pressure of heart to heart, in the clasp of be with you more than ever now, when the strong and intense love, was more eloquent spring time-almost the summer- -of our youth than words. The disappointing past was for- is past, and my aching want is to win back in gotten: they felt but the ecstacy of reunion. another country what I have lost in this." Whatever trials they had undergone, that "Oh man, proud man!" interrupted Cecil, cruellest trial of all-mistrust-had never poi-"who would put aside this commonwealth of soned their affection, never even in dreams dis-love; who would live and compel me to live, turbed their faith each in the other. Let what in solitude, our hearts withered by hope dewould come, their mutual love could not even ferred! end in this life, for they enjoyed the happiness of believing that a pure and earnest earth-love will be still more purified and perfected in eternity.

Ronald was the first to speak. He raised her face from his bosom, and gazed into the depths of her eyes, as if he would read her very soul -and so he did.

"My own, my very own!" he said. "Incapable of change so faithful and so true to a man of ruined fortunes-"

"But spotless name," she answered, proudly. "And oh, Ronald! life is too short to cherish, even for a moment, your plan of exile to create another fortune. Now, I am despotic; you shall not leave England; it will be a little only a little longer. I shall be privileged to prove my love, as few women can, by giving you back, as it were, the fortune which no forethought of yours could have preserved." "But, Cecil; a man to be obliged to a

Cecil placed her hand on his lips.

"There is no man or woman in the case," she said; "it is simply love for love. Long ago, when you were rich, and I had nothing but a few paltry pounds, and there was reason to believe that poor Gerald, so handsome and distinguished as he was, a hero, a man of fashion and fortune, courted and followed by women whose adulation was sufficient to turn a stronger brain, would have married, and that other heirs would have claimed Middleton Lea; it was then you distinguished your Cecil from among women more rich, more beautiful, more accomplished. It was then you gave her your heart, it was then you offered her your hand

"Cecil!" exclaimed her lover, "if you had but married me when we first told each other of our love."

"Let the past be past," she said; "let us think, after the darkness is gone, of the sunshine that must be ours."

I would not, if I could, chronicle the murmured and spoken words that still more sanctified their meeting. The disbelief in long abiding and unselfish attachment is one of the bad signs of our time. There are many, well stricken in the conventionalities of love à la mode, who hold in worldly contempt, even if they do not quite discredit, the entire oneness in spirit and in truth which renders life to those who are devoted each to the other, alike, amid storm and sunshine, an unspeakable and absolute joy. Such love is utterly incapable of change, and preserves the richly-dowered hearts in all the greenery of youth, even when their brows are crowned by the snows of age.

Their happiness was broken in upon by South, who exclaimed, "The master, miss, wants you; the restless fit is on him worse than ever; he calls for you, miss, and the nurse. I think you must let me run for the doctor."

"The drops, South," said Cecil!

"He threw the bottle at me, when I mentioned them, I never saw him so violent. If you will go up, miss, I will find the doctor!"

"You must not leave Miss Middleton alone, South," said Mr. Chester. "Tell me the doctor's address. I will send him.”

CHAPTER III.

AND so they parted. She to listen to reproach and abuse, every word she uttered in her "And," interrupted Ronald Chester, "it was patient tenderness but adding fuel to the flame then that your brother's cruel selfishness inter-until another paroxysm of that fearful cough fered to prevent our union. You were neces- knelled through the room, and he sank upon sary to his comfort, and he blighted our loves his cushions helpless and speechless. After and lives. He treated me with insolence, be- such outbreaks, he was silent from exhaustion. cause my father's wealth had been earned and At last, without raising his hand, he beckoned our estate was not ancestral-he scoffed- her to him with his long lean finger. She knelt by his side, bending to catch his words. "Were you out ?"

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"Peace, peace," murmured Cecil. "Time and his present state must tide over such memories. I shall soon be all your own, though not even the richness of that blessing can stifle the desire that he may be spared a little longer, and not pass into his Lord's presence with an unregenerate nature. I weary Heaven with prayers that his heart may soften. Oh! you don't know the terror of those awful night watches. When he sends the nurse away, and-but I must not stain with sorrow the few moments that are our own. We shall be so happy, Ronald, so happy!" "My own! I am torn between my desire to

"No."

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You shall have your rue with a difference, there is yet time, time to punish you both. Turn that lying hound, South, out of the room. Shut the door as you go, sir, no creeping, shut it with a bang, sir, like the sound of a cannon!"

