'Sanders," he said to the butler, who opened the door and waited in dignified silence for his orders, "what is this cursed tale about Bernie Jocelyn being murdered? The country is mad with excitement. The porter's lodge is mobbed with people. What is the truth of it ?"

"Yes, sir, it is quite true. Marse Bernie is still livin', sir; but he's never moved nor spoke to tell who the villain was as struck him down from behind," the man answered, rather distantly, for the servants, like those above them, held Fulke in detestation.

"It's a cock-and-bull story. I dare swear the fellow tried to kill himself, and turned coward before he did it. I don't believe there's a tramp or scoundrel in all the neighborhood that would do such a thing."

A viperish rage glittered in Fulke's countenance while he struck at the splendid dog, who, somehow, never failed to snarl at Fulke.

"Where is Jocelyn ?"

"Then," said Fulke, leaning his chin on his hands and looking straight at the other, a malign significance in his manner, "how are we to know who struck the blow that killed Bernard Jocelyn? or whether it was struck before you got there?"

A perplexed expression came into the countenance of General Jocelyn.

"What do you mean, Fulke? What are you driving at ?" "It is very easy to see," retorted his nephew, "if one wants to see, what I am driving at. I simply wish to know how you are to prove that you are not the assassin who killed Bernard Jocelyn ?-you, yourself?"

"Fulke, you are insulting. Yon—"

A low, chuckling, mocking laugh from the pitiless tormentor arrested him for a moment.

"You infernal scoundrel! how dare you say such a

"He is here, sir."

66

Why don't they take him out of here, the beggar? It's a trick to get here. Trying to kill himsef, indeed! Why don't they take him away?"

"I think, sir," was the respectful answer, "that if things don't change before night, it won't be long before they carry Marse Bernie out of these doors."

"You don't, eh?" laughingly retorted Fulke. "Who told you to think anything about it-eh? Have they laid the blame of the fool's folly on anybody yet?" "I have not heard who they suspect, sir. They are trying to revive Marse Bernie so as to get somewhat from him; but Marse Hugh says he'll spend half his fortune but what the villain shall be brought to justice"

"Marse Hugh," interrupted Fulke, pushing past the servant, rudely. "Where is your master? Tell him I want to see him in the library. Now-mind you, I say now. And, stop. Where is Miss Winifred ?"

"She's quite ill, sir. They won't let her go into Marse Bernie's room, and she moans and cries in a way pitiful to see."

Fulke muttered an angry imprecation, and strode on to the library, slamming the door spitefully after him. His temper seemed to lash itself into a darker, more vindictive rage as he sat in the great, luxurious library, brooding over the news Sanders had given him. In addition to his natural hatred of all the members of his family, Fulke was bitterly jealous, and possibly it was fortunate that an hour had elapsed before the door opened and General Jocelyn walked in.

"Good-morning, Fulke. Excuse my delay; but this infernal affair has quite unnerved me," he said, seating himself at the table.

"Infernal, indeed !" responded Fulke. "The fellow tried to take his own life, and didn't quite get through." "Nothing of the kind. The position of the body and direction of the blow precludes the possibility of such a belief. I was the first person who reached him—"

"You?" interrupted Fulke, a sinister meaning in the emphasis. "You? Pray, how did it happen you found him first? Who was with you?"

"I was quite alone," replied his uncle, evidently too much preoccupied with the terrible deed perpetrated on

"Tut-tut !" responded Fulke, slowly. "It would be such a vile suspicion of rich saint like you; and," he added, "it's to be supposed that practice makes perfect. A successful assassin once might be successful twice-eh? At least, one is very likely to suspect the only hardened villain in the neighborhood."

Hugh Jocelyn sank back in his chair, whitening to an ashen hue. He was no match for this evil, bold man, apparently bent on his ruin.

-

"Bernard Jocelyn is no better than Gabriel Vailliante."

Fulke pronounced the words with hard deliberation; angry menace in every tone. His uncle started painfully, and recoiled. Evidently, the frightful hints this ruthless nephew dropped so perpetually struck him to the soul with a deadly torror.

