such a position as this; and she looked so beautiful-so beautiful!

The latter consideration was not without its effect on him, even in the exercise of his profession. 'Gentleman Jim,' as his mates affirmed in their nervous English, became a fool of the deepest crimson dye whenever a woman was concerned, and this woman was in his eyes as an angel of light.

Nevertheless, instinctively rather than of intention, he muttered hoarsely

'Drop it, miss, I warn you. One word out loud and I'll shoot, as sure as you stand there.'

'Shoot away!' she answered with perfect composure; 'you will save me the trouble of giving an alarm. They expect it, and are waiting for it every moment below stairs. Light those candles, and let us see what damage you have done before you return the plunder.'

A pair of wax-candles stood on the chimneypiece, and he obeyed mechanically, wondering at himself the while. His cunning, however, had not entirely deserted him, and he left his pistol lying on the table, ready to snatch it away if she tried to take possession. It was thus he gauged her confidence, and seeing she scarcely noticed the weapon, argued that powerful assistance must be near at hand to render this beautiful young lady so arbitrary and so unconcerned. His admiration burst out in spite of his discomfiture and critical position.

'Well, you are a cool one!' he exclaimed, in accents of mingled vexation and approval. 'A cool one and a stunner, I'm blessed if you ain't! No offence, but I never see your likes yet, not since I was born. Come, miss, let's cry quits. You pass me out o' this on the quiet. I dessay as I can make shift to get down without the ladder, an' I'll leave all these here gimcracks just as I found 'em. Now I've seen ye once, I'm blessed if I'd take so much as an ear-drop, unless it was in the way of a keepsake. Pass me out, miss, and I'll promise-no, I'm blowed if I think as I can promisenever to come here no more.'

Undisguised admiration-the ad

miration always acceptable to a woman when accompanied with respect-shone in Gentleman Jim's dark eyes. He seemed under a spell, and while he acknowledged its strength, had no power, nay, had no wish, to resist its influence. When on such jobs as these it was his habit to observe an unusual sobriety. He was glad now to think of his adherence to that rule. Had he been drunk, he night, peradventure, have insulted this divinity. What had come over him? He felt almost pleased to know he was in her power, and yet she treated him like the dirt beneath her feet.

'No insolence, sir,' she said, in a commanding voice. 'Let me see, first of all, that every one of my trinkets is in its place. There, that bracelet would have brought you money; those diamonds would have been valuable if you could have got them clear off. You must have learnt your trade very badly to suppose that with such things in the house we keep no guard. Come, I am willing to believe that distress brought you to this. Listen. You are in my power, and I will show you mercy. If I give you five pounds now, on the spot, and let you go, will you promise to try and get your bread as an honest man?'

The tears came in his eyes. This woman, then, that looked so like an angel, was angel all through. Yet, touched as he felt in his better nature, the proletary instinct bade him try once more if her effort to get rid of him originated in pity or fear, and he muttered, 'Guineas! make it guineas, miss, and I'll say done.'

Not a shilling more, not a farthing,' she answered, moving her hand as if to put it on the bell-pull. 'It cannot matter to me,' she added, in a tone of the most complete indifference, 'but while I am about it I think I would rather be the making of an honest man than the destruction of a rogue.'

She

Her acting was perfect. seemed so cold, so impassive, so completely mistress of the position, and all the time her heart was beating as the gambler's beats, albeit in winning vein, ere he lifts the box from off the imprisoned dice-as the lion-tamer's beats while he spurns in its very den the monster that could crush him with a movement, and that yet he holds in check by an imaginary force, irresistible only so long as it is unresisted.

Such situations have a horrible fascination of their own. I have even known them prolonged to gratify a morbid thirst for excitement; but I think Miss Bruce was chiefly anxious to be released from her precarious position, and to get rid of her visitor as soon as she could. Even her resolute nerves

were beginning to give way, and she knew her own powers well enough to mistrust a protracted trial of endurance. Feminine fortitude is so apt to break down all at once, and Miss Bruce, though a courageous specimen of her sex, was but a woman who had wrought herself up for a gallant effort, after all. She was quite unprepared though for its results. Gentleman Jim snatched up his pistol, stowed it away in his breast-pocket, as if heartily ashamed of it, brought out from that receptacle a pearl necklace and a pair of coral ear-rings, dashed them down on the table with an imprecation, and looking ridiculously sheepish, thus delivered him

self

'Five pounds, miss! Five devils! If ever I went for to ask five shillings of you, or five fardens, may the hands rot off at my wrists and the teeth drop out of my head. Strike me blind, now, this moment, in this here room, if I'd take so much as a pin's head that you valued, not if my life depended on it and there wasn't no other way of getting a morsel of bread! Look ye here, miss. No offence; I'm but a roughand-ready chap and you're a lady. I never come a-nigh one afore. Now I know what they mean when they talk of a real lady, and I see what it is puts such a spirit into them swells as lives with the likes of you. But a rough chap needn't be a blind chap. I come in here for to clean out your jewel-box, I tell ye fair. I don't think as I meant to have illtreated you, and now I know as I couldn't have done it, but I wanted them gimcracks just the same.

