This account Jake gives amidst great excitement. Not a moment is to be lost now.

In the morning the body of D'Albo is found dry upon the sand. It is cut and disfigured and battered almost beyond recognition. Ralph Courtlandt's is never seen again; whither it has been washed, no man can tell.

But the manner of Courtlandt's death, and the disappearance of the body so thoroughly accords with the odd

"You had better remain," Dick suggests to Ada. "You can be of no earthly assistance, and God only knows what fearful sight may be in store for us."

Anything is better than the suspense, however, and impelled by an irresistible impulse, the two girls follow the little party, which is now joined by the landlord of the Raven and two men bearing ropes.

The tide is already up, and to reach their destination across the sandy expanse is out of the question. The rocky eminence is hid from their view by a projection of cliff.

Englewood seem rather gratified than otherwise to see their prognostications realized.

"I told you he would come to no good," said one. "A bad life and a bad ending," chimed in another. "They may look and they may look," declared another, exultingly, "but the devil loves his own too well to let them stay long in the water."

When Ada opens her eyes and sees the face she so dearly loves bending over her, she turns very pale, and trembles. She does not repulse Sinclair when he kisses her. They stand a little away from the others, and speak earnestly together. Maggie, in half wonder and half alarm, watches them furtively.

Leonie at length rouses herself. She considers that she has a duty to perform.

Leonie is the first to reach the edge of the precipice. She is the first, too, to look at the two forms so many feet beneath her. She does not shriek, nor cry, nor faint-she stares with her eyes fixed-with the gaze of one turned suddenly to stone.

On the rock, with an evil look upon their faces, and a crimson stream running from each, and coloring the surrounding water, lay D'Albo and Ralph.

As she looks, the insidious waves lick and fondle their prey. Gently at first they touch them, and tenderly they kiss their cheeks; then with a sudden roar they seize their spoil and ruthlessly dash the lifeless bodies against the hard, rough rocks.

A shriek of anguish rends the air. They turn, to see Rebecca-Ralph's old servant-her eyes wild, her dress disordered, and her matted hair floating in the breeze. With her arms extended, and a weird cry echoing and reechoing over the incoming waters, she looks like some spirit of evil.

"'Tis Courtlandt," she screams, wildly; "'tis Courtlandt-the last of his house! Woe, woe, woe is me!"

At that instant Ada faints, and falls into the arms of Edmund Sinclair, who suddenly and unexpectedly appears upon the scene.

As the little group upon the rock stand spellbound, a cloud obscures the sun, and the wind rises. Long before boat and men can proceed-before, indeed, any effort can be made to secure the bodies, there comes a deluge of rain, then the fierce tempest, ending in a heavy, tumultu

ous sea.

When the wind was still and the sea calm, the boatmen did not care to venture amongst the jagged projections, and now that the waves rise high, and the hurricane gathers force, not one will volunteer to bring the bodies of Ralph Courtland and D'Albo, the gypsy, to the shore. "No good," they coolly reply, "to throw away live bodies for dead ones."

No one, however, urges them to the task. No one's heart is the heavier for the death of these two men ; not one of the spectators cares whether sea or churchyard holds those shattered frames. They have gone, and not a soul

8

offer you the hospitalities of Courtlandt Cliffs, such as it is," eying Rebecca with no small favor. "Though the master be gone, the mistress will not forget her duty."

"You'll never enter Courtlandt Cliffs again, ye foul witch. You and your limbs will find no foothold there. Now you've got the body, must you needs have the trappings as well? Satan smother me if you do so now!" vociferates Rebecca, furiously.

"Who will dare stay the daughter of that dead man from entering her home ?" cries Leonie, fiercely.

"No one," Sinclair rejoins, leaving Ada, and stepping forward, "when she comes. But I, for one, will use my utmost to keep you and your creatures from touching one cent of his money. You're an adventuress- an adven

turess of the worst kind.

"Hush, hush !" remonstrates Ada. such language now."

"You must not use

"Let him say on. Do you know," she cries, turning on him furiously, her face crimson with rage, "man, as you call yourself, I could take you in my arms and break you upon that rock? But I will not touch you. The man who listens at keyholes and threatens a woman before the dead body of her father is a mean, pitiful, dirty hound. Come, Richard, we will leave these brutes-these savages." She hastily packs up her trunk, and, in company with Mr. Tomkins, takes the first train for New York.

