'He may. Thousands of people, millions of people have had time to die in twenty years.' 'And yet she is alive.' 'And yet she is alive.'

He repeated these words slowly and bitterly, stooping forward and looking down at the carpet as he spoke, his hands clasped loosely together, his whole attitude one of the deepest despondency, a world of misery in his tone.

'Yes, she is alive, evidently,' he said, as if he had not previously uttered almost those identical words; and he rose and took a hurried turn up and down the small apartment, coming at last close to the fireplace and leaning against the chimneypiece while he went on,

'I wonder why I want to know where she is, what she is doing? What can it profit me to learn anything about her? Why am I raking up the old shame and the old sorrow? Can you enlighten me? How is it that since I have returned to England this time every thought, every effort, seems directed to that one object?'

Do you recognise him now, dear reader, as he stands bending an earnest gaze upon his companion, as he lays one hand on the mantelshelf and stretches out the other with a gesture of weary appeal?

He is more than twenty years older; he has worked hard; he has lived by the sweat of his brow; he has been scorched by many suns; worn by the rigour of labour; there is gray sprinkled amongst the brown of his thick hair; a beard and moustache almost cover the lower part of his face; the frank blue eyes have an expression in them absent when he lay at death's door far east in London. Yet it is the same man, with the same loyal

tender heart beating in his bosom, who, in his younger days, went into the battle of life so bravely and with so rare a courage, and set about his poor home flowers fair and sweet, if humble-typical of the garlands of happiness and contentment with which his cheerful honest nature would have wreathed and beautified the lowly lot he had chosen, all for love.

Yes, the same: the man Sir John Moffat believed had gone down in the great ocean years and years previously; who all in the golden summer weather returned to Sunnydown Farm, to find his wife faithless, his child gone, hope dead, every bud and bloom and fruit of existence lying scattered in the dust.

The same, back in England once more; a rich man now, by what seemed the merest accident lodged in Palace Gardens, so near wife and child and quondam friend, three minutes' walk would have sufficed to take him inside the doors of Holyrood House; and yet so far off in the tangled wilderness of London life he might, for all he knew or guessed of their whereabouts, have been still at the other side of the world.

'I never wish to see her more,' he said, finding his companion did not answer; and yet I feel as if I should know no peace of mind or rest of body till I discover where she is, and what she is doing. How is this? can you explain it ?

You must desire to find your child,' Miss Aggles-for it was indeed she-said evasively.

'Why,' he persisted, if she be not dead she has most probably grown up like her mother.'

'No,' interrupted Miss Aggles vehemently, never! She could not so change; the little one was the sweetest, tenderest, softest-' She stopped suddenly, and he

remained silent, lost in thought, wandering amid a maze of conjecture.

'I was happier in the Bush,' he said at last. 'I wish we had never returned to England.'

'It is right you should try to trace Rachel,' she replied; and in justice to yourself you ought also to find out what Mira is doing.'

'Why?' he asked. 'Because she paused for an instant, and then went on firmly, 'you are not yet an old man ; you may want to form fresh ties for yourself. Why should you not?' 'Do you mean marry again? he inquired.

'Well, yes, that is what I do mean.'

He shook his head sorrowfully. 'I have no heart,' he answered. 'I think it broke that February day when I found the wife for whose sake I had sacrificed so much would give up nothing for me-meant, weak and sick as I still was, to let me go alone across the sea.'

Miss Aggles did not speak, she only looked at him with a sympathy truer than any words could have been.

"The pain of it hurts me still at times,' he went on, with a little hurry in his voice. 'I am sure I cannot tell why, for I knew what she was before that day. I look back, do you know, and think of it all as if I were quite another person, pitying the young husband just creeping out of the valley of the shadow. Foolish, ridiculous, is it not? But O, how I loved her once! how happy I thought I could be with her even in the humblest home!'

And she cared for nothing but herself,' said Miss Aggles; not for the old man who was proud of her; not for me, who tended her in every illness she

ever knew; not for servant or animal about the farm; not for you, who gave up all your prospects for her; not for the child she bore. Very sure am I, wherever she is or whatever she is doing, she has no thought or care or trouble but for herself.'

He did not make any reply. Even though she had stripped every green leaf, and left the branch of his existence destitute of even one bud of promise, he could not speak against the woman who had once lain in his bosom and dwelt in his heart. When he began to think of the wretchedness of the end, the brightness of the beginning came before him with its glistening sunbeams, its wealth of beauty, its dreams of hope, its glamour of youth and romance and love!

