Novilist. [All Rights Reserved.] MARTIN DEVERIL'S DIAMOND

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2781, 10 May 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

Novilist. [All Rights Reserved.] MARTIN DEVERIL'S DIAMOND

A NOVEL By ADELINE SERGEANT, Author of "Jacobi'a Wife," &c., &c.

CHAPTER IX.—The Otiier Side. Cicely's disappointment in Mr Giles Kinglake's demeanour led her to welcome his promised visit next day with very little pleasure, although her manner remained studiously, and even anxiously, courteous to him. He seemed bent solely on thoughts of business —he made notes, measurements and drawings, and when he came into lunch at her invitation he talked a good deal about recent literature with Mrs Le Breton, whom he appeared to find a very interesting companion,and very little about the work that he was doing amongst " the manor-houses of Kent." At another time Cicely would have been pleased to listen to him, for he talked unaffectedly and well about subjects in which she was at home; but she was rather put out of tune by the discovery that she had lavished a good deal of sympathy where it was not needed, and, although she avowed herself heartily glad of the fact, it was not in human nature that she should be devoid of some consciousness of humiliation. She was quieter and graver, therefore, than, usual, and Giles Kinglake would certainly have set her down for a child of seventeen had he not known from various other facts that she must be oyer that age. lie went back to his work after luncheon expecting to see no more of hor; but it happened that at about four o'clock the two 'encountered each other in the garden, at a point which Kinglake would scarcely have reached had he not well remembered his way about the grounds. He raised his hat when he saw Cicely, and apologised. " I was trying to take the short cut from the house to the Church, Miss Lorraine," he said. " You have

blocked up the gate, I see, at the end of the ground." "Yes," said Cicely, briefly. " Papa wished to keep the village people out. They made a thoroughfare of the garden." " Just so. Then I must go round by the road ?" "There is a little gate further on," said Cicely, in a somewhat illassured voice. "It has only been made lately, although my father consented to it before he died. I— we—thought that the people were inconvenienced by the change, and we wanted to keep everything as it had been in the olden days—in the days of your family." " It looks to me as if things were a great deal better managed now than they were in our day," said Kinglake, as he followed Cicely down a narrow track through a fir

plantation which led to a gate in

the fence. " I do not think thai you need regret the past, Miss Lorraine."

" But surely you must regret it!' said Cicely, indignantly.

"I'm afraid I don't. I never regretted Lady well Priory in the least, if that is what you mean." " But haven't you any sense of old associations when you come here ? I often wi&h that the Grange was mine ; there are real memories of our own people connected with it. I like it much better than the Priory. I like to be amongst my own people, and I should have thought, Mr Kinglake, that you would like it too."

There was distinct reproach in Cicely's tone. She resented his hardness of heart with respect to old associations as if it had been an

injury done to herself. " I am still amongst my own people—so far as I have any," said he meditatively. " All the relations that I have are with me in London, Miss Lorraine. I have made my own associations." " Ah, but think of all the ghosts that you have left behind V cried Cicely.

" I hope ray ghosts don't annoy you," said Mr Kinglake. "In my time they were very quiet and wellbred. They never came uninvited."

Cicely was obliged to laugh. " I feel as if you should have taken your spectres with you," she said, "I fancy it is only the ghosts of one's own relations that are tolerable."

" Perhaps so." Then he was silent and seemed to reflect a little.

" I'll tell you how I should get rid of them, Miss Lorraine. I should re-furnish the place completely. I should lay bare the picture gallery and nil it with really good paintings ; in fact, I should banish all trace of the past from every part of the house, and ' restore 'it after the newest fashion. It must be very disagreeable to live in a place where the existence of former occupants is forced upon you whether you like it or not." "Do you mean," said Cicely slowly, " that you would feel no regret at all if we changed everything in the place that reminded people of your family? that, supposing we had at once called in Maple

—or Morris even—and metamorphosed every room in the house, you would absolutely— not —mind T For the first time Mr Kinglake hesitated and pulled his beard a little doubtfully. They had both halted near the gate which opened upon the highroad, and were facing each other. Cicely's eyes were fixed earnestly upon his face —it was plain that the question was one of no trivial importance to her. Giles Kinglake's look was bent upon the ground. "I won't say," he answered at last, "that I should like to see so complete a change as the one you seem to suggest. I should perhaps feci that it was a pity to sweep away anything that might bo called of historic interest. But it seems to me, Miss Lorraine, if you will forgive me for saying so, that you have been preserving things that are of very little value; and my advice to you would be to keep only the things you like for their own sake, not the things you think the former occupants cared tor." "I think anybody with any taste prefers old things that have a history to the brand-new, shining, varnished articles out of an upholsterer's shop," said Cicely, with some defiance of manner.

