Chapter XII. The New Element.

'I suppose you will get married one of these days, Berta?' said Mrs. Retlaw, meditatively, one day.

Philiberta had been living at her friend's house for nearly a month, and had no sort of idea of leaving Dunedin yet. The two were sitting, somewhat en déshabille, close over a glowing fire in Mrs. Retlaw's sanctum. The day had been bitterly cold, with a keen wet wind blowing in from the sea. Now night was coming on, with a drizzly close rain that made cosy rooms and warm hearths unusually pleasant to think about.

'I suppose you will get married some day?' said Mrs. Retlaw.

'I suppose that is what it will come to,' replied Philiberta, looking up so seriously that her friend laughed outright.

'I wonder what he will be like,' she said.

'To tell you the truth, I have often wondered that myself,' Said Philiberta.

'Oh, then,' in a tone of disappointment, 'you have not got him in your mind's eye yet?'

'No. Why do you speak like that? Did you think I had?'

'Well, I might have had a vision—but never mind!'

Then there was a pause, which Mrs. Retlaw terminated rather abruptly.

'Heatherwood's a nice young fellow, isn't he?' she said.

Berta looked up again and laughed.

'So that was your vision, was it? Dear friend, don't begin match-making.'

'Why shouldn't I try, though? It is every happy married woman's duty to get the single ones happily married as soon as possible.'

'I should like to be as happy as you, if I do marry,' said Philiberta. 'Your happiness is a pleasant thing to behold.'

'Yes; not many couples run together as well as Harry and I do,' responded Mrs. Retlaw. 'Marriage is an awful risk, though; a hazardous lottery. Dozens of people have said that before, but that does not make it any the less true, you know. Without intending to advance any immoral theory, Berta, I must say that it is a pity marriages are not more easily annulled in this country, or that people might not make a trial of each other a while before tying the irrevocable knot.'

'What, live with each other unmarried?' cried Philiberta, shocked.

'Well, not quite that. At least, not in the sense you seem to understand. But they should be allowed, nay, compelled, to see more of each other before marriage than they do under existing arrangements now. They should see each other at all times and seasons, in sickness and in health; in good temper and in bad; when well dressed and when otherwise. Now, they meet at appointed times, and are always on their best behaviour at those times. I know girls who get themselves up most elaborately to meet their sweethearts, and are never even respectably clad at other seasons. And I know men who are all smiles and amiability when in the presence of the beloved one that exhibit a perfectly fiendish temper otherwheres. After marriage the thing is reversed, and it is the husband and wife who get the untidiness and the snarls that cannot in decency be displayed to the world. It is one thing meeting twice or thrice a week, and another living together always—just two—with the door shut on the world outside.'

'And a happy thing that last, when two people care enough for each other,' said Philiberta.

'Ah, yes, when they do. But it is a severe test, and even when the love between them is perfect, I think an occasional separation is good for both. People who live together continually get too used to each other. I read something like that in a book the other day, which said that people grew tired of each other then because the magnetism gives out The love current gets sluggish if it is never interrupted.'

'Does Mr. Retlaw agree with you in this?' asked Philiberta, with a smile. 'Does he see the advantage of occasional separation?'

'Not at all. But then all men lack the subtlety of thought and feeling that women possess. At least, that is this woman's true opinion. Harry does not like me to go away, but how he does like me to come back. And yet the one cannot be without the other. I cannot come back without going away, and so he would miss a great enjoyment.'

'True. But your argument is rather a worn one, you know. It has been very often said that there is never pleasure without pain, never evil without good. But, for my part, if I were happy enough in any one condition, I should be content to let well alone, I think, and not run any risk by experimenting.'

'That is if—–' began Mrs. Retlaw, and then stopped short because of her husband's voice at the door.

'May any one enter?'

'No, any one mayn't,' she said, stretching herself out lazily on her couch. 'You may, being a privileged individual whom one has to humour.'

'Well, I had better go away, then, Harry,' said a strange voice, and both ladies sprang up at once in confusion.

The room was all in dusky shadow by this time, but the red glow from the fire shone full upon him who had spoken. A tall, broad man, with dark swart face, heavy moustache, and intense eyes.

'Too late to go now.' said Mr. Retlaw. 'Emma, this is Edgar Paget.'

'Good gracious! After all these years!' exclaimed Mrs. Retlaw. Then she approached him quickly, with both hands extended. 'I have never seen you before, Edgar Paget, but I know you very well.'

'I suppose Retlaw has spoken about me sometimes,' he returned.

'Spoken about you sometimes! Why, to this day you are his favourite topic of conversation. He will talk for hours about you and the time you roughed it together.'

Both men laughed.

'How was it you dropped the correspondence, Harry?'

'I? It was you, Teddy. I kept it up steadily for months after you stopped.'

'Yes, I can bear witness to that,' said Mrs. Retlaw.

'Then the fault lies with the post offices,' said Paget, 'for I wrote at least half a dozen times to you without getting any reply. That sort of thing becomes disheartening, you know. Where did you go after Inglewood, Harry?'

'Came straight here, old man. That is, I got married first, then I came, and here I have been ever since. And you, Teddy?'

'Went up into the Loddon district, and took up fifteen thousand acres of sheep-run, Harry.'

'I see. Turned squatter.'

Yes.'

'And has it gone well?'

'Middling. It went famously until within the last four or five years. Since then things have gone against me, somehow; and I've been a little neglectful beside.'

'That's bad.'

'Yes, but it's all in one's lifetime, as the saying is. You haven't introduced me to your sister, Mrs. Retlaw.'

'My sister! Oh, I beg your pardon. And yours, too, Berta, most humbly There's no excuse for me, but really I was for the moment oblivious of all save the new element. Mr. Paget—Miss Campbell. Berta, my husband's old schoolfellow, shipmate, and chum.'

Philiberta half rose from her seat; Paget took her hand and held it in his for a second.

'How warm and comfortable you both are in here,' he said, stretching his own cold fingers before the fire. 'It makes a poor outside dog like me envious.'

'But you are not a poor outside dog now,' said Mrs. Retlaw, 'though you do look wet and muddy too. Harry, take him upstairs and order hot water. You will stay with us, of course, Mr. Paget.'

'Well, really that would be rather like presuming, you know.'

'Oh, stuff!' said Mr. Retlaw. 'Why, of course you will stay here. Where are your traps?'

'At the Prince of Wales. I only got in this morning, you know.'

'I'll send round for them at once. It is too near dinner-time to kill the fatted calf, so you will have to take pot luck with us. But my wife generally sees that we have something good to eat; and by Jove, old fellow, you can't guess how glad we are to see you.'

After dinner some ladies came in visiting, and there was music; and Paget played and sang a plaintive little negro ditty. A very simple song, with a few simple chords by way of accompaniment, but the melody touched Philiberta strangely, and she never forgot it. Indeed, every incident, however trivial, of that evening seemed to her fraught with novel importance; and remained in her memory for ever. Something new and strange had come into her life. That was a singularly apt expression of Mrs. Retlaw's, 'the new element.' Philiberta did not know anything, did not feel anything definitely yet; how should she? But, all the same, her mind was working with a vague consciousness that this 'new element' was one that must alter her life; must change her very being either for better or worse; and her heart wondered blindly which it would be.

Chapter XIII. 'Have you Nothing to say to me Before You Go?'

With all her virtues, Mrs. Retlam had one grave fault. She was inveterately addicted to early rising. I consider it the one flaw in an otherwise blemishless character; but she and many other people refuse altogether to view it in that light. It has teen a standing subject of dispute between Mrs. Retlaw and two or three of her friends for many years; but she still adheres to her habit and they to theirs, and in point of radiant health she has the advantage of them unmistakably.

'Look at me!' she says triumphantly, and they look at her and admire, and that is all they can do.

Philiberta was not averse to early rising; her habit of life in the bush had used her to it; so every fine morning, and indeed often on mornings that were not fine, these two would go out together for long rambles over the hills before breakfast. I maintain that it was a villainous practice, but they did it, and it agreed with them. Mr. Retlaw generally stayed in bed until they returned, and that agreed with him.

The morning after Edgar Paget's advent was a grand bright exhilarating one; and the two ladies came downstairs at almost the same moment, both looking exceedingly fresh and cheerful. William—the inestimable William, about whose virtues as steward, manager, butler, and generally right-hand man in the house of the Retlaws, one could write whole columns and yet fail to do the subject justice—William awaited them in the dining-room with a cup of hot coffee ready for each.

'Where is Mr. Paget?' inquired Mrs. Retlaw, looking round. 'He said he would get up if the weather were fine.'

'So he did, ma'am; he's in the little parlour now.'

At that moment he entered the dining-room, suppressing a very positive yawn as he caught sight of the ladies.

'Fie!' exclaimed Mrs. Retlaw, pointing her finger at him derisively. 'I thought you said you liked early rising

'Did I say so, Mrs. Retlaw? Then it must have been after that last whisky brew of Harry's, I think.'

'And do you recant now, then?'

'Well, if you will run me so close—yes, I recant.'

'Then off you go back to bed. We will not be disgraced with you.'

'Come now, that is hard. After I've got through all the worst of it too, the cold water and the dressing, etc. Please let me go.'

'But you ought to delight in early rising.'

'So I do; on a happy incidental occasion like this. At home on the station I have to do it, and manage to do it pretty willingly. But if you would have my real confidential opinion, it is that early rising is a baleful and pernicious thing, and calculated to develop crime to an awful extent.'

'Oh, you dreadful man! But now I begin to understand the bond of sympathy between you and Harry. You both hate early rising.'

'Yes, but instead of being a bond linking us together, it went very near to dividing us in the days when we bachelorised together on the diggings, and couldn't agree as to whose duty it was to get up first and boil the billy.'

'How I should like to have seen you then! But come, if you have finished your coffee. The sun has risen.'

'Which gives me a poor opinion of him,' said Paget.

'I am surprised at anything rising if it is always as cold as this in Dunedin.'

'Oh, you will be warm enough when you have got to the top of yon hill,' said Mrs. Retlaw. And so he was—so were all of them. Climbing a hill 'as steep as the side of a house,' up a cobbly zigzag path, may be backed as a heat-generator in the system of man against anything else invented.

When they were at the summit, they paused to take breath, and Mrs. Retlaw called the attention of the others to the glorious loveliness of the eastern sky.

Mr. Paget retorted with a quotation from Hood:— '"Why from a comfortable pillow startTo see faint flushes in the east awaken?A fig, say I, for any streaky part—Excepting bacon.'"An early riser Mr. Gray has drawnWho used to haste the dewy grass among,To meet the sun upon the upland lawn,Well—he died young."But of course it is of no mortal use trying to convince a woman against her will. Poetry cannot do it, at any rate.'

Philiberta was strangely quiet and subdued in manner that morning, and without any reason, she told Mrs. Retlaw, when that lady made remarks and inquiries anent it. She was not so sure-footed as usual either, for she stumbled over a boulder in a certain rocky fern-grown glen, and sprained her ankle. Not very severely, but still quite badly enough to disable her from walking for two or three days; and at the moment there was nothing for it but that Edgar Paget should carry her home. It was nothing for him, in his great strength, to bear her in his arms and against his heart; but it was a great pity it happened. But for that accident everything might have gone on differently; as it was, it was the beginning of great love and great sorrow for both of them. Gently and tenderly as he bore her, the pain was so intense that she almost fainted on the way, and they were all more than glad when she was safely packed up on Mrs. Retlaw's softest couch, and the doctor said she would be on her feet again as if nothing had happened within a week.

During the next fortnight, Paget and Philiberta spent a good deal of time together. Station life in Australia formed one prime subject of mutual interest to them; and then they soon discovered that they had many others equally pleasant and available for conversation and the exchange of ideas. And by-and-by the talk between them became often dangerously personal. For instance: 'What is the colour of your eyes?' said he one day, coming very close to her that he might ascertain. 'Let me look right into them and see. I believe they change every day. Yesterday they were brown; clear, bright brown; a little while ago they seemed grey; now as I look, they are deep dark purple.'

'Perhaps it is that they reflect the changes of colour in yours,' said Philiberta, averting hers when she had spoken.

'Do mine change colour, then?'

'Sometimes I think so.'

He bent over her still nearer, until she could feel his warm breath on her face, and he could see that her heart was throbbing hard and fast beneath the two hands that she had clasped upon her breast.

'When I look into your eyes like this,' he said, putting one of his hands upon both hers, and with the other turning her face upwards, 'I feel something in them drawing me down—down—nearer and nearer, until——'

'Mrs. Retlaw's compliments, and she is going to drive out to St. Kilda, and would Miss Campbell like to go?'

It was William.

'Yes—no—tell Mrs. Retlaw I will be ready in a moment,' and then Philiberta escaped; hot, breathless, and fluttering.

