Mr. Vallory, "and brought him home to dinner. You must excuse his morning dress; I wouldn't give him time to change his clothes." "I always keep a dress suit at the office, and Pullman, the porter, valets me," said Weston. "I only asked for ten minutes; but you know how impatient your father is, Augusta. So behold me !" He kissed his cousin, and gave the tips of his fingers to Hubert Walgrave. There was no great affection between those two, Weston had fully intended to marry Augusta, and had been both astounded and outraged by her engagement. They dined at eight, and the banquet was not especially lively a little overweighted with attendance, and plate, and splendor; a large round table, with a pyramid of gaudy Autumnal flowers-Japanese clematis and scarlet geranium, calceolaria and verbena-in the centre; four people scarcely able to see each other's faces without an effort, and three solemn servants waiting upon them. "You read a good deal! when the doctors had especially forbidden work!" "Oh, but it wasn't hard work, and I don't believe I did myself any good by it; it was only a desultory kind of reading. I was rather anxious about Cardimum versus Cardimum, that Chancery case in which your father wants me to make a figure; and I read up some old precedents bearing on it. There was a man in the reign of James II. who went in against his next-ofkin on exactly the same grounds. And I read a novel of Anthony Trollope's." 'There could be no harm in your reading a novel. You must have read all the novels of the season, I should think, in seven weeks." "No; I did a good deal of fishing. I made the acquaintance of a jack that I mean to bring to terms at some future date. He wasn't to be had this year." Miss Vallory asked a great many more questions; but it was astonishing how little Mr. Walgrave had to tell of his Kentish experiences. "If it had been Weston, he would have given me a perfect picture of the farm-house life, and the queer, clod-hopping countrypeople, with an imitation of the dialect, and all that kind of thing." Mr. Vallory and his nephew talked shop. Augusta asked her lover little commonplace questions about commonplace things, "You are not a particularly good hand at description, and gave him small shreds and patches of information respect-Hubert," she said at last, somewhat displeased by his reticence. ing her stay at Ems. He caught himself on the brink of a yawn more than once. He thought of the dusty garden at Brierwood- the perfume of the flowers, the low music of Grace Redmayne's voice, the tender touch of her hand. He thought of these things even while Augusta was entertaining him with a description of some outrageous costumes she had seen at Ems. But presently he brightened up a little, and made it his business to be amusing, talking in-oh, such a stereotyped way, like a creature in genteel comedy. He felt his own dreariness -felt that between him an 1 the woman he was to marry there was no point of union, no touch of sympathy. She talked of Parisian dresses; he talked of the people they knew, in a semisupercilious style that did duty for irony; and he was miserably conscious of the stupidity and narrowness of the whole business. He remembered himself roaming in the gardens at Clevedon Hall-along the moss-grown paths, by the crumbling wall where the unprotected cherries repined for the birds of the air, among the dilapidated cucumber-frames, in a wilderness of vegetable profusion, where the yellow pumpkins sprawled in the sunshine, by the great still pond overhung by a little grove of ancient quince-trees, in and out amidst waste, neglect, and sweetness-with Grace Redmayne by his side. Was it really the same man seated at this table, peeling a peach, with his eyebrows elevated languidly, and little cynical speeches dropping now and then from his thin lips? Augusta Vallory was quite satisfied with her lover. He was gentleman-like and undemonstrative, and had nothing kindly to say about any one or anything. She had no admiration for those exuberant, hearty young men from the Universities, great at hammer-throwing and long jumps, who were beginning to overrun her circle-youths with loud, cheery voices and sunburnt faces, hands blistered by rowing, and a general healthiness and joyousness of aspect. They only bored her. After dinner, when Vallory, senior, and Vallory, junior, were playing a game of billiards in a room that had been built out at the back of the house over some offices, half way between the dining and the drawing-rooms, the fair Augusta amused herself by questioning her lover about his life in Kent. It must have been ineffably dismal. What had he done with himself? how had he contrived to dispose of his time? "If