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And she is well?' demands and even Saville Moxon finds it Muiraven anxiously. beyond his skill to worm out anything from him that he doesn't choose to tell.

'Oh, the dear child's quite well, my Lord,' replies Mrs. Cavendish, mistaking the pronoun; 'you need have no fear of that. Her letters are full of nothing but Tommy. She little thinks whom she has got the charge of. She will be proud, I am sure.'

'I am afraid we must leave you now,' says her visitor, rising, 'as we must try and see Mr. Walmsley to-day.'

'Oh, can't you stay a few minutes longer-just ten? No! Well, then, good-bye, my Lord, and I hope you will let me know as soon as you have traced my niece.'

And Mrs. Cavendish, much to her chagrin, is left alone; for Mary, who has been upstairs all this time changing her dress, descends to the drawing-room in her new blue merino, all ready to captivate his Lordship, just as his Lordship's tall figure disappears outside the garden gate.

'Just a minute too late! What a pity!' thinks Mrs. Cavendish, as she puts up her eye-glass to watch the departure of the two young men. 'Well, he certainly is a fine-looking man. And fancy his being a widower! Not but what I think my Mary would be too sensible to object to that. And if the child were in the way, why, I dare say Irene wouldn't mind continuing the charge, as she seems so fond of it. Well, all I hope is, he'll come again, and I'll take good care next time that Mary is ready dressed to receive him. Such a chance to throw away! If he'd only seen her as she looks now, the girl's fortune would have been made.'

Old Walmsley, the solicitor, is a tougher customer to deal with than either of them anticipated,

6

It's all very well, gentlemen," he says, in answer to their combined entreaties, but you're asking me to betray the confidence of one of my clients, which is a thing I've never done during a practice of five and thirty years, and which I don't intend to begin doing now.'

'But, look here, Mr. Walmsley," says Muiraven, 'surely, under the circumstances, I have a right to demand Mrs. Mordaunt's address: she is detaining my child from me.'

'Then you can write and demand the child, my Lord, and the letter shall be duly forwarded to her.'

'But she may not answer it.' 'I think that very unlikely.' 'But I want to see the child.' 'I am sure my client will not detain it an hour longer than it is her due.'

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But I want to see her,' he bursts out impetuously.

Old Walmsley looks at him over his spectacles.

'I think you were the Honourable Eric Keir, my Lord?' 'What of it?'

'I was in the late Mrs. St. John's entire confidence.' Muiraven reddens.

'Well, if you were, you know the reason why I disappointed her. I have just told it you. I was a married man-I am a widower!'

'And Mrs. Mordaunt is a widow!'

'Exactly so. Moxon, for heaven's sake, can't you find something more interesting to stare at than myself? Now, will you give me her address, Mr. Walmsley?'

'I see no further reason for it, my Lord. Yon can still write.'

This is too hard,' cries Muir

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continues the old lawyer, slily-' if you were to set yourselves to guess the place where my client has hidden herself, why -why--'

'What then?' eagerly.

'I should be very much annoyed, my Lord exceedingly annoyed; indeed,' with a low chuckle, 'were you to guess right, I think I should-I should

'What should you do?'

Get up and leave the room, and slam the door behind me.'

'Come on, Moxon,' says Muiraven gleefully, as he draws a chair to the table again. 'Let's begin and guess all the places in England alphabetically, till we come to the right one.'

'But I don't know any of them. I've forgotten all about my geography,' replies Moxon.

Oh, nonsense; it's as easy as can be. Now for A: Aldersgate (oh, no! that's in London). Aylesbury, Aberdeen, A- A

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Stay; that's in America, old boy! Basingstoke, Bath, Beaminster. Doesn't it remind one of "I love my love with a B, because she is Beautiful. I hate her with a B, because she is Bumptious."'

'Can't you be sane for five minutes together, Moxon? If this matter is sport to you, remember it's death to me.'

Better give it up, Muiraven, and write instead. You can't expect to go on at this rate and keep your senses. To go through

all the towns in the United Kingdom, alphabetically, would ruin the finest mental constitution. Perhaps Mr. Walmsley could oblige us with a Gazetteer.'

