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him faithful and affectionate. Self-interest might have something to do with his fidelity, it is true; but what action or what sentiment in life is not governed more or less by self-interest? Lord Deverill did not believe in affection without a motive, or in gratitude for past favours unmingled with the hope of benefits to come.

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Mildmay knows that it is in my power to advance his prospects,' he said to himself. 'It is not likely that he would be unfaithful to me, or discourteous to my wife. And, in any case, he is a useful watch-dog; and will see that no court fops hang about Alice absence.'

in my

The

Lord Deverill was away something less than a month. mission he had been charged with was a delicate one, involving negotiations of some length; and it was business only, and not the charm of the French capital, which kept George Deverill so long away from his wife. He wrote to her twice during his absence; but she wrote to him several times-long letters full of girlish prattle about the trifles which made her life, and breathing boundless love for her husband.

The hour came at last, a sultry sunless twilight late in July, when the rowers went up the stream with the returning traveller. He had sent no notice of his coming home, preferring to drop unawares upon his household, and to surprise his wife, pleasantly perhaps, pleasantly without doubt, if there were truth in those loving letters of hers. A strange eagerness to return to her had come upon him within the last day or two, an almost feverish haste and impatience; and as he drew nearer to the end of his journey that inward fever grew stronger, till it became a kind of agony.

It was an oppressive evening, a white mist brooding over the river, and almost blotting out the tall pointed roofs and slender steeples of the city; not a breath of air stirring, and a sickly yellow light upon the water, instead of the rosy glow of sunset. Such an atmosphere was enough to give a man a fever, Lord Deverill said to himself, anxious to account for that fierce heat and burning in his blood. The light wherry shot in to the shore at last, and one. of the men moored it to the lion's mouth, beside the stone landingstair. There was another boat fastened there, with a man sitting in it fast asleep, at whom my lord stared wonderingly, not caring, however, to rouse and question him. He could learn all he wanted to know within.

There was a light in my lady's favourite chamber-a single lamp, which had a pale yellow radiance in the twilight-and the sound of music floated through the open window. George Deverill went quickly up the first flight of the narrow staircase with a light step, but half way up he stopped suddenly, and his face grew dark as midnight.

Mingled with the sound of the harpsichord there came to him

two voices; one his wife's dear soprano, the other a tenor voice that was strange to him.

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So my wife has company,' he said to himself angrily, and demonstrates her sorrow for her husband's absence by singing loveditties with some strange cavalier! There was no hint of this in

her letters.'

He listened for a few moments, creeping stealthily upwards till he was close to the little door in the tapestried wall; an ill-made door, with cracks wide enough to enable a spy to see all that was taking place within the chamber.

The music had ceased. There was no little crowd of gay company in the room, such as George Deverill had expected to see. There was no one but his wife, who sat facing him, with her white arms folded listlessly upon the closed harpsichord, and a young man in a priest's dress-a young man with a fair perfect face and flowing chestnut hair-who stood by her side, leaning with one elbow on the instrument, and looking down at her in thoughtful silence.

It was a simple group enough, and would have made a graceful unmeaning subject for a painter of interiors; but the sight, simple as it was, set George Deverill's heart beating with a murderous fury. They might have heard the throbbing, he thought, these two, had they not been so absorbed in the guilty delight of each other's company.

Guilty? Yes, Lord Deverill had no doubt of his wife's guilt. Perhaps he had always expected some such horror as this. In any case he met the calamity half way. This secret meeting-for secret he had no doubt it was; the priest's costume-a disguise, of course. Was there not evidence enough of his dishonour? To him it seemed indisputable as the midday sun, palpable as the earth upon which he trod.

He stood still as death at the door, looking in upon the lighted chamber through the open space beneath the clumsy upper hinge. 'And you must really return to Holland, Edward?' Alice asked anxiously.

'Ay, dearest, there is no help for it,' the young man answered with a sigh; I have a home and a position yonder; here I am nothing, less than nothing; a standing shame and reproach in the eyes of one you know of. 'Tis hard to part from the one fond creature who loves me; but it would be harder to remain, and hang about you, and be nothing to you, disowned and nameless.'

Alice Deverill sighed, and for some moments remained silent, playing idly with the trinkets hanging on her jewelled châtelainea gift from him, the outraged husband, who stood at the door watching her, with fatal thoughts busy in his brain.

'When must you start, Edward ?' she asked presently.

To-morrow night. There is a vessel sails for Rotterdam after midnight; I have made my plans to travel by that.'

'Shall I see you no more, then ?'

'Nay, dearest. If it be safe, I will come to you to-morrow at

the usual hour.'

that

For the last time. And we shall never more sing the old duets my father was so fond of in the happy days at Treherne Court. It was a foolish fancy of mine to wish to sing one of our old favourites with you to-night, was it not, Edward?'

'Rather an imprudent fancy, I own,' the young man answered, smiling. Your servants would be set wondering, if they heard you singing duets with your father confessor.'

Her father confessor! Yes, the priest's frock was a disguise; there was no trace of the tonsure on that fair young head. This man was some early lover of Alice Treherne's, some one to whom she had given her heart, but who had been too poor to claim her for his wife.

'She wanted a wealthy dupe,' George Deverill said to himself; and she found one. Once furnished with a rich husband, 'twas easy to retain the favoured lover. O God, to think that smooth fair face I have idolised is but the mask of a foul false heart!'

The servants' quarters are too remote for them to overhear us,' said Alice. 'And you will come to-morrow, at the usual hour, Edward?'

'Yes, dearest. return before then ?'

