Christmas Story. A DOUBLE-DYED VILLAIN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3199, 24 December 1892, Page 5 (Supplement)

Christmas Story. A DOUBLE-DYED VILLAIN.

llv I!. E. iMlANfll.l.oN.

r. Monday, December 9th. Xo ; 1 am not an impulsive woman ; 1 am not an emotional woman ; I am not .an unreasonable woman. If I were unreasonable, .1 should not know my own faults so well, and be so ready to admit them. For of course, I have my faults. Who has not-1 I may have even my weaknesses— such as overcaution, and perhaps want of imagination and not enough confidence in myself. And no doubt T have made mistakes in my time ; though I can't at this moment call any to mind. Jsut "impulsive"! Why, if anything, I am but too little a creature of impulse ; only too calculating. Didn't it take me a whole hour by the clock before I could decide to marry .John upon nothing at onco, instead of waiting, as they all wanted me? And "unreasonable " ! Why of course I knew it would all come right somehow. Oh dear ! To think that at the end of two whole years one's own husband should know one so little: while all the while 1 can read him like a book, through and through. Well, it's just like A Man ; they never can understand A Woman, try as they will. And it's unreasonable to complain of John for being a Man. But oh how he would stare if 1 told him my faults ; he'd think mo a downright witch if lie has any selfknowledge at all : which is not likely, seeing that A Man always thinks that the faults and weaknesses he's got are just the ones he's the most, free from. " It's for our faults that people love us," somebody says somewhere ; but all the same I'm sure 1 should love .John just a little bit bettor if he wasn't quite so obstinate ; not, quite so ready to make friends with people of whom T know nothing; not quite so quick to make prejudiced and mistaken judgments about, for example, Me. I " impulsive — 1 '•unreasonable"! Why even the servants know me better tliae that ; but. then, to be sure, they're women. By the way. I. wish 1 hadn't given Susan warning this morning; but how could anybody tell that that policeman was her brother ? People's brothers oughtn't to be policemen. Of course it would never do to go back on one's word ; but 1 daresay she'll forget the warning for another pound a year. No, I'm not obstinate, nobody less ; but this I" do maintain, and 1 solemnly and deliberately set it down here to-night, and there must be something wrong, even on general principles, when one's own husband comes home late two evenings together because he's been with

a man called Wolf Murdock. Why there's something horrid about every letter of the name. And—if it isn't striking eleven, and John not home again ! If it was for nothing that the clock struck just when I wrote "Wolf Murdock," I'll never think myself reasonable again. Tuesday, Of course I was right. It's very odd. of course ; but when that sort of coincidence happens, I always am. It's a gift. I suppose. It was that Mr. Murdock with whom John had been. He o-vued it to himself, with a laugh, and said he was getting quite dissipated; but it was too much the laugh with which people hide things, to please me. However, of course one can't ask questions, and I do hate curiosity —it is so mean But find out all about Mr Murdock —Wolf Murdock. What a horrid name! I must, and I will , it's my duty to

John. I'm sorry I wrote down what I did last night about John's faults. Only it was hard to be called impulsive and unreasonable when one is no such thing. I really can't call to mind anybody in our family who ever acted on impulse ; except, of course, my poor sister Fanny. And after what came of her impulse, it's not likely that I should follow her example, even if it was in iny nature ; which it isn't, thank heaven ! I.wonder if I shall ever know where she is and what has beaoine of her, and why she left us all in that sudden and unaccountable ay, and why father would never let us speak of her again. I wonder what makes me think of her so much just now, after all these years. Of course she's dead ; 1 must have heard from her, or of tier, if she was alive —in nine years! Yet I don't know She might always go on thinking of me as the little girl of not fourteen that sne loft behind her—not as the old married women of twenty-three. Half-past eleven—and John not h )tne again ! W EDN'ESDAY.