"Of course. But there is a point where new furniture becomes necessary," said Kinglake, dryly. There was another pause, and then Cicely laughed, and seemed to regain her usual gay, good humour.

"I was afraid you would look with scorn on our modern innovations," she said. " Not at all. I like modern innovations." " Unromantic though they may 130?" " I'll tell you what it is, Miss Lorraine," said Giles, with decision which was not devoid of bluntness ; " I don't think you know er can imagine what a life ours was during the last few years of our stay here, or you would never expect rue to have kept up a sentimental fondness for the place. Do you know what poverty is 1 Can you guess what it is to have a big place like this which you can't keep up, and to live in constant fear that the bailiffs may appear in your draw-ing-room any morning 1 or to know that members of your family—your mother, perhaps, or your sistersare suffering for want of money which the sale of the house would

put into your hands ? I was a precocious boy, and I felt these matters very keenly ; and it was to me at least like the lifting of a great load from my shoulders when my father made up his mind to sell the place, pay his debts, and live quietly abroad. lie felt the change, and I believe that my mother felt it too ; but, to tell the truth, I didn't."

"Now I understand," saidOicely. Giles Kinglake did not look as if he heeded her response. His face was turned from her, his brow bent, his eye fixed on a distant point before him. A new thought crossed Cicely's mind. She spoke hastily. " Come down this walk with me. I must show you something. I want to know whether I have done right in this."

He followed her, scarcely noticing whither she was leading him, until chey reached a plot of ground divided into three or four flowerbeds with walks between them, and a low wooden bench under a weep-ing-willow at the side. Kinglake's eyes brightened as he looked at the beds and then into Cicely's face, but he said nothing.

"Is it true what Farrant told me?" she began, eagerly. ""Were these not little children's gardens ? I did not like to disturb them; but now I do not know "

She stopped short, and Kinglake answered her with a grateful look. "Yes, these were our gardens when we were children. There were four of us."

" Farrant said that these two belonged to your sisters—the little ones who died," said Cicely, colouring and speaking in a low voice. " I thought when I came here first

that as thoy had been kept unchanged so long I would keep them too. But this morning I wondered whether I had not been mistaken."

"No, you were not mistaken," said Giles, absently. This was Ella's plot, and the other was Kate's. Thoy died of scarlet fever when they were seven and nine years old. They were both buried in the churchyard." He paused a moment and then looked into Cicely's sympathetic face. "That was why I meant to go to the churchyard. I remember my little sisters very well." " The other plots belonged to you and your brother, did they not?"

" Yes ; that one in the corner was Frank's. He fell in a skirmish with a hill tribe in India ten years ago. We planted that willow tree together." There was a silence. The tears were very near Cicely's eyes. Mr Kinglake seemed unconscious of her presence. He paced round the little garden walks, examined some initials— '< G. K." and "F. K."— roughly cut upon the bench, and plucked a leaf or two from the willow tree. His face was quiet and grave—a little moved, perhaps —and for a long time he said nothing. At last he returned to Cicely's side, and spoke i» his usual clear and open fashion. " Thank you, Miss Lorraine," he said. "I don't mind what you do about the Clippendale chairs or the portraits of my ancestors, but I do like to see these little gardens still undisturbed, and I feel deeply obliged to you for keeping them as were."

"I will always keep them so," said Cicely, " and if there is anything else that I can do—aiiything that you would like untouched—l shall be glad to carry out your wishes."

" There is nothing else, thank you. But don't feel bound to keep those plots if you want the ground for anything else, Miss Lorraine, just because of an association which is, of course, nothing at all to you. I confess that it has been a pleasant surprise to me to find them looking so much as they used to do ; but after all it signifies very little whether they are here or not. They will always exist unchanged in my memory, and if I close my eyes I shall be able to see Frank trund-

ling a wheelbarrow down the path, and the two little girls shaking seeds into the soft black mould."

