helpless as this strange flow of words fell from the man's lips. The dark ruins, and the grass, and the distant light, all danced before his eyes in one confused mass, and the only thought that stood out clear before him was this: Richard Galton's tale was true. He never stopped to reason about it. The terrible earnest and reality which burnt this man's words into his heart left no room for mistrust or hope. A little while the two stood there facing each other, and then the reaction which follows such stormy passions as his came upon the stranger, and he staggered to the railings and sank into a sitting posture with his forehead in his hands.

Why did you stop me?' he said. 'It's cool down there, and my head is on fire. I'am quiet enough now; the devil is gone out of me. Leave me to myself, if you are a wise man.'

Ralph was silent a moment, and then he bent his white face down close to the hands which looked so cold and bony in the moonlight.

'As you are a man,' he said, in a low voice, as you shall answer for every word spoken here, was she your promised wife?'

'I swear it.'

'And she threw you over forme?'

For your money, you fool. Go, I tell you, while I am quiet, and free me from this devilish torment. Hush! who's that?'

Ralph started back, for a hand was put on his arm drawing him away, and a third voice broke the spell, which tempted him still to question.

'I didn't mean to be a listener,' said the count, gently, but come away now.'

Like a man in a dream, Ralph turned and went down the hill with his cousin. He hardly knew, indeed, where he was going or what it was that had happened; he only felt that terrible, dead weight of oppression; of something in the background which he must think over by-and-by when he should be able for it; that shrinking of the soul from such an examination, which

comes upon us with some heavy and unlooked-for blow. Half way down the hill the hand on his arm grew heavier with a momentary pressure, and the count spoke, a novel gentleness in his tone.

'Poor old boy!' he said, 'I'm sorry.'

Ralph turned with a sudden bitter and unaccountable irritation, and shook him off.

Leave me to myself, Dick. I don't want pity, and there are times when a man can't brook being worried.'

The count walked on, and Ralph, leaning against the wall, watched the round balls of light far away on the promenade, and heard once more faintly the music of the 'Guards' Waltz.' Was she amongst that dim throng of moving figures? Only last night they had talked together beside the sea wall; and a dull sense of self-contempt came over him as he remembered his own happiness at being near her. With a common spirit of self-torment Ralph left his position and went to walk up and down amongst the gay people on the promenade. He would go over it all again; he would call back the dream which had made that place of bustle and glitter so sweet a paradise to him; he even sought out the exact spot where Evelyn had stood listening to him the night before.

False,' cried out Ralph, with a silent, inward cry. It was all he could say or think. The word was

stamped upon everything he saw, in his bitterness. False-to her lover, to him, and to herself; false and mercenary.

Like the rest of the world,' he said aloud, turning from the sea; 'I've done with it.'

Some one looked up into his face astonished, but he did not care. What were appearances to him? What was life-what anything?

'Dick,' said the captain, coming suddenly upon his cousin that night, 'let us go. Lady Julia must have a farewell card, and then for Egypt, or Panama; California, or the Catacombs; but the farther away the better. I'll never see Old England again.'

CHAPTER V.

E SCIOLTO.

Never again. Away from it all and forget it. What was this foolish dream of a few weeks that it should wreck a life like his? Captain Galton walked up and down the platform, glancing aimlessly into the carriages of the train that stood waiting its time. Not that he cared about choosing his seat; but he was restless and miserable, impatient to be off; and he could not stand as the count did, to all appearance absorbed in the conversation which was going on briskly between the station-master and some of the passengers. Chancing to look at his cousin, however, Mr. Galton's attention was caught by the expression of his face; it had a strangely eager look; the nostrils were dilated and the thin lips compressed. Ralph's eyes rested upon him with a languid wonder, and when he looked up and saw them he started and went hurriedly to meet his cousin.

'Not there,' he said, sharply, as the captain paused. 'Take the next, Ralph; we shall have it to ourselves.'

