duty not to frighten the poor girl into fits, as he would inevitably do if he came in this guise before her. That was John Jones's Seven Dials way of putting it. Except that he felt criminal he had no sensations concerning himself. He was not the man to enjoy selfpity or the man to despair, but a solid Briton who did what seemed his duty as little clumsily as he could; and now he blamed himself angrily for not making the packet safe. Why should he not-he asked himself-have sent it on by registered post whilst he had the money, addressing it to himself at the post office at Ashford Warren? The precious packet would have been safe in that case. Why need he have been too proud to try to borrow a few shillings from the lawyers? They would have lent him the sum he needed. Not a doubt about it. He was a chuckle-headed idiot, and ought to be cowhided. That, again, was John Jones's Seven Dials way of putting it. But sitting there all night wouldn't mend matters, he said to himself, and, rising stiffly, he looked about him and rubbed his head in perplexity. perplexity. He had purposely avoided the approach of the village in the daylight, and now night was falling rapidly. In the growing darkness a rustic boy of about ten years of age came up-hill, making his way to the village.

"Are you going to Ashford?" asked the tramp.

"Ees," said the boy; "I be." And he edged away with one defensive elbow raised.

"Don't be afraid of me. I won't hurt you. Do you know Mrs. Norton's cottage?"

"Ees, I do," said the boy across his elbow, resentfully.

"Miss Barclay lives there," said the tramp. "Will you go to the house and say that Mr. Mackenzie wants to see Miss Barclay at the railway station? Can you remember that?"

"Ees," said the boy again.

"Mr. Mackenzie. Don't forget. At the railway station."

"Ahl roight," said the youthful rustic, and clattered away in hobnailed shoon.

Somewhat doubtful of the delivery of his message, the forlorn young man made his way towards the railway station, and waited in the unlighted lane which led to it. He had not to wait very long. A light and eager footstep came down the lane, and dark as it was he fancied he knew the figure.

"Is that you, Nell ?" he asked.

"Walter!" she answered, in a startled voice.

you?"

"Where are

"Here," he said; "don't be frightened. I'm such a spectacle, I

didn't want you to see me in the daylight. I've walked from Liverpool."

"Walked from Liverpool?" she cried.

He told his story, and told it to his own disadvantage with many terms of self-disparagement. She heard it all, and then to his amazement she laughed a little laugh of honest humour. If she could have seen him she would not have laughed, but she knew nothing of his hunger or his privations. Them he had excluded from his narrative.

"Poor Walter!" she said. "I wondered why you did not write or come to me. I suppose the packet was about the money. It doesn't matter, for the money is found."

"Found?"

"Yes. Found. Mr. Netherley, the lawyer at Warton, had a cash-box to be given to me three weeks after uncle's death. It was sealed three years ago, and there was a thousand pounds in it, all in new Bank of England notes. Everybody says it was like poor uncle to leave his money in that way. He made no will it seems, but he had nobody belonging to him in the world but me. We have a thousand pounds, Walter."

"Was there a key to the cash-box?" he asked.

"No," she said. "We broke the wax away, and the blacksmith came and picked the lock."

"What an extraordinary jackdaw the old bird was," said he to himself.

"Everybody knows about it," said the girl, " and everybody says there must be more money hidden away somewhere in the same strange way. For at one time he was known to be quite rich." "Ah!" said he, " very likely."

"How strangely you speak," she said. "You have caught a dreadful cold. Come to the cottage?"

"No," he said, " I can't come in to-night."

Deadlock again in John Jones's affairs. Was there no way of banishing John Jones altogether?

"Why not?" she asked him.

"I've walked from Liverpool," he said. "I'm a shocking spectacle."

"Nonsense," urged Nell. "Mrs. Norton will let you wash and brush your hair, and you will be presentable enough. She will be glad to see you. Oh! she is such a dear old woman."

"Yes, I dare say."

"How oddly you talk to-night." She seized his arm in a

I

girlishly imperious loving way.

"Come with me.

what is this?"

Why, Walter,

He felt like a roughcast wall. She ran her hands about his sleeves and shoulders, and felt his fluttering rags.

"Walter, what is it?"

"Mud," he said stolidly. "Mud and rags." Then he added, as though that explained it all, " I've walked from Liverpool."

She began to realise the situation.

“You had no money?”

"Haven't seen a cent this five days," said he doggedly.

"Then you have been hungry? You have walked to find me, starving all the way, to bring that wretched unlucky parcel. poor brave suffering dear."

Oh! you

"Don't cry, my darling," he said tenderly. "It's all over, and it wasn't much for a man. It sounds bad for a girl to think of, but bless you, lots of men do it every year."

"You are hungry now?" she said reproachfully. "I know you are. And, you cruel boy, you never said a word to me about it." "Had other things to talk about," said John Jones defensively. "Take my purse," she said imperiously, thrusting it into his hand," and go away and make yourself decent, and eat something." "Very well," said John Jones, accepting the situation. He had given her all he had, and he loved her too well to have any qualms about taking help from her. "My uncle has all my things." "Where is he?" asked Nell innocently.

