pleaded Boyle in his softest and richest brogue. "Through life, 'tis me constant misfortune to be misunderstood. May I submit, with the greatest possible humility, that my fault, whatever degree of gravity your Excellency may attach to it, is not a military offince."

"Sir," replied the Governor, “ye have lied to your Commander-in-Chief with the impudence of a carted street walker! A military offence? "Tis larceny, no less. My gorge rises at the sight of ye! . . Of what sum did he rob ye, madam? It shall be stopped from his pay, every shilling of it, with interest."

"I will not touch his money," whispered Sue, quivering like a creature under torture.

It is to be supposed that in the course of his five-and-thirty adventurous years Boyle had fought his way out of some awkward corners. "Hit first, hit quick, hit hard, and keep hitting," was the sum of his simple philosophy, and in practice it had served him passably; action and energy being of such price in a world lying in its sloths and timidities, that most men, and many events, yield to a vigorous onset, whether well-directed and rightly sanctioned or the reverse.

But this battle was going against him.

In another moment all would be lost: reputation, standing, influence, the countenance of those who reckoned. The dog's life of the marked man lay before him, of him who knows, and whose fellows know, that he is deep in his Commander's black book, of him who is never mentioned in a despatch, nor seconded for promotion, nor асcorded brevet rank, nor granted leave. With this grim vista of disgrace opening before him there was yet time for a counter-stroke. Before doom was pronounced he would make a virtue of necessity, and, faith, the girl might have been a worse one. He admired her in spite of the ill-turn she had done him.

Her sword-play had been better than he had reckoned upon; she had touched him here, and here again; he had been fain to break ground, and had barely saved worse by a smashing stroke below the knee. But in delivering that blow his weapon had snapped, he had wounded her, but stood before his enemy disarmed and in danger of being run through (thus the hot fancy of the swordsman figured his plight). "Quick! ye are a lost man ilse, Con Boyle; lep in under yer inimy's guard and take her in yer ar'rms!"

"Your Excellency," he exclaimed, stooping somewhat from his full height and getting the least little tremble into his voice, for the man was no mean actor. "I am overwhilmed with confusion; I am shocked at mysilf. I confiss my folly, my heartless conduct; I have treated the leedy like a damned villain; yes, like an infernallee damned villain! Let her beauty and me passions be my sole excuse. Look at me, sir: a man is not enjued by his Maker with the stringth of a bull and the currudge of a lion, without compinsating deficts. That's me! I have sinned; but what compinsation is poss'ble I'll make." He crossed the room and dropped upon his knee before the injured girl. "I will marry her this day. Sue, my dear, let the past be past: ye have followed me across sea and land to claim the protiction of my name."

This was the moment of Sue's greatest peril; the four men held their breaths. To the Governor and to Furley the proposal seemed a solution of the difficulty; to Chisholm, its brazen effrontery was a crowning insult. Το Sue's sore heart and throbbing head it heaped confusion upon confusion. One word of his rhodomontade pricked down to memory and stung her to effective protest and resolve.

"No," she wailed, withdrawing her dress from his contact. "Protection ?'

You said so before! No, never!" (Oh, but the golden voice was flat and dead; she turned from him as one might turn from an alien corpse; her face and her appeal was to the Governor.) "Sir,

do not make me. I cannot. It seems fitty, for I came all the way here asking and praying for nothing better. You see I trusted him up to ten minutes ago.

When he left me I excused

it as his misfortune. He had been telling me overnight of married people separated by instant calls of the service. "Twas heart-breaking, but I bore up, and God sent me friends, this good soul, Master Furley. I ne'er knew my father, but I think he was a good man, and like Master Furley. When no letter came I blamed the post, and the landlady, who put me to the door and kept my clothes.

Then, when I knew

from my friend (Oh, and he is a friend!) how my husband had sailed for Gibraltar, I resolved to follow. But it seems-how I cannot understandthat he had not sailed, or only by a later convoy, for we saw one another at sea. quite close; we knew one another; our eyes met and he-he was angered at seeing me. That look was cruel hard to bear, but I told myself that it was not me but my company that he disliked: all should be explained when we met.

"And we did meet, just now-in the room out there-and-and ye saw-and heard, sir." She heaved a dry sob. "He would have beat me if we had been alone; that I'd forgive; he has beaten me before. (Yes, sir, ye know ye have, and I forgave ye.) But, his eyes, his face, and his wicked lies!