Strengthened by his purpose, he managed to raise himself

"Give me some wine, give me some brandy, give me anything for half an hour's strength. I told you to destroy all my papers, all unread, now festering within that desk; you have sworn to do it, and you are truth itself; you are the only Middleton on record who never lied. Wine, wine, Cecil!" She poured some into a tumbler. "Fill it, fill it!"

ferred opening it, day after day; she had gone through and arranged all other papers with her 'man of business;" all was clear and straight-forward. But an undefined dread took hold of her whenever she looked on that grim ebony desk, clasped and studded with iron. She had parted with Ronald Chester in the drawing-room: only until the evening, when he was to return and dine with her and her lawyer, who was an old family friend. She would get through those papers before dinner, there were not so many of them.

passionate protestations of love; on the back of one, her brother had sketched the inamorata, in his ever active spirit of caricature.

Poor Cecil! Often her cheek flushed and her hand trembled; there were delicate notes, which a man of honour would have destroyed; locks of hair of all tints; trinkets; some Indian, but more He snatched it from her trembling hand, frequently French, minatures; everything she gulped it down, and cast the glass from him. unrolled, and having examined cast into the fire. "Now, I will not spare you. You shall live, There were letters containing the most bitter reas I have lived, with the sword above your proaches, one evidently from a husband whose head; but it will be sharper, sharper to you wife had abandoned him for the protection of than to me! Destroy not one of these papers. Major Middleton; all the world had heard of It is my last injunction. Not One! Search, that, and Cecil remembered when the fair search, search, and enjoy, you, and that ledger-frail woman had been her school-mate, and man, enjoy what you will discover! I'm glad, glad, child friend. There were letters containing I did not destroy what I- "the last sentence came thickly and faintly from his lips, he signed for more wine, and having drank it threw his long wasted limbs off the sofa. He seemed to desire to stand, and Cecil tried to help him, "Keep back," he muttered, and a fearful change passed over his face, and he laughed hideously. "I should like to see you, and him, when the dread of the-what might be-turns you blue! You are not so bad, Cecil; but keep the secret, Cecil, until after your marriage, or you would lose your beggarly lover. You are a poor washed out thing, Cecil, need regilding, gilding! Now, unless you want me to curse you where you stand, promise to read, to search out and read, every line, every line you find! Promise!"

"I do," she said.

"A treat, a treat, a treat to dash down the cup of happiness when it is brimming full! What, doctor!" he continued, as the physician entered. "Oh I am better. I have played off a joke, a joke, by Jove!" At that instant the bells of a neighbouring church commenced their weekly evening practice.

His mother's letters and hers, received when he was abroad, were clasped together and placed in a separate drawer, quite away from the contamination of the other contents of his desk. She thanked him for that, and tears, large heavy tears, fell on the records of his mother's love. She had hoped that her task was ended, a few party coloured embers were all that remained of what had once been warm and fresh and treasured. All gone except that last pure and precious packet. She murmured a few words of gratitude, and could not help wondering again and again, why at the last he had set her such a task, sufficiently painful without a doubt, and yet! was there anything else? She tried, and retried every spring and projection, fearing there must be something more, and at last, at the back of a small drawer she saw a tiny steel knob; she pressed it, a little door flew open; within was a roll of paper, or papers, tied together with a bit of twine, and something a flat "The bells of Middleton Lea!" he exclaimed, packet-round which a newspaper had been and his head fell forward. "The bells, the bells crushed and twisted. Cecil unfolded it, and saw ringing for my coming of age!" They lifted a large case covered with soiled white velvet. It him back on the sofa, he gasped out a few was difficult to open, the fastening was stiff, the wandering words, and but few; his mind had minature (for such it was) was laid on its face, strayed back to his childhood, and he spoke it had endured rough usage, the gold was batas if to his mother, lovingly as a child would, tered as if it had been crushed on the ground and asked her to kiss him. by a heavy foot. When Cecil lifted it, the shattered glass that once had protected the delicate painting, fell on the table; the picture was double, the likenesses of two persons, one evidently her brother, the other a dark woman, in young but imperial beauty; her right hand was clasped within his, her left hung lightly over his shoulder, and the thick ring of marriage and its brilliant keeper circling the third finger; the attitude of that hand seemed to say, "look at this, I am a wedded wife."

Gerald Middleton fell asleep that night to wake no more in this world.

CHAPTER IV.

THE last ceremony was over. Major Middleton had left no will, encumbered his property with no gifts, no legacies, and Cecil Middleton was an undisputed heiress. Having locked herself into the library, she was seated with her brother's desk open before her; she had de

Cecil was spell-bound; her gaze was fastened the first line. At all events, Charles Dacre had on the little brown left hand. Was that woman been present at the marriage. really her brother's wife? His "wife!" Cecil's head fell on her clasped hands, and but for her laboured breathing one would have thought she had fainted. When she recovered self-possession, she glanced furtively at the picture, blurred and blotted as it was. There were Gerald's full brow, his keen blue uncompromising eyes, his implacable mouth, his fair hair. Something had been written on the glass. Cecil laid the broken pieces over the ivory; the writing had been scrawled across the woman's face; it was still legible-two cruel | words were there-" Curse her!"