I declare, I don't know whether I am on my head or my heels. I feel as if I were on the edge of a precipice, with the sea waiting for me below. Let me write it all down, to keep tny brain steady and clear. Every day makes me .surer that John, with that too obstinately trustful nature ot' his, needs a protector, and what is the use of his having a wife with a cool head and sharp eyes if he does not find his protector in me? Wolf Murdock is a villain. That is as curtai i as that I am sitting here. I was right again in being sure that it was he who kept John away from his home for the fourth time. I was right about the third time, too, so it is clear I can trust

my instinct where lie is concerned. But more than that. John has not told nie anything about him, not the least thing, in spite of all I have done to make him without asking questions ; for, of course, it doesn't do to put a man on his guard. What we poor women would do without tact is dreadful to think of. And he hasn't told mo a thing ; with all my tact and knowledge of John's weak places it lias taken rne three whole days and nights not to find out whether Wolf Murdock is married or single, rich or poor, dark or fair, what he is, or where he lives, or his business with John, or even if he's good-looking. So it is clear there is a mystery, and when there is a mystery between husband and wife, it must be a dreadful one, with wickedness somewhere, and the wickedness isn't mine or John's. It has nothing to do with drink, for John, when he came home, was even quieter, and steadier, and less — what shall [ call it ?—than a gentleman ou<;ht to be when ho lias been dining vith friends in a regular and respectable way ; so it is something worse than drink. And it is not gambling, because I have turned out his pockets while he was asleep, and there was neither more nor less in them than could be properly accounted for. Besides, he hadn't torn out ti single handful of hair, and he slept as soundly as I didn't, so it is evidently something worse than gambling. Impenetrable secrecy —.mystery — villainy; worse than drinking ; worse than gambling, and all bound up with a Wolf Murdock ! What, as I am an only too wretchedly reasonable a woman, does it all mean 1

Twelve o'clock—no longer Wednesday—and John not yet come home ! Shall Igo to bed at once, Of shall I wait till he comes ? If I wait up and receive him with the air of a cheerful martyr, loving and docile in spite of my loss of his confidence, perhaps T shall throw his heart, if not his head, off its guard. Hut. on the whole, no. If I stayed up till past midnight he would suspect that I suspected ; perhaps he would be angry, and that I couldn't hear. Poor, dear fellow—whatever it is, it is not hfault, I know. A man isn't named Wolf Murdock for nothing. I'll go to bed and let him believe I'm sleeping, as if I noticed nothing; only in a troubled sort of way, as if I'd noticed everything, but wouldn't not,ice nor complain. Then he'll have to say something at breakfast time. If what he says is true, I shall know ; and if it isn't— 11. I was writing in my diary, to which, more or less regularly, I confide my daily thoughts and feelings, seated in my own particular corner of the drawing-room. The servants had gone to bed a <jood two hours ago, having closed the whole of the house except the front door, which was left unfastened so that my husband might let himself in quietly with his latch-key. I had just written the word " isn't," when—l have wonderfully sharp ears—l was quite sure somebody or other was in the back garden. I distinctly heard a scrape, as if a descending toe were scratching the brick wall between our garden and the lane ; and this was followed by a very faint thud, as of a heavy weight upon the mould below.

Cats'? No; long and immense suburban experience had made it impossible for me to be deceived or mistaken about anything that a cat can or cannot do. Nerves? It was just possible ; for though I am so far, very, very far from being fanciful, still I scarcely ever sat up so late, I had been thinking and worrying, and there was nobody but myself awake in a house of unprotected women. Burglars—and John away ! Had I really the creature of impulse John thinks me, I should have rung the bell for the servanes, thrown up the front window, put out my head and screamed. But my hand had hardly touched the bell handle when I reflected, with a presence of mind at which I still wonder, that the cook would be sure to go into hysterics, and that burglars are always most dangerous when they are disturbed. Clearly the best thing I could do would be to run up into tny bedroom, push something heavy against the door, jump into bed, and bury my head under the clothes. It came, to me like an inspiration. But, having hastily turned off the gas where I was sitting—no other alight in the house— I felt as if something were drawing me to take one peep from the back window ; the odd sort of feeling that makes one look down when one is standing on a precipice, or draw one's eyes to any dreadful sight against one's will. It was neither courage nor curiosity which made me creep on tiptoe, all in the dark, to the back drawing-room window, and pull the blind away at the side just far enough to make a peephole. The nearly full moon was so bright that it positively startled me ! Anil there, sure enough, was proof enough that the scrape and the thud were not the effect of nerves. Two men stood in the garden in the moonlight just under the wall. 1 could see them as plainly as by day. One was tall, dark, pals, with an aquiline nose and a big black beard. The other was— John ! Was I dreaming? No, ]t was John, as surely as I am Clara. And why should John be entering his own premises like a burglar, when, even if lie had lost his latch-

