She saw at a glance how all this had come about, and made a quick calculation of its results.

'When must you go?' she questioned. Her tones were unsteady, for she loved this man as far as so imperfect a nature as hers could love, and the trial before her was a hard one.

'At once-I must go at once, or refuse the best chance of my life-the very best, if you will go with me, Ursula !'

There was downright pleading in his voice, tears in his handsome eyes. He held her still clasped to him, her rose-blush cheek pressed against his breast, her hands locked in his own. The power of her beauty was upon him, and he thought that, with such a face and form beside him, he could tread an uphill thorny path with spirit, and work his way with energy and

success.

'Father-you see he has no one in the wide, wide world but me,' she murmured.

'Let him go with us!'

'Never; he would not go to London for anything; he hates the sound of its name. Something that happened years and years ago drove him from it, I think.'

'Years and years allay fears and bring oblivion,' Bernard said confidently. If he was persuaded he would go.'

'I'll think over what is best, and we may be able to go altogether,' she answered evasively.

She appeared to enter into his plans, and took a strange pleasure in going over the details of their future life, all the while knowing in her heart that her share in it was an illusion. It was arranged between them that everything should be put in preparation for leaving Liverpool, but that nothing should be said yet to Ralph Pierce on the matter.

'Father is so depressed, and if

he cannot go with us it will half kill him-the thought of parting with me!'

Bernard was very ready just then to believe her.

His heart appeared to yearn towards her with an infinite tenderness. What a glorious creature she would become under good influence! How he longed to fling off the secrecy that each day and hour grew more and more irksome, and to take Ursula before all the world as his wedded wife! She apparently shared all his hopeful anticipations. Sometimes she really did half resolve to accompany him, and at night Ursula, inconsistent and wavering, would lie awake and sob and cry like a child at the prospect of parting with her husband, as though some force-not her own will-kept her from his side.

The real truth was that wild dangerous dreams, and such vain. worldly thoughts as an inexperienced ambitious and coarse-natured woman alone would have harboured for even a moment, swept her out of herself, hurled her good and noble aspirations into dark night, and made her almost a mad. irresponsible being, so completely did they predominate in her life just then. If she could have divided her existence, the purer and better half of it would have gone hand in hand with Bernard; the other half would have worked out a dashing ambitious future, full of frivolity, vanity, and perhaps sin, and in which the world, the flesh, and the devil would have been the foremost objects; as it was, though she appeared even to herself to vacillate, she never really did. It was hard to yield up her husband to Fate, but it was trebly hard to give up the alluring future John Lock had pictured often and glibly by her side. It was impossible to sacrifice the brilliant dreams that had perverted her whole being.

Some time, erhaps, when all these gross delusions turned to a handful of worthless ashes at her feet, the pure and honest love might come forth from its burial place in her heart and haunt her in a miserable old age; for in every woman's life some period must inevitably come when her soul turns wearily or in despair to the pure and good, seeing in reality their exquisite beauty and worth, and feeling vividly how terrible is their loss.

But Ursula had not come to this stage by many a long year. She had not a thought that the follies of life, as well as its crimes, have surely a just retribution.

Whilst Bernard was with her she gave way to all the love that she had felt for him before marriage; caresses that had grown colder and less frequent of late were again launched upon him with what seemed inexhaustible tenderness. It was in the very extravagance of affection that she sought to atone for the secret thoughts of future wrong that were actually flooding her brain.

At length there was but one day left to them, and it found her in genuine suffering. If Ursula was not really ill, she was sufficiently so to render her cheeks pale, and her eyes heavy with the purple shadows that had gathered beneath them.

'I cannot I cannot leave father she pleaded as Bernard held her shivering hands in his, and entreated her to go with him. 'He is ill-he is in sore trouble; if I go it will break his heart! Let me have a little time, Bernard. Do not speak to him yet, but go and send for me; then I will tell him all, and we will both go to you wherever you are.'

Ursula prevailed. She was so earnest and eager in her filial piety that it became almost real

VOL. XXI.

and touching. Certainly Bernard thought it so, and yielded his wish to the new and beautiful trait in his wife's character.

'I will leave you,' he said, putting a control over his emotion. 'I will keep our secret as you wish; but, Ursula, remember, it must be only for a time. The moment I am settled and able to provide a home, my wife must come and share it.'

'I will!' she cried passionately. She meant it too, for the minute, and looked up into his eyes truthfully; her own huge black orbs all dimmed with tears.