"Bravely spoken, my noble boy," exclaims Rebecca, regarding with much favor the dark face of the young artist. "You shall come to Courtlandt Cliffs, you and your pretty lady."

The two girls and Edmund Sinclair follow the ancient crone to the massive and weather-beaten old house that is now ownerless.

They remain some time. As they leave, Maggie kisses her sister, and says, in a tremulous voice: "Now, darling, that I know your secret-oh, how I pity you !" (To be continued.)

CHARITY is greater than faith, as the fruit is greater than the blossoms of the bud; but without bud or blossom there can be no fruit.

I was seated before the fire in my rooms at the American House, in Boston (writes an old lawyer), examining with some interest a lot of old papers, some of them extending over a period of a quarter of a century, when my eyes and hand were suddenly arrested by a boyish indorsement I had at some time made upon the back of a document I had just taken up.

The indorsement was, "The Last Citation," and the document itself was a summons, couched in the customary phraseology, to a certain reluctant witness, who had never been found, in a world-famous murder-trial.

dying man," he responded, abruptly—"a friend of mine, whose ship is outward bound on the only voyage he'll ever take! He won't die peacefully, he says, unless you come to him; he must see you!"

"For what? Is the man known to me?"

"If not, why should he send ?" was the quick response. "At least, your honor is known to him; else why should I be here? He's a sailor, like myself, and has some great trouble on his mind about something he wants you to know; but who he is, or what he is, is more than I can tell. The name he goes by is not his own, he says, and

But not for long.

I was interrupted by a knock at the door, and the appearance of one of the servants, who stated that there was a man in the passage who desired to speak to me, and who had entreated and insisted in so urgent a manner, that he had taken the liberty of bringing him up.

The surprise I felt for the hour was late, and everything about the house still-I did not express; but surmising the possibility of its being some old client from the country, unaware of my recent retirement from business, I pushed the papers on my table aside, and gave orders for the stranger's admission-for a stranger I discovered he was the moment he entered.

eyes upon him; but there is no time to lose, your honor! He believed himself dying when I left him, but swore he would live till I brought you. You must come at once!" "Must is scarcely the word," I said, briefly reviewing the proposition.

My hand was already withdrawn from the pistol in the drawer, and whatever of uneasiness I had felt had vanished in the curiosity evoked.

My immediate action evinced my determination.

Rising, I exchanged my slippers for my boots; my fireside wrapper for an overcoat; wrote a single line on a slip of paper, and placed the pistol, which I managed to take unobserved from the drawer, in a side-pocket, convenient to my hand.

I then signified my readiness to accompany the stranger. Passing down-stairs, through the long colonnaded.

My hasty survey of my visitor, resulting in the conviction that he was unknown to me, had scarcely taken form, when I was disagreeably impressed by observing him step to the door the retiring servant had closed, and turn the key in the lock.

"I've no time to waste in words, your honor," he said, briefly, yet removing his hat respectfully, as he came toward me; "I merely wish to keep out intruders. I suppose there is no mistake-you are Lawyer Lincoln ?" "I am," I responded, as my right hand softly tightened its grasp on a pistol in my table-drawer, open enough for the purpose; "I am, sir; what is your business with

me?"

"My business is to conduct you to the bedside of a

accosted me, but without speaking, and hurriedly followed my guide into the narrow and deserted street.

He led the way through Elm Street to Dock Square, and thence down North and Ann, till we reached Fleet Street, where he paused for a single instant, and glanced hastily about him, as if to confirm his knowledge of the locality he sought; then, turning the corner, hurried down Fleet a short distance, until we reached a narrow alley, leading into a still narrower court.

Again pausing, for here the shadows lay thick and heavy, the man groped forward in the darkness, and at length stepped before the door of an old rickety wooden building.

"We are here at last," he muttered, with a long breath of satisfaction, giving, as he spoke, two peculiar and distinct raps on the door.

It turned upon its hinges, as the outer one had done, and we found ourselves in a dim corridor of considerable length, lighted by a hanging lamp at the further end.

The floor of this passage was of wood, and, as my guide hurried forward without speaking, the silence was only broken by the reverberation of our footsteps.