Paget drew a deep breath and fell back against the wall.

'God forgive me!' he said, 'I must be a villain. I had nearly told her; God forgive me!'

The opening of the door caused his heart to leap like a nervous woman's.

'I thought I should find you in here, Paget.'

'Oh, is that you, Retlaw? Have the ladies gone?'

'Yes. And the Melbourne mail is just delivered; here are two or three letters for you.'

Paget took them, glanced briefly at each, and thrust one pink-enveloped one in his pocket. The others he opened and read.

'Damnation!'

'Why, what's wrong, Teddy?'

'Oh, not much; only a scamp of a fellow I lent money to on a mortgage has swindled me.'

'Well, that's bad enough. It won't make much difference to you, Teddy, I hope.'

'Oh, no; not much,' said Paget, passing his hand across his eyes with a gesture of weariness. He walked over to the window and looked out upon the street a while in silence. His face had a set, hard expression, though the lips twitched emotionally, and the eyes wandered from point to point of the street below and the hills beyond. He looked like a man fighting a hard battle with himself, and a little reckless as to the result. Presently he turned round.

'When does the next steamer go, Harry?'

'Go where, old boy?'

'Oh, anywhere—no—to Melbourne, I mean.'

'Melbourne mail goes to-morrow,' said Mr. Retlaw.

'That will do, then.'

'You don't mean to say you're going, Teddy?'

'Yes, I do, old man; I must.'

'On account of this mortgage affair?'

'Well—partially.'

'But your going won't get the money back, Ted.'

'No, Harry; but it may prevent further mischief. In fact, it will prevent a big mischief that's bound to happen if I don't go.'

'I say, Teddy.'

'Well!' said Paget, looking at his friend half in alarm, half in defiance. When one's mind and heart and soul are full of one thing, it seems as if everything said or thought by every one else must bear upon that. He thought Retlaw was going to speak about Philiberta. Retlaw was not thinking of her at all. All his present interest was concerned in Paget's monetary affairs.

'Look here, old mate, between friends, are matters very bad with you?'

Paget looked puzzled.

'I mean—are you short of money?'

'Of money? Oh no.'

'But you were saying the other night that things had gone badly with you of late years.'

'So they have. Damned badly. But it is all my own fault. I have neglected the station grossly. I have burnt the candle at both ends. I have lent money when I knew I had no right to and should never get it back. Finally, and maddest of all, I have speculated and gambled till all was blue. Some Yankee fellow says that when a man begins to go downhill he finds everything greased for the occasion, and by Gad! that's so. I am going to the deuce as fast as I can.'

'Oh, Teddy; Teddy, old man. This sounds awful.'

'Does it?'

'But look here! This is just what I was trying to get at. And now the way is clear for what I have to say. Teddy, old mate, I've got plenty for both of us.'

Paget rose hastily, with the natural instinct of a man to hide tears.

'Thanks, old fellow,' said he, when he had mastered himself again, 'but it hasn't come to that yet. I think I shall pull through.'

'But if I can make it easier, Ted?'

'Yes, I know. Don't say any more, Harry; it weakens me. The fact is, I am a little put out just now about several things. But I'll get back and set everything right. I'll turn over a new leaf.'

'Why don't you get married?' said Retlaw.

Paget started forward with an impulse to tell everything; and just then Mr. Retlaw was called suddenly away.

'Never mind; I will tell him. I must tell all, and I can do that much better by letter. Now I'll go and pack for to-morrow.'

At dinner he and Retlaw met again alone at the table. 'Where are the ladies?' he asked in surprise.

'I expect Mrs. Jones has kept them,' said Mr. Retlaw. 'The night has come up misty; and Mrs. J. is glad of any excuse to detain them. It is not likely that they will get back before morning now.'

'Better so,' muttered Paget, but William heard him and was very much annoyed. He had spread a very special banquet that evening, knowing that the ladies would be hungry after a cold drive. He had got a few fresh flowers too, and he had placed the daintiest bouquets in the napkins beside Mrs. Retlaw's and Philiberta's plates. As he told Mrs. Retlaw himself next day, speaking in the familiar fashion excusable in so old and precious a servant, 'When I looked at it all, ma-am, and felt that you weren't coming home to see it, I could have catched hold of the blessed table-cloth and dragged the whole thing to the floor and trampled on it. I could indeed, I was that mad!'

Mrs. Jones not only kept her friends with her that night, but insisted upon their going with her for a breath of salt air to Ocean Beach next morning; the weather having, with its usual changeableness in that latitude, taken a turn to 'warm and fine, with light breezes, as the weather-gaugers put it.

The consequence was that the day was well advanced to afternoon when Mrs. Retlaw drew rein before her own door.

And then before they were two minutes in the house they heard that Edgar Paget was gone.

'Gone!' cried Philiberta, her heart giving one wild bound and then ceasing to beat for a few seconds.

'Child, you are falling,' exclaimed Mrs. Retlaw, catching her quickly in her arms. 'Harry, help her into my room, and then go away, please. My poor child!' she continued, when Philiberta, recovering from the blindness and deathly giddiness that had beset her, sat up and looked round bewilderedly.

Then the girl, seeing that they were alone, leaned upon her friend and broke into a passion of weeping. There was no need of words between the two. Mrs. Retlaw went quietly out, when Philiberta had sobbed herself into calmness, to see if no letter or message had been left. No. Not a line, not a word, save his kindest remembrances to both, and his regret that he had not seen them once again before his departure. So she went back just as quietly, and sat down with some trifle of needlework beside Philiberta, and made up her mind that if Edgar Paget did not write, before getting finally away from the New Zealand coast, a full explanation and proposal of marriage to her friend, then he was an unprincipled heartless scoundrel, and she no judge of character after all. She consulted a newspaper furtively, and found that that particular steamer would make the whole round of the ports, and at this she took heart to speak, and told Philiberta that she would stake everything she had in the world that all would come right within forty-eight hours.

The girl only sighed.

'You are very good to me,' she said.

'And if not,' said Mrs. Retlaw, putting on an air of philosophy, 'there are more good men than one in the world, let us hope.'

'There may be,' said Philiberta sadly, 'but I think there can be but one man in the world for me.'

Mrs. Retlaw nearly said 'Fudge!' but considered that it might sound heartless, so let it alone. The day closed with a brilliant display of gold and ruby and opal harmonies; the moon rose over the hills, a rich and radiant disc, bathing all the lovely land and sea in mellow tender light.

'Put on your cloak and hood,' said Mrs. Retlaw, 'and we will go up the hill. The worst troubles in life give way before the grandeur and glory we shall see from up there. The sight of it will lift your soul high above the sense of personal sorrow. It will lift anyone as near to heaven as men and women are ever likely to get, I think. Come.'

Presently they stood high on a hill, looking down on the city and the bay, on the church spires and white houses, on the patches of dark foliage set in between, on the pearly mist that clung lovingly about everything, on the rows of yellow gleaming lamps that studded the streets.

'Is it not lovely?' said Mrs. Retlaw.

'Beyond all conception lovely,' replied Philiberta, and then they stood silent a long while.

Presently they saw a man coming up the path with swift, firm strides. It must have been nervousness that made Philiberta's heart beat so, because it stands to reason that she could not have recognised him at that distance and in that light. But nearer he came, and nearer yet, and—

'Edgar Paget, as I live!' cried Mrs. Retlaw joyfully.

Not for her whole salvation could Philiberta have uttered a word; but her hands went out to him with an involuntary movement, and he caught them both in his own.

'And what is the meaning of all this?' inquired Mrs. Retlaw, herself half crying from excess of sympathy.

'The steamer is delayed till to-morrow,' he said, his voice strained and husky, 'and I could not help coming back to say good-bye to you.'

'And to look once more upon your face, beloved,' he added under his breath, as he gazed still at Philiberta.

Her face was blanched to extreme pallor, and the moon made it look still whiter. Her eyes were haggard, yet full of the new gladness his return had brought her. The short curls on her forehead clung there with moisture. Oh, she had suffered! And for him, as he felt, with a glad thrill of every pulse of his being. He would have given his life just then to have saved her a single pang; and yet he was full of joy to see that she had suffered through him. It would be something to remember—this love of hers—through all the years that he had yet to live, lacking it. Then a sudden great pity came into his heart for her.

'Poor little girl! Poor lonely little girl! it will be very hard for her too.'

Hard!

'So the steamer goes to-morrow,' said Mrs. Retlaw.

'Yes, I must get back to her to-night.'

'But that is impossible; you cannot.'

'But I must—and can. The steamer sails at daybreak. I hired a horse and guide at the port and rode over the hills. When I leave you I shall ride straight back.'

'I never heard of such a thing,' exclaimed Mrs. Retlaw.

'Berta, I must hasten down to the house at once to see about some supper. You can take care of each other, you two; but don't be long coming down.'

So they were left alone together, and Berta trembled so that she could not walk steadily, though she leaned upon his arm. Minute after minute was passing, and they were getting further and further down the path, and yet he did not speak. As for her, what could she say? A wild thought rushed into her mind. It was her money prevented him from telling her. He loved her; she had never a doubt of that now; but Mr. Retlaw had spoken of his bad fortune lately. That was it. Poverty had come upon him suddenly, and he was proud. As if money could matter—as if anything could matter—but losing him! And now they were nearly at the house, and he had said never a word.

'Then must you go to-morrow?' she said chokingly.

'I must go to-night,' he replied, pulling up suddenly and standing before her. 'And I cannot go back to the house yonder. I cannot bear any more. Let me say good-bye to you here, Berta, here in the light of the moon. Shake hands, will you? and wish me God-speed. Let me go. I ought never to have come back.'

'And why—why?' she cried, clinging wildly to his hands. How could she let him go, with so small a matter separating them? How could he be so cruelly proud, seeing how she loved him? What a desolation of life was this he was condemning her to!

'Oh, Edgar, Edgar!' she wailed, 'have you nothing to say to me before you go?'

Then he had her in his arms in a moment, kissing her face and hands and hair.

'My soul! my darling! I love you. That is all I have to say.'

'And that is all I want,' she said, sobbing and panting with the pain of gladness. 'That is all I ever shall want in my life.'

Chapter XIV. 'The Hour of Happiness.

He gathered her in his arms and carried her back up the hill a space. Then he sat on a moss-grown rock and held her on his knee.

'Why were you going to leave me?' she asked pitifully.

'What can it matter, darling? I am not going to leave you now.'

'But you said the steamer——'

'Yes, I know. But the steamer must go without me now. I will never lose sight of you again, while I live.'

She laughed happily.

'And yet,' she said, 'if I had not—cast myself at your feet almost, you would have left me without a word.'

For answer to that he kissed her.

'It was very cruel, Edgar.'

'Don't reproach me now, love. I suffered too.'

'I am glad of that,' she said fiercely. 'It would have been too hard for one to bear it alone.'

'Don't look so angry, love. Come a little further this way, so that I can see you in the moonlight. You look so good, and pretty, and young. Do you know that I am twice your age in years, Berta; and twenty times that in sin and misery?'

'Edgar, let me bear half the sin and misery. I am strong for that.'

'Do you think you will ever be sorry you held me back, Berta?'

'Never while I live,' emphatically. 'Nothing could ever happen that would make me sorry to know you loved me.'

'Say you love me, Berta.'

'I do love you, Edgar.'

'And nothing shall ever come between us—to divide us?'

'Nothing.'

'How soon can you marry me, darling?'

'Why? Do you want to get back to Victoria?'

'No,' with a shiver. 'I shall never go back there now.'

'But, dear, all your property is there, isn't it?'

'That does not matter. I shall not go.'

'Now, that is strange. Where shall we live, then?'

'We will go to America, dearest. That is a big country, where a man may make a fresh start and forget past blunders. You will marry me at once and will go to America.'

'That takes my breath. What a sudden way you have of settling matters!'

'Because matters will not brook delay, my love.'

'But wouldn't it be better to see to things in Victoria first, dear?'

'No.'

'Edgar!' She spoke timidly now.

'Well, darling.'

'There's some bother about money over there, is there not?'

'Yes, dear.'

'Do you know that I have a little money?'

'Yes. Retlaw told me you were rich.'

'No, no, not rich. You would think it a paltry sum, I dare say. But it might help a little, you know, in the difficulties in Victoria.'

'Darling, you make me feel a very wretched scamp. I do not want to go back to Victoria. I should do no good there. I can't go, and I will not. Yet I shall have to take some of your money, after all.'

'When two people belong to each other,' said Philiberta, 'there is perfect community of goods, you know.'

'That is prettily and nobly said, my pet. But it doesn't alter the fact of a man's being a mean animal to accept the condition of community when the money is all on the woman's side. But look you, love; though I am not a young man now, I have still plenty of strength and capacity for work left in me. With the motive I have now, I feel that I could achieve anything. So I will borrow some of your money, Berta, feeling contemptible all the same while I do it; just enough to land us in America, and then I will win it all back for you with handsome interest.'