It was hard to part with him! Why did she care for all the gorgeous promises held out to her? How could she care for any one compared to what she felt for him, so handsome, so thorough bred, so loving! How dared that man, John Lock, to speak of Bernard so contemptuously! It sickened her to think of it. Of course she could follow her husband, and find a paradise in some shabby suburban villa, with toil and penury for its adjuncts. Still she would not go until she had enjoyed a little more freedom and prepared her father for the change.

CHAPTER XXXI.
'MAKE THE TIME BRIEF!'

THE morning of Bernard's departure arrived. In a few hours he would be away. All night long the girl had lain awake, sobbing piteously over her griefs. She relented then, and reproached herself bitterly that her husband was going without her. She felt to the core how wicked and selfish she had been. She thought upon the loneliness and toil on which he was entering with actual remorse. Once

EE

she sprang out of bed and began to put her clothes together, resolved to go with him whatever might happen. With an old shawl flung over her night dress, and her feet cold and unshod, she moved about, packing her belongings in eager haste. Now she folded a half-soiled ribbon, and cried as she recollected her father had given it to her. Then a crushed collar or crumpled cuffs were laid in a battered old trunk she had dragged from under her bed. As she proceeded in her task, she grew more and more earnest. She seized upon the articles of her scant toilet table and flung them into the box ruthlessly, unmindful of injury, as if she feared that the train destined to bear Bernard away would leave her behind. She took from a corner of a drawer a little old book, and opened it on the page where a marriage certificate had been lying for months hid away there, because the sight of it had been a sort of reproach. Now she put it into a small silken case she had embroidered crudely when love was freshest in her life, and, when she had huddled on her dress, restored it to her bosom, that seemed to grow purer beneath the light touch.

That did not seem enough. In the great gush of her newly aroused passion, the precious document should lie close, close to her beating overflowing heart.

In placing it there, her hand came in contact with an obstacle that made her start as though an adder had stung her. It was a fold of bank notes pinned to her bodice, put over the spot from whence the marriage certificate had been removed. With a gasp and a shudder Ursula tore the notes from their fastening and dashed them to the floor. The little silken case fell downwards to their place. With both hands pressed tightly to her throbbing heart she held it,

and, seated on the side of her bed, she began to weep as if her heart were breaking under the passionate pressure. Satan at the moment hid his diminished head, a good angel hovered over the girl, and sin and the thoughts of it appeared to drop away as it were from her soul.

After a time she became more composed, and starting up went to work again. The lowest drawer was unlocked and opened. There lay the dress of azure silk with its shimmer of misty lace, and side by side, gleaming up like the skin of a deadly but beautiful snake, the shawl which she had learnt to prize at its true value.

The pomps and vanities of life have wrought more evil, and brought more women to destruction's brink, than we wot of.

Dress! It is a word potent to rule over awakened feelings and good intentions. It is Dante or some other sage who said that good intentions paved the way to hell; and the good intentions that Ursula had nourished a few moments before seemed to have prefaced a sudden and fatal downfall into a lower sphere of feeling.

The azure dress and rainbow shawl worked a curious revulsion in her mind. Her eyes fastened on the alluring gleaming hues, fascinated as though by a basilisk. Ursula sank down on the floor and contemplated the rich fabrics with longing intensity. All that John Lock had said and hinted with the jesuitical eloquence he possessed swept back upon her with vivid force. Could she give these things up, with the hopes of triumph and display inspired by them? How beautiful she had looked in the blue dress, even in the dim light of that fourth-floor attic! How softly the delicate azure shone up now through the vapoury white lace! And was she never to wear it? So many hours

spent in deception and secret anxiety, were they after all to go for nothing?

Ursula

Unstable of nature, dropped down-down into the pitfall Satan had dug close by.

Sitting on the floor, her bare arms folded on the edge of the drawer, she asked herself these questions. The badly trimmed lamp cast its smoky light on her dark flushed face, as thoughts kindred to it in darkness passed rapidly through her mind. Mechanically she took up the dress and shawl, and laid them among the paltry things in her shabby trunk. The extraordinary contrast brought a fierce look of scorn into the black eyes which but a short while before had been so full of honest love and softness, and diving down into the trunk, she lifted them out again with a vehement gesture, as if thus separating one portion of her life from the other.

The notes lay on the carpetless floor just as she had cast them down. She slowly put forth her hand, grasped them stealthily, and was about to place them in her bosom again, but some feeling deterred her, and standing up she thrust the money under her pillow.

