'How does Mr. Playmore propose to meet the difficulty?' I asked.

'He

'He can only meet it in one way,' Benjamin replied. proposes to seal up the original manuscript of the letter, and to add to it a plain statement of the circumstances under which it was discovered; supported by your signed attestation and mine, as witnesses to the facts. This done, he must leave it to you to take your husband into your confidence, at your own time. It will then be for Mr. Eustace to decide whether he will open the enclosure or whether he will leave it, with the seal unbroken, as an heirloom to his children, to be made public or not, at their discretion, when they are of an age to think for themselves. Do you consent to this, my dear? or would you prefer that Mr. Playmore should see your husband, and act for you in the matter?'

I decided, without hesitation, to take the responsibility on myself. Where the question of guiding Eustace's decision was concerned, I considered my influence to be decidedly superior to the influence of Mr. Playmore. My choice met with Benjamin's full approval. He arranged to write to Edinburgh, and relieve the lawyer's anxieties, by that day's post.

The one last thing now left to be settled, related to our plans for returning to England. The doctors were the authorities on this subject. I promised to consult them about it, at their next visit to Eustace.

'Have you anything more to say to me?' Benjamin inquired, as he opened his writing-case.

I thought of Miserrimus Dexter and Ariel; and I inquired if he had heard any news of them lately. My old friend sighed, and warned me that I had touched on a painful subject.

The best thing that can happen to that unhappy man, is likely to happen,' he said. 'The one change in him is a

change that threatens paralysis. You may hear of his death before you get back to England.'

'And Ariel?' I asked.

'Quite unaltered,' Benjamin answered. 'Perfectly happy so long as she is with "the Master." From all I can hear of her, poor soul, she doesn't reckon Dexter among mortal beings. She laughs at the idea of his dying; and she waits patiently, in the firm persuasion that he will recognise her again.'

Benjamin's news saddened and silenced me. I left him to his letter.

CHAPTER L.

THE LAST OF THE STORY.

IN ten days more we returned to England, accompanied by Benjamin.

Mrs. Macallan's house in London offered us ample accommodation. We gladly availed ourselves of her proposal, when she invited us to stay with her until our child was born, and our plans for the future were arranged.

The sad news from the asylum (for which Benjamin had prepared my mind at Paris) reached me soon after our return to England. Miserrimus Dexter's release from the burden of life had come to him, by slow degrees. A few hours before he breathed his last, he rallied for a while, and recognised Ariel at his bedside. He feebly pronounced her name, and looked at her, and asked for me. They thought of sending for me, but it was too late. Before the messenger could be despatched, he said, with a touch of his old self-importance, 'Silence all of you! my brains are weary; I am going to sleep.' He closed his eyes in slumber, and never woke again. So for this man too the end came mercifully, without grief or pain! So that strange and many-sided life-with its guilt

and its misery, its fitful flashes of poetry and humour, its fantastic gaiety, cruelty, and vanity-ran its destined course, and faded out like a dream!

Alas for Ariel! She had lived for the Master-what more could she do, now the Master was gone? She could die for him.

They had mercifully allowed her to attend the funeral of Miserrimus Dexter-in the hope that the ceremony might avail to convince her of his death. The anticipation was not realized; she still persisted in denying that the Master' had left her. They were obliged to restrain the poor creature by force, when the coffin was lowered into the grave; and they could only remove her from the cemetery, by the same means, when the burial service was over. From that time, her life alternated, for a few weeks, between fits of raving delirium, and intervals of lethargic repose. At the annual ball given in the asylum, when the strict superintendence of the patients was in some degree relaxed, the alarm was raised, a little before midnight, that Ariel was missing. The nurse in charge had left her asleep, and had yielded to the temptation of going downstairs to look at the dancing. When the woman returned to her post, Ariel was gone. The presence of strangers, and the confusion incidental to the festival, offered her facilities for escaping which would not have presented themselves at any other time. That night the search for her proved to be useless. The next morning brought with it the last touching and terrible tidings of her. She had strayed back to the burial-ground; and she had been found towards sunrise, dead of cold and exposure, on Miserrimus Dexter's grave. Faithful to the last, Ariel had followed the Master! Faithful to the last, Ariel had died on the Master's grave!

Having written these sad words, I turn willingly to a less painful theme.

Events had separated me from Major Fitz-David, after the date of the dinner-party which had witnessed my memorable meeting with Lady Clarinda. From that time, I heard little or nothing of the Major; and I am ashamed to say I had almost entirely forgotten him-when I was reminded of the modern Don Juan, by the amazing appearance of weddingcards, addressed to me at my mother in law's house. The Major had settled in life at last. And, more wonderful still, the Major had chosen as the lawful ruler of his household and himself the future Queen of Song;' the round-eyed over-dressed young lady with the strident soprano voice!

We paid our visit of congratulation in due form; and we really did feel for Major Fitz-David.

The ordeal of marriage had so changed my gay and gallant admirer of former times, that I hardly knew him again. He had lost all his pretensions to youth; he had become, hopelessly and undisguisedly, an old man. Standing behind the chair on which his imperious young wife sat enthroned, he looked at her submissively between every two words that he addressed to me, as if he waited for her permission to open his lips and speak. Whenever she interrupted him-and she did it, over and over again, without ceremony-he submitted with a senile docility and admiration, at once absurd and shocking to see.

'Isn't she beautiful?' he said to me (in his wife's hearing!). 'What a figure, and what a voice! You remember her voice? It's a loss, my dear lady, an irretrievable loss, to the operatic stage! Do you know, when I think what that grand creature might have done, I sometimes ask myself if I really had any right to marry her. I feel, upon my honour I feel, as if I had committed a fraud on the public!'

As for the favoured object of this quaint mixture of admiration and regret, she was pleased to receive me graciously, as an old friend. While Eustace was talking to the Major, the bride drew me aside out of their hearing, and explained

her motives for marrying, with a candour which was positively shameless.

'You see we are a large family at home, quite unprovided for!' this odious young woman whispered in my ear. 'It's all very well to talk about my being a "Queen of Song" and the rest of it. Lord bless you, I have been often enough to the opera, and I have learnt enough of my music-master, to know what it takes to make a fine singer. I haven't the patience to work at it as those foreign women do: a parcel of brazen-faced Jezebels-I hate them. No! no! between you and me, it was a great deal easier to get the money by marrying the old gentleman. Here I am, provided for-and there's all my family provided for, too,-and nothing to do but to spend the money. I am fond of my family; I'm a good daughter and sister-I am! See how I'm dressed; look at the furniture: I haven't played my cards badly, have I? It's a great advantage to marry an old man-you can twist him round your little finger. Happy? Oh, yes! I'm quite happy; and I hope you are, too. Where are you living now? I shall call soon, and have a long gossip with you. I always had a sort of liking for you, and (now I'm as good as you are) I want to be friends.'

I made a short and civil reply to this; determining inwardly that when she did visit me, she should get no farther than the house door. I don't scruple to say that I was thoroughly disgusted with her. When a woman sells herself to a man, that vile bargain is none the less infamous (to my mind), because it happens to be made under the sanction of the Church and the Law.

As I sit at the desk thinking, the picture of the Major and his wife vanishes from my memory-and the last scene in my story comes slowly into view.

The place is my bedroom. The persons (both, if you will