the man to drive back to the chambers quickly, and remained upright and eager, with her hand upon the door, as if to snatch the very moments that stood between her and her purpose.

'He said that I could ask and get what was refused to him. Perhaps if I ask, and gain, “for ever” may not be !' Such were her thoughts the while.

Mr. Shaine has gone out,' was the porter's answer to her question; but she hurried past him, saying it was no matter, and that she would wait in his room till he returned. She ran quickly up the stairs, and was out of sight before the old fellow could say her nay.

She did not stop at Shaine's door, but hurried along the passage, to where a gleam of light across the carpet told her that Jansen was within, and that his door was open.

May I come in?' She stood upon the threshold with her hand on the door handle.

'Yes,' cried Jansen.

But when he saw his visitor he started from his seat by the fire and bowed her welcome, and placed her in the seat of honour opposite himself, with such 2 puzzled look as made her smile.

'It is strange my coming back at this time of night: you think so-yes, I see you do;' she spoke in a low, constrained voice, hardly her own.

'You are right-I think it strange-yet the honour is so great

She stopped him abruptly. 'Don't waste the time in compliments-I came to ask a favour. Are you in the mood to grant -one ?'

'One, or one thousand to my friends, most of all to you, my dearest madam. But I am not wise, to guess your wishes; what can I do to serve you?'

'That money which was asked of you to-night!'

'By Philip Relf?"

'Yes; you will give it him?' 'I have already-for two years!' 'A little longer, a month or two-say you will?'

'Two years ago he said the same to me.'

And now I say the same to you again.'

Ah! these dear ladies, what hearts they have!'

'You won't say no?'

'They are charming. It is so hard to say to them that little "no." 2

'So hard you have not the heart to say it is it not so? Oh! you are kind and good, and will not see this friend of ours ruined for so small a sum. Come, say you will not!' In the earnestness of her entreaty she had left her seat and knelt beside him.

'Dear madam, if I give him this, he will come to me for more; how can it be done?'

'It can be done, if you wish it; it must be done if I wish it!' She clasped his hand, and looked up in his face so sweetly that it was hard to withstand her.

'But it is not business.'

'For my sake!' She was looking up so winningly, her great grey eyes alight with all the love that lay in her heart, her warm hand on his, its taper fingers round his quickening pulse. Who so cold but what his blood would boil, and surge, and overwhelm his reason till it forced the lips to frame their own answer? It was hard, yet he did stand against it; this man, with all his weakness for the fair sex, could not forego his instincts, and he answered her again.

" It is not business.'
'But you will do it?'
" No!'

'I will pay the money-I'll sign a paper!'

You cannot sign; you are a married lady, and your name to such a thing is worthless.'

'I'll promise you the money; surely you cannot doubt that I will pay it?'

'No, no; how can I? It is not that I doubt; there is so much of business in these things, and the dear ladies do not comprehend it : no, indeed they do not, but it is this. For certain reasons I have given a sum of money; in return I have a solemn promise that it will be mine again upon a certain day, otherwise there are penalties. Well, I make arrangements; I cannot doubt this gentleman who promises-it would be wrong-but when the time arrives he says, and truly, that this or that has happened, can I allow a little time? I do allow it; my arrangements fall, but what does that matter?-my friend is helped, and I am glad. Next time, and all will certainly be arranged. But next time comes, and still the same delay; again I grant it, my arrangements fall, but I suffer it— he is my friend. A third time comes, the same, and now a fourth; and when I speak of my arrangements he laughs and says, must!"'

you

'Four hundred pounds?'
'Yes, four hundred pounds."
'And you will pay this?'
'Yes, I will.'

'Suppose you change your mind?-pardon me, but ladies sometimes do.'

She had risen during his last few words, and now moved across to the table.

'Ladies may change their minds, but only cowards break their word!' She bent over the table and wrote something on a sheet of paper, then gave it to him. On it was written

'I promise to pay Mr. Karl Jansen four hundred pounds on Saturday next, upon condition that no mention is made of this interview or its object.