At the opposite end we ascended three or four steps to a door, where my guide gave four of the peculiar raps, which seemed an established signal, and this door, like the others, immediately swung on its hinges.

As no doorkeeper had been or was visible, I was convinced that this action resulted from machinery secreted in the walls.

The room into which I was thus ushered was well lighted and moderately well furnished; a fire was burning in the grate, as if it had been recently occupied.

My guide paused, and, for the first time since leaving the hotel, faced me.

"Before we proceed further, sir," he said, in a tone noticeably different from that in which he had hitherto spoken-one implying command-"it will be necessary for you to be blindfolded!"

"I have said that I insure your safety," he declared, "but it is solely with the proviso that you follow me without speaking, or attempting to remove the bandage. Have a care!"

I heard a sound like the click of a small spring, but I heard no door open, and yet I knew, from the slight rush of cold air, that one was opened. We commenced descending a flight of steps, the number of which I should judge to be fifty. On reaching the bottom, my conductor led me to the right, through a vaulted passage, as I inferred from the echoes of our footsteps.

Again that peculiar click of a concealed spring, and I felt a similar rush of air, but this time it was warm, and laden with the fumes of liquor and tobacco. At the same time I heard a babel of voices, and sounds of mirth and revelry.

My conductor spoke one word, which appeared to be the shibboleth of silence, for instantly every voice and sound was hushed, and we passed rapidly through what I judged to be a large hall, or cave-like apartment, under ground, and stopped before a door at the opposite end.

The turning of a key and the moving of a bolt announced an opening door, which shut noisily after we had passed, as if to give warning of approach.

A few paces further forward; then an ascent of steps, then a second passage, to the left, and we came to another door, upon the panel of which my conductor gave a low

In response to the weak voice of a man bidding us enter, the door was instantly pushed open, and before I was fully aware of it, I was standing within the apartment.

"You can remove the bandage," said the voice of my conductor. "He is still alive, as he swore he would be, and expects you."

I did as directed, and turned to see the speaker, but he had already disappeared.

Slightly startled at his noiseless exit, I glanced hastily about me.

I was in a large, square room, poorly, almost scantily, furnished, with very little reference to order or comfort.

Short sections of stained paneling extended from floor to ceiling around the entire room, effectually hiding the entrance, and I rightly judged that one might search for an hour without finding it.

Whatever the purpose for which I had been brought there, if other than the ostensible one, it was evident my safest course now was to go on; and, as this thought flashed through my mind, I felt my courage rising with the emergency. I was armed, and could at least sell my life dearly; I would not fall alone.

Something of this reasoning may have been reflected on my countenance-albeit not an open one at such a crisis-for my conductor said, decisively:

"Judge Lincoln, you have gone too far now to look back. Had harm been intended you by me, ere now you would have ceased to exist. I insure your safety; and, though you do not know me, I am a power here. But my directions must be obeyed. Otherwise your being here brings danger to me, and death to you. I have brought you at the request of the captain; and for no other, living or dead, would I have done as much. For his sake, who may be an old friend of yours; fer mine, who would avoid trouble; and, more than all, for your own, put on this bandage at once."

I hesitated no longer, but signed assent.

He placed the bandage tightly over my eyes, took my band again, and led me once or twice around the room.

cheerful exception to the generally desolate appearance of the apartment.

A rude bed occupied the space opposite the grate, whereon lay the attenuated form of a man, so worn, wasted, and hollow-eyed, that it is doubtful if ever his dearest friend of other days, if he had had one, could have known him then.

His reported statement that I would know him at sight must have been erroneously based on his better knowledge of me. For his face was unknown to me.

If at any time I had ever met him, I was unable to re call the recollection.

He was evidently not surprised at this.

"It is useless for you to attempt to remember me, Judge Lincoln," he declared, after a moment's closer scrutiny of my face, for I had approached the bed"quite useless. My features are unknown to you, whatever my lieutenant, Wingate, who brought you here, may have said to induce your coming. But I remember you very well; I have never lost sight of you. Time has changed you but little-so little that, as you see, I readily recognize you. But my moments are few, and I must to the business in hand. Fortunately, it is in such shape that many words are unnecessary. Let me talk while I can."

He had raised himself on one elbow, facing me, while speaking, and now paused, gaspingly, to take a potion from a glass, which he signed to me to hand him.