon Skull. "We shall be leaving London in a few days," said she. "Don't think I don't trust you, but our ways do not run together, and—”

"You are going to leave London ?"

"Yes, now that my brother is gone. We shall most likely be staying with our friends the Meyricks——"

"The Meyricks, of Thorp End--? Within a drive of Copleston?"

She had spoken of her intended visit as her best open reason for leaving town, so that she might leave Gideon no room for further questioning. Nor did he question her further. He only fell into silent rumination over what she could possibly be intending to do. "If she's been getting any notions of that will on her own account," he thought, " and if she's going down there to pump Uncle Christopher--" The idea led to nothing in particular, and he thought again. Her going to stay with her friends might mean nothing, but then it might mean a great deal. Gideon was beginning to feel a martyr to mystery. He had got to the bottom of his uncle's, only to be plunged into a new one by Helen. Perhaps it was nothing. But while he thought, his eyes found their inevitable way to Helen's face, and he could not reconcile with a single possible view of human nature the idea of a girl like her-keen, eager, and

thorough-going beyond reason, as he knew, passionate in her depths he was sure, scorning laws that opposed her and hating all who wronged her, with a great estate as a prize to be fought for-of a girl like this letting herself be tossed about among her acquaintances without any sort of plan.

However, he must be patient again. "Well," he said, "your visit in the country will be pleasanter than it might have been. You won't be troubled by the neighbourhood of a scoundrel. . . . . But if you have any notion of searching Copleston in the absence of its owner, you may spare yourself the pains. No will is to be found anywhere."

"What!" exclaimed Helen. "Is not Mr. Waldron at Copleston?"

She was so obviously startled at his obvious piece of news that the most unreasonable of all unreasonable jealousy fell over him. He was so new in love that its phases were playing chaos in him. Ever since seeing Helen he had been jealous of Waldron's admiration for her, and even that long talk in the churchyard had been rankling. The feeling was absolutely and preposterously without reason, but in his hungry way he hated to think that she and Waldron should even have quarrelled eye to eye. A man who comes to be quarrelled with may come too near; he wished to think of Helen as shut up in her present poverty and helplessness, without a friend but himself, or even a visible enemy in the shape of a man, and that man Victor Waldron. For, with all the duller part of his nature— but not altogether without experience--he held that hate and love are next-door neighbours, and, yet more dully, that all girls prefer fops to men. He despised Waldron for his foppish affectations, which is the same thing as saying that he envied them. Helen's startled question made him savage. Simple indifference is the most satisfactory feeling on the part of the woman one loves towards one's enemy, hate is a great deal too warm.

"No," said Gideon, "he is not at Copleston. He has never been there since you left it, and most likely never will be. He is in his own country for aught I know, spending Copleston in New York or Spraggville; or, being an American, and Paris being shut up, he's more likely in Rome. All the Yankees have got a craze that Rome isn't a suburb of Spraggville. If you want to meet Victor Waldron, Miss Reid, I think you'd better visit somebody in Rome-if you can stand the way in which all the inhabitants twang English through the nose, and sculpt, and talk of the Eye-talians."

Gideon had to let out his growing wrath, and Victor Waldron's

fellow-countrymen were the first objects at hand. He had brought a good many British prejudices home with him-at least as many as he had carried out-and had never been in Rome. The piece of petulance was not meant for Helen, though it wrapped up a point that was meant for her. But she did not notice even the apparently imbecile suggestion that she, Helen Reid, wished to meet Victor Waldron at Copleston, and was going into its neighbourhood for that impossible end-a suggestion as imbecile as it was right, and an end as impossible as it was true.

Down went her house of cards-queen, knave, and all. It had been a very flimsy house, even for one of cards. But she had built it for strength, and had thought it strong, so the blow was as great as if it had been built of marble and iron. Never had she felt till now that her helplessness was utter and absolute-only equalled by the passion of desire to do anything and all things for Alan. She was too paralysed even to sigh, as one does at the downfall of a common dream. To will wrong without the power to do wrong-what on the face of the whole earth is half so bitter and so hard?

"What can I do?" she almost cried out, forgetting where she was, who was with her, and what her cry of weakness might mean.

Gideon smiled-that smile which had gone far to make Waldron his friend, and was the best part of him. He had not been clever enough to find out her intended plan of action, but his honest bit of anger had served him as well as instinct in defeating her plan. She would not talk of leaving London any more, he was sure. "What can you do? Trust, dear Miss Helen. That is the first great thing. For one thing-you may trust me. Perhaps you have not yet learned the power of money in this world. It can't do everything, but it can buy secrets, and fight the law, and recover rights when nothing else can. I have been poor and rich, and I know what both the things mean. No-you cannot fight Victor Waldron, but I can, and I will. People call me rich now. But nobody-not even I myself-knows how rich I shall be in a few weeks from now. I'm the last man to boast of such things. You are the first man, woman, or child who has heard me speak in this way. I tell you that you may know what you are trusting, as well as whom. Dear Miss Helen, it is only too true that there is no will, and that you and your brother have no rights at law. But as long as Gideon Skull has even a poor ten thousand a year, neither you nor he is poor. Be brave, and trust, even if Copleston must go. Here is your turning at last," he said with a sigh. "Good-bye-for now."