'Has Millicent been out today?' he asked after a pause, evidently desirous of changing the subject.

No,' answered Miss Aggles dryly. Her father has not been well; she said she did not wish to go out.'

'Lassils called? he inquired. 'Yes, he came this evening, and stayed for a cup of coffee.'

How do matters proceed?' 'They do not proceed at all,' said Miss Aggles.

'On which side do they halt?'

Not on his, you may be sure,' answered Miss Aggles. He is willing enough, anxious enough too, for the affair to be settled.'

'I wish it was settled; then we might leave England, or at all events London.'

'Take my advice,' said Miss Aggles, as she folded up her knitting and stuck her needles carefully in the work, and do not leave London till you have exhausted every possible means to find your wife.'

'I have no intention of relin

quishing the quest now,' he answered. The plunge has been made, and I must swim on to the end. It will be through strange waters, though, I am afraid,' he added, as he opened the door for Miss Aggles to pass out.

All that night long he lay awake; it was quite morning before he fell into a troubled sleep, and when he got up and went down to breakfast he felt, as he himself said, more tired than he had ever done after a hard day's work on the sheep-run.

'I am sure I often wish I was back there,' he remarked, sipping his tea reflectively.

The words might not be much, but they were uttered in a tone of such conviction that a very pretty young lady who made the third at table raised her eyes and looked at him inquiringly.

Then, though he never glanced back at her, and there seemed nothing whatever to have caused the emotion, she coloured painfully, and fell into a train of apparently unpleasant thought.

'I do not think you would care much for the sheep-run now,' commented Miss Aggles; it might be all very well while you were making money, but-'

6

The pleasure was in making the money,' he answered; when once it is made there is nothing more, it seems to me, to do or to live for.'

You ought to be poor again, and then you would value your present advantages,' said the elder woman rebukingly.

'I wish I were poor, but not for the reason you suggest,' he replied. What is your opinion, Milly?' he added, addressing his opposite neighbour. Do you, in the middle of all this civilisation, ever regret the pleasant days we passed in Australia, that can come back no more?'

'O, that they could!' murmured the lady. We were so happy then; so much happier than we can ever be again. I wish we had never come to London.'

'Not even for the sake of the eighty thousand?' he asked playfully.

Not for eighty times eighty thousand. With all my heart I wish my godfather had never made a will, or that his next-ofkin was in peaceable possession of the money.

'In the latter case, what would Mr. Lassils do?' he asked.

'I have not the slightest idea.' 'What would you both, then, do when you are married, to amend my question?' he persisted.

'I shall never marry Mr. Lassils,' she answered.

Mr. Palthorpe looked towards Miss Aggles in amazement, but she shook her head as if warning him to maintain silence.

'Poor Mr. Lassils,' he said gravely, and proceeded to finish his breakfast, thinking of his first acquaintance with that gentleman, and speculating whether the very pretty little girl, of whom he had on the night of the great party in Palace Gardens spoken with such enthusiasm, could have half so tender and sweet and attractive a face as that possessed by Millicent. 'And I should not be surprised if she refuse to marry him after all,' he considered. Yet it would be a pity, for I do not think Lassils is a bad sort of fellow; and really eighty thousand pounds is a nice trifle towards housekeeping.'

As he proceeded that day upon the search which had engaged him almost constantly since his return to England, he thought much and mournfully of the circumstances which induced General Graham to leave Australia.

'Till the news of that legacy

came we never thought of coming to this weary old country. We were happy out there;' and his mind went back to his first acquaintance with the General and his daughter, and the pleasant friendship which had existed amongst them since.

Walking up Chancery-lane in the afternoon on his way to Lincoln's-inn-fields, he was accosted by a gentleman, who hurried along the narrow pavement after him.

'So here you are!' cried a cheery voice in his ear. 'I meant to have looked you up this evening in Palace Gardens.'

'Why, doctor, who would have thought of seeing you in London? answered the other; and then the pair shook hands cordially, and Doctor Dilton explained he had been called all of a sudden to town to take charge of his cousin's practice. I shall be near you,' he added, 'in Kensington. I am going there now. There was a little business I wanted to see a lawyer about, and so I made my way first into Serjeants' Inn. Well, and how are you?'

Mr. Palthorpe said he was well.