I were good at all that kind of thing, I should write for the magazines, and turn my gifts into money," replied Mr. Walgrave, superciliously. "I wish you would play something, Augusta." This was a happy way of getting out of a difficulty, suggested by a glance at the open piano. "I'll sing you something, if you like," said Miss Vallory, graciously. "I was trying a new ballad this morning, which is rather in your style, I fancy." "Let me hear it, by all means." "He went to the piano, adjusted the candles, which were lighted, ready, waited while the performer seated herself, and then withdrew to a comfortable easy-chair. Never during his courtship or since his engagement had h fatigued himself by such puerile attentions as turning over t leaves of music, or cutting open magazines, or any of thos small, frivolous servicesby which some men render themselves precious to their womankind. Indeed, in a general way, he may be described as scrupulously inattentive. If this girl cho.e to give him her wealth, she should bestow it spontaneously. There should be no cajolery on his part, no abasement, not the smallest sacrifice of self-esteem. Miss Vallory sang her song. She had a strong mezzo-soprano voice of the metallic order-a voice that is usually described as fine-without a weak note in its range. She had been taught by the best masters, pronounced every syllable with undeviating accuracy, and had about as much expression as a music-box. Hubert Walgrave thought of "Kathleen Mavourneen," and the soft sweet voice singing in the twilight, "Oh, do you remember?" "The Meeting of the Waters," "The light Guitar," and al Grace Redmayne's little stock of familiar oldfashioned songs. The ballad was something of the new school: the slenderest thread of melody, eked out by a showy accompaniment; the poetry, something rather obscure and metaphysical, by a modern poct. "Do you call that thing a ballad, Augusta?" he cried, contemptuously, at the end of the first verse. For pity's sake, sing me Una voce, or Non piu mesta, to take the taste of that mawkish stuff out of my mouth." Miss Vallory complied, with tolerable grace. "You are so capricious," she said, as she played one of Rossini's symphonies, "there is no knowing what you will "Well, of course," said Mr. Walgrave, dreamily, "that sort of life is rather monotonous. You get up and eat your breakfast, and walk a little, and write a little, and read a little; and if you happen to be a man with that resource open to you, you smoke a great deal, and eat your dinner, and go to bed. And you hardly know Monday from Tuesday; if you were put in a witness-box you couldn't swear whether a given event hap-like." pened at the end of the week or the beginning. But to a fellow who wants rest, that kind of life is not altogether disagreeable; he gets a honey-comb for his breakfast, a dish of fresh trout now and then, and cream in his tea. And then, you see," concluded Mr. Walgrave, making a sudden end of the subject with a suppressed yawn, "I read a good deal." She sang an Italian bravura superbly, looking superb as she sang it, without the faintest effor or distortion of feature, Mr. Walgrave watching her critically all the while. "Upon my soul, she is a woman to be proud of," he said to himself; "and a man who would sacrifice such a chance as mine would be something worse than a lunatic." MY WIFE. AT THAT MOMENT MY VOICE DIED AWAY IN A HOARSE MURMUR, FOR ON THE RECEDING WAVE FLOATED A HUMAN FORM -A WOMAN'S FORM-A WOMAN, AND I HAD KILLED HER."-PAGE 51. The two lawyers came into the room while Miss Vallory was | tion of his betrothed just as long as he chose. He fully knew singing, and Weston complimented her warmly at the close of the strength of the chain by which he held Augusta Vallory, the scena, while the plighted lover sat in his easy-chair and and that he was in no danger from Weston. looked on. He knew very well that the man would have liked to take his place, and he never felt the sense of his triumph so keenly as when he was, in a manner, trampling on the neck of Weston Vallory. "The black whiskered scoundrel," he said to himself; "I know that man is a scoundrel, whom necessity has made respectable. He is just the kind of fellow I should expect to make away with his client's securities, or something in that way. Very likely he may never do anything of the sort, may die in the odor of sanctity; but I know it's in him. And what a delightful thing it is to know that he hates me as he does, and that I shall have to be civil to him all the days of my life!" And then, after a pause, he thought, "If I were capable of getting myself into a mess, there's the man to profit by my folly." "I believe poor Weston was brought up to