She laughed.

'How odd it sounds,' she said; 'the money is all yours, of course, just as if I had never possessed it. But I think you ought to use some of it to settle affairs in Victoria.'

'But I do not think so. Let me have my own way, Berta.'

'Of course I will, always,' she said quickly; 'your way will always be mine

'You will never change, then, dear?'

'No. Why did you say that?'

'Women are changeable sometimes, you know.'

'Are they? Not when they have all that their souls desire, surely.'

He did not need to ask her if she had all that her soul desired. Presently she begged him to take her into the house.

'Mrs. Retlaw has been so good to me to-day, and I want her to know,' she said, looking at him shyly.

'Come along, then.'

And then they descended the hill, hand in hand; but just before they got to the house he stopped her.

'Kiss me, Berta,' he said. 'I am hungry for kisses and love-words, darling. Tell me, would you suffer very badly if anything were to happen to part us after all?'

'Death would be easier for me,' she answered, quivering with the new fear suggested. 'Oh, Edgar! nothing can—nothing will. Say so, dearest, even if it be not true. I could not bear it—I could not!'

'Hush, love! hush, dear! There is nothing. We will never part while I live.'

Then he straightened himself up to his full height, drew a long breath, and flung back his head with the almost defiant air of one who has made up his mind to an action that not even shame should divert him from.

Mr. Retlaw met them on the threshold.

'I was just going out on commission, to look for you,' he said. 'Mrs. Retlaw promised me my supper if I'd find you. Everything has gone cold,' continued he plaintively. 'You might have had a little consideration for me, Teddy, even if your hard heart would allow you to keep that poor beggar of a guide starving out there with his horses.'

'Oh yea, by-the-bye, I'd forgotten the guide, poor fellow! I'll go and see him now.'

'Here, I say!' cried Mr. Retlaw; 'for heaven's sake, Ted, don't go without something to eat.'

'It's all right, Harry; I am not going at all,' shouted Paget back to him from some distance along the street.

'Well, I'm blest!' ejaculated Mr. Retlaw; 'what next, I wonder?'

'Not hard to guess what next,' said Mrs. Retlaw, coming down just then. 'What do you think of me for a prophetess, my lady Berta?'

Paget returned directly, and was called by Mr. Retlaw a 'doosid inscrutable scamp;' and then, there being no further let of hindrance, they all went to supper.

'Happy?' said Mrs. Retlaw to her friend, in one of those whispering little interludes that women like to make for themselves.

'Beyond measure,' answered Philiberta; 'life brims over with happiness for me now and henceforth.'

Chapter XV. Talk of a Wedding.

'How soon can people get married in this country?' inquired Paget, at the breakfast-table next morning.

'Oh, as soon as in other countries, I suppose,' said Mrs. Retlaw carelessly. 'As soon as a man and woman are of age; earlier if they can obtain the consent of their parents or guardians.'

'Now you know perfectly well that that is not what I meant.'

'How should I know? People should always avoid ambiguity.'

'And other people should not perversely misinterpret. But, seriously, dear friend, could the affair be got over at once—without delay?'

'There again! How like a man! Speaking of the one great event of a woman's life as an "affair"—just as if it were an inquest or a hanging.'

'Well, I withdraw the obnoxious word. We'll call it the wedding.'

'And then the hurry he is in!' continued Mrs. Retlaw, unheeding the interruption. 'I dare say he would hurry the girl to the altar in a cotton gown, rush through the ceremony as if he were ashamed of it, drag her off afterwards in a close carriage, and bury her Heaven knows where.'

'After all,' remarked Mr. Retlaw, 'the Australian aborigines' method of getting married is quite the most natural. The man simply knocks the woman on the head with a club, and carries her off to his own mia-mia. Then the whole thing is done with.'

'Oh, you are all alike,' said Mrs. Retlaw scornfully, 'but I hold that no woman of spirit will allow herself to be cheated of her dues in the matter of white satin and orange-blossoms, and all the dear delights of preparation and anticipatory discussion.'

'Not to speak of the meanness displayed in swindling your friends out of a legitimate feed and champagne ad lib.,' added the host.

'When you have quite done chaffing,' said Paget, calmly reaching for another egg, 'perhaps—Berta, shall I help you to some more toast?—perhaps a fellow may hope for a fair answer to a fair question.'

'Bring on your fair question,' said Mr. Retlaw resignedly. 'As a city councillor and a candidate for Parliament, I'm used to fair questions. Trot it out. It can't be worse than I am accustomed to from enlightened constituents.'

'Well, then, can Berta and I be married to-day?'

'Good Ged!' ejaculated Mr. Retlaw, while his wife absolutely leapt from her seat. 'Teddy, you destroy my nerves. I always knew you for a high-pressure sort of fellow; but this surprises even me. Why, it's as bad as the old digging days, when parties could get through introduction, courtship, marriage, and honeymoon within twelve hours—and sometimes a deed of separation thrown in. My dear old fellow, take a friend's advice—go slow.'

'I can't see the good,' spoke Paget testily, 'of lingering over anything that you have made up your mind to. Berta does not want a trousseau; do you, Berta?'

'I should like some respectable clothes,' she replied, turning a flushed face to Mrs. Retlaw, as if in appeal for support.

'The old Eve, you see, Teddy,' said Retlaw. 'They're all alike,' with a malicious glance at his wife, who tossed her head and said she didn't care.

'And how long will it take to get some respectable clothes, then?' inquired Paget.

'A month, at the very least,' said Mrs. Retlaw promptly.

'Great heavens!'

He protested and importuned; Mrs. Retlaw remonstrated and argued. At the end of half an hour it was settled that the wedding should take place that day fortnight; and then the wordy combatants separated for the time, each with a feeling that the other side had got the worst of it. And then Mrs. Retlaw set to work at once to make the most of a new and pleasant excitement.

I have a private conviction that if humanity had been created all of one sex, and that masculine, marriage ceremonies would never have been thought about Somebody hastens to observe that that is a fact self-evident; and, of course, put somewhat Hibernically as above, I own it is. But what I mean is that the popularity of wedding-ceremonies is entirely due to the feminine element. Men hate it. There is unfortunately no reliable information extant touching that bridal affair in the Garden of Eden. Reporters of that age were gifted with a terseness of style—a conciseness of narration—that it is to be regretted posterity marked out for a similar vocation has not inherited. Yet is there also room for regret in that our forefathers of the quill did not condescend a little more to detail. It might be instructive and gratifying to know whether those long-lived patriarchs did anything else but live, beget sons and daughters, and die. We regret, therefore, that ancient historians were all so scrupulously laconic, and of course, as usual, we regret in vain. Life is made up of vain regrets, as several people have remarked before. Still, there is nothing to hinder others from remarking the same thing again, because, if truthful observations are never to be made more than once, or by more than one person, libraries and newspaper offices had better shut up, and people resign themselves to dead silence forthwith.

To return to the subject of weddings, I am firmly of opinion—and although there is no direct evidence to support me, there is, on the other hand, none to refute my theory—that Eve and her direct successors were quite as particular about making a dash, parade, and flourish over their nuptials as are the great mother's fair daughters of the present day. 'What is the use of getting married anyhow,' said a lovely young bride to me the other day, 'if you can't have everybody to see and admire you?' To which I agreed, as any man might, that if all brides were like unto this one, it would be no use at all.

Said Mrs. Retlaw, 'Now, if you will give me my own way, I will help you right through comfortably. If you won't, why then I will wash my hands of it altogether.'

'I only stipulate that there shall be no fuss,' said Paget, 'and Berta echoes me there.'

'Yes, certainly,' said Philiberta, and Mrs. Retlaw called her a traitress, but added directly, 'I promise you there shall not be the least unnecessary fuss.'

'All fuss is unnecessary,' observed Mr. Retlaw sententiously.

'Now, you hold your peace,' said his wife. 'Too much talk is as bad as too little. Once for all, Mr. Paget, will you leave the management entirely to me?'

'Of course. I never proposed anything else, did I?' groaned he, looking sorely badgered.

'I suppose you will go straight off to Melbourne after it,' said Mr. Retlaw. 'Or will you do your honeymoon up at the Hot Lakes?'

'Neither,' answered Paget. 'The fact is,' said he hesitatingly, 'I am not going back to Victoria at all.'

'No? That's odd. Such a deuce of a hurry as you were in the other day, too.'

'Well, there's no law against a man changing his mind, I hope,' cried Paget impatiently.

'None that I know of,' returned his friend quietly; 'nor any reason, that I can see, for his losing his temper when it is spoken of.'

'I beg your pardon, old man,' said Paget, penitently. 'I'm a regular bear, I know. The fact is, Harry, I am very glad of an excuse for changing my mind about Victoria. There is nothing there to tempt me back; nothing that I need be sorry to leave. I intend to go to America. I will make this step in my life a new start altogether, and give myself a fair chance in a new country.'

'But why America, Teddy? In God's name, why America?'

The ladies had left the room by this, which perhaps excuses Mr. Retlaw a little.

'Why not stop in New Zealand? There's no country like it for climate and chances; and there's room for you.'

'Scarcely. I want a wide field to choose my patch from. It will have to be America, Harry.'

'Well, it is a big country, Teddy, there's no gainsaying that. And—well, I wish you luck, old fellow.'

'I know that,' said Paget.

Mrs. Retlaw and Philiberta were also discussing America in another part of the house. The bride-expectant was mightily elated at the prospect of going there.

'I don't know where I was born,' she said. 'My earliest memories are of Victoria, yet I have a vague recollection of being told by my mother—my second mother, you know—that I was born in England, so I can never have seen America. Yet of all countries that is the one I most desire to see. If ever I have any of that love of country which is patriotism, I suppose—when people feel it definitely instead of vaguely, as I feel it—it will, I believe, be for America. There is something grandly fascinating in the vastness of the country, and in the mighty spirit of enterprise that moves its people.'

'You talk as if you were a Yankee, positively.'

'Perhaps I was one, centuries ago,' said Philiberta, smiling.

'It can't be so many centuries ago, my dear. The Yanks are comparatively young. I would give all I possess,' said Mrs. Retlaw, with sudden energy, 'to know if there is any truth in that doctrine of pre-existence.'

Said Philiberta: 'If immortality be a truth, the other should be a truth, too. Immortality is eternity. Eternity has no beginning or end. If the whole system of existence is a circle, we must be following it age after age. If we are to exist always, we must have existed always. If there be any meaning at all in the words, "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end," that must be the meaning, I think.'

'And to it I say Amen,' said Mrs. Retlaw. 'I want to live always, provided I may always do some good, be of some use somewhere. But if there be various successive phases of existence, it is a little hard that we are granted no knowledge of any save the present one; permitted no glimpse of the past, no peep into the future. Nothing given either way but dark uncertainty. If you could only feel that, in this phase, you were developing some grand scheme commenced in a former one; or that in a future life you could complete some dear project of this! If only you could be sure that the time you have lived, and the time you may live after this life, were not quite and utterly a waste.'

'Oh, it cannot be a waste,' said Philiberta. 'Only look round and see how well every created thing is appointed to serve some good purpose, and you will agree that there can be no waste.'

'Ah, your mood just now, my dear, is optimistic. Naturally enough, too, all things considered. But I hold that there is a good deal of waste in the present dispensation. And where there is not waste there is cruelty. The whole thing is a puzzle to me, as it has clearly been to thousands of others before me.'

Mrs. Retlaw had not then read Mark Twain; in fact, I do not think the inimitable humourist had at that time 'come out,' else she might have concluded her remarks with a grand quotation, summing up the whole system in a dozen or so of words: 'All things have their uses and their part and proper place in Nature's economy: the ducks eat the flies—the flies eat the worms—the Indians eat all three—the wild cats eat the Indians—the white folks eat the wild cats—and thus all things are lovely.' (The italics are mine, as literary reviewers sometimes say.)

'Anything is better, I think,' said Mrs. Retlaw, pursuing her reflective remarks, 'than the idea that there is nothing after death. That the total and termination of it all are that we go to feed worms.'

'To me,' said Philiberta, 'that thought is no trouble. What matters anything if we don't know it? I would rather be eaten by fishes than worms, if it were a matter of choice, because fishes would probably make shorter work of me. But I fancy that after a long pilgrimage here, one must feel so ready for rest that one will have no thought to spare for the probable fate of the flesh one is so glad to resign. Browning says something like that in his "Old Pictures of Florence." Do you remember the verses?— '"There's a fancy some lean to, and others hate,That when this life is ended beginsNew work for the soul in a future stateWhere it strives and grows weary, loses, and wins;Where the strong and the weak—this world's congeries—Repeat in large what they practised in small,Through life after life in unlimited series;Only the scale's to be changed—that's all.'"Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seenBy the uses of Evil that Good is best;And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's screneWhen its faith in the same has stood the test;Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod;The uses of labour are surely done;There remaineth a rest for the people of God,And 1 have had trouble enough—for one."'