'ADELAIDE GAWTON.'

'If my name is not of legal value, at least that paper places me at your mercy, and will compel me to be honest.' She spoke so much in earnest that a far more suspicious nature than his would have believed her.

'My dear madam, you mistake me,' he answered, in a tone of apology; it is not that I mistrust you-it was only as a business matter that I spoke.'

And you will take this promise?'

'Assuredly I will.'

She breathed so deeply, it might have been a sigh in any one but her; in Adelaide Gawton it was the pæan of her victory.

'Thank you so very much,' she said, gathering her shawl around her; I am indebted to you more than I can say; you men of business are so hard, and yet so kind at heart. Please do not move, I should prefer to go alone: I asked for Mr. Shaine-we are such old, old friends-and I can call and ask for him. Thank you

so very much.

Good night!' and she was off and down the stairs before Jansen could accompany her. And so he returned to his room and shut the door, and sat gazing at the strangely worded paper that he had taken in exchange for his good bond for four hundred pounds.

Then there was silence in Club Chambers, silence in the passages and on the staircases; silence for the night porter dozing in his chair, silence in the kitchens and in the rooms-in Arther Shaine's and in Karl Jansen's.

But next morning the sleeping chambers were startled by a cry, and George came running down the stairs, whitefaced and breathless, declaring there was murder' up above. And the chambers clad themselves and climbed the stairs, and through the open door saw Karl Jansen stretched on his Turkey carpet, stiff and dead, with a blue-red mark, blurred and ragged, on his bald skull; his eyes half shut, still fixed in deathly stare upon the cabinet beside him, the doors of which were flung open and the boxes strewn amongst the nick-knacks. They lifted him and laid him on the velvet couch beneath the pink-fleshed bathers, bending the outstretched arm, closing the eyes, and settling him all straight and still as though death were a mockery of sleep, and must be shaped as such, and then above him drew a sheet to shut out sight of this mortality that could not pay the rent.

And Shaine was there, stunned, beaten down; and he gazed upon his friend, all stark and cold, the last sad thing we love, and loathe, and look upon before the grave. And there were hurrying footsteps on the stairs, faces that Club Chambers knew the names not of, and whispers breathing' murder' every

second word; stern-faced police stamping about the passages as if the carpets might conceal the murderer, and they had set their boots the task to drive him out. Shaine had shut himself in his room, and was leaning against the fire-place staring into space. There was so much of almost woman's tenderness in this man's nature as I made the blow fall on him with a shock that crushed out energy, and left him stunned and helpless. The sight of his dead friend lying so still, so unlike him as he lived, was ever present to him. He saw before him this man as he had seen him so few hours ago, happy but to make one of that great world of pleasure that lives to-day; he saw him thus, and then-those ghastly hillocks in the sheet sending up from the dead man's face and limbs their silent cry against this cruel, sudden death.

Then came a knock, and the landlord of Club Chambers entered.

He was a sleek, well-to-do man, wearing prosperity as a garment, with nothing frayed or torn against the sharp edges of the world—a man who looked upon Club Chambers as his heaven, and its inhabitants as the sole dwellers therein

of such were his kingdom. 'Sad business this, Mr. Shaine,' he began, with a smirk.

'Sad, you call it; I call it hideous-damnable!'

So it is, Mr. Shaine, so it is; and so bad for the chambers, sir; we have always kept so respectable. I'm sure, sir, I would never have taken the poor gentleman in if I had thought he was going to be murdered like this on the premises.'

'Confound it, Poole, d'you think Mr. Jansen came here to come to this?'

house is so respectable, and these sort of things do tell against one so; people will talk.'

'Well let them; it is not your fault.'

'Perhaps you have not heard what people do say, sir?'

'No!'

'They do say, sir, that Mr. Relf had words last night with the poor gentleman, and owed him money. Sands heard them wrangling at dinner, sir, and Mr. Relf went away swearing and muttering like a madman.'