I don't keep such a thing at my office, sir.'

'Let's try C, at all events, Moxon, and then I'll think about writing the letter. Cambridge, Canterbury, Carlisle, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Chester, Chatham

Canton, Caribee Islands,' interposes Moxon.

'Chichester, Cornwall, Clifton,' goes on Muiraven, with silent contempt; Croydon, Cocklebury Holloa! Moxon (starting), what's that?' as a loud slam of the office door interrupts his dreamy catalogue.

'Only that Walmsley has rushed out of the room as if the old gentleman were after him.'

'But what did I say?' 'Nothing that I know of. You were jabbering over your towns beginning with C.'

'But the word-the word-was it Croydon or Cocklebury? Don't you understand? I have hit the right one at last! By Jove! what luck!' He is beaming all over, as he speaks, with love and expectation.

'I suppose you must have; but I'm whipped if I know which it can be.'

'It's Cocklebury. I'm sure it's Cocklebury. It can't be Croydon. No one who wanted to hide would go to Croydon. It must be Cocklebury!

And where the deuce is Cocklebury?'

'Down in Hampshire, the most out-of-the-way place in the world. I was there once for a few days fishing; but how the name came into my head beats me altogether. It was Providence or inspiration that put it there. But it's all right now. I don't care for anything else. I shall go down to Cocklebury- to-night.' And leaping up from his chair, Muiraven commences to button his greatcoat and draw on his gloves again preparatory to a start.

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can have a special. Money's no object.'

'Moxon, I always thought you were rather a well-meaning fellow; but it strikes me that you've not got much feeling in this matter.'

'I always thought you were a man of sense; but it strikes me that you're going to make an ass of yourself.'

'Do you want to quarrel with me?' says Muiraven grandly, as he steps opposite to his friend.

'Not in the least, my dear fellow; but if anything could make us quarrel, it would be to see you acting with so little forethought.'

'Ah, Moxon, you don't know what it is to-to

'To be the father of "a charming child," no; but if I were, I am sure I should defer seeing him till to-morrow.'

'Gentlemen, have you left off saying your A B C?' demands old Walmsley, as he puts his head in again at the door.

'My dear sir, I am so much obliged to you,' exclaims Muiraven, seizing his hand with unnecessary warmth.

I'm rejoiced to hear it, my Lord; but what for?'

'For telling me Mrs. Mordaunt's address.'

'I'm sure I never told you that. It's against all my principles to betray a client's confidence.'

'But for slamming the door in that delightful manner. It comes to the same thing, you know. Cocklebury in Hampshire. There can't be two Cockleburys. And now I must be off to see if I can get a train down there tonight.'

'I can satisfy you on that point, my Lord. No train stopping at the nearest station to Cocklebury leaves town after two o'clock.'

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able. Keep your appointment with Cray this evening, and don't think of leaving London till tomorrow.'

'He can't do it,' interposes the solicitor drily.

'He is equal to anything: he will bestride a forty-horse power bicycle if I don't prevent him,' replies Moxon, laughing.

But Muiraven does not laugh. All the light seems to have faded out of his face.

'You are right, Moxon,' he says gloomily. Take me home, and do what you will with me. I am worse than a child.'

Old Walmsley sees them go with a sly chuckle and a rub of the hands.

'Hope I haven't departed from my principles,' he thinks to himself; but I couldn't have sent him away without it. Poor young thing. How it will brighten up her dull life to see him. And if it should come right at last-and it looks very much to me as if it were coming right-why-why, I hope they'll let me draw up the settlements-that's all.'

*

Joel Cray's untutored mind is vastly astonished by the reception which he receives at Lord Muiraven's hands that evening.

'I hope you understand perfectly,' says his host, when, after considerable difficulty, he has induced the rough creature to take a chair and sit down beside him, 'that I had no idea but that my wife had left me with another man, else I should have advertised openly for her, or set the detective officers to find out her address. But I feared that discovery would only lead to an exposure of my own dishonour, and preferred the silent, solitary life I have adhered to since. Could I have known that Myra was still true to me, I would have risked everything to

place her in the position she had a right to claim.'