'Yes, I remember,' said Mrs. Retlaw, at the close of this; 'and I must say that the groove of talk we have wandered into is just about the oddest for two people on the brink, of a wedding that could be imagined. Three o'clock, and never a stitch put in. Berta, have you made up your mind about that travelling costume I proposed?'

'Of all waste,' said Philiberta, rousing herself unwillingly, 'the time wasted in talking of dress, when so many better subjects await one, seems to me the greatest.'

'Then that is just where you are wrong. Dress is one of the most important things in life. Men affect to despise it, I know; but they are in reality more influenced by it than women. They will run after a well-dressed—mind, I don't mean a showily dressed—but a well-dressed, ugly woman sooner than after a pretty dowdy. I have witnessed it myself, dear, more than once. Oh, the hosts of women who lose themselves, or waste themselves, through carelessness about dress. Bear it in mind, Berta, and never, if you want to keep a firm hold upon your husband, lapse into dowdyism. Here comes Herbert and Haynes's man with those patterns of satin. Jump up, dear—quick.'

Chapter XVI. 'Wholly a Dark Labyrinth.'

It was the day before that appointed for the wedding, and Philiberta was alone in her chamber assorting her belongings, touching all her small treasures reverentially, as with the touch of farewell.

'For Philiberta Campbell dies to-morrow,' she said, half laughing to herself at the weird conceit. 'And Philiberta—no, Berta—he will never call me anything but Berta—Berta Paget will be the new phœnix rising from the old one's ashes. Let me look at you in the glass, old identity, so that presently I may compare you with the new, and observe the difference matrimony makes. Well, I never admired you much—in an artistic sense, you know—partial though I have been to you as an individual, but I really think you are a better-looking girl than you used to be; your face seems rounder, your mouth less firm, that determined under-jaw less prominent and assertive, and your eyes, of which he says he does not even yet know the true colour, are softer; they have lost a good deal of that keen, hard look that I always objected to. If you continue to improve under the new influence as you have during the last fortnight, I shouldn't wonder if you were to become at last actually good-looking. I wonder how you will look when you are dead—you will be whiter, that is certain, and pallor becomes you. Brown women look too robust always. Brown men I like naturally. My king is a brown man, bronze as Launcelot, whom two women loved too dearly. I wonder how he will look when he is dead? Such a length as he would be, so still, so handsome. Oh love, my love, that I may go first! That I may go first! I could do so much—suffer so much—for you, but not that. I could not suffer to be left behind— With the odour of death cast over my soul,Like the odour of flowers that are dead;No, love, I will guide Death's hand o'er his scroll,And his list with my name shall be led.'(The lines were her own, but she would not for the world have had anybody know that.)

Shimmer and shadow, concord and discord, mirth and melancholy, were always so nearly allied in this many-mooded temperament that you never could be certain which aspect would be the next in ascendant.

Presently in her packing and repacking she came upon a queer-shaped object swathed in flannel at the bottom of a trunk. It was her fiddle.

With all the fearlessness and unconventionality of her nature, she was a little ashamed of this musical accomplishment of hers. She had gotten a notion that it was unladylike, unfeminine. When, upon first entering the ladies' seminary in Melbourne, she had announced her desire and intention of taking lessons in violin-playing, the gentle principal of that establishment had nearly fallen off her chair in shocked surprise. If Philiberta had proposed a friendly cigar (though why smoking should be considered so much a matter of sex, too, is more than I can understand), the effect could not have been more startling. This, and the subsequent discovery when she had commenced lessons that she was her violin tutor's sole feminine pupil, rather frightened her, and made her very chary of acknowledging her propensity to strangers. She loved the thing too well to give it up, but she took her pleasure furtively, practised in solitude, and kept the fiddle locked up. Hence it came about that even Mrs. Retlaw, who would have delighted in it, knew nothing at all about it.

'Shall I tell Edgar to-day, or leave it till afterwards?' the girl asked herself now, as she unwrapped her treasure stealthily and fondled it as an old friend. 'Is it right for a woman to marry a man with even the merest shadow of a secret kept from him?'

Just then her name was called, and quick as thought she bandaged up the fiddle again.

'I'll leave it until afterwards,' she said, thrusting it into the box. 'I can find out by degrees whether he likes it or not. If he does, it will be a pleasant surprise; if he does not, I can throw it away and forget it.'

Again she was called.

'Yes, I am here,' she answered, her heart thrilling as it always did and always would at the sound of that voice.

'Then come hither. I want you to go out with me.'

'I will be down in five minutes,' she said, and hastily donned her cloak and hat.

The morning of the day had been showery; the afternoon was bright and clear. The streets were ankle-deep in muddy batter; the hillsides were slippery and slimy; the hilltops almost dry.

'I don't think there will be much pleasure in walking to-day,' said Philiberta, when she had waded some distance with her lover through the mud.

'No matter,' said Paget. 'I wanted you, love, all to myself; and I can't get five minutes alone with you indoors. One or other of those fellows who are in love with you is always coming in and interrupting.'

He was unreasonably jealous; very unreasonably, since he knew in his heart that no other man than himself would ever cost her a thought. But he could not bear that other men should talk to her or look at her; and this weakness of his was the one bitter drop in Philiberta's cup of gladness, because she could bear no flaw in her idol. She wanted the same whole souled perfect faith and love from him that she rendered unto him, that is, she had a vague feeling that she wanted that; the only really definable sense she experienced about it was misery when he looked offended. Only the evening previously he had looked so, and the thought of it had made her eyes fill and her heart ache for hours after. Surely there is something tragic in a love like hers, when a mere look has power to make or mar its all of sunshine. Now when he spoke of those 'fellows who were in love with her,' the joy of her face died out in a look of sorrowful humility. That 'the king could do no wrong' was her steadfast creed as yet, so the fault, if fault there were, must be hers—all hers.

Along Princes and George streets they tramped and splashed; then up the winding line of the Water of Leith till they reached the fork, then following the streamlet that leads to the reservoir, until at last they had climbed to the very summit of the steep incline, and stood looking out over forests of brilliant glistening green.

'Just see how bedraggled I am!' cried Philiberta, viewing her boots and skirts with disgust, 'and I can't keep my hat on for the wind.'

'Take it off, then,' said Paget, doing so for her, and laughing at her dismay as the breeze caught her hair and tossed it into a wild, hopeless tangle. 'No, you shall not have it,' and he held it up at arm's length, while she reached towards it, standing on tip-toe and steadying herself by his coat collar. Then suddenly he lifted her almost as high as he had held the hat, and ran with her in his arms a few yards along the top of the hill.

'I did not know you were bringing me up here to ill-use me,' she gasped breathlessly. 'You have jolted me to death almost.'

'Did I hurt you, Berta? What a rough brute I am! Come here, love, to this dry rock, and let us sit down. No, no; the rock for me; you will sit in my arms, so.'

'But it is not proper—out of doors. What if anyone should go by?'

'But no one will. Nobody would come up here on such a day as this.'

'Except two stupids like us.'

'I brought you here that I might hold you in my arms and kiss you. I hardly ever get a chance indoors. There I have to sit and watch you talking to some one else by the hour, while I am just mad to have you in my arms.'

'You are so unreasonable—so insatiable. But I suppose a little time will serve to alter all that. It will be as Mrs. Retlaw says—though I told her it was a sin to make a jest of anything of Carlyle's—first here will be the everlasting Yea, which in this distorted rendering means the honey season; then the everlasting No—when quarrels begin and continue; finally the Centre of Indifference—when you will not care enough even to quarrel.'

'The Centre of Indifference!' said Paget, looking in her face earnestly. 'I might quarrel with you, Berta; ill-use you; love you—hate you; but I could never be indifferent to you.'

In all the after-years she remembered those words.

'If we do not start homeward now, we shall be in the dark,' she said presently, releasing herself from his arms, but leaning towards him that he might kiss her again.

He drew her arm through his, and they commenced the descent. Before they were far advanced, the sound of voices reached them from below.

'There!' said Philiberta, 'I thought you said no one would venture up here to-day.'

Even as she spoke, two men rounded the sharp bend in the road before them, and the four were face to face.

'Paget, by Jove!' exclaimed one, springing forward with extended hand. 'My dear old fellow, what on earth are you doing here?'

'Oh—I—what on earth are you doing here? is a more likely question,' Paget said, in a voice so curious that Philiberta turned to look and saw that his face had turned livid.

'When did you come? Where are you stopping? When are you going back?' questioned the new-comers rapidly.

'I haven't—quite—made up my mind.'

Paget's words came slowly, as if their utterance cost him an effort.

'It's awfully lucky I've run across you like this, for I was commissioned to hunt you up and giye you this letter. Where the dickens is it? Oh! ah! There it is! It is from your wife. I was up your way the week before I left, and so dropped in at Yoanderruk to see you; but you were over here.'

That was all Philiberta heard. There was more said—much more: there were introductions, and jests, and laughter. But for her!—a long night had already fallen; life was become 'wholly a dark labyrinth;' her 'loadstars were blotted out—in the canopy of grim fire shone no star.'

She did not faint, or fall, or even cry out. A friendly grey rock lent her aid in the first moment of blindness; and then she stood up bravely enough.

Presently they were alone again, and he gazed into the mute misery of her soul through her eyes.

'It makes no difference,' he said at last, his deep voice husky and harsh. 'It makes no difference. You are mine. You are still mine.'

She did not answer. It was always so with her, that she had no power of words when dire pain or sorrow was upon her. She only moaned a little.

'Don't do that!' he exclaimed, silencing her roughly. 'I cannot bear it, Now, look you, Berta; you have my fate in your hands. You can raise me into heaven or cast me out into hell, just as you will. Remember, I tried to save us from this—I tried to go. You remember the night I came back to you?'

Something like relief came to her for a moment. She had held him back that night. The blame was hers then—thank God!

'I came back, and the temptation was too much for me. I stayed, and felt like a villain then and often afterwards. But I have got over that. I care not one jot for anything in heaven or earth beyond the happiness you have put into my life. And Berta—oh, my love, my dear love! say that you care for nothing beyond that, too.'

He made as if he would fling himself before her, and then she gave a little frightened cry and hurried past him. He overtook her at once, and they went on down the hill. But her steps were so uncertain—the sky seemed so dark above her—the earth so strange beneath her feet—that she was fain to let him help her He put his arm about her waist; once he stooped to kiss her, but she put him away with a glance and gesture he felt powerless against Then he pleaded as surely never a man pleaded before; and then he said that there had been a curse put upon his life with that marriage she had heard of; a curse that she would never know, because, scoundrel though he was, he would never be mean enough to tell her it was in her power to lift the ban from off him, and once in another country together the past could be as if it had never been. In perfect happiness great trouble could be easily forgotten.

And all the answer he heard was that piteous moan, like the sound wrung from a brave heart in the extremity of pain, and it nearly maddened him.

And so they reached the town, where lights were beginning to appear, and a soft, drizzling mist was falling over everything like a grey pall.

'We are near home now' said he, with a cheerfulness assumed in desperation. 'You will soon be in the light and warmth again, Berta, This mist chills one's very blood. My poor little girl, I ought not to have kept you out in it I ought to have hastened you off the hilltop earlier. My God, if I only had! Mind you, Berta, I am not repentant. Only one thing I regret, and that is that you have found me out, Another week, and we should have been away, and you would never have known. It isn't the fact that has made this difference; it is the revelation of it But even now it is not beyond forgetting, and we WILL forget it You will not tell them indoors?"

'Oh no,' she said quickly.

'That is right. Now look at me once, my treasure. Let me kiss you once, my own love. You are mine; I feel quite sure of you, dearest, but I should like to feel my safety from your lips. Kiss me once.'

She suffered the caress; nay, even clung to him a moment, her breath coming hard and fast, every breath a pain; then he opened the door, and she passed in and away from him.

He went to his room, and half an hour later the dinner-bell rang, and he went downstairs to the dining-room. Mr. and Mrs. Retlaw and young Heatherwood were there, but not Philiberta. After waiting patiently a few minutes, Mrs. Retlaw sent William to remind Miss Campbell.

William returned, saying that he had rapped thrice at Miss Campbell's door without receiving any answer.

'She has probably fallen asleep, poor child, after the fatigue and cold and mist,' said Mrs. Retlaw reproachfully to Paget. 'I wonder if you men will ever learn to be less selfish!"

But seeing that his face had grown suddenly haggard and full of pain, she hurried upstairs herself to Berta's room.