"Gabriel Vailliante," he repeated, sardonically, without moving his keen gaze from Hugh Jocelyn's perturbed countenance. "Don't be alarmed, Uncle Hugh-I beseech you," Fulke laughed, in a satisfied way, his tone becoming insolently condescending. "I have no idea of giving you over to justice at present, but I merely wanted to prove what a fool a man can be when he takes other people for fools. Sanders reports that you have heroically determined to spend money to discover the murderer. I say, keep your money in your pocket. What does it matter to you who killed Bernard Jocelyn ?"

"It can only matter from motives of humanity, for God knows I had no grudge against the young fellow," Hugh Jocelyn answered, in a weak, constrained voice, while he wiped the moisture from his forehead-the moisture coming out so icily in these interviews with Fulke.

"Not so fast, my honored uncle," tauntingly replied Fulke; "not so wonderfully fast. Why haven't you cause for wishing this fellow out of the way? I can make the cause plain enough for any jury. Winifred is to be my wife; she wishes to marry Bernard Jocelyn-insists upon it, confound her! You are compelled to give her to me, and to accomplish this you must be rid of Jocelyn. I think, when one hears the urgent reasons you have for keeping faith with me, it is quite plain why you must get this troublesome Bernard out of your way. No -no, you will not be fool enough to quicken the search for the assassin by offering a reward. I think that is settled, eh ?"

"It can be as you say, Fulke. If you hold your know. ledge over me as a perpetual threat, I suppose I must yield to your demands."

The bitter humiliation in General Jocelyn's reluctant admission was pitiable. But it did not move Fulke-he only chuckled. He had been scorned for his ugliness and sullen temper, possibly for his penurious meanness, scorned by these very Jocelyns, and now the power had shifted into his hand. They were under his heel, all of them, and in his heart Fulke rejoiced over the hidden crime enabling him to grind them into the dust-the one awful lapse, of which he alone seemed cognizant, and which he meant to hold as a fiery rod, scorching the life of this rich Jocelyn and lovely Winifred.

affair I had picked up-ha! ha! Fulke's more than a match for most people; a hint is all I want. A man of my sense can live on a hint, if he uses it right."

Something of the triumphant satisfaction was still about him when Winifred glided in, pale and tearful and lovely. A half defiant expression came into her dusky eyes as she detected the exultation Fulke had not time to conceal from a glance, as quick and penetrating as his own. "Do you wish to see me, Fulke ?" she asked, pausing near the door.

"Yes, Winifred, if it don't interfere with your attention

"No; I hope not."

"I don't ask your hopes; they are confoundedly easy to speak. What do the doctors say ?" interrupted Fulke, at no pains to conceal his chagrin at any prospect or desire of Bernie's recovery.

"The doctors think he may recover-in fact, he showed signs of returning consciousness before I left the room," was the brief answer.

stepping to the door, locked it. "Yes, I wish to see you, and have some talk with you, so I take the precaution of securing you," he added, with an awkward laugh.

"So I perceive," she said, coolly; "or trying to secure. Very well. Have you anything important to say? I presume so, or you would scarcely have asked me to come down."

"And you allowed it ?" pointedly asserted Fulke.

"I cannot meddle with your jealousies, Fulke," doggedly answered General Jocelyn.

Fulke glanced at him inquiringly, and hesitated. It occurred to him that it might not be a safe or a subtle game to badger his uncle to desperation. He was capable of just such folly as letting Fulke do his worst, and taking the consequences.

"Of course not; I don't expect it. But be so good as to ask Winifred to see me, if she can tear herself away from that man.'

"I will ask her."

And without any further words Winifred's father quitted the room, leaving Fulke in possession, just as he might possibly have to do if Fulke demanded of him to resign Jocelyn Hall. He walked moodily through the great, splendid rooms. Things had changed with him of late. Like all else in the world, the good came alloyed by evil. Still, he wondered if he must travel through the years to come-he and Winifred-with this pitiless fiend for ever beside him.