Sick at heart, Cecil undid the twine, and outspread the roll. It contained a few letters of recent date, written in a woman's cramped hand, with a pen like a pin. Mechanically she read the first; it was expressed as though the writer had thought in a foreign language, and translated her thoughts into English. It commenced with my "Idol husband," and ended

with your "Doating wife."

Wife!" How was it possible? She scrutinised the date of that letter. He had been that year in Germany-at Spa she believedand had remained there some time. He had written to his sister that he was there ill; but his London physician had laughed when she said so, and observed, "He thought the major was in the Highlands." She remembered that now. Her brother married?

What a chaos the bare thought produced! What a revolution! Ronald! her Ronald not master of Middleton Lea! Gerald married!

A little longer search with trembling fingers. A marriage certificate! Marriage solemnised between Mabel Elizabeth Le Roy and Edward Gerald Middleton, in Scotland, the place near Dunkeld, the name of the clergyman, all clear enough, and a witness-Charles Dacre.

"Charles Dacre!" Her brother, Cecil knew, had had a groom or some servant of that name, a long time ago; but past and present were so mingled in her bewildered brain that she lost all power of distinguishing one from the other. She clasped her hands over her eyes to shut out-what?

Ay, what, indeed!

Gradually she sank from her seat upon her knees; her hands still folded over her eyes; her lips moved by earnest prayer, silent yet eloquent in entreaty to Him who hears our thoughts! Her appeal was not in vain. She had been well practised in self-control, but she did not now rely on self; she called humbly to HIM to help her, and help came.

Calmed and strengthened, she arose and commenced, first turning over and then steadily reading the letters. She read the certificate over again. There was no envelope or direction among the papers, nor had the writer once named him he was always addressed as "My own darling,' 'My heart's idol," or with some such expression of endearment, even if reproaches as to absence or neglect followed

Gerald had evidently parted from her in anger, and accused her of want of truth, of duplicity, of extravagance; told her how necessary it was that his marriage should be kept secret, it was so important to his prospects that it should not be known; and the vain, frivolous, stormy beauty had still the noble love to assure him that she would be torn in pieces by wild horses sooner than betray their secret until he gave her permission to do so.

Cecil felt herself shivering at her brother's falsehood; there was no reason connected with his prospects why his marriage should have been secret; and this beautiful woman, warmed into life and love by the temperature of a tropical sky, when quite a child (for she spoke of her sixteenth birthday), had become his wife and his victim. She read on. Under other circumstances she would have cast the letters aside as the ravings of an undisciplined, passion-full girl; but they possessed a fascination she could not withstand. She held the last in her hand; the writing was straggling and incoherent-it told of the birth of a child-his boy!

Why had he been angry? Had any one maligned her to him? her, his faithful, loving wife-"Little Brown Bess," as he had often called her, the mother of his child? Why should he write cruel words now? And the boy was so like him-such a beauty!

Cecil laid down the letter, which had been torn across. She was quite calm now.

If this were true, if her brother had left a son, all her prospects had been made into thin air and vanished. She was no longer an heiress; she no longer had the power of restoring her beloved to his position; her dream of life was over. This knowledge did not come to her in a mist; it was first the cloud the size of a man's hand, increasing and increasing until it grew into a black wall between her and her husband's triumphs for evermore. Gerald's wife Gerald's son what had the poor thing done that he should have scarred her beautiful face with his curse? And the child-where was it? The facts were clear before her, but the details, the proofs (were there proofs?), were all confused. One dreary fact seemed to press on her heart and brain. Chester-Chester-to whom she had promised wealth and happiness! Sob after sob burst from her heaving breast, until her agony sought relief in words, and she repeated again and again, "Oh, my love! my love! my love!"

She gradually replaced the papers in their concealment, locked the desk, and crept stealthily into the hall. Some undefined suggestion took possession of her mind that she had no right to be there.

She met South, who at once saw that some fresh sorrow had stricken his lady. Instead of passing on, Cecil paused, and said:

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South, do you remember my brother having a groom-pad-groom, I think of the name of Dacre?"

"Oh, the blackguard!" he exclaimed; and in the same moment added, "I'm sure I beg your pardon, Miss Cecil; I should not have said that, though it was the truth that sprang out of me. I never could abide him. The master thought I was jealous of him, which the Heavens knows I was not-neither jealous of him nor what he got-hush money for many a turn of the poor master's, who was always wild, as no one knows better than yourself, Miss Middleton; only in course a sister's the last to know the turns of her brother's wildness, bar-rested; and now she could hardly frame a senring a wife

"What is it, Cecil? You are not well ?" he THE NINETEENTH VOLUME.

The Right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.

Published at the Office, No. 26, Wellington Street Strand. Printed by C. WHITING, Beaufort House, Strand,

ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS.