Denzil Morris; Dramatist.

By CLIVE HOLLAND.

PART I.

"And she and Fate writ failure on the door of his heart."

It was one of those fine days in early summer, when the hours seem longest and brightest. The scene was the river, upon the banks of which, hard by Hampton, the trees stood thick, scarce moving. The hot sun had long ago eaten up the faint breeze, which earlier in the day had stirred their leaves to rustling. The water itself shimmered and sparkled in the sunlight, and the sluggish eddies formed polished, golden bowls into which unwary waterflies, stray leaves and floating twigs were relentlessly drawn. Swallows skimmed along the surface with noisy twitterings, now rising, now falling, almost the only sign of life and movement.

At length, round a bend of the river below Hampton Palace, two boats are seen slowly advancing. In the first are two young men, rowing in "whites," a term which is simple and at the same time wonderfully inclusive, and in the stern a young lady sits, regarding their exertions with a feminine and somewhat commiserating languor, bred of a busy season. Her face is a beautiful one, and little likely indeed to be passed by unnoticed, for there was more than mere prettiness in it; scarcely intellectual, it was difficult to describe, for one hardly looks for cynicism in the face of a girl of twenty, who has still the fag end of her first season to come, and who ought to be as yet but lightly versed in the arts and wiles of "society" belles.

Lois Maitland was the daughter of Henry Maitland, the " Plumbago King," as the personal journalism of the day loved to call him, a cool, hard-headed man of business, in the habit of always getting twenty shillings-and oftener than not more-for his pound; and thus, perhaps, the look which occasionally stole across his daughter's face, so difficult for strangers to understand, and described by other less pretty and consequently less popular girls as "calculating," was inherited. Upon the summer's day of which we write there was good reason for this expression, for both

the young men, who somewhat lazily plied the oars, were engaged in admiring her, and in a way which a few months of soirées, dances and at homes had given her the necessary worldly wisdom to interpret aright.

And thus it happened that whilst her mother, several other girls, an elderly lady or two, and some three or four young men were enjoying the luxury of the steam-launch, which was now rapidly overtaking them, Lois was engaged in that delightful pastime (still held sacred to ladies) of balancing the merits of two eligible and rival lovers. They on their part were, she flattered herself, quite unaware of her mind's occupation, and each jealous of every look bestowed upon the other, they said little, but admired and thought much.

They were almost equally well favoured as to looks, neither strikingly handsome, but at the present time almost looking so in their boating attire.

Herbert Causton had money, and Lois, although she would have plenty, rather favoured a judicious acquisition of more, but he was not good-tempered, and scarcely so much of a gentleman as Denzil Morris, who was a more lively companion, and certainly much more admired by other girls, and this was a factor not to be overlooked. He was, moreover, undoubtedly clever, and would be quite a show husband and, as she had just thought to herself, "a credit to any girl."

Such musings as these occupied Lois so entirely that the stiff and restrained efforts of her two attendants to carry on a conversation, and "be pleasant to one another," passed quite unnoticed; and it was not until the launch drew level and set the skiff rock. ing in its wash that she was recalled to herself.

"Lois, you look deliciously lazy," her younger sister cried out as she passed.

Hulloa, Morris, thinking of the new drama ?" laughed one of the party on the steam-launch. "What's it to be? Paddling Some One Else's Canoe' or 'Two's Company--'?" The last of the sentence was lost in the distance amidst the ripple of feminine laughter evoked by the sally.

Lois was aroused but not in the least disturbed by the rather commonplace witticism, so she said:

“I think both of you must have been very lazy, or they would never have overtaken us thus soon. Don't you really think you

could pull a little harder?

You look strong enough, I'm sure”this last with a glance at Denzil Morris' bare and fairly muscular arms: a feminine half-frightened glance, as if strength was an almost incomprehensible quality which might hurt her.

"Very well, Miss Maitland. You steer and we'll see if we cannot overtake them before they land. Pull away, Causton. We've been, as Miss Maitland says, 'horribly lazy.'"

A few strong strokes and the boat gathered way and shot forward with a lip-lap of water at the bow, and Lois dreamily steering in the stern.

The sound of the rippling water, the drops as they fell from the blades of the sculls, and the swirl of the eddies as they swept astern was very soothing, and gradually she fell a-thinking again, and her thoughts were much the same as before. She was a clever girl, and knew perfectly well that both of the men who kept their eyes fixed so upon her face were in love with her, and that Denzil, as she called him so herself, was only waiting for an opportunity to speak.