" They shall never be altered in my time," said Cicely, with great earnestness, as they walked away.

"And, Mr Kinglake, we shall always be pleased to see you here when you are in the neighbourhood. Even when I am away in the autumn, if you let my cousin Philip know beforehand that you wish to go over the house, he would send word to the housekeeper. Perhaps your family—your relations—would also like to see it."

" You are very kind, Miss Lorraine ; but the exigencies of my life don't often allow me to make such expeditions. lam very much obliged to you for your kind offer. 1 and my—my family " —something of a smile stirred the corners of his lips as he adopted her expression—

" are very quiet, " stay-at-home people. And now you must allow mo to say good-bye, and to thank you again for your kind care of those little plots of ground. My

mother used often to wonder whether the new owners of the place had dug them up, or left them untouched."

" I wish she had kuown," said Cicely, remembering that Mrs Kinglake had died abroad .some years before.

"I wish so too," said Kinglake soberly. Then they parted — he bending his steps towards the church, and thence to the railway station, and she to the homo which

she scarcely knew yet whether she liked the better or the worse for Mr Giles Kinglake's visit. At any rate she was freed from the yoke that she had imposed upon herself for so long. The fear of the Kinglakes was no more before her eyes. The one remaining representative of the family had quite dissipated her sentimental reverence for its memories. She would be misled no.longer by servants' tales; she knew better now what the Kinglakes were, and what they wished to have preserved. She would certainly keep the gardens unchanged; she would also look after the graves of the two little sisters in Lady well Churchyard. She would do exactly what Mr Kinglake advised and wished, and nothing more. r In short, Cicely transferred her allegiance from the house of Kinglake in general to Mr Giles Kinglake in particular, without being at all aware that she had done so.

Meanwhile Giles .Kinglake went home to " his family," which occupied with him a small red-brick house in a London suburb, flis visit to Lady well apparently afforded him some food for reflection. As he travelled up to town in a thirdclass carriage, he sat with his eyes fixed on the banks and meadows which he was passing, and seemed absorbed in thought. But before half the journey was over he shook off the sombre mood that oppressed him, and devoted himself to the perusal of a book which he was about to review. It was eight o'clock when he reached, home, and by that time Lady well Priory and its mistress had become of far less engrossing interest to him than the scenes and the character of the romance that he was reading. Giles Kinglake's family did not appear to be a large one. He was admitted by an old woman in a white cap, who uttered a few words

of greeting, and bade him wipe his feet upon the mat as if he were only ten years old. A clog came out and leaped upon him, but no one else appeared, or gave any sign of greeting. Kinglake ran upstairs for a moment, and spoke to the occupant of one of the upper rooms, then came clown and ate a frugal and solitary dinner with the old woman, Hannah, and Laird, the collie dog, in attendance. Ho road steadily throughout the meal, and only spoke at its close. " I have been to Lady well to-day, Hannah," he said. " You, Mr Giles T " Yes, I went on business. You will be glad to hear that the place is well kept up, and has a good mistress." " Is it very much changed f asked Hannah, in a low, unwilling tone, as her master again took up his book. " Very little, I think, you may go and see it yourself if you like, Hannah; Miss Lorraine would not mind, I am sure." " It's not very likely that I should go near the place, and now that it's gone into the hands of strangers," said Hannah, dryly. " I wonder you could bear it yourself, Mr Giles." He laughed a little.

" I tell you I went on business, Hannah. I can't afford to be sentimental."

Hannah snorted contemptuously as she went out of the room.

"He wouldn't always have been so close," she murmured, while she busied herself in the kitchen. "He used once to talk much more free and open than he does now. It's my belief that if he was fretting his very life out he'd never say a word, for fear of hurting che blessed lamb upstairs. And there's another life which will perhaps be lost for want of country air, and good food and money, such as the old master squandered by handfuls in his early days ! Eh, me ! it's a weary world and a weary one to hint, although he don't choose to show it. He'd be better, mebbe, if he did. There he goes upstairs to the blessed lamb at last. He's been longer than usual to-night."