And found it empty.

Chapter XVII. Foundered.

When Philiberta entered her own chamber after she had parted from Edgar Paget, it was but to wait and listen till the way should be clear for clandestine exit. She must go. It mattered not how or whither, but she must go to find some dark corner where she might hide—perchance might heal—her 'grievous wound.' Would there be any place in the wide world where she might do that? Would the world be wide enough for her now? Oh, she must get hence quickly—this very hour—to see.

There was no one in the hall now; no one on the stairs, and all the doors were shut. So, softly, stealthily, she crept down and out, and hearing the hall-door slam heavily after her, rail till she was a long way from the house.

And now that she was out, what could she do? Well, she could walk—and rapid action was a relief to the pain—she could walk about the streets or on the hills till morning. Morning! Would there ever be morning for her again? Would she ever see the light of another day? Could she bear it if she did, with all this deathly darkness in her soul? What did people do when their hearts were broken? Death was sent to them, surely. When an animal is hurt beyond remedy, merciful people kill it to put it out of its pain. What difference between an animal and a human being, except that the latter, doubtless, had keener capacity for suffering? Yet no one would kill a woman to put her out of her misery. She must live on, maimed and mutilated, wounded to the death, yet denied death's freedom. Unless she took the matter in her own hands and ended it. There was nothing to hinder her from that, save—the horror of it, and the sense of cowardice. Where was she now? for she could hear the sound of the sea. Ah, yes, she would go down on the wharves, there is always something lulling and comforting in the lapping, rippling sound of waves upon the shore. She walked rapidly down the Stafford Street jetty, and then became aware of lights and noise and bustle.

'Is there anything gone wrong?' she asked composedly of a man lounging there with his hands in his pockets. 'What is the matter?

'Naething that I ken o', 'ceptin' a steamer just starting',' was the leisurely reply.

'Starting? Where? Is she really going away?

'As far as I ken—aye.'

Philiberta ran from him into the thick of the crowd.

'Help me, somebody,' she cried. 'I want to go in this steamer.' A stout, short man, wearing a peaked cap, sprang from the deck of the vessel to the wharf—the distance was not more than four feet, but-widening every second—caught her up as if she had been a doll, and sprang back with her.

'A narrow squeak,' said he, setting her down angrily, 'Why the dickens can't women learn to be in time?'

'I beg your pardon,' said Philiberta deprecatingly, 'I did not know I was coming.'

'What? Hadn't you taken your passage?'—'No.'

'Nor got your luggage aboard?'—'No.'

'Then I'm dashed sorry I bothered about you. I'm fooled. But there's one consolation, the other one's missed it. Serve her right!

He turned on his heel and walked forward, leaving Philiberta leaning bewilderedly against the rail.

The stewardess told her afterwards that that was the second mate; that a young lady had taken her passage that day and put her luggage aboard, and then gone up town to see some friends. And the second mate had evidently taken Philiberta for that young lady, who had certainly missed her passage now.

'Can you tell me where this steamer is bound for, please? asked Philiberta.

And the stewardess was so astounded that she said, 'Well, I'm blest!' under her breath.

Aloud she said, 'To catch the Australian mail steamer at Port Chalmers, miss.'

'Thanks. Then I think I'll lie down a while,' said Philiberta. And the stewardess showed her a berth.

In the still of the night they reached the Port, where the larger vessel lay, a thin line of steam ascending from her funnel being the only indication that she was not asleep, like her neighbours ranged along both sides of the pier. She was to sail at daybreak, Philiberta, till then, walked restlessly up and down the pier. With the first streak of dawn, however, she went on board, gave her name to the stewardess, and went to her berth in utter weariness. She did not sleep, but lay there staring vacantly, and taking a vague, involuntary interest in the tumult overhead. She heard a peremptory voice once calling the stewardess on deck. Then the stewardess came down again, and into Philiberta's cabin, and stared so hard and curiously that the girl said:

'There is some money in my pocket, please, if you want my fare now.'

'Oh, it isn't that,' said the woman, laughing. 'What did you say your name was, please?'

'Campbell. Why?'

'Oh, nothing, only I must go and put it in my book.'

And then she went straight on deck again, and Philiberta turned her face to the wall and sighed drearily.

The steamer cast off and throbbed slowly down the bay and out to sea. The long day dragged through and night came again; and with the night came sleep to Philiberta, and a dream. The pulsation of the engine must have, caused it, for she dreamt that she was resting on her lover's heart, counting its throbs. Then she heard his voice calling her name, so distinctly that she started awake, with her own heart on fire and every fibre of her body quivering. But everything around her was still, save only the constant palpitation of the vessel. Her door opened upon the ladies' cabin, and she could see that the lights were turned low, and that the stewardess was slumbering peacefully in her clothes on one of the cushioned benches. The sea was evidently very calm, for the table in the cabin stood as steadily as if it were on the floor of a landlubber's drawing-room; the tumbler of water, left inadvertently upon it, kept its position with perfect sobriety. Philiberta lay down quietly again, and began to wonder why they had not yet touched at the Bluff; then remembered that the engines had been stopped for a few hours a little way out from Port Chalmers Heads. She had asked the stewardess the cause, and the stewardess had told her, but now she had forgotten, and what did it matter? Only that was doubtless why they were not yet at the Bluff. Then she thought of Mrs. Retlaw, and her own ingratitude and selfishness in not leaving some word of explanation behind her. Not the true explanation—Heaven forefend!—but some little word to ease her dear friend's mind concerning her. Well, she would telegraph from the Bluff, so that was settled Just then there came, above the beat of the engine, a strange, weird sound to her ears, a long moaning sigh from afar off. It smote her distressfully; she remembered having heard something akin to it in old times in the bush when a fierce summer-storm was approaching, but yet a long way distant in the trees. She had always hated the sound; it made her feel so chill and cowardly. There again! And, unable to control herself, she sprang from her berth, hurried on dress and cloak, and rushed on deck. As if by magic, the former peace and stillness were ended. The captain was at his post; quick orders were uttered and obeyed. Some-thingSomething was coming. Dear God, something dire was coming fast to the ship! The distant moaning was changed to a weird wail; then increased to a piercing, terrifying shriek; then it rushed down madly on the vessel in a mountain of water and foam. The ship seemed to hold her breath a moment before the approach; and in that moment Philiberta felt herself lifted and carried down below. A crash, a rush as of blinding, drenching seas, a fearful screaming of wind that drowned the screams sent up in terror from human throats; then the steamer quivered and reeled and staggered, and finally throbbed on again with the gale in her teeth. Sleep and silence were over. The saloon was suddenly filled with wailing, doomed creatures, Philiberta, looking up to see who held her, saw Edgar Paget.

'Then it was your voice that called me just before the storm,' she said, and whether he heard her or not she never knew, for there was another deafening crash, and the shock felled both to the floor. Still he held her fast, and struggled up again. Another brief lull. 'How did you come here?'

'Rode over to the Port. Did you think I would let you go?'

'How did you know?'—'My soul guided me,'

Boom! Boom! Crash! The sea rushed down into the cabin, God! how the women shrieked. Some of them had babies, poor souls.

'We will not die here like drowned rats!' shouted Paget; and then he lifted Philiberta on his shoulder, and struggled with her to the deck, she clinging round his neck with both arms. Men passengers were running about wildly; some were already washed off; only the captain and officers and crew were silent, save for a shouted order now and then, which was probably lost in the wind.

The hurricane shrieked and raged, the sea lashed and roared, the struggling vessel fought and groaned as if she knew there could be but one end to the unequal battle, and that her destruction,

'Hopeless!' shouted the captain. 'She is breaking up. It will be all over in ten minutes.'

Not quite so soon; the agony lasted an hour and more, and by that time the people had grown calm in the face of the inevitable. Mothers clung to their children, wives and husbands to each other, with that passionate tenacity of love that fears and yet defies dividing death. Many of them prayed that the end might come quickly. None dreamed of escape. Edgar Paget had lashed Philiberta to something: in the darkness she could not tell to what. She thought she felt him lashing himself there too; and she felt glad of that When the final break-up came, he had his arms round her; she never knew when or how he lost his hold.

Boom! Boom! Crash! It is over And the sea calms gradually down over a few scattered planks, beams, splinters, and drowned people.

Chapter XVIII. Saved.

Yet two were saved.

Two who, knowing that not even death could so utterly divide them as life, were perhaps of all that ship's human freight least desirous that the sea should spare them. Stranger even than the miracle of their rescue was the fact of their being rescued separately.

Edgar Paget was the first. Dhashed adrift directly after the ultimate break-up, he, clutching about as only a drowning man can clutch, caught at a portion of the wreck and held on, holding his breath at each wave that rushed over him, and renewing it again in the brief intervals. In the lull of the storm he heard a shout, and shouted back under the conviction that it was to some poor wretch in as sore a strait as his own.

But then he saw a light, and knew the truth; rescue was at hand. The wind fell almost as suddenly as it had risen. The sea was still furious, yet a human cry could be heard above its roar. He shouted again, and felt himself drifting nearer and nearer the light. Presently he was aboard a small coasting Vessel that had done her battle with the storm; suffered too, and lost two men; but had weathered it at last, and lay sobbing now on the breast of the sea.

Partly at Paget's earnest entreaty, partly because the ship was crippled and could not well do other, the captain tacked about the same place till morning, all the men shouting incessantly and casting out whatever floatable articles they could spare, in the dim hope of giving some sinking wretch another chance. But nothing came of it, and daylight showed them only a sullen subsiding sea, whose long swell might easily wash away any sign of the wreck—away—away beyond sight and recovery.

'All gone, sir! stake your life on that,' said the skipper of the coaster to Paget, who scanned with despairing eyes the great grey cruel grave that stretched everywhere round him out to the dim horizon.

He had suffered some damage to his left arm. It was broken, but he did not know this till afterwards. Something had struck him as he drifted towards the little ship; something like human flesh had touched his own at the moment of the blow. He had almost lost his hold from the suddenness of the concussion; then it—whatever it was—had drifted off from him. It might have been—God!—it might have been Berta. Why had he not let go his own plank and clung to that? he could at least then have drowned with her.

'It is always possible that wrecked people may be picked up by stray vessels?' he said to the captain inquiringly.

'Always possible,' with a melancholy emphasis on the last word. 'Wood will always float. Bodies lashed tightly on will float too.'

'Bodies!' The skipper's verdict lay in that word.

'Nobody could last long in such a sea as that,' he added. 'You would have been a goner in ten more minutes, you know.' But the skipper was not quite right in his conclusions that time.

In forty-eight hours they were all in Dunedin, and the news of the wreck of a great steamer went out all over the world.

Philiberta was always singularly reticent of information re-gardingregardingthat period of her life directly subsequent to the wreck. It is my opinion that she was so because she dreaded people's incredulity.

Adventurers, generally speaking, lay themselves sadly open to suspicion of drawing the long bow in anecdote and narrative; and the rare few truthful ones naturally shrink from inviting a share of the general unbelief.

There is that remarkable and eccentric sea-serpent now. Who believes anything anyone says about him?

Yet there can be little doubt that such an animal, or reptile, or insect (impossible to fix his category until we catch him, you know) exists; or that it has been seen by a favoured (or afflicted) few. But not even the word of a missionary will be taken about it now. I saw half a dozen newspapers the other day in all of which were articles cutting, slashing, and in all ways ridiculing a certain reverend gentleman who bad published a most graphic account of a personal interview with the sea-serpent. The ship the missionary was on was the K——, bound for an island of savage heathens with a cargo of tracts, glass beads, and rum; principally rum. And the authors of said newspaper articles made ironical observations that, considering the cargo, the public ought to be much obliged to the missionary and other passengers for seeing only one sea-serpent. On another vessel, when the sea-serpent came along to exchange friendly notes about the state and prospects of things in general, the captain ordered every soul on board below, and himself mounted guard with a revolver in each hand to prevent and one catching so much as a glimpse of the snaky denizen of the mighty deep. Afterwards, the captain bound every man, woman, and child, by an awful and solemn oath, never, to reveal that the ship had come anywhere within hail of a sea-serpent, lest on him and his vessel should fall the blighting scorn and 'chaff' of an unbelieving public.

He told me all this himself, and I know it must have been true, because that captain was almost as particular about telling a lie as George Washington was. In fact, if he had a fault, it was his exaggerated regard and respect for truth—a commodity that should, as a new philosopher remarks, ever be used sparingly on account of its preciousness. But there was one dear friend to whom Philiberta, at intervals, unbosomed herself of strange revelations. And it was to this same friend that she described the odd sensations of death by drowning, and the awfulness of coming back to life from such a death.