think that he was going to marry me," she said to her lover one day, with contemptuous compassion. "His mother was a very foolish woman, who thought her children the most perfect creatures in the world. But Weston is really very good, and has always been quite devoted to papa and me. He owes everything to papa, of course. His father quarreled with my grandfather, and got himself turned out of the firm. I have never heard the details of the story, but I believe he behaved very badly; and if papa hadn't taken Weston by the hand, his chances of advancement would have been extremely small. He is an excellent man of business, however, according to papa's account; and I think he is grateful." "Do you? Do you think any one is ever grateful?" Mr. Walgrave inquired, in his cynical tone. "I never met with a grateful man yet, nor heard of one, except that fellow Androcles tator's story counts for nothing. However, your cousin is, no doubt, an exception to the rule-he looks like it. Was the father transported?'' "Hubert! How can you be so absurd?'' "Well, my dear Augusta, you said he did something very bad; and I inferred that it was defalcation of some kind, tending toward penal servitude." The unconscious subject of these meditations was leaning over the piano all this time, talking to his cousin. There was-no, by-the-by, it was the lion who was grateful, so Mr. Specnot much justification in his appearance or manners for such sweeping condemnation. He was like numerous other men to be met with daily in middle-class society-good-looking, welldressed, with manners that could he deferential or supercilious according to the occasion. He had plenty of acquaintance who called him a first-rate fellow, and he was never at a loss for invitations to dinner. Only in those eyes of his, which were so like his cousin's in color, there was a hard, glassy glitter, a metallic light, which was not agreeable to a physiognomist; nor had the full red lips a pleasant expression-sensuality had set its seal there, sensuality and a lurking cruelty. But the world in general took the black eyes and the black whiskers as the distinguishing characteristics of a very good-looking young man; a man in a most unexceptionable position; a man to be-I accept him as a fact." made much of by every family in which there were daughters to marry and sons to plant out in life. "I believe the quarrel did arise out of money matters; but I should hope no member of my family would be dishonest." "My dear girl, dishonesty crops up in all kinds of families; a dukedom will not protect you from the possibility. There are rogues in the peerage, I dare say. But I am not at all curious about Mr. Weston Vallory's father. The man himself is enough "You really have a very impertinent manner of speaking about my family," Miss Vallory exclaimed, with an aggrieved Mr. Walgrave allowed this gentleman to engross the atten- air. "My dearest, if you expect that I am going to bow down and worship your family as well as yourself, you are altogether mistaken. It was you I wooed that sweet Summer night at Ryde, not the whole race of Vallory. Upon that point I reserve the right to be critical." "You seem to be quite prejudiced against Weston." "Not at all. I will freely admit that I don't care very much for a man with such a brilliant complexion; but that is a mere capricious antipathy-like an aversion to roses-which I would hardly confess to any one but yourself." The lovers frequently indulged in small bickerings of this kind, by which means Mr. Walgrave maintained, or supposed that he maintained, his independence. He did not bow down and worship; and it happened curiously, that Miss Vallory liked him all the better for his habitual incivility. She had been surfeited by the attentions of men who thought of her only as the heiress of Harcross & Vallory. This man, with his habitual sneer, and cool, off-hand manner, seemed so much truer than the rest. And yet he was playing his own game, and meditating his own advantage; and the affection he hal given her was so weak a thing, that it perished altogether under the influence of his first temptation In the course of the evening there was a discussion as to where Mr. Vallory and his daughter should go for the next six weeks. The father would gladly have staid in Acropolis Square, and pottered down to his office every day. There was always plenty of business for him, even in the long vacation, and it was nearer his heart than any of the pleasures of life; but Augusta protested against such an outrage of the proprieties. "We should have fever, or cholera, or something, papa," she said. "That kind of thing always rages out of the London season." "The London death-rate was