Do not ask me, my lord, I cannot. Whilst I thought I was his wedded wife I could bear and pardon everything, but it seems I am not; I am nothing. He owns he deceived me; I am ruined. God, who is just and very pitiful, they say, will judge between us. Oh, it hurts so. I don't know LIVING AGE. VOL. XLVI. 2419

'Twas heart's to obey ye, to 'Tis all gone

myself. I loved ye, sir. delight to wait upon ye, watch ye cross the room. now. Something is gone that used to be here"-her little hand pressed her side "I kept it warm for him all these months, 'twas my heart's love for ye, Mr. Tighe; when 'twas cold and feeble and seemed at point of death I nursed it back to life for ye, by repeating your name-yours! It would turn in its sleep and moan, and by and by would wake and crow and smile in my face again-my love for ye, sir, the one, only man I ever did love, or ever shall! 'Twas alive and moving but just now, but he has stabbed it to death with his wicked tongue and his cruel eyes. 'Tis dead, my lord, and that's the end of it-and of me, as I think. No, I'll not marry him twiceI'm no more use to him, I don't love him. Let me go away.

I want to die!"

She had turned her back upon her enemy as she rose to reply, or, it might be, with the impulse of escape strong upon her, and stood leaning across the Governor's table in the very posture of appeal, her little white hands-Sue had exquisite hands, clever, dainty, and small-pressed upon the green cloth; she looked blankly at the King's portrait upon the wall behind him as she spoke and ended with another dry sob.

The Governor drummed the table with perplexed knuckles.

"Fore George, madam, I pity ye from my heart; I can only approve your deceesion; though what . ." he

ended disconnectedly with more drumming; then brusquely to Boyle, "Ye have your answer; ye may go," and sucked in lips which must otherwise have said their say.

of personal news. hurst caught his eye.

The word HollingHe read:

"Cut it short, sir," said the Governor, drumming.

"I will, sir. I call yourself to witness that my attimpt at reparation has been repulsed. I regret ut. 'Twas honustly mint. In the coorse of a soldier's life I have on various occasions been hurried by my timperamint into regrettable actions (as who has not that is worth the name of a man?), but I have always-always, I repate-offered

suitable satisfaction to the offinded party-to a man my sword, to a woman my hand in marriage."

The Governor's short, harsh laugh, like the bark of a big dog, interrupted the speaker. "Huh! ye did, did ye? Ma conscience, sir! I hold that the five (or is it six?) gentlemen whose blood is upon your hands have the least to curse ye for. What have ye done with your wives? Now, go, in the devil's name, whose most certainly ye are. And, hark ye, I wish never to see your face again save upon parade. Commend me to your Colonel, and request him, in my name, to send me his morning states by whom he will so that it be not by yourself!"

Boyle drew himself up and saluted grandly; he had regained composure and would act his part to the fall of the curtain, an honest man cruelly condemned for a trivial fault. He passed the door and ran the gauntlet of a watchful anteroom with a face of rock, all hell at work behind a mask. Hours later, when the first rage of the stripes sustained by his pride was lessening, and a congested brain was cooling and growing capable of rational thought, he picked up a London newssheet brought by the fast Falmouth Packet, which had outsailed the convoy, and glanced down the paragraphs

The Will of the late Colonel Erasmus

died and was buried at Gibraltar last Year, has been proved under Ten Thousand Pounds Personalty. The whole is devised without Trust and absolutely to the young and beautiful Widow of the late gallant Officer, who was in England at the time of his Death, on the sole Condition that she do spend an Hour beside his Grave within a Twelvemonth of his Decease. It is understood that Mrs. H., in dutiful compliance with the last Wish of her gallant Husband, sailed for Gibraltar by H. M. S. Paladin with the Falmouth Convoy this Month.

"Tondher and turf!" gasped Boyle, and sprang to his feet, cursing his luck and wasted opportunities. At length he paused in his pacing of his room and addressed his own reflection in the glass.

"Con, ye gommeral, remimber yer manners! Sthop blasphemin' now, and be kapin' to the point. Ye will not be skippin' across the neutral ground to the Spaniards: the grub 'd poison ye, let alone the vermin. Nor to the Frinch. Ye will reserve yer fire. 'Tis one woman has bin the spoil of yez, 'tis another must mend ye. Yuss, a good match will set ye to rights, and the widow is the woman for the business. But ye must be quick upon the mark, for this morning's work will be on its travels. Be the powers, I'll do myself the honor of calling upon the leedy this day."

Students of what may be called the pathology of the human soul are agreed that there is a point beyond which a man's better impulses cease to respond to the divine call. "My Spirit shall not always strive with man" is a disputable text, a dictum to divide and discept; but in practice how goes it? Throw over, if you will, the terminology and

mechanism of the theologian, it comes to the same thing in the end; the deliberately determined sinner reaches in his day's saunterings the last fork of the downward track and bears to the left: beyond this, say the saints, his angel, the white Presence who has attended him mournfully since childhood,

refuses to follow; certes, he goes on more swiftly and lightly, and is never more troubled with momentary misgivings. It is to be supposed that this was the final crisis with Major Cornelius Boyle.

Ashton Hilliers.

Belgium has recently witnessed an event of the gravest national importance, an event, in fact, which had only occurred once before in this comparatively young kingdom, an event which may lead in the near future to a profound change in the destinies of the country: King Leopold II., the second of Belgium's sovereigns, died on December 17 at the royal borough of Laeken.