Giles Kinglake opened a door and entered a room which he called his study. The evening had grown chilly, and a fire had been lighted ; it threw a pleasant glow over the little, low room with its dark-red curtains, well-filled book shelves, and the square, old-fashioned writing table, heaped with papers and books. A broad, comfortable sofa stood between the window and the fire. Here, propped up with cushions, lay a little, pale-faced boy of nine years old. This boy, Wilfred, constituted, together with Hannah and Laird, the whole of Giles Kinglake's "family." He was a pretty boy, with great, soft, dark eyes and waving, goldenbrown hair, but his face was sadly pale and thin, and his blue-veined hands showed the feebleness of longcontinued ill-health. He looked up, however, when Kinglake entered with the brightest and cheeriest of glances.

" You've been an awful long time over your dinner, clad," lie began. " I thought you'd forgotten me.' " Did you ever know me do that 2" said Giles, with a smile. He came close to the boy and patted his head as he spoke, then stooped to kiss his forehead. "I'm always afraid you will do so, sooner or later," said Will. " You're away for such long times, and I can't come with you. What were you doing yesterday, father, dear? I was asleep when you came home." "And asleep when I went away

this morning, you lazy, little chap. Where do you think I went, boy 1 To the place you are so fond of dreatning about—Lady well." "Oh, father! And you didn't tell me you were going V Will's face clouded over; he looked very much inclined to cry. " Why, you silly boy," said Giles, kindly, "it would have done no good if I had told you. I hardly expected even to go through t he house or the grounds, so I thought chat I should only be preparing a disappointment for you if I led you to think that I should do so."

He had seated himself at the boy's side, and was holding one of the thin little hands between his own. Will spoke imperiously. "Daddy, dear, you may just get your pipe and tell me all about it. You must have lots to say." "I'm afraid I haven't," said Kinglake ; but I'll smoke for half-' an-hour before you go to your bed, old chap, and answer any questions you like to ask." He went to the raantlepiece, chose out and lighted his favourite briar-root pipe, and came back to the boy's sofa with it in his mouth, puffing and exclaiming between his teeth as he reseated himself, " I've got to be put through my catechism now, I suppose. Go ahead, Will." " What did you go for ? said Will, curiously.

" Gough's book. You know it ; about the manor-houses. A, stupid compilation. I couldn't well leave out the Priory, you know, Will." " And did you go all over the house and grounds ?"

" I went over tho lower part of the house. Not upstairs." " Not upstairs 1- Oh, daddy dear ! Not upstairs to see the nurseries, where you and Uncle Frank used to play."

" Well, you see, Will, I rather shirked it. What was the good of seeing the changes that must have been made ? You would not like it half so well if you were told that tho little cane bedsteads had been taken awny, and the high brass fender had disappeared, and the rocking-horse stood no longer on the old landing. No, boy, let us imagine that things arc exactly as they were twenty-three years ago, if we can, and keep Lady well Priory as our own particular and especial castle in Spain." '■'But things were much a-ltored downstairs, father ? "

"Not so much as I expected." And then Mr Giles Kinglake, who had seemed so very indifferent to the changes which Cicely had pointed out to him, proceeded to recount them all in minutest detail to his little son.

Will listened with glowing eyes and changing colour. It was plain that he knew the Priory almost as well from description as if ho had spent his whole life there. When Kinglake paused, he interposed an eager question. " And the little gardens, father ? You saw them?"

"Yes, Will. The weeping-willow is quite a tree now. I brought a twig of it away for you. The letters on the bench are as clear as ever they were. And the rosebush in Aunt Ella's garden, which Frank and I planted, you know, was covered with great red roses. I wish I could have brought some away for you, old boy, but I did not like to ask."