higher last May than in the preceding August, I assure you." "My dear papa, it is simply impossible. Let us go to the Stapletons. You know it is an old promise." "I hate staying at country houses: breakfasting with a herd of strangers every morning; and hearing billiard-balls going from morning till night; and not being able to find a corner where one can write a letter; and being perpetually driven about on pleasure jaunts; doing ruined abbeys, and waterfalls; not a moment's peace. All very well for young people; but actual martyrdom when one's on the wrong side of fifty. You can go to Haley, if you like, Augusta; I would much rather go to Eastbourne." "In that case, I will go, too, papa," replied Miss Vallory. "It's rather a pity you lent the villa to the Filmers; it would have been nice to have the Arion." My dear Augusta, if you command me to come, I will come, at any hazard to my professional advancement." "Come and go just as you like, Walgrave," said Mr. Vallory. "You're quite right to stick to your books; that Cardimum versus Cardimum is a great case, and if you come out strong with your precedents, you'll carry everything before you. Don't be jealous of his work, Augusta; he means to make a judge's wife of you one of these days. Weston can dance attendance upon you." "I don't dance," said Weston; "but I shall be most happy to be useful to my cousin." 66 And, by-the-way, Weston, as there's not much doing at the office just now, you might run down to Eastbourne to-morrow, and see if there's a house to be had that would suit us," Mr. Vallory said, coolly. He had made the young man's fortune, and had a knack of ordering him about in this way. Weston bowed. "I have two or three interviews for to-morrow," he said; "but I can make Jones attend to the people. I don't know that I am quite up in a house-agent's duties; but I suppose I shall know instinctively the kind of thing you want.” "Instinctive fiddlesticks!" Mr. Vallory exclaimed, impatiently. Augusta will give you a sheet of paper with a memorandum of the accommodation wanted." Mr. Walgrave smiled, congratulating himself upon his exemption from house-hunting. He felt a malicious delight in beholding Weston Vallory, one of the most conceited men he knew, charged with these ignominious services, while he, the rightful slave, went free. May all imaginable blessings descend upon the revered heads of the Cardimums!" he said to himself. At a quarter to eleven o'clock he wished his betrothed and her father good-night. Weston took his departure at the same time, bound for the Charing Cross Station, whence a midnight train would convey him to Norwood. It was a clear, moonlit night. Even the Acropolis Square houses were tolerable in that mellow atmosphere, with solitary tapers twinkling here and there in upper chambers, tenanted by a charwoman in charge, or a lonely scullion. There was a perfume of mignonnette, a faint rustling of the sycamores in the inclosure, which reminded Hubert Walgrave dimly of the Brierwood garden. "Do you mean to walk home?" Weston asked, as the two men left the house together. "I don't care much whether I walk or ride; if I see a hansom, "You can have the Arion at Eastbourne," said Mr. Vallory. I dare say I shall hail it. Are you going to walk to the "I didn't lend the yacht to the Filmers." 'Very well, papa; let us go to Eastbourne. And Hubert can come down to us-can't you, Hubert?'' "I shall be delighted, to run down for a day or two." "A day or two!" exclaimed Miss Vallory.." Why shouldn't you spend all September with us? You can have nothing to do in London." My dear Augusta, I came back to town on purpose to work. I can never do much good except in my own rooms, with my books of reference at hand." He rather shrank from the idea of Eastbourne—the half mile or so of parade the band-the dull narrow round of seaside life. Ryde had been very agreeable to him last year, though his life had been the same kind of thing; but to-night he thought of such an existence with a strange aversion. Indeed, it seemed to him just now that nothing would be so pleasant as to bury himself in his chambers, with his books for his sole companions. "But it is preposterous to think of working all through September," urged Augusta, with a somewhat heightened color. "You really must come; the sea-air will do you a world of good. We shall have the Arion; and you are so fond of yachting!" "Yes, I am very fond of yatching; but I scarcely feel equal to the gayetics of a watering-place. I would rather vegetate in the Temple." station?" "I make a point of walking six miles a day, and I shall be very glad of your company on the way. We go the same road, I know." Mr. Walgrave submitted. He was a man