'Why, you don't mean that Mr. Relf is suspected?'

I don't say so, sir; the friends of gentlemen living in the Chambers are always free and above suspicion; I only say, they say so, sir!'

'Let them say so; Mr. Relf can clear himself, and will, as soon as he is asked.'

'They say, too, sir,' went on Mr. Poole, drawing a little closer, and dropping his voice to a tone in accordance with the importance of his communication. They say, sir, the lady, Mrs. Gawton, came up late after your party, and sat some time with Mr. Jansen. You were gone out, I know, sir, but the porter let her in and out again, alone; and they say

Heavens! you don't believe that she, Mrs. Gawton, is mixed up in it?'

'Well, sir, hearing a lady's name, I asked the inspector, and he told me so. I thought it best to tell you, sir. You see, sir, when a house gets talked about gentlemen won't come to it. We've always done our best to keep the Chambers quite respectable. I'm sure you have found them quite respectable, sir?'

But Shaine did not hear him, and was deaf to the respectability of Club Chambers, sojourner in them though he was; all his

thoughts were concentrated on the one idea of the murder and the coupling of these two names with it.

Adelaide in my rooms or in Jansen's! Adelaide Gawton raise a hand against him! it's madness to think it! Good heavens! perhaps they are even now tracking her, and Jack is away. Suspected of this-absurd-and yet he says that she was here alone; the last who saw him alive. What could she come for? Not for me. I must go and ask her-warn her— find out what it means, now Jack's away; he asked me to look after his wife and help her, and I will for his sake.'

But Shaine, who would fain have been off at once, was met at his door by the inspector, who, knowing him to have been a friend of the murdered man, asked him to come with him. into the room and examine with himself any papers which might happen to throw light upon the case, and seal them up, together with the other property, for those proceedings that would come hereafter.

So for his friendship for the dead, he gave up his promised errand, and was again in the room with that thing he felt was there, but which his eyes refused to look upon.

There were cases full of china, and cases full of books, and cases full of deeds, and piles of pretty toys from Dresden and Vienna; the last French novel, open as he left it, its yellow cover torn and crumpled as if the book had been lain down in haste; quaint bottles full of foreign waters, pink and gold; and then the open cabinet, its treasures scattered, many gone, and all heaped about in sad disorder. It took them some time to look over these things, and then to put them by again and seal

them up. There were deeds of large estates, huge crackling parchments that opened with so loud a sound as would have waked that something lying near, had there been but one small breath of God's good air within it; and there were bills, and promises-to-pay, and notes-of-hand, and I.O.U.'s, and all the various ways by which men frame excuses for not paying what they owe. But the diamonds were not there, even the dead man's shirt was creased and rent, and showed the place above which they had been. The box was there, a dainty toy, all gilt and leather, and a tiny keyhole, the key still in it, and half a dozen links of the dead man's chain yet hanging from it. All this they found and sealed, but still no line that showed the clue.

The day sped on, and the dull afternoon was coming on apace, and still these two kept company with that other thing that could have set the mystery at rest, could one of those myriad words its lips had been so ready with before but have lingered there and breathed itself into a single

name. But no-the breath was gone and had taken with it lifethat, like a prisoner weary of his cell, had fled away upon the instant when that blood-red gate was opened for its going.

And so at last their search was at an end, and nothing came of it save safety for the property of his heirs, and the searchers left their searching, and were for going ere the darkness left them in the dead man's company.

On the table lay his writing book, and in it a few scattered papers, and these Shaine was gathering up when one caught his eye, on which was handwriting that seemed familiar to him. light was failing, and he walked across to the window and read

The

'I promise to pay to Mr. Karl Jansen four hundred pounds on Saturday next, upon the condition that no mention is made of this interview or its object.

'ADELAIDE GAWTON.'

Folded with it was a note for four hundred pounds, signed by Philip Relf.