" Of course not," said Will, quite indignantly. "I should not nave liked you to ask for anything, or to accept anything, from those horrid Lorraines." "I have no doubt," said Kinglake, with some compunction, " that Miss Lorraine would have sent you some if she had known of your existence, Will. She was taking great care of the little gardens, for the sake of the children that she had heard of from the village people. "We are remembered there, then!" said Will. "I knew we were; although you always said that everybody had forgotten us. Don't you think, father, dear, that when you have made a lot of money by writing books, and grown quite famous, you will be able to buy back Lady well Priory again, and go and live there?" " I'm afraid not, Will," replied his father, sadly. "We must make up our mind that Ladywell has done with us, and we with Ladywell. I don't regret it—except for you." He looked tenderly at the delicate little lad's pale face and said no more. " When I'm a man," said Will, " I shall see whether I can't get back Ladywell Priory, if you won't father. But I believe you will." CHAPTER X. -Cicely's Tenant. "A new tenant? I know very well that he is a new tenant, Reid. Is that any reason why I should go to see him ?" said Cicely, in. a tone of puzzled expostulation.

Raid, who was Miss Lorraine's bailiff, grinned a little and rubbed his car somewhat bashfully. He was always bashful in Miss Lorraine's presence, but ho never failed at tho sarao time to keep strictly to his point. Ho now repeated what he had said twice already with groator emphasis than before. "I think it would bo a good thing 1 , miss, if you just looked in. I dou'fc think myself," ho added, with a solemn shake of the head, " that you'll k<sep him for your tenant very much longex when you've once set eyes on him." '' Why not ? Do you think ho will not pay his ront ?" "Oh yes, miss. He Keem3 to havo mouev, however he may have come by it."

" Is ho not a respectable man 1 Why aid you let tho cottage to hvna tf he is a man of bad character, Reid ?" said Cicely, rathor severely. " I'vo nothing to say. against h*«

character as yet, miss," said Reid, twisting his limp hat. between his hands and looking' dubious. " All I say is that I'd like you to look' in and speak to him yourself bflfore that there cottage is let to him perpetual. It ain't him, it's his family' that many people would object to."- ';■■•'

"Very well'; I'll speak to the man when I go through the village," said Miss Lorraine, with deoision, "And then, Reid, I will let you know. Have you anything-more to say to me."

"Not just now, Miss. It's the letting of that cottage that was on my mind."

" I will see to it. Good afternoon, Reid !"

Reid touched his forehead with one finger and retired. Then Cicely turned with some vivacify of manner to Mrs Le Breton, who : was quietly seated by the window with her needlework in her hand.

' "What an extraordinary thing it is," she said, " that"' Reid and people like Reid will hot use their own judgment. 1 How should I know, whether this man Deveril is or is not a proper person to whom Reid should let a cottage?"

Reid'a interview with hia mistress had taken place in an apartment which was generally known as the garden-room, because it opened into the grounds. It was almost bare of furniture ; there was no carpet on the floor, no curtain to the window. There was a high desk, at which Cicely had been standing while she listened to Reid's discourse. She was standing at it still, with one arm laid across it, and her fingers tapping it from time to time as she spoke. A locked, bureau, two or three chairs, and a settle near the door, and a map and some crossed weapons on the wall, gave the room an austere character befitting the place where Miss Lorraine transacted business, saw people from the village, and taught a class of village children on Sunday afternoons. Although destitute of curtains, the room was cool and shady ; a veil of greenery hung outside of the window, and the deep window seat was not at all an uncomfortable place on a summer afternoon. Pauline was rather fond of sitting there, whilst Cicely stood at her desk and dispensed justice or charity after her own usual brisk aud kindly fashion. She lifted her eyes and smiled slightly at the young chatelaine's complaint. "Reid is wise," she said, quietly. " Wise !" " He knows that he would soon lose a good place if he acted often on his own judgment. Ifou and he did not always agree, Cicely." " No, indeed," said Cicely, shaking her wise little head. "He is one who has always oppressed me with tales of the Kinglake family, and, as 1 consider the goodness and benevolence of the Kinglake family to be an exploded myth, I intend to take no further notice of Reid's stones about them. Dear papa always laughed at me for listening to them, and he was right. Come, Pauline, shall wo go down to the village aud sec the worthy man that Reid suspects. "Don't go to the other extreme and think that everybody whom Reid suspects is likely to be an angel in disguise, Cicely." " I won't dear. I'll only temper his judgment with a little Anti-Kinglakism. I am an emancipated woman now— hoorah !" " You foolish child !" " I was in bondage to the Kiuglakes, one and all, until I saw the last of tho line, and he broke the spell. I suppose he is the last of tho line? Is he married, and has he half-a-dozen little Kinglukes, I wonder ? Philip would know. I must ask him."