key, Ik; would naturally have let all Hip neighbourhood know if by means of the knocker on (lip front door? And that other man -what. could it mean ! How glad I was (hat I had not rung up the servants : that I had been drawn to the win,low in.stu.id of running upstairs. .For .John's next movements were even luore mysterious than his entry. Leaving his companion in view, he disappeared into the corner shubbcry round the tool shed, wlionec he emerged with a spade. Taking ofl his great coat, lie began to dig just behind the bay tree, where lay a pitch-black shadow 011 the moon white ground. My heart (lettered and my skin crept: it was fust as if lie were digging a secret grave. I don't know how long he went on digging into that black shadow and in that awful silence : for neither of them spoke a word. At last the big, bearded man handed him something—l could not see what. John, kneeling down, placed it carefully in the hole, and hastily shovelled back the soil. Then, having stamped the place down, 110 put away the spade, and both of tlieni—John tlio last—disappeared over the wall; how tlioy got ovor so easily aiul so quickly I don't know, for I was half fainting now that the deed, whatever it was, was done.

Not another two minutes had passed when I heard John's latchkey in the front door: just time for him to eomo round from the lane at the back into the road. Tt would never do for him to lind inu up —of courso ho would explain the mystery, and it would never do, it would be against all the principles of tact, (o let him fancy that I had been watching. llow lucky I had turned out the gas in tho front drawing-room, so that je might think I had been all tho while in the bed, into which I mint now scramble with lightning speed! I need not have hurried. My head was on the pillow while I still heard John's step about the house, making his nightly round more elaborately, it seemed to me, than usual. I did not pretend to be asleep, though, this time, when he at last came upstairs. I could not sleep without an explanation. "Not asleep, dear": asked John, a little nervously. "Oh, John"! I couldn't help exclaiming, "it must be nearly morning! Where have you been all this while " ? "Oh, nowhere in particular. Only with — with—Wolf Afimlock ; that's all."

Ah—t'aon it was Wolf Mnrdoek whom I had seen helping my own husband to bury—what ? Thore was no sleep that night for me. Yes; I have been right, indeed: Villain, Double-dyed villnin, was written all over Wolf Murdojk— written large! 111. Thursday Night, December 12th. I began this diary just to jot down my reflections, for the sake of self-improvement. But now I must use it. for another purpose. I, a mere weak woman, with nothing but my own woman's wit to help me, am called upon to elucidate a vast and complicated network of mysterious villainy ; and, if 1 can, to be my husband's guardian angel, and to rescue him from it before it becomes too late for anything but terrible consequences. Heaven grant it be not too late already— that I may see light through the darkness in time ! What wonderful things first impressions are ! I have never yet known mine fail me. I felt sure that Wolf Murdock was a villain the very first time he kept John out late, and now it is proved. Not a word did John say about what happened last night—not a single word ; and, of course, I asked no question. If you see that a man means to hide a thing, to ask a question is the safest way to tempt him into falsehood, and to set him inventing devices to mislead you. Besides, I have my proper pride ; and, though I was hurt and sore with John for keeping a secret from nis, never, never would I seek to pry into a confidence which was so ostentatiously witheld from me. So I purposely let John leave for his office without a single word which oould make him suspect that I had takan any further heed of the late hour at which he had come home. Not till I felt quite sure that he had not missed his train, nor till cook was gone to market and Susan upstairs doing the bedroom, did I put on my garden gloves and hunt in the tool-shed till I found a trowel. No; it had been no dream ! There was the soil trodden down behind the bay-tree ; there were the very marks of the nails in John's boots. My heart sank as, for the first time, there came into my mind the terrible word, Murder ! Yet surely it could not be that. Murders happen in newspapers ; not in people's lives like John's and mine. I scratched the soil with my trowel—at first nervously and timidly—till, the soil being soft and the work easier than T expected, 1 <Jot excited, and felt bound to see the matter out to the end. And, not a foot below the surface—not further than could llavfe been opened by two or three digs of a spade, I found—thank Heaven, not a cotlin, but—a small parcel, no bigger than would go into my pocket, done up in brown paper with a string. Nobody can be less inquisitive than I am. Without boasting I venture to say that I must have been minutes before my sense of