All the while Fulke sat in the library, scowlingly surveying the curious, costly antiques successive generations had brought to the fine old place. Fulke had never been admitted to Jocelyn Hall by any previous master, and its grandeur was all new to him. Besides, nobody knew better than himself that to the exercise of his remarkable talent as a ferret he was indebted for the privilege now of coming and going to Jocelyn Hall as he pleased. Save for that, he well understood the doors would be inexorably closed upon him.

"Ay," he said, with a cunning smile, "it's turned round now. Fulkerson and Jocelyn both despised ugly Fulke, but he's the master now; and, poor fools! I mean to be master to the bitter end, and pay off all the old scores when I am tired of all you. Why don't she come ?" he added, suddenly mindful that an hour had elapsed since the host quitted his presence, and Winifred had not appeared or sent an apology. "I'll settle up all this along with some other things," he muttered, savagely; "though I'll keep a still tongue for a while. I went too far this morning. If the foo only knew how little of the

her tenderness for him, hated everybody jealously that Winifred loved. For a moment he sat glowering into the witching face, as if he could not turn from its charm.

"Why don't you speak, Fulke? I am so tired," yawned Winifred, gathering two or three of the golden curls and twisting them around her slender white finger. At any other time she might have been coquettish, but somehow, of late, that half mocking, half tempting coquetry had not been so perpetual-not since she had come to love Bernie. She held her pretty sway despotically with all save Bernie.

"No doubt you'll soon tire of me; everybody does ; ugly Fulke is not much of a ladies' man. Your sex don't flatter me with a very decided preference," he said, with a grin of regret.

"Don't they? Well, perhaps you get your dues at last; everybody does. But this is not what you wanted to say, is it?" she asked, somewhat more kindly.

"No, no. You must know, Winifred, that I wanted to say that Uncle Hugh has consented-nay, encouraged my offer of marriage to you. I love you, Winifred; you are the only woman I cannot despise-the only human being I cannot hate-and, by God, I must have you! I could never live and see you marry another man. You are the very loveliest person I ever beheld."

Winifred's red lip curled scornfully. She perceived that, despite his sullen, Ishmael-like nature, this saturnine Fulke had fallen before the power of her wonderful beauty; nevertheless, his inexorable, stony heart had never pitied mortal, and it could not pity her.

"Fulke"-there was a certain gentleness in her voice, musical and sweet in its cadences; for one moment she compassionated him-"I am sorry you care for me. I never can care for you in any way; and, indeed, Fulke, I am not worth loving, and-and-you must not think of such a thing, nor speak of it to me."

His heavy dark brows seemed to knit darkly.

"It's no use for you to say that, Winifred. I must speak of it; because, come what may, you will be my wife."

The gay, defiant, careless laugh roused the demon within him.

I didn't ask you to care for me; it would tire me to

death to have any maudlin sentiment about me. I don't want it. I asked you to be my wife, and I say you can't refuse me."

"See if I can't," retorted Winifred, still twisting the golden curl, and quite unmoved by the impending storm. "I do refuse you, at any rate; and, moreover, I tell you that I won't marry you, and that I despise you, and love some one else."

He listened in sulky silence until she uttered those concluding words. The straightforward avowal stung his jealous temper.

Winifred opened her eyes, a trifle surprised at the audacious assertion, and a trifle staggered by it.

"Perhaps you mean that you will have him suffer capital punishment because I refuse to marry you," was the derisive response.

Fulke looked dogged and vicious.

"I meant nothing of the kind. I meant that he can fall into the clutches of the law at any time."

"For what!" she demanded, with less of the defiant scorn in her manner, as she called to mind the weary harassment for ever in her father's countenance; and his startling urgency of Fulke's suit. "For what?" "For a crime committed in New Orleans twenty years

66

'Suppose," resumed the girl, the glint of laughter coming into her eyes, "there is, besides my own will, an impediment in the way of becoming the wife of any save one man-an insuperable barrier ?"