" I heard something about a Mrs Kinglake years ago," said Pauline. " She was very delicate, I believe. How did Philip become friendly with Mr Kinglake, Cicely ?"

"Abroad, I believe. Or was it at college? Was Mr Kinglake at Cambridge, I wonder ? He is certainly not an Oxford man; not so donnish as they sometimes are. Philip has sent] me his last book. Think of our having entertained a real live writer of books and Saturday Reviewer ! Ho writes for the Spectator, too, I believe. I mean to take in the Spectator henceforth, and to swear by it. "I thought you did not like Mr Kinglake."

" He is nicer than I thought him at first," said Cicely frankly. "He was quite pensive and melancholy—as the last of the line ought to be—when he stood by the little gardens and told me his sister's names. But he is much too cheerful and contented to be a proper hero of romance."

"That is a good thing," said Pauline, " I don't care for heros of romance at all. Now, child, let us go down to the village."

The two were soon upon their way. Cicely's father had bought a good deal of cottage property, and had always been strict as to the character of hia tenants' Cicely wanted Ladywell to be a model village, and was fond of picturing it to herself in twenty years' time or thereabouts when it should be all her own, and the reforms of which she dreamed had been introduced. At present half the cottages belonged to a retired publican who asked high rents, and kept the buildings in a wretched state of repair ; and Cicely's heart was set upon buying him out by degrees, and inaugurating a blissful state of idyllic prosperity, which should be unalloyed by the existence of miserly landlords or flourishing publichouses. Cicely always had bright hopes for the future.

It was six o'clock when they reached the cottage which Reid had let for the last fortnight to a stranger just arrived, as he himself said vaguely, "from foreign parts," and giving his Dame as Martin Deveril. The cottage was a pretty little building in the old style, with black and white beams, and diamond-paned windows ; also with a garden in front, which had a somewhat neglected air. Busy in it, however, was a man whom Cicely took at first for the master of the place. He was a thick-set, rough-looking man about forty, with a shock head of hair, a stubbly beard, and wild, wandering, light eyes. He was hacking away at the branches of a rosetree, without much judgment or mercy ; and Pauline thought that his hands had a curious character of their own. They were bony, and the veins on them stood out in high relief; the nails were broken and worn down to the quick. But this was uofc all. Pauline discovered a latent fierceness in the way in which the abort, crooked lingers clutched the knife and hacked at the inuoceut rose tree. There was a cruel suggestiveness about the action which startled and repelled her. But then she was a faucitul woman; and Cicely, who was seldom fanciful, saw nothing remarkable about those ugly knotted fingers and their movements. "He does not seem to know much about gardening," she said to Mrs Le Breton, in a swift aside. Then she addressed the man himself. "Is your name Martin Deveril?" she said. Her clear tones evidently reached the ear of another man, who immediately presented himself at the door of the cottage. "I am Martin Deveril," he said, " Did the lady want to speak to me ?" His voice :.nd aspect were curiously solemn; his long features and bent biw

were both anxious and mournful, but there was something attractive to his visitors in the gesture with which he invited them to enter and gave them the best seats the cottage afforded. Miss Lorraine was, however, rather startled when, instead of standing cap in hand, as her cottagers generally did in her presence, he took another chair for himself, and waited to hear what she had to say with an air of courteous attention which she would have expected in an equal, but not in one of her own tenants.

His clothes were of different make and colour from those which he had worn in South Africa, but they were still unlike those of an ordinary labourer. He wore a slouched felt hat, which he removed and laid ou the table at hisside—evidently as an afterthought—when he had seated himself. A coloured waistcoat, a coat adorned with brass buttons, corduroys ducked into long, high boots such as miners often wear, proved that he was either unacquainted with the usual attire of countrymen, or that he had adopted this singular garb out of some epprice. And yet his eye, which was mild and thoughtful, and his speech, slow aud meditative in tone, did not betoken any eccentricity of mind such as might have been evidenced by the vagaries of his costume.

