means proud of Mr. Crowder's praise. Of course, whatever Alan undertook to do he would do well-that went without saying; but she could feel no elation at his turning out what she could only consider a first-rate travelling clerk to this fellow-countryman of her enemy. She could not be just, and would have been offended by hearing that Niagara, since it was in Waldron's hemisphere, is the largest waterfall in the world, and makes the loudest noise.

She hardly knew whether to drag out the interview till Gideon should come, or to leap at his non-appearance as a sign that he was not coming, and to hurry back through Temple Bar. But she was saved the difficulty of deciding by the voice of Gideon himself at the door. After all, the clocks were not many minutes on their way past

noon.

"Miss Reid!" he said, dividing a nod between Mr. Sims and Mr. Crowder, and holding out his hand to Helen with a curious mixture, which struck even her, of eagerness and awkwardness together. He had not said, "Who would have thought of meeting you here ?-certainly not I," for that would have been hypocritical, and therefore impossible for Gideon Skull. But his "Miss Reid!" had implied it all, and Helen was thankful to him for not claiming an appointment with her. "Are you going to write for the Argus too? Well, Crowder, how's news to-day? Don't let me drive you off, Miss Reid. I am not going to stay a minute, and I have something to say to you, if you'll let me walk part of your way. I hope you're not too well off for news, Crowder, for I've picked up a crumb for you that will make the hair of all Spraggville stand on end, and glorify the old Argus for ever."

"I shall be pleased to hear, sir, whatever you may have to say," said Mr. Crowder.

"I dare say you would. But none of you fellows have any pluck, you see. No, not one of you. If I had the misfortune to edit a newspaper, I should make a point of coming out with a firstclass prophecy of the most tremendously unlikely sort every ninth day. Nobody remembers failures. Look at the weather almanacs; if I brought out one of those, I'd prophesy a snowstorm in July regularly every year. It would come at last, and I should be rich and famous for ever. And in war and politics you'd have the pull that the unlikeliest forecasts are right in nine cases out of ten. No, you actual editors have no pluck; not one of you."

"It is the first time I have heard the Spraggville Argus charged with deficiency in pluck, Mr. Skull," said Mr. Crowder.

"Yes, because there's nobody who knows what pluck means, I

dare say. Now, if I was to tell you Bismarck was shot, you'd wire it off to Spraggville, because it might be likely even if it mightn't be true. But you wouldn't dare to fix a date for the sortie from Paris which is to break the German cordon and fix a communication between the army of the South and the capital. You wouldn't do that even if you knew. Now, I would, even if I didn't know. That's pluck, and that's the difference between me and you. By George ! Think of Spraggville if I fixed it for Tuesday week. If I wasn't Gideon Skull, I'd be owner of the Argus for twice nine days after."

"Mr. Skull," said Mr. Crowder with dignity, "my experience as a journalist is not quite so small as you appear to conclude; and I guess you must be out and round before twelve o'clock if you wish to be beforehand with me or with Mr. Sims. Before sailing for Europe I drew up a programme of this war, the results of which might surprise you. It has often enabled me to anticipate events, as well as to correct the accounts of our correspondents on both sides. I do not say that such a sortie is inconsistent with that programme, but I do say, and Mr. Sims will confirm that view, that beat about the bush, Mr. Skull, which is not American, it is my duty to inquire if you intend that sortie to be taken as a fact, and, if so, what your views may be in bringing it to this journal?"

not to

"Ah, Crowder, there's no doing you. Yes, I do want to get that wired to Spraggville," said Gideon frankly. "The fact is, I'm engaged rather deeply in relation to the neutrality laws-you understand. In the rifle and provision line. Instincts of an old blockaderunner will out, you see. The army of the South is my customer just now, and I naturally get to know more than there can be on anybody's programme. For obvious financial reasons I want that sortie to succeed; but for equally obvious reasons I want to be very particular to the wrong day. Now, I happen to know, as a fact, that Bismarck never passes a morning without reading right through every word in the Argus about the war. He and Moltke will take that Tuesday week for granted, you may be sure; and no doubt there'll be a rehearsal-what soldiers call a demonstration-on that day. The Argus will be out by a day or two about the real day, of course; but who'll heed a day or two when they talk of the prophecy fulfilled? There, I've made a clean breast of it. It's all in my own interest, of course, so take it or leave it as you please. I'd take it if I were you. I'm worth gratifying, I can tell you; a man who's bound up with the big French guns, and behind their scenes, can give plenty of pickings as true as this to any paper that's got pluck and go and isn't afraid of big things. Come and have another feed

with me and Ovoca on Saturday. He's taken a wonderful fancy to you. Can you forgive me for keeping you waiting all this while, Miss Reid? I'm at your service now whenever you please."

"Surmised," said Mr. Sims as soon as their visitors had gone, "Gideon Skull didn't give you an earl for dinner without wanting to be paid."

"I am surprised, Sims," said Mr. Crowder, "that you should see in a piece of simple courtesy more than there is to be seen. It shows a want of knowledge of the world. A British lord, I take it, does not lay himself open to misconstruction when he admits himself to be no more than the equal of a plain American journalist like you and me. It does him honour, Sims."

"Some people are partial to headaches. Can't say I'm one. Wire ?"