duty n." John's wife got the better' nf niv .iislike to meddling with a secret —even with one of .Johns, and even though I had as much right to his as he has to mine, ami more. For it is tin- husband who endows the wife wi'.h all his worldly goods, not the wife the husband : and that a secret, especially when wrapped up in brown paper, is a worldly good stands to reason. And if it isn't"good, but bad, it becomes all the more good for the wife to know. Yes ; it is deliberate duty, and nothing else, which, when 1 had carried the parcel in my pocket into the drawing-room, compelled uie to untie the string. What could it be, this little packet which required two strong men to bury at uiiiduight in a back garden ? My lingers trembled so with anxiety that I had to use my scissors after all. Within the brown paper was a mass of tissue paper; within the tissue piper was a cardboard-box ; within the cardboard box a leather case ; within the caie more tissue paper —it was like the toy where you open a series of lessening eggs until you come to a hempseed. But a hempseed, indeed ! Within the last tissue paper was— My heart stood still with amazement and terror. Tjineralds — and such emeralds ! Kven my poor knowledge told me that 1 held in my hands what would be a fortune for a Queen —wonderful, beautiful jewels, set in a brooch with pendants, whose antique pattern seemed to vouch for their having a value not only in money but in history besides —a fancy price, in which every common guinea became ten. I breathed hard, and my forehead turned damp and cold. What could my John have to do with emeralds such as these 1 Now and thus, then I knew what means his secret association with Wolf Murdock. He had fallen into the clutches of a jewel-robber—he had yielded to temptation ; his amiable weakness had led him into becoming the accomplice of a double-dyed villain —of a villain on his own account, and of a villain who made use of the honesty of others. What else could mean John's constant lateness. John's awkward secrecy, and, above all, John's neglect of Me ? But what was I to do—l, who had thus, by the merest accident, learned into what hands my husband had fallen 1 Should I tell John what I had done and what I had found ? But then 1 should have to tell him how 1 had watched him last night; and besides, having fallen under that villain's power, he would be so ashamed and angry : and—no ; that would never do. Hide it away ?No ; that would only confuse things, and lead to nothing Besides, if the house should he searched—l turned cold at the very

idea. I had it! And I declare, even now, that it was an inspiration. I would do up the packet again just as I had found it,and bury it again, so that if the house was searched it ■would not be found, and John and Wolf Murdock would have no suspicion that anything had been discovered. I could then lind out at Scotland-yard or somewhere who had lost such a thing, and dig it up and post it to them anonymously, asking them to acknowledge the receipt in some agony column ; so that nobody would be the wiser. And then, when the danger was over—then, if I couldn't make use of what I knew to rescue John from the claws of that bearded monster, I should not be worthy of the name of woman. To this day I call it a brilliant idea—as brilliant as the emeralds : and oh, how brilliant they were ! I could scarcely bring myself to put them out of my sight again. Oh, if they were really honestly my own ! Since then I have never seen the Jewel scene in " Faust " without whispering to myself How True !

I was fastening the string when —Powers and Horrors ! John's step on the stairs before luncheon time; John's who had never since our honeymoon coine back from his office before five, except on Saturdays ! I was so paralysed, sitting with that fatal packet in my hand, that not till his hand was on the handle of the drawing-room door did I find presence of mind (it was wonderful that I found it even then) to drop it into the bonnet box which contained my new hat just arrived from Madame Eulalie, and to greet John with a smile which would have done credit to the cleverest actress of them all.

But all the smile died out of me when I saw how pale he was looking, and worn, and anxious—no wonder, with last night's work upon my mind. Well, thanks to my woman's wit, everything would soon be right again. So I pretended to take no notice of anything, not even of his coming home so early, beyond seeming glad of it; nor of his want of appetite at lunch, though, poor fellow, it made my poor heart bleed; for, in the regular way, I don't know a better appetite than John's. But what hard work Tact is—how relieved I was when John, having told me (and thought I believed him !) that he had only returned for something he had forgotten, went back to the city—or elsewhere. Nobody could be more agreeable and amusing than I was all through luncheon —when he shut the house door behind him, I sat down and cried.