'It seems not a second of time,' she said, with that dramatic intensity of speech and gesture peculiar to her in moments of deep feeling,' since you sank down—down—with the rushing of water in your ears, the numbing of blood in your veins, in your throat the gurgling instinctive cry to Heaven for aid in your extremity, and then the sense of great eternal calm. Not a second of time from this, and yet you are alive again, with a painful life that tingles excruciatingly in every limb, throbs torturingly in every pulse—alive, and still so weary all over with an unutterable weariness that you cannot keep the tears back. So weak, that the burden of life—the heavy, grinding burden that must be taken up again and borne to the bitter end—seems all too great and oppressive for human strength. Thus must the Son of Man have felt as His persecutors goaded and spurned Him back to consciousness when, under the cruel weight of the Cross, He had fainted and fallen by the wayside. Ah, Great One! whether Thou wert divine or only human, aching hearts and weary heads even to this day, and through all time, must bleed for Thee and bow to Thee, because of the bitter suffering that makes all living things akin. How must Thy tortured, fainting, dying heart have been glad to send forth the cry, "It is finished!" '

The ship that picked up our heroine was the barque Star, bound from Australia to Hong Kong with a large number of Chinese passengers. These passengers, with the economy characteristic of the Mongolian exile, all travelled steerage. The odour of them pervaded the whole ship, fore and aft. Presently it was discovered that the stench was not wholly caused by the living; that they, in conformity with an unpleasant custom of theirs, were transporting their dead for burial in their native land. These dead celestials were packed neatly in trunks and boxes and labelled 'luggage,' probably on account of the absurd prejudice of European seamen against sailing with a corpse. Some of the dead men had been merely bones and dust for a long time, and were of course easily packed and comparatively inoffensive. But others had not been so long under ground, and their friends had not thought it conscientious to leave them, or convenient to wait for them, so they just brought them along to continue their decomposition as they best might on the voyage. The daily increasing suspicions and disapprobation of the sailors reached the culminating point when the Star suffered a ten days' calm in a tropical latitude and became worse than a charnel-house. The men insisted upon searching the luggage; the Chinese objected. The captain and officers made some show of quelling the seamen, and were immediately put in irons. There is reason to believe they were rafter glad of this; and who will wonder at their rejoicing to be compelled to acquiesce in an act they could not in honour have countenanced, but which doubtless saved them all from death by some horrible fever? The encounter was brief but bloody. The Chinese numbered three hundred, to twenty British Islanders and one Italian steward (whose kindness to Philiberta, by-the-bye, and talent for manufacturing dough-nuts and similar delicacies, were never forgotten by her). When the trouble was over, and the litter cleared away, and the decks washed, the captain and officers were released and permitted to reckon up results, which were—a considerably lightened hold (not a scrap of passengers' luggage was there left) and a hundred and ten living Chinamen in place of the three hundred originally shipped. Perhaps we had better say, for sake of rigid accuracy, one hundred, because the odd ten were damaged beyond repair, and went to join the departed within a few days afterwards.

How rejoiced Philiberta was to quit this vessel for a Fijian trader they fell in with about a fortnight after this the reader may imagine without any strong effort.

There was some mystery about the Fijian experience that Philiberta's friends could never quite make out, and she always put so stern a check on conjecturing curiosity that she was seldom offended by it. When that great exposure of 'black-birding' came about, her friends thought they had a link, but it never amounted to anything. Some became possessed of the idea that she had been compelled to take an oath of secrecy about something, and had found it inadvisable to break that oath. One, and I think that one was nearest the mark, believed that gratitude to the captain, who was excessively kind to her, kept Philiberta silent about matters that could not have been ventilated to his advantage.

I believe that the captain wanted to marry Philiberta, but that is merely speculative. The space of time between the wreck and our heroine's return to Melbourne measured eight months, but it made a difference of almost as many years in her appearance and feelings, But, if there had been nothing else, that sudden awful wreckage of her life's faith and love and hope up there on the hill, near Dunedin reservoir, would have made all the difference in her.

She stepped on to the Sandridge pier at noon of a scorching day in February, when Melbourne and all its surroundings were obscured in a haze of dust She had come straight from Sydney in the Dandenong, which had sailed exactly six hours after she had landed there from Fiji; so it will appear that she had not stayed to make observances of New South Wales.

'Age, the Argus, and Daily Telegraph!' shouted small boys in furious competition, as they darted in and out of the throng on Sandridge pier.

Philiberta arrested one and bought a copy of each paper. Then she went up to the ladies' waiting room in the railway station and sat down there to read. And this is what she saw in the first column of the very first page her eyes fell on:

'Next of kin to Philiberta Campbell, who was lost in the SS.——off the coast of New Zealand on the tenth of last June, will hear of something to their advantage on application to Otto Berliner, missing friends agency office.'

For the first time in her life, perhaps, a sense of her utter and perfect loneliness in the world came over her.

'Next of kin!' She had no kin. Friends? Well, yes; Mrs. Retlaw had mourned her doubtless; and the Hugills—ah, yes, the Hugills had sorrowed for her surely. And Edgar, he must have been drowned—but if he were alive, he would grieve about her.

But there was no one to wear black for her, or to come and claim her money.

Suppose she were dead, she thought, what would eventually become of that money? Would most of it be expended in advertising and searching for her 'next of kin'? Or would some clever impostor come forward and prove himself 'next of kin,' and get it? Or would the inquiry be given up shortly and the money go to swell the Government Treasury?

She made up her mind, then and there, to make her will at the earliest opportunity. But here again was a puzzle. To whom should she give her wealth? The Hugills were never likely to need it. The Retlaws would always have plenty of their own. She would take her time and look round and find out what would be the very best and wisest use it could be put to. Just the she heard an uproar outside and went forth to see the cause. And she saw a man mercilessly cudgelling and kicking a horse, and cursing and 'carrying on' in a fashion that showed how well he knew his exemption, from punishment in this land of liberty.

Hotly indignant, Philiberta, hurried towards the ruffian, but before she could reach him, his poor overloaded, bruised victim made one great effort in the desperate energy of suffering, and dragged, its burden sway across the road.

Coming back towards the station, she saw two boys torturing a small wild bird that they had caught in a trap. She bade them let it go; they only laughed in her face. She entreated,' and they laughed still louder. Finally, she offered a shilling for the bird's liberty, and the chief torturer closed at once. The little fluttering thing flew lamely off, the boy got his shilling, and Philiberta, staying to watch against a second capture for a few minutes, heard the other little villain abuse his mate for not 'making the figure one-and-three!'

Then she went back to the station and into the well-crowded train, making resolutions and calculations as to the disposal of all her riches in the prevention of cruelty to animals.

The compartment she entered was filled with fashionably dressed women. Two who sat opposite to each other in corners of the carriage were holding animated converse in a high key. From the tenor of their talk Philiberta, gathered that they were old friends just met after a long separation. One was from 'the bush;' the other was a citizen.

'And when are you coming to town again?' inquired the latter.

'I can't say,' replied the other. 'Not for a long time, I am afraid. George has turned so economical, you know, through the last bad season. And he wants to purchase Paget's station when the sale comes off.'

'And when will that be?'

'Oh, not for a few months yet Paget's bankers will give him every possible chance, you know; but they are bound to close in on him before long.'

'Perhaps he will be able to redeem himself yet.'

'Not possible. He is too deeply involved.'

'How much?'

'Oh, it would take twelve thousand to clear him, George says. But pray don't talk of this to anyone. George told me in confidence.'

'My dear, did you ever know me betray confidence?"

Every woman in the carriage heard this and smiled. Philiberta, pale and eager, put her newspaper before her face and waited for more.

'What did you say Paget's place was called?'

'Yoanderruk.'

'Up Loddon way, isn't it?'

'Yes. Wilks is his next neighbour.'

'How did he manage to get into this fix?'

'Oh, things have gone against him of late years; and then—his wife, you know,'

'No, I don't know. What is it?'

Philiberta held her breath for the next sentence, and heard it though it was uttered in a whisper, the ladies bending their heads closer together. It was only one word.

'Dipsomania!'

'Dear me! How unpleasant! Poor man!'

'No doubt it is chiefly that that brought him to this pass. Not what she spent or wasted, you know; but the misery of the thing. And the homestead left entirety to the care of the servants. George told me that Paget was dreadfully reckless sometimes, and no wonder. Then he got his arm broken in that wreck, and it was badly set by some surgeon, and had to be done all over again, George says he is an entirely different man since the wreck, and looks ill. I expect it was the fright. However, nothing can save him now from utter ruin; and yet she goes on just the same.'

'Poor fellow! Have they got any children?'

'One—a little boy. It is a cripple. The mother threw it out of the window in one of her fits when it was a baby, and it sustained some injury to the spine.'

'What a fiend! And how old is the child now?'

'About five or six years, I think.'

'Well, what a time that poor man must have had! I wonder he didn't leave her long ago.'

'So do I, But he is fond of his place—or used to be, they say. And he has everything very nice up there. And I suppose he has lived in the hopes of her getting the better of this curse.'

'Well, it's a strange thing, really,'

'Is this our station? Yes. And there's our buggy waiting. Come along, dear.'

So Edgar Paget was alive, then, and back at his home with his wife. And his wife drank. This was the ban he had spoken of, but been unable to name. And he was altered, suffering, ruined.

'Well, thank God! I can save him from that,' said Philiberta, making her lonely, aimless way through the crowded Hobson's Bay railway station. 'My money can save him from that if I can only devise a scheme for giving it to him.'

One thing was patent as a duty to her mind; she must keep all knowledge of her existence from him. He must never know that she was saved. And how then convey the money to him?

'I will go to Mrs. Hugill,' said Philiberta.

Chapter XIX. Philiberta's Scheme.

Travelling old ground, even when it is not 'measured with milestones of pain,' hath ever a melancholy influence upon us. The familiar landmarks touch us with softening memories; so many things that are the same appear to have altered; so many that have altered startle and surprise us with the change; children that we knew have grown to be men and women; men and wonen have aged beyond recognition or gone into eternity, leaving a blank that we who did not see them die can scarcely realize or understand. Not such serious changes had been wrought in Philiberta's absence from Emuville, for the years had not been many enough; yet she experienced something of that feeling of strangeness that everyone has in visiting an old spot after a long time. Every turn and twist of the old coach road was full of suggestive recollections. The coach was the same, though a trifle dingier in its reds and yellows perhaps. The old brass trumpet was the same, though its voice seemed somewhat hoarser, The off horse had the same bad cough that he used to have, and the same habit of trying to bite a piece out of his neighbour's ear after each attack. The coachman was the same; time could make no difference in a complexion tanned in early youth to a Cherokee Indian tint, and a small slight figure made of bones and wire and leathery skin. But he did not recognise Philiberta. True that she wore a thick veil, but that should scarcely have made all the difference, and even when she put it up the man made no sign of recognition. Perhaps it was, she thought, because she was as one dead now. And dead people are so soon forgotten.

Yet, when she reached the house she knew so well, and looking through an open window, saw a woman sitting within, with folded hands and sad face and eyes that looked out in mute mourning, she felt that here at least she was not forgotten. She entered softly and stood before her friend.

Pompo, the old grey kangaroo dog, bounced up in a fury, sniffed her, and recognised an old acquaintance; then flung himself lazily down again and felt that he had been egregiously swindled.

'What is it? Who is it? Oh, I am afraid!' cried Mrs. Hugill, with a startled look in her eyes as she gazed upon the apparition.

'Afraid! Of me! Then indeed I must be altered,' said Philiberta, holding out her hands appealingly.

'My child—my Berta—alive? Now God has been very good to me! And I, how I have rebelled against Him—oh, Berta!'

When the first hysterical transports were over Philiberta looked about her and then again earnestly at her friend.

'Everything just the same,' she said, 'save that my dear's hair shows a grey streak or two that it used not to have. Yet I verily believe that it adds to her beauty instead of detracting from it. Tell me,—why did you cry out that you were afraid when you saw me!'

'Dear, I thought it was your spirit. I had been reading a book about Spiritualism, and as I sat here thinking of you, oh, so sadly! I said, "If there be any truth in it—any truth,—let her come back, if it is only once, and for one short minute." It was almost a prayer, Berta, as I said it over and over again in my mind; and then Pompo growled, and I looked up, and lo! you were here.'

'What are you doing here all by yourself?' said Philiberta, crying.

'Oh, Les' has gone with the papa on circuit this time. I am all alone except for Ponipo.'

This being the second time within a few minutes that Pompo had heard his own name mentioned, he felt that something was required of him; so he bounded up, ran outside the house, rushed an imaginary bushranger or two off the ground, and then came in again. He flung himself exhaustedly at his mistress's feet, thumped the floor with his thin, hard, unbecoming tail, winked one eye, and then observed in his own peculiar manner that if anyone doubted his capabilities as a companion and protector, why, just let them say so, that was all. Then he went to sleep and snored.