"Eh? What is that ?" ejaculated Fulke, eying her suspiciously. "But one man? Say that again. "Yes; of one man alone. I must be the wife of that one, for there is an insuperable reason for it. The law of God and man compels it. Now, Fulke, have done with threats. They are idle as the winds," and Winifred singled out a fragrant rosebud from the vase of flowers on the table and fastened it among the bright curls, indifferent in her insouciante gayety of the danger of exasperating this man.

"Winifred, if any man is the obstacle, I-yes, I will sweep him out of my way. Beware how you say that, or give me a hint of his identity."

If she had chanced to look up, Winifred might have been startled at the murderous gleam, the savage wrath in the countenance glowering upon her, but she did not.

"I don't mind your knowing that I mean my Cousin Bernard. I shall be his wife. I am bound to marry him," she remarked, pressing her face down among the blossoms.

"Winfred, why are you bound? Confound this mystery, I will know it! How can you be bound to marry any man unless you choose?"

"But I do choose," retorted Winifred.

"You have no say in the matter, I tell you," rudely broke in Fulke. "I shall not ask you, because I can force you into compliance with all my demands. You don't know me, Winifred. Beautiful as you are, I can crush you alike with all the rest. My love is very strong for you, but it don't make a fool of me."

"Really," was the half saucy response, "I had no idea you were so resistless. One can be so blind to the attractions of others."

"Your derision don't signify. Your tune will soon alter," he said, sullenly. "Let me tell you that your father will go to the gallows or penitentiary if you don't consent to marry me. He must agree to my terms or I will give him up to justice."

Fulke, you shall not slander my father so cruelly-my noble, generous-souled father; you shall not utter such foul defamation, and to me," burst out Winifred, her eyes blazing with anger, as she stamped her little foot furiously.

"He may be better than I am, nevertheless, he dare not refuse my demand; he dare not let me tell the reason he lived abroad for twenty years-ask him that," was the insolent answer, as Fulke chuckled in ferocious mirth.

"He lived abroad because we were poor-that is whymy father has no secret from me; you are speaking slanderous falsehoods—you know you are," she retorted.

"I am telling lies, I suppose," sneered Fulke, "about your saint. Ask him if you are not to marry me-ask him if I haven't a little document in my pocket, signed by both of us, making a bargain to that effect."

"Fulke, if my father himself would confess to me that some evil deed had been laid to his charge, I am not sure I would believe it. I would scarcely believe it if the whole world came and made oath to it; there is no such charge, no such bargain." Deliberately and decisively as Winifred uttered the words, the subtle observer discerned a shade of anxiety, and smiled at it.

"There is such a bargain, whether you believe it or not, and, my beautiful cousin, I would run Hugh Jocelyn down into the grave, ruin, disgrace, destroy him, rather than abate one iota of my demand where you are concerned. In a few weeks you will be Mrs. Fulke Fulkerson, and I shall take you down to my old house, where no one can see you but myself. I want you all to myself; I won't have other men ogling around my sweet little wife. I won't have all these fine dresses, and servants and fripperies-servants are nothing but spies, and fineries only a feminine folly. I won't have the money spent in that way. I will be master of my house and my wife, and, Winifred, I long for the day when you have to obey my lightest wish. I hold that unquestioning, implicit obedience is a woman's province; and it won't be long before I break your spirit and tame you down."

"Hush sir, this instant! Do you think I will listen to your threats and impertinence? Open this door immediately !" commanded Winifred, her eyes flashing at the insolent coolness with which he stood before her.

"Beautiful Winifred, you are certainly lovely," he said, without moving a step; "but humility is a rare virtue in any woman, especially pretty ones. I mean to have my wife humble and gentle, to watch every look and gesture, and obey it instantly. That is what I will have from you, Winifred. I love you better than any living creature, but it's my creed that every soul about me must conduce to my happiness, and it generally falls out that I have my way," he added, grimly.

"Open the door, sir! Unlock it at once!" she ordered. angry and derisive at being forced to listen.