somewhat given to strong antipathies, and Weston Vallory was one of his strongest. "Confound the snob!" he thought; "what makes him fasten himself on to me, I wonder?'' He had no occasion to wonder long. The drift of his companion's conversation soon convinced him that Weston Vallory wanted to pump him—to get at the history of his eight weeks' holiday—to test his feelings in regard to his betrothed-to find out anything there was to be found out, in fact, in a gentlemanlike way. But Mr. Weston might just as well have tried to pump Lord Burleigh, or Lord Bacon, had he been contemporary and on pumping terms with those distinguished noblemen. Hubert Walgrave betrayed no more of the secrets of his inner man than if he had been deaf and dumb; and yet he was civil, aggravatingly civil, and left Weston at the gates of the station oppressed with a sense of failure. CHAPTER XIV. MR. WALGRAVE dined again with his betrothed before the Vallorys left town; walked in the broad walk in Kensington Gardens with her one afternoon; rode to Wimbledon with her one morning; and on Saturday had the privilege of seeing her off by the Eastbourne train-express the greater part of the way with her father and her own maid, Tullion—a tall, strongminded female, of superior birth and education-superior to her status of lady's-maid, that is to say-whose parents had suffered reverses, and who was very fond of holding forth upon the luxuries and amenities of her early home. All the luggage had gone the day before. Tullion only carried her mistress's dressing-bag, in case Miss Vallory should be seized with a desire to use her ivory-backed hair-brushes, or her ivory glove-stretchers, or to write a letter between London and Eastbourne. The dressing-bag contained everything that could have been wanted during a trip to America; but it was Tullion's duty to be prepared for all emergencies. One footman and a covey of housemaids had gone down the day before; the cook, butler, and another man came second-class by this train, after serving a ceremonious luncheon in Acropolis Square, in order that there should be no hitch in the domestic arrangements of either town or sea-side-no awkward hiatus in Mr Vallory's state. His own brougham brought him to the London station; his own barouche would meet him at Eastbourne. The lovers had ten minutes' leisure at the station, in which to renew their vows of eternal constancy, had they been so minded; but being neither of them sentimentally disposed, they beguiled the time by conversation of a commonplace order. Only toward the last did Miss Vallory touch upon personal topics. "How soon are we to see you, Hubert ?" she asked. "I think in the course of next week; but I had better not pledge myself to a given day. You may be sure I shall come directly I can. And I shall run down by this 3.30 train, and take my chance of finding you at home when I arrive." cent pleasure? And it comes natural to a woman to be fon 1 of these things. But I think she would hardly care for anything unless there were a sentiment associated with it. A locket, for instance-I suppose that would be the right kind of thing--a locket, with my photograph in it. She is simple enough and loving enough to value my unworthy countenance. And I am rather better-looking in a photograph than in the flesh-that is one comfort. There are some men whom the sun always shows at their worst; exaggerating every wrinkle; but me Helios treats kindly." He had almost decided the point to his own satisfaction, and was going into the shop, when he stopped suddenly, turned on his heel, and walked a few paces further, meditating. "How about Aunt Hannah?" he asked himself. "There's the rub. If I were to send Grace my likeness, she must surely see it. What is there which those piercing eyes of hers do not see? And yet I must be the clumsiest of Lotharios if I can't cheat Aunt Hannah. What were such sharp-eyed, all-seeing people created for, except to be duped egregiously, sooner or later? Yes; I think I am a match for Aunt Hannah." He turned back again, and this time went straight to the jeweler's counter. He selected a locket-the handsomest, or the one that pleased him best, in the shop: a massive dead-gold locket, oval, with an anchor in large rich-looking pearls on the back; such a jewel as a man would scarcely choose for a farmer's daughter, unless he had sunk very far down that pit from which extrication is so difficult and so rare. He turned the locket over in his fingers thoughtfully after he had chosen and paid for it. "I suppose, now," he said to the shopman, "you could make me a false back to this thing, and put a portrait into it in such a manner that its existence need only be known to the owner