"He resides in London, my dear," said John Jones gravely. "In Holborn."

"Then you had better go to London," she answered simply, "and get your things from him. You can go to-night. Get something to eat before you start."

"No," he said, "I can't show up anywhere. I should disgrace you. It's only an hour by train. It's about time the train went, I think, isn't it."

"That's the signal," she cried. "Go at once. Good bye." The red lamp gleamed high in air two hundred yards away. John Jones kissed Walter Mackenzie's sweetheart, and ran to the station. He slouched the shocking bad hat, and demanded a thirdclass ticket for London. Then he saw that the purse held several sovereigns and a bank-note or two neatly folded. He reached Euston, and made for the Tottenham Court Road, where many of the shops were still ablaze with gas. Straight into the shop of a tailor who sold ready-made clothing plunged John Jones, demanding

to be clothed. The shopmen were at first for ejecting him, but became civil at the sight of his purse. A neighbouring bootmaker being summoned, brought many pairs of boots in a blue bag. New underclothing, a new shirt, a new suit of clothes, new boots, and a new hat being set with John Jones in a private room, there ensued a rapid transformation scene. Walter Mackenzie, barrister-at-law, emerged from the apartment John Jones had entered, and John Jones, of the Seven Dials, went out of being for ever.

From that time forth Walter Mackenzie's luck underwent a favourable change. An uncle of his-not the one in Holborn-died and left him money. He prospered at the bar, and he married and had children, and lived reputably and honourably. The dead hand enriched his wife with two more oddly-rendered bequests. Nell used sometimes to excuse a little extra expenditure on the pretended supposition that John Launceston Barclay's funds were not yet all paid in, but years went by, and the last of the old man seemed long since to have been heard.

The old house at Ashford Warren had been put into the market, but nobody would buy it, so it dropped out of the market again and was forgotten. But as time went on a new railway happened to be started in that district, and the house had to come down. Walter Mackenzie on a spare day went to meet the company's lawyer-an old acquaintance-and discuss compensation. He would have left the mere business to an agent, but he had a whim about the matter. "You won't want much for this tumble down old shed," said the lawyer.

"I don't know, Wrestall," said the barrister. "I don't know. I valued the old place highly once."

"Oh! Ah, yes!" said Wrestall. Mackenzie lived here. I remember."

"Love's young dream. Mrs.

"They used that place for a stable," said Walter, laughing. "It was intended for a washhouse, I believe, but the old man bought a donkey for Nell when she was quite a baby. I broke the brute in, I remember."

He laughed and sighed at that romantic reminiscence, and setting a foot on the prostrate door, he entered the stable. The wood fled into tinder at his step and let him through to the brick floor-it was so old and rotten.

"Hillo!" cried Wrestall, "what's that?"

"What's what?" asked the barrister.

His companion had stooped to pick something from the ground. The something brought a little old-fashioned square lock with it.

"I've seen the possession of articles like these transport a man,” he said.

"What are they?" asked Mackenzie.

"Skeleton keys," said the other. "Inside the door, too, and the bolt shot. I'm a native detective," the lawyer added, laughingly. "Now, you know," he went on, with a half-smiling, mock gravity, “that a man can't lock a door on the inside after leaving a room. The only place of exit is the chimney."

"You establish your mystery," said Mackenzie, lightly. "Where's the motive for locking one's self in and going up the chimney?" "Never mind the motive," said the lawyer, laughing openly. "Let's investigate the mystery."

So saying, he stooped and peered up the chimney, and withdrew his head so hastily that he knocked his hat off. Then it was Mackenzie's turn to laugh, but there was such a look on the lawyer's face that the laugh found an abrupt termination.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Look and see," said the lawyer, gasping-scared and pale.

He looked, and rose after the look almost as pale as his companion.

"There's a skeleton hanging there," he said.

"Ay," said the lawyer, "and a skeleton key to the skeleton keys, I fancy. That seems likely to be a true word, spoken in random jest, when I picked up these keys."

They stood looking at each other a long time, pale and silent.

"The few rags there are look ready to fall to dust," said Walter, breaking the silence. He put his stick into the chimney and moved it slightly, when, as if there needed only a sign to bring it down, the whole ghastly thing came tumbling loose into the grateless hearth, and with the falling bones fell something with a metallic crash. The two recoiled, and when the smother of woollen dust had cleared itself away, the lawyer, advancing, cried, "the motive," and with the crook of his walking stick dragged up a small cash-box by the handle. The key was in the key-hole, and with wrinkled features of disgust, and a finger and thumb which only just touched it, he unlocked the box, and there before them lay eight thousand pounds, in Bank of England notes, and on the top of them the paper which Tiburce Menseau, habitual criminal, had stolen from one John Jones, a tramp from Liverpool. There was nothing by which to identify Tiburce, but Walter Mackenzie had no doubt of him, nor had the lawyer, when he heard the story.

D. CHRISTIE MURRAY,