Many memoirs have already appeared in the Press regarding this remarkable ruler, whom the Times rightly terms as "an extraordinary man," and therefore it is perhaps not necessary to characterize once more the striking personality of the deceased Sovereign. He has left many enemies-as all independent and successful men do. He has left many admirers too. But it is a melancholy task to be obliged to add that he leaves but very few friends. His life as a Sovereign certainly commands admiration and respect; his life as a man commands neither respect nor admiration, nor even indulgence. A nation proud of her king looks up to him as a national example. Belgium has not had this example, and Leopold II. could hardly be regarded as an incarnation of the typical family virtues of the Belgians. Even in his last days-nay! his last hours the late King appeared before the amazed world as a man of wonderful energy, as an unrivalled organizer

and business man; but also as an unmerciful father, and finally as a 'man who disregarded and despised the opinion of his subjects. A word of mercy was expected to drop from his lips, but the lips remained closed to the last, and not a gesture was made to recall from an unjust exile two unfortunate princesses, his daughters. Whatever Belgium's gratitude towards the late King may be, the conscience of the people has been stirred deeply by this sad and undignified ending of a reign so prosperous, so brilliant, and even so glorious, and all the warmer therefore was the welcome addressed by the people to the new king, Albert I., who was solemnly proclaimed as the ruler of the Belgians, on December 23, by the Belgian Parliament.

For many years the supreme hopes of Belgium have been resting with the Crown Prince of yesterday. Leopold II. was, in a way, too big a man for his country; Albert I. is more appropriate to the task set before him. His simplicity has won many hearts. His strength of purpose. his youthful goodwill, have given his people full confidence. Time will tell whether these great expectations will be fulfilled, and to what extent.

A tall, slender man, with light hair, blue eyes, there is King Albert. His attitude has something gentle, timid, modest and kind, which appeals to all who see him, and he looks as simple

and acts as simply when he is taking part in an important Court function or when he addresses a meeting of work

men.

The new King has ascended the Belgian throne by what one might call a fluke of destiny. He is only the second nephew of King Leopold, and had either the Count de Hainaut, King Leopold's son, or Prince Baldwin, Count de Flandre's eldest son, remained alive, the new monarch would have lived but an obscure life of a royal prince. But Count de Hainaut died at the age of ten, Count Flanders, the King's brother, in 1905, and Prince Baldwin was mysteriously killed in January 1891. So that the only remaining male offspring of the Belgian Coburgs was Prince Albert.

Little is known of his early years, of the years in which nobody regarded him as a future king. He was brought up with conspicuous simplicity by his parents, Count and Countess of Flanders, whose Court is both strict regarding etiquette and domestic in regard to sentiment. A tutor was given to the young prince, who, even in his early days as a scholar, showed himself what he is still known to be now, a man of study. From his first studies he learnt thoroughly (under the supervision of his master, who is still his private secretary, M. Godefray) Latin, Greek, and four modern languages, French, English, German, and Flemish. Great stress was laid by his entourage on the knowledge of Flemish, for Belgians would very deeply resent even an incomplete knowledge of a tongue spoken by half the inhabitants of the country. To perfect his fluency in the moedertaal ("mother-tongue," so the Flemings put it) a valet was given to the Prince, who did not know a single word of French, and in later years the young Prince could appreciate the wisdom of this precaution; whenever he has had to deliver a speech in the

Flemish provinces of the country, he delivered it in the original language of the Belgian ancestors, and every time he must have realized that by so doing he had reached-and won-the very heart of his future subjects.

Later he took great interest in mechanics, and this taste the King has developed steadily. As a youth he used to remain hours looking at the trains which passed under the Brussels station bridges; or even, when mechanical toys had been given him he would unscrew and undo them, as every child does, but also bring them together and in perfect order, as children, as a rule, forget to do. In a nutshell, the natural gifts of Albert I. draw him towards positive science; had destiny not given him a throne, had he been compelled to work for a livelihood, there is no doubt that his Majesty would have become a remarkable engineer.

In 1890, at the age of fifteen, Prince Albert entered the military school of Brussels. He remained several years there, and the tuition of this establishment was invaluable; it was quickly noticeable that this extraordinarily studious young man would one day show conspicuous mastery of military

science. In the meanwhile he studied diplomatic history with the late Baron Lembermont, the distinguished Belgian diplomat, whose memory is gratefully preserved by all Belgians for having. by an advantageous treaty, freed the Scheldt from the Dutch domination; he studied economics with M. Maxweiler, the Director of the Brussels Institute

of Sociology. In 1892 the young Prince, who was already considered as the heir-apparent (for his father, Count of Flanders, the late King's brother and direct successor, was an invalid and would have abdicated, had he ever been called upon to reign), entered the regular army, and was introduced to the regiment of Brussels Grenadiers by Leopold II., who on that