I suppose there is no chance of your husband's

'I think not. There has been no letter to announce his coming. And even if he met you, your sacred character would prevent anything like curiosity.'

'I suppose so. Good-night, my bright one.'

He took her in his arms and kissed her, with the calm air of a man to whom that embrace was a matter of course, and Alice accepted his kiss with the same air. Between lovers of such old standing it was naturally so. Lord Deverill gripped his swordhilt. Should he spring out upon him and slay him as he stood there? No; he must needs have a darker vengeance than that. And what was he, this nameless adventurer? Dirt, to be spurned with his foot by and by. It was she-she, the traitress-with whom he had to settle his account first.

To-morrow will be time enough,' he said to himself.

Alice opened a little casket of curious Venetian work, and took out a heap of gold, which she pressed upon her lover.

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Nay, Edward, I know that you must want money,' she said, as he tried to refuse it; and you need have no scruple in accepting this paltry gold. You cannot imagine how rich I am. My husband loads me with favours. And now, good-night; for I see you are in a hurry to be gone.'

He kissed her again, and they both came towards the tapestried

door. Lord Deverill drew back into the narrow passage. It was quite dark out here, and there was no fear of his being seen, even if Alice brought the lamp to light her secret visitor downstairs, as she did presently. She stood at the top of the narrow staircase, with the lamp in her hand, till the door below closed with a grating sound, followed by the splash of oars as the boat left the shore. How lovely she looked, as she stood thus with the soft light of the lamp upon her face! Lord Deverill was startled by her beauty; it dawned upon him like a revelation, after the interval in which he had not seen her. There was something almost supernal in that fair radiant countenance, the highest charm of which was its look of perfect innocence. And yet she was false, beyond all measure false. He stood in the deep shadow of the narrow passage until Alice had returned to her room, and then crept softly to a door opening upon the gallery, which communicated with the principal rooms and with the grand staircase. All the house was wrapped in a half darkness, a solitary lamp glimmering faintly here and there. But there was light enough for Lord Deverill, who went slowly down the shallow stairs to his favourite apartment a spacious library upon the ground floor, a dark and sombre chamber, out of which there. opened a little room wherein the secretary was accustomed to perform his daily duties.

The library was dark, but there was a light burning in the inner room, and here my lord found Algernon Mildmay, with a dingy-looking folio volume open on the table before him, reading studiously. He looked up with a start at the sound of his patron's footsteps, and was still more startled by the ghastly pallor of the dark face, in which there was wont to be a deep crimson glow, like the lurid gleam of a stormy sunset. But he said nothing. Only his heart beat a little quicker than usual, and a voice within him asked, Is it coming?'

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This is, indeed, a pleasant surprise, my lord,' he said in his courtliest tone. 'I did not even hear the bustle of your arrival in the hall without, and you came upon me like a ghost.':

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There was no noise in the hall. I let myself in with my own

Intending to come unawares upon my Lady Deverill, no doubt. What a joyful surprise for her!'

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Yes, when we meet I doubt not that it will be-a surprise,' my lord answered with a diabolical smile, and a long pause before the last two words.

'You have not seen her yet, then?'

'We have not yet met. I have a fancy for keeping the surprise a little longer. I am in the humour for a jest, you see, Mildmay. Come,' he went on, flinging himself heavily into a capacious threecornered arm-chair opposite his young kinsman-'come, sirrah, tell

me how my wife has beguiled her leisure during my absence.

Has

she been very gay, gadding about from house to house to air her diamonds, and display the last fashion in a brocaded robe or a

flounced petticoat ?'

Nay, my lord, Lady Deverill has little taste for that kind of pleasure, as I think you know. She has, indeed, a strange love of And she has an ardent piety,

solitude, very rare in one so young. which may seem a little overstrained perchance in the eyes of a man of the world like you or me, but is, nevertheless, a charming attribute in a woman. She has spent much of her time in religious exercises, I fancy, in your absence, and has been visited by her confessor every evening for the last fortnight.'

Her confessor! What, the old French priest from the queendowager's chapel ?'

'No, my lord.

This is a young man, a Frenchman also, I conclude; for on the few occasions when I have met him on the stairs, he has spoken to me in that language.'

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Indeed! And he has been with my lady every evening? I did not think she had so many sins to confess.

favoured with lengthy interviews ?'

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Has this priest been

Nay, my lord, I cannot answer for the period of his visits. He has used the water staircase. I have seen his boat waiting there sometimes, when I have left the house by that way myself.' 'At what hour?'

'I have seldom gone away until ten o'clock.'
A late hour for confession, truly.

Perchance the holy father is with her now. I will not run the risk of interrupting their pious

exercises.'

'But, my lord, your coming can hardly seem untimely, let it happen when it will. Lady Deverill must needs be rejoiced by your

return.'

Besides, it would
I am in England

'Perhaps, but it is my fancy not to disturb her. be but a meeting and a parting in the same hour. only as a bird of passage. I sleep in the City to-night, and sail for Antwerp at daybreak. I have business of moment to settle in the Netherlands.'

'Private business of his majesty's, my lord ?'

'Of the king's—yes.'

You have been at Whitehall, then, to-night, my lord?'

'I have received my orders, sir,' Lord Deverill answered sternly. This mission is a matter that lies between his majesty and myself. I permit no one to play the spy upon my affairs.'

The secretary murmured a humble apology.

Let me accompany you to your lodgings in the City, my lord,' he asked. 'I may be of some use to you.'

'No, there is nothing you can do for me-except keep the secret SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. F.S. VOL. XII.

KK

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