" I suppose that you know me ?" Cicely began, feeling some embarrassment in the presence of a man who seemed so unconscious of what their business could possibly be with him. " I am Miss Lorraine ; you ate my tenant, you know." " Ah," said Martin Deverill; " I hadn't the pleasure of knowing you." He ducked his head affably. "Glad to see you, Miss." Then he rose and went to a cupboard in the waif. " What'll you please to take ?" he asked, returning to the table with a bottle under each arm and a couple of tumblers in his hand. " Here's spirits ; but girls don't usually care for spirits; leastways, young ladies don't. There's ginger wine in the bottle. Miss. It you and the other lady would take a drop I should feel proud. Just allow me."

His visitors smiled and protested as he poured the sticky liquid into their glasses; but Martin proceeded imperturbably with his task. Mi9S Lorraine, too good humoured to persist in a refusal which would evidently have vexed the old man, raised her glass to her lips and said that she was very fond of ginger wine, and that it was of excellent quality. Martin, although pleased with the praise, did not allow a muscle of his face to relax.

" That's so," he said simply. He had acquired a good many Americanisms during his residence in the States, aud Cicely almost took him to be a Yankee. " That's so. I guess that Ido know by this time that women are fond of— something hot and sweet, and syrup suits their constitutions. They're like babies half the time ; ali their pills have got to bo wrapped in jam.

" You know us very well, Mr Devcril," said Paulino, setting down her glass with an amused air. The old man's humuvous tone pleased her.

" That I do," ma'am. But its chiefly by hearsay. I've not had much practical experience oi their ways ; I've been too much of a traveller." Still if a man can't learn from his mother, and his wife, and his daughter what women are, he'll never learn at all. No, not if he had as many wives as Solomon or Mr Brigham Young." "Are your wife and daughters living ?" asked Cicely.

"No, miss, they're not. I buried my wife in Minnesota years ago. My daughter married and settled in Florida, but she's gone too, and she ouly left one little girl, which I haven't seen her since she was a baby—a little black-eyed toddling baby of two years old."

" Don't you mean to go and see her," said Cicely, wondering what had brought him to the parish of Ladywell.

" Why, yes, miss, I do. She's with her father's friends in Florida. I meant to go there before this, but circumstances intervened. If everything had gone right with uie I should now have been in Florida, but I lost my fortune through the villainy of one man, and I'm bound to stay here until I find him and get my fortune back again."

His face changed. His eyes began to glitter and his grey brows contract. His listeners doubted if they had heard aright.

''Do you think that you will find him in Lady well?" asked Cicely. "I don't know," said Martin. '• But I shouldn't wonder if I did."

The answer was unexpected. " Can we help you to find the man you want ?'' asked Cicely, who wa9 becoming interested. Who could it possibly be ? " Should we know him."

"I don't suppose so, Miss. It isn't likely that you have ever had anything to do with rogues and villains, and this was the greatest villain I ever came across, even in Cape Colony or Griqualaud West, which don't turn out very respectable characters as a rule."

" I am more likely to know of this man than Miss Lorraine," said Mrs Le Breton, composedly. "I have had a great deal to do with rogues and villains in my time, Mr Deveril. Can I assist you, do you think ?" He shook his head. "Not likely," he said again. ''I am looking out for him amongst the lowest of the low. He robbed me, and well-nigh murdered mo, ladies both, for the sake of some stones — diamonds and others—that I was bringing back with me to England, He left me for dead on the road, and got out of the Colony before I could leave the hospital. But he let fall a word aboutLadywell before he set upon me ; and therefore to Lady well I've come, on the chance of finding him there." " Why should he come to Ladywell ? What did ho know about Ladywell ? said Pauline, a sharply apprehensive tone in her voice, which Martin noticed with

surprise. " He said lie had friends here, ma'am —leastways, a wife. And—l may tell it to you, ladies both, being ladies, and not likely to get a poor man into trouble —that, ninco I made inquiries about Ladywell, I see that there's a good reason for his coming here. Ho robbed me of diamonds ; he will now have diamonds to sell; he must knaw that Mr Lorraine, of Ladywell, is a diamond merchant.''

" Mr Lorraine is my uncle," observed Cicely. "He will give you all the help he can in finding your stones, I am sure."