If

so be as you'd like to see me shopped and lagged, you take and ring that there bell, and look if I go for to move a foot from this blessed spot. There! If so be as you bid me walk out free from that there winder, take and count these here now at once, and see there's not one missing and not one broke. Say the word, miss-which is it to be?'

The reaction was coming on fast. Maud dared not trust her voice, but she pointed to the window with a gesture in which she preserved an admirable imitation of confidence and command. Gentleman Jim threw up the sash, but paused ere he ventured his plunge into the darkness outside.

'Look ye here, miss,' he muttered in a hoarse whisper with one leg over the ledge, 'if ever you wants a chap to do you a turn, don't ye forget there's one inside, this waistcoat as will take a leap in a halter any day to please ye. You drop a line to "Gentleman Jim" at the Sunflower, High Holborn. Oh! I can read, bless ye, and write and cipher too. What I says I sticks to. No offence, miss. I wonder will I ever see you again?"

He darted back for an instant, much to Maud's dismay, snatched a knot of ribbon which had fallen from her dress on the carpet, and was gone.

She heard his leap on the gravel below, and his cautious footsteps receding towards the park. Then she passed her hands over her face and looked about her as one who wakes from a dream.

'It was an escape I suppose,' she said, 'and I ought to have been horribly frightened; yet I never seemed to lose the upper hand with him for a moment. How odd that even a man like that should be such a fool! No wiser and no cooler than Mr. Ryfe. What is it, I wonder what is it, and how long will it last?'

CHAPTER VI.

A REVERSIONARY INTEREST.

Although Dorothea could assume on occasions so bright an exterior as I have in a previous chapter endeavoured to describe, her normal state was undoubtedly that which is best conveyed by the epithet 'grimy.' Old Mr. Bargrave, walking serenely into his office at eleven, and meeting this handmaiden on the stairs, used to wonder how so much dirt could accumulate on the human countenance, when irrigated, as Dorothea's red eyelids too surely testified, by daily tears. Yes, she had gone about her work of late with a heavy heart and a moody brow. Hers was at best a dull, dreary life, but in it there grew a noxious weed which she was pleased to cherish for a flower. Well, it was withering every day before her eyes, and all the tears she could shed were not enough to keep it alive. Ah! when the ship is going down under our very feet, I don't think it much matters what may be our rank and rating on board. The cook's mate in the galley is no less dismayed than the admiral in command. Dorothea's light, so to speak, was only a tallow-candle, yet to put it out was to leave the poor woman very desolate in the dark. So Mr. Bargrave ventured one morning to ask if she felt quite well, but the snappish manner in which his inquiries were met, as though they masked a load of hidden sarcasm and insult, caused the old gentleman to scuffle into his office with unusual activity, much disturbed and humiliated, while resolved never so to commit himself again.

Into that office we must take the liberty of following him, tenanted as it is only by himself and Tom Ryfe.

The latter, extremely well dressed, wears a posy of spring flowers at his buttonhole, and betrays in his whole bearing that he is under some extraneous influence of an unbusiness-like nature. Bargrave subsides into his leather chair with a grunt, shuffles his papers, dips a pen in the inkstand, and looks over his spectacles at his nephew.

'Waste of time, waste of capital, Tom,' says he, with some irritation.. 'Mind, I washed my hands of it from the first. You've been at work now for some months; that's your look-out, and it's been kept apart

and separate from the general business-that's mine.'

'I've got Tangle's opinion here,' answered Tom; 'I won't ask you to look at it, uncle. He's dead against us. Just what you said six months back. There's no getting over that trust-deed, nor through it, nor round it, nor any way to the other side of it. I've done my d-dest, and we're not a bit better off than when we began.'

He spoke in a cheerful, almost an exulting tone, quite unlike a man worsted in a hard and protracted struggle.

'I'm sorry for the young lady,' observed Bargrave, 'but I never expected anything else. It's a fine estate and it must go to the male heir. She has but a small settlement, Tom, very inadequate to her position, as I told poor Mr. Bruce many a time. He used to say everything would be set right by his will, and now one of these girls is left penniless, and the other with a pittance, a mere pittance, brought up, as I make no doubt she was, to believe herself an heiress.'

'One of them!' exclaimed Tom. 'What do you mean?'

'Why, that poor thing who was born a few weeks too soon,' answered Bargrave. 'She's totally unprovided for. With regard to Miss Bruce, there is a settlement. Two hundred a year, Tom, for life, nothing more. I told you so when you undertook the job. And now who's to pay your costs?'

'Not you, uncle,' answered Tom, flippantly, 'so don't distress yourself on that score.'

'I don't, indeed,' observed Bargrave, with emphasis. 'You've had your own time to work this, on the understanding, as you know, that it was to be worked at your own risk. I haven't interfered; it was no affair of mine. But your costs will be heavy, Tom, I can't help seeing that. Tangle's opinion don't come so cheap, you see, though it's word for word the same as mine. I would have let you have it for nothing, and anybody else for six and eightpence.'

The costs will be heavy,' answered Tom, still radiant. 'I