of "I cannot understand why you should not come down at the locket?'' once, and stay with us altogether." "That is as much as to say you cannot understand why I am not an utterly idle man, my dear Augusta." The shopman replied diffusely, to the effect that the thing was practicable, but would be troublesome, requiring great nicety of adjustment, and so on, and so on, and would be, of "I don't wish you to idle; but at this time of year you really course, expensive. cannot have any serious work." "I don't care about a pound or two, more or less," said Mr. "You heard what your father said about Cardimum versus Walgrave. "I should like the thing done, if it can be done Cardimum." The bell rang before Miss Vallory could argue the point any further. Her place had been taken by Tullion, the maid, who traveled in the same carriage as her mistress, in case Miss Vallory should faint, or require the ivory hair-brushes, or wrench a button off her glove. Hubert Walgrave handed her to her place, lingered at the carriage-door to say a word or two, pressed the daintily-gloved hand in the orthodox fashion, and stood with lifted hat while the Eastbourne-Bognor-Lewes train steamed slowly off. When it was quite gone, he loitered on the platform for a minute or so, in a thoughtful mood, and then carried himself and his perplexities away in a hansom. In spite of all he had said to Miss Vallory, he did not work very diligently in the interests of his Cardimums that Saturday afternoon. He seemed to have an idle fit upon him, and loitered about in a desultory way; tried to read for an hour or so in his rooms by the river, but ended by throwing his books aside savagely, and went out of doors again, strolling westward, in an utterly purposeless and unprofitable manner, thinkingthinking of a Kentish homestead, and one fair young face, not the face of which he had a right to think. In Cockspur Street he came to a sudden halt, his listless eye caught by the glitter of a jeweler's window. The dazzling wares were displayed, though London was empty, and the world of Cockspur Street had in a manner ceased to exist-had entered upon its annual hibernation. Lockets and bracelets, brooches and earrings, twinkled in the radiance of the westward sloping sun; marvelous devices in coral courted the eye of the connoisseur; a chaste selection of diamonds hinted at the wealth within. Mr. Walgrave, who was not given to gaping before shop windows, made a dead stop at this, staring at the splendid follies meditatively. "I should like to give her something,” he said to himself; | "something as a-as a souvenir. I have caused her only too much pain; why should I not give her one half hour of inno neatly. There must be a secret spring, you understand, in the style one reads about in novels. I never saw it in real life, but I have a fancy for trying the experiment. You can send to me for the photograph in a day or two, and the sooner you can let me have the locket the better." He tossed his card on the counter and departed, more interested in this trifling purchase than he had been in anything for a long time. "It is a relief to do something that will please her," he thought. It was a relief; but he was not the less restless and uneasy. The Cardimum case had no charm for him. The briefs, which had accumulated during the last fortnight of his absence, failed to interest him. He had been less than a week away from Brierwood, yet it seemed as if that ancient garden in Kent were divided from him by the space of a lifetime. His common life, which until this time had seemed to him all-sufficient for a man's happiness, was out of tune. He hardly knew what to do with himself. After the excuses he had made about Eastbourne he could not go abroad; yet he would like to have rushed headlong to some wild out-of-the-way village in the Tyrol, and to spend his Autumn climbing unfamiliar mountains. He fancied he could get rid of his infatuation in some remote region such as that; but chained to London, in the dull, dead season of the year, there was no hope of cure. Grace Redmayne's image haunted him by day and by night, mixed itself with every dream, came between him and his books, pushed Cardimum versus Cardimum from their stools. Would he not have been safer at Eastbourne, in the society of his affianced, living the life of gentility by the seaside? He could hardly fail to ask himself this question. Yes, he would be safer, most assuredly, walking that narrow pathway, his footsteps guarded from all possibility of wandering. He would be safer; but he felt that such a life just now would be simply unendurable. The commonplace talk, the narrow mindnarrow though it was stored with stray lines from Tennyson and |