'She was true to you, sir, and no mistake; for I don't mind a-telling you now, that I tried hard to make her my wife; but 'twern't of no good. She allays stuck to it that she couldn't forget you; and till strength failed her, she was on her feet a-tramping after you.'

'Whilst I was out of the country, trying to forget the disgrace which I thought attached to me. Poor Myra!'

'She's dead and done with, sir. It's no use our a-pipin' nor a-quarrellin' over her any more.'

'You speak very sensibly, Cray; but at the same time, I am anxious to show you that I regret the past, and should like to make some amends for it, if possible. I cannot let any of Myra's relations want. You tell me you are going back to Priestley. What do you do there?'

'I'm a day labourer, sir-my Lord, I mean,' with a touch of his hair.

'And your mother?'

'She takes in washin', my Lord, and has five little 'uns to keep on it.'

'It is those five little ones I wish to help her and you to maintain; so I have placed with my friend here, Mr. Moxon, who is a lawyer, two thousand pounds to be disposed of as you may think best; either placed in the bank to your credit, or laid out in the purchase of land, or in any way that may most conduce to your comfort.'

'Two-thousand-pounds!' repeats Joel, with drawn-out incredulous wonder, as he rises from his chair.

"Yes! that will bring you in about sixty pounds a year; or if you expend it in a little farm

Two-thousand-pounds!' reiterates the labourer slowly, 'it ain't true, sir, surely?'

'I would not deceive you, Cray. I give it you, not as compensation for your cousin's blighted life, remember, but as a token that if I could I would have prevented her unhappiness. I loved her, Cray; didn't marry her to desert her. She deserted me.'

Joel's dirty, horny hand comes forth, timidly, but steadily, to meet Muiraven's.

'May I do it, sir? God bless you for them words. They're better than all the money to me. And if the poor gal can hear them too, I believe heaven looks the brighter to her. You're very good, sir. I asks your pardon humbly for all my bad thoughts towards you, and I hope as you'll get a good wife and a true wife yet. That'll be neither shame nor blame to you.'

'Thank you, Cray. I hope before long you'll do the same, and teach your children that gentlemen have hearts sometimes as well as poorer men. I shall always take an interest in you and your doings, and my friend here will see that the money I spoke of is handed over to you as soon as you are ready to receive it.'

'I don't know about the marrying, my Lord,' says Joel sheepishly, for it seems a troublous business at the best to me; but there'll be plenty of prayers going up for you from Priestley, and the worst I wishes for you is that they may bring you all the luck you deserve.'

'And to think,' he continues to himself as he returns to his own home, that that there's the chap I swore by my poor gal's grave to bring to judgment for her wrongs!'

*

The eleven o'clock train next day takes Muiraven down to the nearest town to Cocklebury. All by himself: he has positively refused to travel any more in Moxon's

VOL. XXV.-NO. CXLV.

company. Two hours bring him to the place; but there is no hotel there, only an old-fashioned inn, with raftered ceilings and diamond-shaped windows, called 'The Coach and Horses,' where our hero is compelled to put up and dine, whilst he sends a messenger over to Cocklebury. He has not come down unarmed, for he sat up late last night, writing a long detailed account to Mrs. Mordaunt of his early marriage and his wife's identity, so that the worst may be over before he and Irene meet again. And this letter, which winds up with an entreaty that he may go over at once to Cocklebury to see and claim his child, he despatches as soon as possible to Irene's residence, striving meanwhile to beguile his impatience by an attempt to masticate the freshly-killed beef which the landlady of the Coach and Horses' places before him, and which only results in his emptying the flask of cognac he has brought with him, and walking up and down the cold, mustysmelling, unused town, until he has nearly worked himself into a fever with impatience and suspense. How he pictures her feelings on opening that important packet! She will shed a few tears, perhaps, at first, poor darling, to learn he has ever stood in so close a relationship to any other woman; but they will soon dry up beneath the feverish delight with which she will recognise the truth that he is once more free-that they are both free, at last, to love and comfort one another. Ah! that he could but be on the spot to comfort her now! What is this fool of a messenger about not to return? It is not half a mile to Cocklebury! Why did he not go himself?

Peace! patience! He knows that he has done what is most right and proper in sending an

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