Again Ralph looked up at him wondering. The gentlemen to whose conversation Richard Galton had been listening had chosen the carriage before which he stood, but in a general way the count liked to have fellow-travellers. A fit of perverseness seized the country squire.

This is as good as any other,' he said, getting in. 'It doesn't matter to us about being alone.'

The count, biting his moustache as he followed, muttered once more between his teeth E sciolto,' and threw himself back upon the cushions. The other occupants of the carriage continued their talk, but Ralph was staring vacantly into the flat expanse of heath and moorland through which the train had begun to move, and he paid no attention to them. All at once, however, a sentence caught his ear, and made him turn away from the window.

'They think he must have thrown himself from the Castle cliff. A one

armed sailor that stands at the gate begging saw just such a figure go up the cliff late in the evening.'

Then Ralph leaned forward and asked a question.

'Yes. I wonder you didn't hear of it,' was the reply. The whole town was talking of it when we came away. He was a lunatic, you see, and had managed to get away from his keeper somehow. A fishingsmack brought in the body early this morning.'

Ralph shot a glance at his cousin, but the count's eyes were closed, and he seemed to be asleep.

'It's a romantic story too,' proceeded the gentleman. The poor young fellow was engaged to be married, and the lady threw him over for a rich merchant. They say he had been mad ever since, always searching for his rival, and imagining every stranger that came in contact with him to be the man.'

The captain's hands were pressed tightly into each other, and he spoke again slowly.

And-the lady?'

Oh, she has been married some time. The daughter of an Irish peer -poor, of course, so it was best for her. This young fellow was only reading for the bar. I forget the name-Warrenne or Warrington, I

think.'

Again Ralph glanced at his cousin, and he saw that the sleep was sham, and the count was furtively watching him out of the halfclosed eyes. An angry spot came into Captain Galton's cheeks, and he turned again to the flat landscape, thinking with desperate impatience what a mad fool he had been. His fellow-passengers talked on, but he heard nothing more. The count, watching him, saw once or twice a suppressed quiver about his lips which boded, he thought, no good to himself, and Richard Galton sighed, for he had done a mean trick to no purpose. When they reached York, the captain sprang out with an impatient At last;' and on the platform he turned to his cousin.

'Dick, you have played me false. You knew all this and never told me.'

The count shrugged his shoulders. 'I only knew this morning. You were half cured, amico; why should I interfere to bring back the disease?'

'Our ways are different henceforth,' said Ralph, briefly.

He walked a few steps down the platform, and then hesitated. The same impulse must have moved the two men; for when he paused and looked back he saw that the count had stopped also and was looking after him with an unusual wistfulness in his face. Ralph went back and held out his hand.

'I can forgive you, Dick, sooner than my own rash credulity. We may never meet again, and it won't do to part like this.'

'You're a good fellow,' said the count, with an odd mixture of pride and humility; 'and I wish you all the happiness that I would have kept from you if I could-that is, if it is happiness, which I doubt. And so good-bye, old fellow. You'll hear from the Nyanza yet.'

'Come back with me,' said Ralph, with sudden compassion.

The count shook his head. He knew that he was not wanted; and the life that he saw stretched out before his cousin would not suit him. He was one of that restless tribe to be met with occasionally

scattered here and there about the continent or the remoter corners of the world; at home in all scenes, yet never at rest; he will wander from place to place a solitary man, until age or disease comes on, and he creeps away, sick and frightened, to some wayside inn, to die amongst strangers, alone as he has lived.

He

But Ralph had little thought to spare for the wandering count. His mind, which had been so wavering when he took that walk up the Castle cliff, wavered no longer. knew now what this chance that he had so nearly flung away was to him. And under the lamps on the promenade he told Evelyn Tennent tho story of his encounter, and another story, as old as the hills, but always new. And I think it would have done even the count's impassive heart good to see the radiant look which beamed on Lady Julia's poor tired face as she sat under the colonnade that night and knew that the future baronet was won, in spite of all those absurdly romantic ideas with which her youngest daughter had been wont to drive the poor lady to despair. Then comes the National Anthem, and the bustle is greater than ever; then the promenade is deserted, the lights are out, and nothing but the perpetual hush of the sea breaks the silence.

