for he was getting desperate. I don't know what he might not have done between this and Wednesday. We might have had him. setting the place on fire-burning you out of house and home, and rescuing you in the dead of night, just to get rid of you-eh, Brydon ?"

"I'm glad you rescued me from that," said Mary. "Your note was better." Brydon coloured, looking angrily at the smiling churchwarden. "I'll say good-bye," he exclaimed with some abruptness, and took his leave accordingly.

"He doesn't like being laughed at," said Eddington glancing after him. "But upon my word it was almost true he was SO determined you should go, and yet so persuaded you wouldn't. I can't think what made him take such a notion into his head; I told him he was wrong. But he's amazingly obstinate. Now can my cousin do anything for you at Salthaven?"

Mary Wynne was never quite sure what she had authorised Miss Eddington to do on her behalf. She agreed to everything the lawyer proposed, and she perfectly remembered that he talked about the Salthaven hotel, and said either that it was extremely bad or extremely good. Apparently she was listening to him as she stood at the pave

ment's edge, in her light summer dress, a slight, dainty figure with the sunny rosecolour lighting her pale cheeks, but in reality she was absorbed in a curiously intense perception of the idea which Eddington had laughingly suggested a few moments earlier. The blue sky, the birds flying overhead, the church porch, the stones on which she stood, the stream of well-dressed people, even the neat elderly gentleman who faced her, were less real to her than the vision and sound of a moonless night, gusty and black, a sudden bewildering terror, an uproar of horror in the labyrinth of lanes, a crackling sound, a gathering clamour, a burst of roaring flame, and then through the murky heat and crashing noise, Brydon's face, Brydon's eyes, Brydon's outstretched hands. She shivered helplessly as she stood, looking up at Mr. Eddington, but seeing all her dream of Philip, all her happy garden fancies, drifting away across a broad glare of fire in heavy clouds of smoke. The fancy was absurd of course, and yet there was something in it which grasped and held her as if it were true. "I'm sure that will be very nice," she said with a sweet smile. "I shall be so much obliged to Miss Eddington." But when she went home she looked musingly at the old house.

CHAPTER XVI.

we

URDER, the proverb tells us, will out; and although of course do not know how many murders have remained undiscovered, appearances seem to lend support to the theory. In like manner, I have always observed that anything in the shape of a scandal is sure to become public property, however much it may be to the interest of those concerned in it to keep their own counsel; and a very comforting thought this should be to the numerous persons who love a choice bit of scandal above everything. That de Vieuzac and Beauchamp had had a mortal quarrel; that they had been within an ace of slitting one another's weasands in the good old-fashioned style; that they had only been pacified by the joint exertions of Lord Bracknell and the reader's humble servant; and that a scene of the most distressing and dramatic nature had taken place subsequently between Lady Bracknell and her incensed husband-these things were known all over the house before I left my bedroom the next morning; and when I made my appearance I found my fellow guests upon the tip-toe of joyous excitement and curiosity. If they gained no further information from me, it was not for want of asking for it; nor, I imagine, would the appeased rivals have escaped cross-examination, had not those gentlemen wisely sought safety in flight. They must have journeyed up to London by the early express together; and I should much have liked to hear what they conversed about by the way, but had no opportunity of No. 36

making inquiries as to that until the whole subject had ceased to interest me.

However, that I may not seem to exalt myself unduly by affecting a superiority to the weaknesses of my neighbours, I will confess that I was most anxious to obtain some account of the lecture which Bracknell had doubtless administered to his wife; because I thought it likely that this had been expressed in fine, forcible English, such as one is always glad to listen to in these days of roundabout phrases and involved construction. My hostess, looking rather hard at me, informed me that the Bracknells were leaving that morning; so that I was obliged to bolt my breakfast in a terrible hurry. For, after all the trouble that I had taken in the matter, I should have been truly vexed had I been denied the satisfaction of seeing her ladyship's face before she departed.

As it fell out, I was privileged not only to see her face but to hear her voice; and I don't know when I have enjoyed anything more than the interview of ten minutes or so which she was pleased to accord to me in the conservatory, where I discovered her. A deeply discomfited woman was she that day, and bitter were the reproaches with which she assailed me.

"This has been your doing from first to last!" she exclaimed. "All the misery and disgrace that may come of it will lie at your door."

And when I replied that I accepted the whole responsibility and gloried in it, she fairly lost her temper-a thing that was not usual with her declaring that that only showed what an empty-headed, conceited idiot I was. "You think yourself so wise that you must needs have a finger in every one's business. I should very much like to

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