• (," .lest so. Miss. I don't mean that Mr Lorraine knows anything of it. But this man would certainiy have heard of Mr Lorraine, if he know Ladywell at all, and he might think that Mr Lorraine would purchase my diamonds from him. I'd like to see Mr Lorraine for myself, if you, Miss, would tell me where I should be able to speak to him, and put him on his guard against this man, if ever he turns up at Ladywell."

" What was his name ?" said P.uiliue, so swiftly that she took the old man' by surprise.

"His name, ma'am? That's what I don't know. But I should know him again anywhere." "But my uncle would not know him," said Cicely, half pitying the man's persistence.

" He might know him better than you, Miss; I daresay he knows the whole village pretty well. Was there any follow in this part of the country that left England for tlv>. duunou; 1 ri?l« ~ you happen to have iiearU ? —any [viioiV

that was likely to come back here again as soon as he'd made his fortune ? Because if any such fellow did come to Ladywell from South Africa during the next few months, I should like to take a look at him before he went back to South Africa again. It's my opinion that that fellow would have to say a few wordstome before he took his departure."

There was a grim suggestivcness in his tone. Cicely's ejes fell on Mrs Le I Breton's face, and noticed that it had 1 turned a little pale. For a moment no one spoke. " I suppose you would try to punish him ?" said Miss Lorraine at last, gravely. " I rather think so, Miss. He's dona harm enough to me and mine to deserve punishment. But for him that little child in Florida would be perhaps as rich as you are—meaning no offence in saying so. I was bringing her fortune home for her—and that villian robbed me, would have murdered me if he could—in the dark, Miss, when he was pretending to be my friend, the black-hearted ruffian. He struck me on the head and stole my diamonds while I lay senseless on the ground. Is there any punishment too great for such a rogue ?" His voice shook with agitation, and he clenched his hands as he spoke. Pauline was looking straight before her, with wide-open, thoughtful eyes and tightly-compressed lips. Presently she remarked abruptly— " You have not said what this man was like. You think you would know him again?" "I should know him anywhere. He was a goodlooking chap," said Martin slowly j "black-haired, black eyed, with a curly black beard, and something of a colour. Stoutish, not very tall, dressed in rather a flashy style. If he comes to Ladywell again, I'm bound I shall lay hands upon him." "Come, Cicely." said Pauliue, suddenly. "We have heard enough. Let us go." And without auother word she rose and left the cottage, whilst Martin watched her with astonished eyes. Outside the door she stopped and laid

her hand upou the garden fence as though to keep herself from falling. The man who had been hacking the rose tree stopped his work and looked at her. She took no notice. With a curious sidc-loug motion he edged himself up to her and offered her a rose that he dad plucked and carried in his ugly knotted lingers. Cicely watched the scene with interest. "A poor, half-witted fellow," said Dcvcril, following the direction of her eye. " His name's Joel Bray. He lost his wits through my folly and that villian's cruelty. He knows that I never msaut to treat him badly ; that's why he follows mo about like a do_> ; but if lie met that other fellow I'll lay my life but he'd take him by the thro it and strangle him just as a cVjg would do." Did Paulino hear the words ? The rose dropped from her fingers ; she tramped it beneath her feet as she turned hastily away. "Oh, Paulino, what doi'S it mean?'' said Cecily, when ouco they were out of the old mail's hearing. " It means this," said Mrs Le Breton, fiercely, " that the man who robbed tlii-» Martin Dcveril was none other than my husband, and that he is coming here !" " You cannot be sure." '• You mean that one cannot doubt, the description was exact. Besides, is there any man in the world who would commit, such a cowardly crime but Robert Le Breton ?" " Dear Paulino, do not say so." " I must think so, if I do not say it; and I dare say it to you. God graut fcha t lam for once doing Robert Le Breton wrong ! If ouly he stays away until thU man Devcril goes —or if only I could warn him ! Cecily, I don't know what to do. My heart is wrung when I think of that old man's suffering and of the. man who may have been the cause of it !" "If it is so, said Cicely, with an awestruck face, "and if Robert Le Breton were to come back " "There would be murder," said Paulino, with the desolate calm of deep despair. Then she broke out passionately, while the tears ran down her pale and grief-worn face, " and I can do nothing—nothing ! I cannot even pray that he may not come. I miut keep him away—and yet Martin Devcril must, have his diamonds back again. God help tne to sec that right is done." (To lie conl'miidl.)