'I am glad to have you to myself for to-night,' said Philiberta to Mrs. Hugill. 'I have so much to say.'

'I should think so indeed. Begin at the very beginning. But stop! What an inhospitable wretch I am! Forgive me, dear. Oh, my own darling, I cannot help crying yet for very gladness. Come, I will make some tea for you, and poach your eggs myself, I know just how you like them,—and you always prefer brown-shelled ones, don't you? This very day Jane made some of the scones you used to like; a tray full is standing now on the dresser, and a dish of Devonshire cream in the pantry. Sit here, Berta, in the old corner, and in the old chair. Both have been sacred to you all this long while. Sit down and let me feast my eyes upon you. I am so glad the men are away, I don't want anyone but myself to see or speak to you at first.'

So Philiberta, thankful for this love, and wondering what she had ever done to merit and win it so abundantly, sat in her old place and was made much of. They talked on hour after hour, these two; and then Philiberta unfolded her scheme.

'But the audacity of it!' cried Mrs. Hugill, aghast; 'and the impossibility of it!'

'I don't see either said Philiberta. 'I am merely recovering my own property in my own way. There is no "next of kin" to dispute the matter with you; and my handwriting can easily be proved genuine.'

'But won't it be forgery?'

Philiberta laughed.

'How can it be, when I do it myself?'

'Well, forgery is not quite what I meant, either. There is some other name in law for an act of that kind.'

'Is there? I don't know, I never heard of anyone doing it before.'

'Nor I. It is the wildest scheme!'

'If the worst comes of it, which would be discovery,' said Philiberta, 'I don't see what the law could do to us. I have a right to reclaim my own, and I do not know why I may not reclaim it by any method I think fit. People hearing of it might call me mad, or at the least eccentric, but that would be because they did not know all my reasons and motives.'

'Well, I, being a married woman, can't carry out any part of the scheme without my husband's sanction and assistance,' said Mrs. Hugill. 'Little as I know about law, I am aware of its arbitrariness in all matters connubial. A woman is treated by the law as an inferior animal; as one having neither sense nor knowledge, and quite incapable of managing her own affairs. She is positively without rights and privileges, is not allowed to have money in the bank unknown to her husband, and is looked upon generally as a creature of as little responsibility as Pompo there.'

Pompo stopped snoring and started up—that dog was never too hard asleep to hear his own name—and seeing that his mistress was excited, rushed out with a howl to hurt some more bushrangers.

'I must tell the papa, Berta,' said Mrs. Hugill, coming back to the important subject under discussion.

'Of course you must,' said Berta, 'and Leslie too. And we shall need Mr. Hugill's help anyhow, for I know no more about legal arrangements than you do, and have no notion how to set about this affair properly. But you will have to broach it to the papa, dear, and bring him to my way of thinking. The chances are that he will set his face directly against it at first.'

'The chances are! My dear, you should say the certainty is that he will set his face against it. I doubt if he will ever listen to it.'

'Ah yes, he will, if you undertake to make him. After all, there is nothing wrong in what I want to do. It is not a sin.'

'No, except that all utter folly is open to a charge of sin. And indeed the boundary line dividing the two is not always distinct. But supposing we succeed, Berta, what are you going to do?'

Work, dear friend, work. There is nothing better for me. I want to be doing. Nothing but activity can keep me alive. If I do not succeed in this scheme of mine, I will just turn my back on the money and go out into the world to earn my living. I can do it, you know. I have done it, partly, during the last eight months. I am not without money now, and I earned it.'

'How?' said Mrs. Hugill, eagerly.

'When do you expect Mr. Hugill home?' asked Philiberta, calmly ignoring that last question.

'To-morrow. But if you won't tell me how you earned money in the past, perhaps you will condescend to explain how you propose to earn it in the future?'

'Oh, there are many ways open to willing hands and sharp wits, backed with a good constitution. I am not afraid of anything.'

'But have you no definite plan?'

'Yes; I am going to be an actress.'

'My child!'

'Yes. During those weeks of loneliness that I told you of, through those interminable days of sea and sky, I had but one book to read—a copy of Shakespeare. It constituted the captain's entire library, and I believe he thought it was a Bible, for he looked surprised one day when I quoted a passage from it. "Is that Gospel?" he asked. "Yes; the grandest of gospels," I answered. "Well, I'm blest if I thought there was anything half so lively in Scriptur'," said he. "Show me the place in the book." Then I explained, and he looked shame-faced and said: "Well, I'll swear it was a Bible up to the time we held an inquest on Dick, the sailmaker, who went to Davy Jones's sudden one night through popping down between the ship and the wharf at Newcastle, him being under the influence, as it, were, and a trifle off his sea-legs at the time, Some blamed cuss kissing the book must have swopped it, that's certain," said my captain.'

Mrs. Hugill laughed.

'I thought I had read Shakespeare before,' said Philiberta, after a pause; 'but I learned then, during those long days and nights, that I had not. I learned to live in him then, and lifted up my voice in continual thanksgiving that it was that book and none other that was "swopped" for the captain's Bible. I have it yet, a dirty, well-thumbed, well-worn volume. The captain gave it to me, and laughed to see my gratitude. The old hook will be precious to me as long as I live, for it was so much to me then. And I know almost every word in it by heart.'

'And so you will go on the stage?'

'Yes; it must be a glorious career. It must be glorious work to interpret to the multitude the thoughts of the world's greatest genius.'

'Indeed it must!' cried Mrs. Hugill enthusiastically. 'You will be a wonderful success, Berta, and a great woman.'

Neither of them knew anything of the difficulty and unprofitableness of trying to 'interpret to the multitude,' etc. Neither had heard that remark, now so trite, about Shakespeare and insolvency.

'I always thought you would do something great and become famous, Berta,' said Mrs. Hugill.

Chapter XX. A Last Will and Testament.

Philiberta's scheme succeeded.

She and Mrs. Hugill had a hard struggle for it with the magistrate; but there could be but one end—his vanquishment, as anyone knowing the domestic engineering of this family might easily foresee. Once having lent himself to the plan, however, Mr. Hugill did his most earnest best towards its furtherance. So he entered into voluminous correspondence with Mr. Otto Berliner, of the missing friends agency, in Melbourne, and finally went to town with his wife, went through ceremonies in identification, paid an enormous sum in liquidation of accumulated expenses in re the estate of Philiberta Campbell, deceased, and then took entire possession of that estate under said Philiberta Campbell's duly attested will.

'I should get ten years on the roads for it at the very least, if it were found out,' said Mr. Hugill, when it was all over and he was safe under his own roof-tree once more.

'I don't believe it,' said Philiberta. 'I don't believe there is any law against a person's making a will and having it carried out during lifetime.'

'I shall make a point of reading up to see,' said Mr. Hugill; 'and at any rate if I didn't get into gaol through it, I should most certainly be committed to Yarra Bend. It is the maddest thing I ever heard of.'

'Then why did you do it, James?' inquired his wife, very unfairly, since it was she who had made him do it.

What made it worse for the poor gentleman was that he had been kept in total ignorance of the grand motive of all this manœuvring, so that it seemed to him a piece of meaningless gratuitous folly.

'And now all that I want,' said Philiberta, 'is a promise that you will preserve perfect secrecy.'

'Secrecy, by Jove! Cela va sans dire, I reckon. Did it strike you as being at all likely that I should ever be such an ass as to tell? I dare say it did, though, seeing that I have already suffered you both to make such a consummate one of me.'

Leslie was out of all this. Whether his mother feared the reignition of his old hopeless flame, or merely wanted him to be out of the way till this affair was all settled, one cannot say; but certain it is that she sent him off on a visit to distant friends without allowing him to see Philiberta at all that time. Afterwards she told him all about it; that is, as much as she told his father, which was very little; for Mrs. Hugill, though hating secrets, had the poorest opinion of masculine capacity for preserving them, and so kept them to herself and ran no risk.

'Though women may be more prone to babble for babbling's sake,' she was wont to say, 'yet they are much more retentive under the process of pumping. I never saw the man yet who wouldn't leak out everything he knew if skilfully pumped; but let a woman see that you are trying to draw her out, and she shuts up as suddenly and perfectly as a trap-door spider's house when a fly gets in.'

Of course there is no masculine mind that will be imposed upon by this little woman's theory. Every man will perceive the absurdity of it at a glance; therefore to attempt to point it out would be entirely supererogatory.

Mrs. Hugtll went to Melbourne with Philiberta to help at the transfer of the money. Philiberta felt the inadvisability of appearing personally in the affair if she wished to carry out her fraud successfully.

So Mrs. Hugill managed it through an agent who, for a liberal 'consideration,' contrived the whole arrangement with Edgar Paget's bankers cleverly and with the utmost secrecy. Mrs. Hugill gave this individual a false name and account of herself, and he never even saw Philiberta, so there was little danger of the truth ever coming out through him. And Paget's bankers, who were extremely partial to Paget, and deeply distressed over the circumstances that were forcing them to foreclose on him, were only too rejoiced to accept his redemption from any quarter, and to refrain from pressing too closely any unwelcome inquiries.

'So now it is done,' said Philiberta, smoothing out on her knee the bankers' receipt in acknowledgment of twelve thousand pounds, paid into their hands to the credit of Edgar Paget. 'Now it is done.'

'Yes, and I only hope you may never have to regret it, dear,' said her friend.

The two were in quiet lodgings in St. Kilda, and were sitting in a pretty chamber that overlooked the bay. Philiberta loved the sea, though it had treated her so ill. The boom of its waves upon the beach was always music to her soul; she could always find relief from herself in the contemplation of sunlight or moonlight on its varying waters.

'I shall never regret it,' she said, in answer to Mrs. Hugill's last remark. 'The money counted as nothing to me, and it will save him. And I have none other in the world to need it from me, only him.'

In her heart Mrs. Hugill hated and despised Edgar Paget as a treacherous and dishonourable ruffian. So figure to yourself the loyal allegiance to friendship that could restrain her from all bitterness of speech concerning him! If prayer could have brought about his death, I believe she would have prayed for it; but never a word uttered she against him to Philiberta, lest the word should wound her darling.

'Come back with me to Emuville, Berta; and gladden our hearts by staying with us a while.'

'My dear, I am too restless. It will be better for me to lose no time in getting to work.'

'How do you mean to set about it at first, dear?'

'Oh, I will go and make application at the theatres. What I have still retained of my fortune will keep me until I can justly demand salary. It will not do to press for salary at first, you know, as I am unknown and inexperienced.'

'I suppose not. But, Berta, are you not afraid that Mr. Paget will see you and know you one of these days if you stop in Melbourne?'

'I have thought of that, but there is little likelihood of such a contingency. From now until the end of the year is a busy time for a squatter. And in the first flush of his release from difficulties it is most probable that he would cling close to home to make the most of his renewed chances. By the end of this year I shall most likely have an engagement in some other colony if I succeed in this. And then every year of my life will lessen the probability of his recognising me even if we should meet. I am altered a great deal already, you know.'

'Yes, you are altered,' said Mrs. Hugill.

'And every year will alter me more.'

'How calmly you talk of it, Berta.'

'Dear, I have had a long time to think calmly of it, you know, and to learn that life is made up of more senses than one, and that there is something for everyone to do and live for beyond mourning the one boon which is denied.'

'My child, it was a bitter lesson for you to learn at the very outset of your life.'

'Don't!' said Philiberta, hastily. 'Somehow I can bear anything better than tenderness lately. But don't think I am ungrateful for yours, dearest; it is only that it—that it––'

'I know, I know, darling. So you will try the theatres at once.'

'Yes, it will be better. And this great ambition of mine,' said Philiberta, 'will fill up my life and compensate for all that is as yet a failure in it. With an end in view—something to achieve—something to work for and win—no one can be unhappy.'

'And you will win, darling, you will succeed.'

'I think I shall,' said Philiberta.

Not a doubt of it entered either of their minds; and so they went out arm in arm for their last walk together on the beach, and their last anticipatory discussion of the glory they bath felt so sure of.

Chapter XXI. Difficulties.

Philiberta soon realized the poverty of her chances as a Shakespearian actress. Theatrical managers did not want Shakespeare. Still less did they want inexperienced interpreters of him. They were all very civil to our heroine, but they laughed at her, almost to her face. It really was too absurd—a woman absolutely without the slightest stage experience presenting herself with the request to be engaged as leading lady for classical plays. Why, it even surpassed the audacity of those third-raters who came out sometimes from low provincial theatres in England, with a flourish of play-bills that announced them as stars. It was exasperating to see people with such notions of themselves. Yet one of these managers (of the Royal—the old Royal, you remember) felt a little touched when he saw a pathetic look of disappointment creep over Philiberta's earnest face as he stated his belief that there was no opening, and probably never would be, for her and Shakespeare.