This dark-haired girl with the oval face, shaded by a large sunhat, in which a bunch of red poppies and yellow corn nodded, in her cool white dress, with two dark crimson roses coquettishly pinned at her breast, cared a little for him, just a little more than any other, and so she decided he should have his opportunity. It was a love of power that prompted her to this decision, for she did not care for him as he did for her.

A twinge of conscience may have touched her, but she dismissed the thought-she would be very kind to him, kinder than she had been to Johnny Sotheron, poor boy, and she smiled; for Johnny had been very much in earnest and she-well-she not at all. Kinder than she had been to young Estcourt; he was a very foolish young fellow, no doubt, every one said so, but she thought "he had done at least one sensible thing, and had showed good taste," by falling in love with her.

She loved the power her beauty gave; it was a joy to her if heart-breaking and sorrow-giving to others.

Once, it was after Johnny Sotheron's affair, she had lain awake long after she had gone to bed, and had been troubled, for she sought for her heart and could not find it. And for a few moments she lay with a chill upon her, and she almost cried out that she might have one, even if it made her unhappy; but the

cry died upon her lips and the void remained aching less and less, second by second.

A very similar feeling almost stole over her as she sat, on this hot summer's day, furtively watching Denzil Morris' earnest face. There was very little conversation carried on, for she did not wish to talk, and the two men had seemingly lost the power of speech, for the silence was only broken twice or thrice, and then only by a casual remark, until they came in sight of the launch, now close under the bank in search of a good landing-place.

All the party were soon on shore, whilst men from Tucker and Davidson's unpacked the luncheon.

None of the picnicers wandered very far, for although hunger suited scarce any of their stations-hunger being, at least in society, essentially vulgar all were, nevertheless, intensely hungry. At luncheon the two waiters were voted rather a bore, and they became supplemented by several of the gentlemen. Most of the party had split up into little groups, and thus Lois was able to almost monopolize Denzil and Causton. She was very happy, for she loved the sunlight, she always looked well in it, and as yet she was fresh enough to stand its searching rays, besides, most people were happy and merry in it, and she liked happiness and merriment, and hated shade and sadness.

Soon after lunch a ramble in the woods was proposed by the more adventurous spirits of the party, and gradually all strayed off in twos and threes, or small knots of half-a-dozen or so to make the most of a long afternoon and the shade.

Denzil and Causton attached themselves immediately to Lois, and then the three set out in search of flowers. They had gone but a little distance, however, before voices were heard summoning Causton's aid, and thus Lois and Denzil were left to wander on alone. They were soon in the woods, the last of a straggling line, that was quickly being broken more and more, as some or other of the ramblers struck off from the path amongst the trees.

Lois and Denzil had walked on for some distance when the former professed to be tired, saying:

"Isn't it fearfully hot, Mr. Morris ? and here is a delightful tree, just the thing to rest against. If you don't mind, I think

I should like to stop a little while, and then we can go on and find the others. How they have the energy to walk at such a rate a day like this puzzles me."

Denzil looked round. They had wandered far enough into the cool shade of the wood to have lost sight of the path altogether, and were, therefore, almost perfectly secure from interruption.

"Very well, Miss Maitland," he replied; "nothing could be nicer, so let us sit down."

Lois seated herself upon the fallen trunk, and Denzil threw himself on the grass beside it. He was vainly endeavouring to find the best way of approaching fair Lois, who sat just above him tapping her daintily-shod feet with her parasol. She was very cool-a great contrast to himself—and chatted away gaily enough; so gaily that he began to misdoubt the signs by which he had fancied her heart to have become an open book to him.

Lois was thinking when he would speak, and what she could possibly say, for in the silence of the wood and after a glance at his face, she had suddenly been seized with a troublesome consciousness that she had gone too far with him-farther indeed than she had intended. This uncomfortable feeling increased, and at last she recognized that, like the boy in the fable, she had raised a spirit that she could not easily lay again.

She left off tapping her shoes suddenly, and nothing broke the silence for several moments. Even the leaves did not rustle, and the voices of the other members of the party had long ago died away in the distance; not a bird twittered, and the tall grass was almost still.

The silence began to terrify her, and she was about to seek refuge in motion, when Denzil rose and stood before her. He had forgotten to pick up his hat, which he had taken off when he threw himself down beside her, and the sun streaming through the boughs fell full upon him as he stood before her pale and calm with an intensity that in others would have heralded a passionate outburst.

Lois saw him; she knew why he was standing before her, and also what would fall from his lips in a moment, but a great fear kept her silent.

At length he spoke, and there was a tremulous vibration