Ay, you are a different-looking fellow from what you were when I first saw you,' said the doctor. 'I did not think your chances were good then of making old bones. Lord! to think that is more than twenty years ago, and it seems like yesterday!'

'Come, and let us have some dinner together,' suggested Mr. Palthorpe; and nothing loth the doctor accompanied him to a quiet tavern off Fleet-street, where many a celebrity in bygone times ate his prime steak and drank his port brought to him in a bottle bearing some familiar seal.

'Now we are quiet and all to ourselves,' began the doctor at last, 'I want to ask you a question.

Have you heard anything of the lady who was your wife?

'Enough to convince me she is alive,' was the answer; and Mr. Palthorpe went on to tell what he had done, and why he at length felt constrained to insert the advertisement which produced so profound an impression in Holyrood House.

When he had quite finished, Doctor Dilton shook his head.

'I think it was a false move,' he said. 'You ought not to have let her know you are alive and in England.'

'Why not?

'Because it will induce her to

keep out of your way. You remember the advice I gave you when we talked this matter over before in Wales?'

'Yes; to look up Mr. Hay.' 'Have you looked up Mr. Hay?' 'I cannot discover any trace of him, either in the present or the past.' 'Humph said the doctor. Tell me exactly how you pro

ceeded.'

Mr. Palthorpe told him.

'Bah' exclaimed the other. 'You have gone about the whole thing in a half-hearted will-andI-won't sort of way. My belief is you do not want to succeed in your search.'

'I should like, at any rate, to know what has become of the child. As for the rest, after twenty years, what can it signify?'

'A man may as well be cured of a malady that has been afflicting him for twenty years as go on suffering for another twenty,' answered Doctor Dilton.

Ay, but mine is incurable,' said Mr. Palthorpe.

'I am not so sure of that,' was the reply. At all events, it is clearly your duty now you are in position to push such inquiries, to ascertain whether your daughter

stands in need of help or not. Just let us run over the facts of the case again. You only told them to me hurriedly down in Wales.'

'You understand, I suppose, I am not under any delusion. There could not have been a mistake on my part,' said Mr. Palthorpe.

'Well,' said the doctor dryly, 'I do not imagine you are so infatuated. Such facts can scarcely be explained away; but now repeat the story to me. First, all of a sudden, Mrs. Palthorpe refused to accompany you to Australia.'

'Yes, at the very last minute.' 'And you supposed she went to her relations at Sunnydown Farm?

'Yes, I left her with them, and it was arranged she should remain at the farm.'

And in point of fact she never did so remain ?'

"O yes, she did, for some months after Rachel was born; then all in a minute she said she must go to London. She went to London; and when she came back, stated she had obtained a situation in a milliner's establishment.'

'I see; and ostensibly she entered upon that situation. She might really too,' added the doctor musingly.

'She might, but I do not consider it likely, first or last. She never mentioned the name of the house where she was employed to her aunt.'

'I don't consider that proves much,' said Doctor Dilton judicially. Did she live in the house?'

'Impossible to say. She did not live at the address to which her letters were directed.'

'How do you know that?' 'A neighbour called to see her there, and could not find her.'

And all this time you were

writing to her at her grandfather's?'

'Of course e; I had not the slightest idea she was absent.'

She wrote in reply as if at Ravelsmede?'

'Yes, and I think really was at the farm. She used to pay periodical visits to her relations sometimes staying only a few hours.'

'Then we come to the time when the news of the loss of the North Wales reached England. What did she do then?'

'I do not know whether she wrote down at once or not; but at any rate she went to the farm shortly afterwards, and was very much vexed because her grandfather said she had lost her looks.' And had she?' asked the doc

tor.

'Her aunt said not; but that she seemed restless and unsettled in her mind; strange altogetherin her ways and talk and manner.' 'Then what happened?'

'Why, she went away again; and after a very short time returned and said she was going to be married and wanted Rachel. Neither aunt nor grandfather would part with the child; and it was agreed she should go back to London and show her intended husband a letter Miss Aggles wrote refusing to let Rachel leave the farm.'

'I remember your telling me that. Go on.' Mr. Palthorpe had paused for a moment, but now proceeded.

'On the morning of the day she was to have gone to town, she went out early and met the postman, who gave her the few lines I had written to Miss Aggles asking her to break the fact of my being alive to my wife-'

He stopped again, and Doctor Dilton this time made no comment.