But, now or never: I must not be interrupted again. I dried my eyes, and went upstairs into the drawing-room, humming a tune . , , . Where was ths bonnet box? I had left it on the sofa between the windows: and it was nowhere to be seen. Had John ? But n# : men do not search bonnet boxes my tongue dried in my throat and my blood ran cold. " The bonnet box 'm "1 said that maddening Susan, in answer to my bell. "The dressmaker's girl, she came while you and master was at

Inncli, and said how they'd found J they'd split, the wrong li.it, mul they . be«ged pardon 'n she took the box i away. It had ought to have bcu.-n j for .Mrs Dennis was the name, in | l lower street, the young person said j it was number 2S 1." And this was the girl whose wages 1 had raised only yest.i;rday — she hud let emeralds worth a king's ransom, at least go in a common bonnet box to a dressmaker. T was too bewildered to scream. What would happen now ? Would there bn detection —exposure? Would John and 1 lie sent to Botany Bay 1 My brain was in such a whirl that I could not sit down and think. Something I must do, if only to feel that—tlnit I really don't know what I wanted to feel. . . The dressmaker's girl couldn't have been very long gone. She might have other errands —if I took a hansom and gave the driver double fare I might get to Madame Eulalie's before the girl, there was the chance anyhow : and even the ghost of a ehanee might make all the difference between what was already too dreadful, and things that meant madness only to think of without knowing what they were. Never did I get ready so quick, never did I ride in a cab that went so slow. It was positively as if the driver had been bribed by Wolf Murdoch. lint the crawl had one advantage—it gave me time to recover my breath and my usual serene manner before I got out at Madame Ktilalie's, dismissing the cab, so as to throw oil' the scent any detectives who might be following uie. Mobody could have dreamed, as I entered, from my collected bearing, that I was at that moment the most desperately anxious woman in all London I glanced at myself in the first long mirror I passed, and started at the sight of my own calmness. And I explained my errand to Madame Eulalie's forewoman as if the packet dropped into the bonnet box were but a packet of bonbons. Indeed lam not at all sure that I did not sa}' that it was a packet of bonbons. Thank Heaven ! That wretched girl had not yet returned, So I said I would sit doTn and wait— not that it mattered, but that I had been rnnuing about all day and was a little tired and headachy : I only wonder that my head was not already split into twenty. As the time crept on, my fear that the girl would have got there before me was turned into fear that she would not come laaek in time for nie to get homo before John , and yet I could not leave until those horrible Emeralds were safe in my pocket again. The gas was already lighted: and the clock on the chimney piece struck the quarters so quickly that there did not seem five minutes between the chimes. I really think the impatience that makes the time gallop too fast is worse than that which makes it crawl like a snail. And if I did not get home by dinner. John would bo sending round to all the hospitals after mo, perhaps to Scotland-yard: rushing into the dragon's very jaws. It was like a , nightmare as I sat there, while the ■ forewoman chatted and gossiped till I felt what it means to want to commit murder.

Presently the forewoman was called out; in a miuute she came hack—and if that fiend of a girl had not been trying to put things right by going back to where she had left ray hat, fetching it away, and delivering the bonnet bos with the omeralds in it to Mrs. Dennis, Gower-street, number 284 ! There was only one tiling to be doue, and I did it. . . . "la Mrs. Dennis at homo " ? I asked, when another nab set me down in the gloom of Gower-street on aDeoember evening, and the door of number 284 had been opened to mo as grudgingly as if I were the rates and taxes. "Mrs. Dennis" ? answered the unmistakable accents of a ladv who lets lodgings: <: Mrs. Dennis? Mrs. Dennis has been gone not five minutes, or it might be ten. Coming in again? No. She was started for Ameiica —or for India—or it might be California, I can't rightly say which ; but it was some such place, I know."

IV. Wednesday, December 18th. I have not had the heart to dip my pen into tho ink-bottle since that dreadful, that awful Thursday. How could I tell John ? He would never forgive me for having watched him, since this was what mv watching had come to—never. lie would call me impulsive, unreasonable; ho would never understand that I had done everything rightly and wisely, and that tho blame ought to fall on Susan, and Mrs. Dennis, and Madame Eulalie, and Wolf Murdoch, and John himself—not on me. How was I to foresee that Susan would be so officious, and that Madame Eulalie would keep chattering forewomen and featherbrained erraud girls, and that Mrs. Dennis, whoever she was, would run off in that suspiciously sudden way without saying where ? For that matter would John even believe mo ? For, alas ! I folt that through the double-dyed villainy of Wolf Murdock all confidence was gone from between us, never to be restored. I write this to-night so that, if I die of a broken heart, John when he reads my dairy, may, though too late, see that I acted for the best, and understand,

Saturday, December 21st;, I must be strong, and calm. I must show that I can rise to the occasion ; for the occasion has come. I will put things down just as they are : as coldly and exactly as people always do the night before they are guillotined. We are to give up housekeeping and live in tho cheapest lodgings we can find. We are not to have even one servant of our own. Wo are to have no society : no pleasures—not even our yearly run out to town. John is to givo up his club, his cabs, and his cigars : I must be allowed a weekly pittance for necessaries, without a margin, aud make it do without running up a single bill. In short,

wo are ruined. I will say for.Tolm rli.it lie put it as gently and kindly as ho could, and was chiefly voxed that 1 should suffer. He does love m': in his hoart—l do know that, thank God ! Rut why does ho not tell me what it all means? does lie not; trust, me ? But why do lask? Wolf Murdock ! Thore is the answer to it all! He would trust me. I know, if he were not that Villain's slave, body and soul.

. , But I will not only submit, like a woman and a martyr. _ I here record my vow that 1 will Find strength for both : that Wolf Murdoclc "shall rue the day when he came into conflict with Clara Hughes! If only those horrible emeralds woro off my mind ! . , . . Sunday, December 22nd. I have a scheme at last! I will —but hark!—there is John come home. V. Tuesday, December 24th, 1. think I must have a little of that mysterious faculty which leads people in plays and histories and newspapers and novels and things of that sort to come upon the very thing they want just at the moment when it is most wanted. I suppose it comes from their eyes being on the watch for the smallest tiling bearing upon what their minds are full of. and so seeing what they would not notice another time. My plan was perfect, for all but one thing—it was necessary for me to meet Wolf Murdock face to face: and 1 did not know where he lived, or how to find him. Tt was like a direction of Providence that John, who thinks of nothing but economy since that villain ruined us, told uie to send to be cleaned and patched up his old office coat which I was going to give awnv to the Clothing Fund, and that in turning »ut the pockets I came on the back of a letter on which was scribbled, in John's hand-writing, " M , 10, Heather-terrace, Hampstcad." And, as if "M " di(-l not stand for Murdock as •learly as A for an Archer, there was the unused half of a return ticket dated 0 : the verv first dav of John's late hours.

11 was as if an oracle had pointed mo the way. Very well. 1 would seek Wolf Murdock in his den. I could easily invent a pretext in these days, when every woman lias a passport everywhere in the form of a mission or a cause, and then circumstances must guide mo. I might cleverly get hold of his confidence, or I might appeal to his feelings—if 1 found ho had any, which, of course, wasn't likely—or, with my knowledge of him, and his ignorance ot me, I would, at the least, make discoveries which would put the villain in my power. I've read of woman doing such things hundreds of times. There was Fenella, in Scott's " Peveril " , there was Wilkie Collins's heroine, in " No Name " ; there were dozens and scores. In such cases it's the first step that's everything. and my first step was over "Wolf Mill-dock's threshold.

I started as soon as John had gone fut after breakfast, so as to give myself plenty of time ; and it occurred to me that. I might just, as well put John's revolver in my pocket —-one never knows what may happen or how things may go off. If tilings came to the worst, the sight of an armed and desperate woman might have an effect: though I had no intention of gaining my purpose by anv weapons save tact, observation, and presence of mind. How little men know those who are nearest them—how little, I thought on my way to Hampstead, John would be picturing his wife as going, for his sake, alone into t,he den of a villain, with nothing to help her but her own wits, and her courage, and her love for him, in spite of her having lost his trust, and of all that had come between. Heather-terrace was not hard to find, and it took me a little aback, for—though I do not know what I expected, indeed imagination is not my strong point—l was certainly not prepared for a row of semidetached villas with no more character about them than the keys of a piano. But then, I remembered, what ean more varied and intense than the stories which those indistinguishable keys have to tell ? The very commonplacencss and monotonous respectability of those villas was rendered suggestive by my comparison —how odd that it should have come into my head just then !

"Is this Mr. Murdock's"? I asked the no less commonplace looking maid who answered the door of No. 17;" nml is he at home" ? " Mrs. Murdock is at home, ma'am. What name shall I say, pleafv" ? Mrs. Mnrdock! It. had never struck me that there might be a Mrs. Murdock. It was awkward ; for bavin# without preparation, to take a Mrs. Murdock into account might complicate matters terribly. It thus became doubly needful that I should proceed with caution, and take a careful survey of how the whole land lay. My impulse was to retire and think things out over again, so different was the outset of my undertaking. from anything I was prepared for. Many a scene had I pictured in advance • but an interTiew with a Mrs. Murdock had not been in one of them. But then what would be the use of thinking about Mrs. Murdock without having even placed her in my mind ? So " Mrs Mancroft," I had the presence of mind to answer, giving my maiden name, so that I might at the same time avoid telling a story and the imprudence of giving my real one. I was conducted upstairs into a little drawing-room to wait tor Mrs Murdock, who, I was told, would see me immediately. There was certainly nothing noticeable about the room, though, with my ears quickened for the least approach ing rustle of a dress, I made the most of my time of solitude by making a rapid investigation of every corner. I had just time enough to smooth off all appearance of

curiosity when Mrs Murdoek entered —a tale, pale woman, ill black ; perhaps fivo-und-thirty years old ; gentle-looking, and rather sad. as one would expect tlio wife of a villain to be ; but a lady, according to all the outward signs. But she was waiting for me io explain my visit—and, so fully had I been expecting to san him and not h>'<\ that T was unprepared with a single word ! What was to be done ? Charity ?—Canvassing ? —What should it be ? I tried to think of the manner of the last lady who had come to me with a subscription list, and the last who had brought a petition ; but then I had no subscription list aud no petition. Even, however, while I coloured and stammered, I became alive to the consciousness that she was as nerous as T. " I suppose—l suppose," she said at last, " you are the wife of my brother George "'? I could only stare; for I, too, had a brother George ; and he, too, had a wife ; but then Why, if she mistook a Mrs Mancroft for her brother's wife, her maiden name must have been Mancroft as well as mine—and my brain began to whirl. "Tt is strange that you, a, stranger, should have come to me," she went on, socially ! " And I'm sorry ; I thought nobody knew but Clara"s husband, and I'm sure he would never have told." !" exclaimed I. " Yes," she said ; " since you have come you have a right to know. I meant never to see my family again. I could not, since they had cast me off for my marriage, come back to them as a beggared widow, asking for the alms they would never have given to my poor husband, had he been starving. ... I did communicate with John Hughes, because he had never known me; and because, when I tokl him all, he promised to tell nobody of my existence till I had settled the business which had brought me here, and till I had gone abroad again. But since my secret is found out, and since my family have sent a stranger to report of me "

" A stranger," I cried, a sudden light breaking in upon me; "a scranger ? No, indeed. Why, you are n.y own lost sister Fanny who ran away. lam Clara, whom you left when she was a little girl, without saying good-bye. Oh, Fanny." And we two were all of a sudden in each other's arms; nor had we got further in the way of explanation when a sudden knock startled us apart and admitted John. I should have enjoyed his bewilderment at seeing me there, and have brought him to his knees for having kept such a secret from me out of a ridiculous scruple of honour, had he not been looking so weary and so worn—too worn, it seemed to me, even to appreciate my cleverness as it surely deserved. He did not even care to inquire how I had come ttiere. My heart began to sink again. Had T really heard all —the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. the truth? Did she, my own sister, know of those midnight mysteries ? " I will have no more of this! " T cried out; for all our sakes I must and I will know ! John— " Like a small hurricane, there tumbled or rushed or dashed into the room a very little boy, not a day more than six years old, almost speechless with excitement, who hurled himself upon his mother. " Mamma, mamma ! Look what I found in the bandbox Mrs Dennis's Christmas presents came in to I! I'll give this to you ! " There were the emeralds—there was the bonnet-box in which I had hidden them ! And John looked at them like a man in a dream : then he looked up — " Thank Heaven, however Heaven sent them here! Clara— we are not ruined after all! We can help your sister now and her boy as much as we please. Those emeralds—they were trusted to me by their owner, a client—who said he could trust them with no one else—too late one night to bank : so we hid them, he and I, for me to place in safety on the morrow. I was not even to take them into the house, so nervous was he of—of women's eyes ; and the next day they had gone, and I—l had to spend the rest of my life in searching for them, and meanwhile in making good their value against the return of their owner—and now I am a free man a«ain, and you—"

" And this client—was his name Wolf Murdock?" asked I. "I'm Wolf Murdock! " cried the child, leaping into my lap and nearly throwing me over. But not quite— and there I sat with the soft cheek of the Double-Dyed Villain close to mine, on Christmas Eve /