"Some people are partial, and prejudiced, and-and-jealous," said Mr. Crowder. "That's so. I'll wire myself, Sims."

"Jealous?" asked Mr. Sims, with a sudden hot look in his eyes. "That is so," said Mr. Crowder sadly. "That is a painful fact, Sims. Some people are."

"And some people drink champagne, and receive visits from females, and smoke tobacco; and some people are as fit to represent the Argus as-as-you," said Mr. Sims.

"I would like to see that man," said Mr. Crowder, his voice beginning to rise at last, "who is as fit to represent the Argus asas-I. I should have a very decided opinion concerning the existence of that man. As to females, and spirits, and tobacco, I trample on the words. Perhaps you will proceed with your occupation, which is not that of slander, Mr. Sims."

"No, nor of jealousy, Mr. Crowder. I would as soon be jealous of some people as- His failure to find a simile gave his chief the triumph of the last word. But his having come off only second best in this terrible quarrel only made him feel the more keenly that there was at least one person better qualified to represent the Argus than Mr. Crowder. He felt he could not approve of permitting the great organ of Spraggville to become the tool of a Lord Ovoca and a Gideon Skull. His duty might become unpleasant, but it must be done.

"It must have seemed very strange to you," said Gideon to Helen, "all that talk in the office. Business, to an outsider, must seem a curious thing."

"It did not seem strange to me at all," said Helen. "I was not

listening, and what words I heard meant nothing to me. You asked me to see you. What have you to say?"

"It is difficult talking in the crowd of the street. We had better walk this way; it will take us along the river, and be all on your way home. Well, I have not been idle; I have been to Hillswick."

"So you told me yesterday. I am sorry if you have been taking real trouble for Alan, though, of course, I must thank you. What have you learned that I need know, if I do not even yet know all ?" "Miss Reid, I will not be thanked by you. All that I do is—— you know what I told you three days ago. You will not thank me when you hear that I have-failed."

"Failed? In what had you to fail?" "I have the worst news for you. will."

your father left no

For the first time in this story Gideon Skull told a lie-a direct, downright lie. Clearly his association with Helen was corrupting his honesty. But she had already felt all the guilt for both: mere imitation did not prove hard.

"Well?" asked Helen.

"Do you mean to say you have forgotten what that means?" "What have you found, then?”

"Is it not more than enough to have found? The worst of all ?"

"I knew that there was no will. What else does our whole life mean? I don't understand. You ask to see me-only to tell me that you have nothing to tell-nothing to say? How could a visit to Hillswick make clearer to you what all the world knew before ?"

"I told you," said Gideon humbly and patiently, "that I would come back to you within three days and let you know how much hope I had found. I did hope-sanguinely, even. I could not believe that there could be really no will. It seemed impossible. Well, since you needed no convincing, I need tell you nothing of the chains of argument which, at Hillswick, led me to the same conclusion. Rational men don't hide wills away in corners; the lawyers are sure to know of them, even if they don't have them in their own hands, and Waldron had no opportunity of finding one and putting it in the fire. No; there is no will."

"This is all you asked to see me for?" asked Helen, feeling almost disappointed, though she had expected nothing. It was hard that she should have had to pass through so much shame for no end. But she was by no means looking downward, and a glimpse of his

grave and down-turned face, in which she could read nothing but the shame of a strong man who has boasted of his will and strength beforehand, and has found them impotent, made her feel guilty of ingratitude.

"Well, I do thank you," she said, "for all you hoped and tried to do for Alan. I am glad-in a way that you are convinced there is nothing for any-outside-friend to do. You do know that ncbody thinks you to blame . . . . and if you had been . . . . you have tried every way to undo it all. It is no one's fault that there is If we do not happen to meet again—”

no way.

"Not meet again ?" he asked, really startled; for it was the last point at which he had been aiming, and the words, though he would have known how to take them at their worth from all such women as he had known, seemed to mean something when spoken by Helen Reid. It was not the first time during these last days that his heart had been startling him. It was a heavy, cumbrous muscle, Gideon Skull's heart, and its struggles into life were as hard as those of mcst hearts never are but when they are dying. But it was a heart, after all, and he was a man. He came near even to self-deception, to feeling as if he were dealing truly and openly with her, and to pitying, in a hungry sort of way, the pain he supposed his tidings were giving her. He could hardly resist the temptation of believing them him self, though they were lies. Love must needs take its one form, and it will somehow manage to wear that one form and no other. "Not meet again?" he repeated: "but we most surely shall. Have you forgotten what you told me you are living for-to get back Copleston for your brother, and that by any means? You are not one to take up a life's purpose in one moment and drop it in the next, if I know you at all."

"I don't see how you can know me at all." "Perhaps you don't see it; but I do. You made a resolve when you believed there was no will. You are not likely to drop it because you now know there is no will. Belief and knowledge are practically much the same thing, I suppose; and that means—you will need me. It is idle to talk of our not meeting again. You have a brother, and I have-well, an enemy. Our motives are different, but our end is the same. We both mean that, in one way or another, Victor Waldron is not to keep Copleston."

One must not shut one's eyes to human nature out of any tenderness for Helen-if such a thing still lingers. One cannot help remembering that she was walking by the side of the one man she had yet seen who made her feel that he was strong and resolute, and