After this Ursula threw off her dress, snatched the things she had packed from the trunk and flung them carelessly back into the drawers, then with her foot pushed the box under the bed.

Then she blew out the lamp, and all was still in the little room. Hours later the moon shone through a window opposite to her bed, and by its light there might have been seen the restless glitter of two black eyes, so wakeful and bright, as though sleep would never visit them again.

Ursula walked hurriedly through the streets, with a thick veil covering her face, and reached the rail

way station before Bernard arrived there.

She was very pale and still as he went up to speak to her, and now and then a visible shudder ran through her frame as he tried to say hopeful things of their future. When he drew her towards him in the carriage which luck had left without other occupants and pressed his lips passionately to her, the kiss she gave him back was almost a sob. But even at the last moment she shed no tears, and her face kept its immovable whiteness. She leant against the cushion, her teeth set hard on her nether lip, her hands clenched, as if a desire to cry out was torturing her.

God bless you my love, my wife !'

He strained her to his heart, poured down kisses on her brow, her mouth, on the thick waves of her hair; one long curl fell over her shoulder, and his eyes wandered longingly over it.

Give this to me, Ursula, my darling; let me have that much!'

She took a penknife from her pocket, cut the thick tress of hair from her head without hesitation, and placed it in his outstretched palm, where it coiled in a soft and glittering ring which his fingers could hardly close over without crushing.

The gift of hair is unlucky, Bernard,' she whispered hoarsely, her mouth working a little with agitation. But take it, and sometimes-sometimes-'

'Ursula! love, love! how white you are! How you shiver, and I cannot stay to comfort you! One look-one more kiss! Now goodbye, God bless you-God bless you, my wife!'

He put her gently but firmly out upon the platform, and hurried back to his seat.

Then, as if his last glance had broken her heart, she sent a piteous'

cry after him-so piteous and so wild that it must have called him back but for the shriek of the engine that carried all sounds into its own.

'He is gone!' she said almost audibly, in a strange voice that did not seem like her own; and I did love him! oh, I did love him!'

She walked homewards, reviling herself for her conduct, and believing, with the superstition of her nature, that her hard and cruel conduct would be sure to be punished.

Ralph Pierce met her at the door. He too looked much disturbed, and eyed her compassionately as she passed by him, and running into her room locked the door.

It was a whole fortnight before John Lock put in an appearance again.

He had a long and stormy conversation with Ralph Pierce, from which that enslaved man went out humble and submissive; but he had said one thing to his tyrant just before he left that made John Lock less secure than usual.

'I will speak to the girl'-these were the words-' speak to her honestly, and if possible learn what her feelings are. If she is willing, if she does not love with all her heart and soul the man who has left us in such strange haste, I promise not to interpose. But she must listen to your proposition of her own free will, and without a particle of undue persuasion or coercion, or I will never permit her to become your wife-never, so help me Heaven!' and he threw up a piteous glance, 'not if the choice left me is a prison or even the gallows.'

John Lock laughed.

It was a cruel laugh, metallic in its merriment, and it came forth from coarse lips trembling and livid with rage. He got up and closed

the door firmly, and then for a long, long time a low silky voice fell upon the room like the hum of drowsy bees.

After this Ralph Pierce opened the door, and, looking white and dejected, called to Nell, inquiring where his daughter was.

'She is up in my room,' the child answered gently, casting a pitiful glance at the poor thin haggard face uplifted towards her.

When Ursula heard that John Lock was below and desired to see her, she seemed as if struck by a sharp blow. The work she was doing fell to her lap, and she looked about her in a scared sort of fashion, as though hunting for some means of escape.

But all this quickly passed away. She took two or three resolute stitches, folded up her needlework with an immensity of deliberateness, smoothed her glossy hair carefully before Nell's tiny mirror, and went down, stepping firmer and heavier than was her wont.

She entered the room where John Lock and her father were sitting. And the former met her with something akin to distrust in his bearing; but Ursula's manner was calm and cool, and with no visible repugnance (if she felt any) in it. Ralph Pierce watched the two with a searching scrutiny, and a nervous twitch in his features. There was no soft flutter, no blushing embarrassment, nothing that spoke of love or interest in Ursula. Of the two, John Lock was most agitated. The girl seated herself on the shabby sofa with the dignity of an empress, and seemed to be waiting.

'You sent for me, father?' she said at last, after an unpleasant silence.

'Yes, Ursula. Mr. Lock-but perhaps you know what has brought Mr. Lock so often here of late?'

'Yes, father, I think so,' she replied quietly, her face impassive as