never tells what the baskett woman sold. It could not be much; for the money charged against the baskett woman is small in quantity. Thus when, by some glut of the itinerant market, 2 Baskett Wemen' arrive together, the whole outlay is twopence. But the entry which succeeds to these reveals the nature of their wares. • For sheeling y° nutts,' fourpence. The same day an ownce of Nuttmeggs' cost sevenpence. So something pleasant was in hand. Ladies will read with surprise that on November 1, in the same year, 'A Cods head Oyesters Shrimps Perches Red Herrings' cost, in one lump, five shillings. The same day a Peecke Loafe' cost ninepence; a 'Legg of mutton,' two shillings and fourpence; a 'Loyne of mutton,' one shilling and ninepence; and two ' Rooks,' twopence. So old rooks were then eaten.

The fifth of November seems to have been an occasion of festivity. More than a (small folio) page records the edibles and potables of that day. 'White Bread' has a separate entry to itself of threepence; then there was 'Bread' elevenpence, and Small Bread' threepence. Wine cost seven shillings and sixpence: and, strange to say, 'Corkes' two shillings. Most likely the wine was bought from the wood and bottled for the occasion. Good corks are now worth about a halfpenny each. If that was their price on November 5, 1700, it is obvious that a large list of toasts had to be got through that day. Do not you wish you could see it? One is not surprised at finding that, on the 12th, the lady 'Payd y Brewer' Two pounds, five shillings, sevenpence. O monstrous! But one half-pennyworth of bread to this intol rable deal of sack.'

We get a little information as to family movements by the following entry:

"This Peece of a Weeke ends Nouem: 11: 1700. Then my Brother Will: came to Towne, and that coms to £05. 04. 03

But, the lady goes on to say'From my Brother's goeing into -sheere till His Returne, yo House came to: £68: 04: 04:' (not

a farthing, but })' whereof his Part £039: 15: 11.

This day begins the next page, 'My Brother Will: came to town: Nou 11. 1700.' Naturally follows, Wine' 03 shillings: 'a Loyn of Veale' tenpence: 'Puddens and Sawsedges,' tenpence: 'a Peecke Loafe,' one shilling and sixpence. Whether the arrival of the brother had had a beneficial influence on the baker, or how else it came about, I cannot tell; but, on the 14th, 'a Peecke Loafe' appears at one shilling and fourpence. On the 15th 'a Quart of Oyesters' is two shillings: 'a Copell of Duckes,' two shillings and fourpence: 'three Fowles,' four shillings: 9 lb. of Butter,' five shillings and threepence: ‘halfe A 100 of Egges,' seven shillings: 'halfe A 100 of Appells,' eight pence; '2 Lemmons, sharing the fall in prices, twopence: and, a 'Hog's face and blacke Puddens,' thirteen pence. Then follows sugar. 'Six Pound and of Shuger,' six shillings and a penny halfpenny. We have tainly improved upon this. And wo pounds of Reassons of ye Sunn' cost ninepence.

r

The cost of a cook comes out on the 16th of this month: The Cookes dyet and Coch hier,' three pounds one shilling: The cooke's halfeyear's wages, Three Pounds.'

The account is continued by the lady to December 23, 1701. And during that period I find the following prices :

In 1700, a Patterege' cost one shilling and fourpence. This I presume to be a partridge. The entry For Pallets and Coxcombes' is perplexing. They cost unitedly fivepence. Five Pare of Soules' cost two shillings and elevenpence. 'All Spice' threepence. A quart of Veneger' fivepence. Eight pounds of cheese, ten shillings and sixpence. Eight Pounds of 'Poorke,' two shillings and fourpence. Ten Pounds of Pattatahs' tenpence. The spelling of our treacherous and failing root shows that was still felt to be an exotic. We have lived to hear of a horse being entered to run under the name of 'Pot 8 os;' a piece of pleasantry which would