'You see,' said he gently, feeling all the while that it was weak—very weak indeed—thus to hold parley when he ought to make the negative prompt, decisive, and unalterable, 'You see, we can afford to go to the necessary expense of a company and accessories only when the leading actor or actress is a certain draw. Much as we desire to encourage local talent, it hasn't any show in this country yet—except in one or two cases that I know of, and they are not in the heavy line. The colonial public prefers importations. And even importations of the heavy stamp won't go down unless they are very highclass indeed, and can send a splendid reputation before them. Even then the best of them seldom pay a management as well as a good comic singer, or break-down dancer, By-the-bye,' said he, half maliciously, 'you don't think you could do the comic business, do you?'

'I cannot dance break-downs,' said Philiberta, with melancholy dignity.

'And you can't sing?'—'Comic songs? No.'

'Can you sing at all?' inquired Mr. G., with some eagerness, as if a new idea bad caught him suddenly.

'Oh yes, I can sing,' said Philiberta. 'My voice is said to be good,'

'Would you mind letting me hear it?'

'I would rather not. But why?'

'Oh, well—I had an idea that might come to something—if you really are so anxious to adopt the stage as a profession.'

'I am very anxious, but I could never sing comic songs,' said Philiberta, with emphasis.

'But I was not thinking of comic songs just then, exactly. And I cannot say what I was thinking of, unless you will give me the chance of testing your power as a vocalist.'

'Then I will sing, if you like,' said Philiberta.

'Thanks. Come with me to the proscenium. There's a piano on the stage. You can either accompany yourself, or sing without accompaniment; just as you like. This way.'

She followed him along the numerous passages to the stage.

'Will you have the piano?'—'No, thanks; I will try without.'

'Very well. Stand right up to the front, then, close to the footlights, and wait till I get upstairs before you begin. When you see me over there behind the Governor's box, I shall be ready. Sing anything you like, you know.'

She waited until she saw him right opposite, in the dress-circle, then somewhat confusedly began. She was too nervous and bewildered to choose her song judiciously. Indeed, she could not for the life of her just then remember any one of her best ballads or selections. Nothing would come to her save a mournful Scottish air ('Roslyn Castle') that she had learnt very long ago from John Campbell, and to which she had wedded lines only lately.

'Hear the wail of the wind as it wanders from the sea, Watch the pale stars that shine so sadly down on me; Oh, the weird wind is lamenting, the stars in pity shine, For they know no other sorrow so sorrowful as mine. The waves are falling heavily with dull and booming roar On the sands so grey and dim, and I kneel upon the shore, And I bid the waves be still while I my story tell, But they come and go unheeding while they moan, "Farewell!" 'Farewell, farewell! like an echo of the day When the sea unrelenting bore my heart's love away; And I watched the white sails fading till they vanished from my sight, And all the bright glad sunlight died away to darksome night. Weary years have passed, and I am still left here alone With but the wind and stars and sea to listen to my moan; Weary years are gone, and I know, ah! so sadly well, That weary years ago my love bade me a last "Farewell!" 'Oh! I would that the wind would bear my soul away Over sea, over land, all through the long, long day, That I might seek my lost love in every land and clime, Till, finding him, my glad soul might forget this weary time. I would put my hands in his, and we would soar beyond the sky, Far past the pitying stars that throb in yon blue dome so high; But woe is me! I listen to the sea's unceasing knell, And it tells me hope is gone for aye. Farewell! Farewell!'

She sang the first verse very indifferently, and then stopped.

'Go on,' called a voice from the far-off box.

So she sang the second, and gaining courage and control of her voice, went through the third of her own accord. Seeing that Mr. G. waited still, she called out, 'That is all. There are no more verses.'

In a few seconds he was with her on the stage again.

'Your voice, Miss——?'

'Morven. Miss Berta Morven is the name I have assumed.'

'Well, your voice, Miss Berta Morven, is simply magnificent. If you will accept, I will take the responsibility of offering you now, on behalf of the management, an engagement in opera bouffe, at a salary of four pounds a week. The opera bouffe season commences in exactly a month from now. Rehearsals begin to-morrow.'

Seeing that she hesitated, nay, looked anything but gratified, he added, 'Believe me, it is an exceptionally good offer. If it were not for your voice, I should never dream of making it. Remember that you know nothing whatever of stage business; you are completely ignorant of a vocation that requires as hard work and long apprenticeship as any other, from music and painting down to carpentering and shoemaking. It is not every day you will hear of a mere tyro getting such a salary as I offer, but it is not every day one hears such a voice as yours, so there is no disinterested generosity on my part. All the same, I repeat that it is an extremely liberal offer.'

'I don't doubt that,' said Philiberta, 'but I think I told you at first that salary was a matter of trifling importance to me compared with the gratification of my ambition. And opera bouffe is not my ambition—not my forte.'

'Excuse me, Miss Morven, but it strikes me you do not really know what is your forte. For that matter I have very rarely met anyone who did. I knew a circus clown once, one of the best clowns ever turned out by those two great manufacturers nature and art. Well, he thought himself a born Virginius, a perfect Lear, a natural Othello. He tried each of these róles at different times, and was simply roared off the boards. The audience didn't hiss him, the show was too utterly comical and mirth-provoking. He could have gone on drawing crowded houses with those parts, for grander burlesques it is impossible to conceive. But no, egad! he wouldn't be laughed at—at least, not in that way. So he went back to his legitimate line, still always immovably convinced that he was wasted, and that if he had been started on the tragedy instead of the comedy track at first, he would have distanced every tragedian in the past and future. It is trite knowledge among professionals that every actor and actress, when having a benefit, will, unless prevented by force or persuasion, play out of his or her own line some piece they fancy, but have no talent for. With such a voice as yours, Miss Morven, your forte should be singing; and you will excuse a man, whose years and experience in this line should entitle him to some little assumption of true judgment, when he tells you that you are probably mistaken in your estimate of your own abilities. Very few people can hope to play Shakespeare properly.'

'But I have read and learned the plays so thoroughly.'

'So have numbers of people, my dear young lady, who couldn't act one fit to be seen. Mind, I don't say it is as bad as that with you. To give my own genuine opinion, I believe you could play Shakespeare in time. But there is so much detail to study, so much outside of mere word, gesture, and costume perfection, so much business to study in short, that it would be madness, even if any management could be found to undertake you, to attempt anything so ambitious until you know more about it.'

'And how am I to know more about it? How am I to learn all this that you say is essential?'

'Why, my dear young lady, I have put the chance in your hands. I offer you the run of the school, with a salary to boot that any novice of two years' apprenticeship would consider magnificent.'

'Then t shall be glad to accept your offer,' said Philiberta, with sudden decision. 'I hope I have not seemed too ungrateful in hesitating so long about it. It was not that I failed to appreciate your liberality.'

'Oh, say no more about that,' said Mr. G. 'We want a contralto, so there is no obligation.'

'I hope you won't be disappointed in me,' said Philiberta.

'If you never sing worse than you sang to-day, I am not likely to be,' replied Mr. G. 'And now I must get back into my office.'

'I have detained you so long,' said Philiberta, apologetically.

'Oh, that's nothing. Here is the best exit. Allow me—it is dark here, and there is a step. Rehearsal to-morrow morning, at ten sharp, Miss Morven. Good-day to you.'

'Good-day, and thanks. But remember, Mr. G, I do not give up hope of the other yet.'

'What, the high falutin line? Quite right, Miss Morven—quite right. Ambition and perseverance are your best cards in this game. No one has any chance in it without them. Don't be later than ten, please, to-morrow.'

Philiberta was strictly punctual. Indeed, she was almost first at the theatre, and had the edification of hearing later arrivals most eloquently cursed and sworn at by the stage-manager. It came to her rather as a shock to hear the same abusive epithets bestowed on men and women alike freely. But the anathematized fair ones did not seem to mind at all. The young girls laughed; the elder ladies took no notice. One of those, a short stout woman, startlingly near childhood, to all appearance, spoke out once, and said that if the stage-manager 'had eleven kids all born alive and still living, and wanting to be dressed and fed every morning, it would waken him up and stop his jaw a little.'

Some choruses were rehearsed, some seemingly senseless manoeuvres gone through, in none of which Philiberta was required to join; so she sat aside, watching. She had 'a part,' the women whispered among themselves, some of them eyeing her jealously and enviously on that account. Presently there was a pause in the rehearsal. The leading lady was in requisition, and had not come yet. Signor Blankini stamped and foamed, and grew purple to the very top of his bald head. And in the midst of the tornado of temper the leading lady entered-calmenteredcalm, cool, and lovely, moving gracefully across the stage with the utmost leisure, her draperies held daintily up from contact with the dusty floor—a woman of perfect loveliness, with yellow hair framing her charming face, and eyes as beautifully blue as the sky of a fair day in winter. Yet was there over all the beauty an expression of suppressed defiance and mutiny, that would have gone far to spoil any face less perfect.

'Waiting for me?' she said, addressing Signor Blankini with careless amiability.

'Waiting for you!' snarled the little man savagely. 'You take me for one dam fool, Miss Fitzroy; that's what you take me for.'

'Dear me, no,' replied the lady, smiling on him with a kind of languid surprise. 'I have always the highest opinion of your sense and intellectuality, signor; I thought you knew that.'

'The time you should have been here was ten o'clock, Miss Fitzroy. Look now! it is ten minutes after eleven.'

'So I observe, signor; and as I have an important appointment at half-past twelve, perhaps you will allow me to get through my share of this morning's work without delay. Is this my score?'

'Is your other appointment of so much importance that you must be more punctual to it than you are to me?' sneered the signor.

'Yes,' was the answer, given with curt emphasis. 'Now, if you have done, Signor Blankini, I will begin. Mr. Warnecke, the cornet gives me the cue to this passage—may I trouble you?'

Signor Blankini subsided, and Miss Fitzroy rehearsed her music in a modulated soprano of bewildering sweetness. Philiberta listened entranced.

'Now for the duet between the contralto and me,' said Miss Fitzroy.

'Is the contralto part allotted yet?'

'I believe it is allotted to me,' said Philiberta, rising; and just at that moment Mr. G. entered.

'Good-morning, everybody. Sorry I couldn't get in sooner, Miss Morven. Blankini, give this lady the contralto score; will you, please?' Luckily Philiberta had practised singing at sight, so she got through her part fairly well for a first attempt. The music and words were pretty and sentimental—not comic, as she had dreaded.

'You are a novice, I see,' said Miss Fitzroy, when they had finished the duet.—'Quite,' said Philiberta.

'I thought so. Don't be offended if I offer a little advice.'

'Surely not.'

'Then you must not stand like a post all the time you are singing, nor hoist your shoulders up in that peculiar way. You have been used to singing to your own accompaniments?'

'Yes.'

'That is it. It spoils people. It gives them an awkward action of the arms and shoulders—an awkward feeling too, when they come to sing independently. They feel as if their hands should be at work all the time, and the effort they make to keep still causes them to be unnaturally stiff and gawky. But a little practice and a few hints will soon put you right.'

'I hope so,' said Philiberta.

'I will help you all I can.'

'Thanks. That is very good of you.'

'Oh no. Selfishness, pure selfishness, I assure you. If you spoil that duet, you will spoil me to a great extent, and I cannot bear a failure.'

'I will do my very best not to spoil it, then,' said Philiberta, smiling.

'I feel sure of that,' said Miss Fitzroy kindly, 'and your voice is really lovely, you know.'

'Is rehearsal over?' asked Philiberta.

'For the principals—yes, I think so. Signor Blankini, is there another call for to-day?'

'No, mees; there is not. If there was, I should know better than to expect Mees Fitzroy to come.'

'Ah—that is well. Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall surely get it Which way are you going, Miss Morven?'

'I am living at St. Kilda,' said Philiberta.

'Oh, are you? I live in Carlton. I should prefer St Kilda, only I should always miss the trains; and I am unpunctual enough at the theatre as it is. If I lived further away, I should never get here at all. Well, good-bye, then, till to-morrow.'

They met again next day, of course, and Miss Fitzroy displayed a (for her) remarkable interest in Philiberta's progress. When they were quitting the theatre at the conclusion of that day's rehearsal she invited our heroine to go home with her to luncheon.

'I have a little den of my own,' said she; 'that is to say, I rent it. I hate lodgings; I like to live in my own way, without method or regularity. Will you come?'

'Thanks—yes,' said Philiberta. The 'little den' was a cottage of some five or six rooms set in a tiny garden of the ordinary pattern. There was a bright gay look about it, and a sweet fresh scent of violets and mignonette. The smallness of the interior of the house was relieved by bow-windows in the front rooms, and a broad veranda at the side arranged with blinds into a sort of conservatory, and filled with rare plants and choice vases. The rooms that Philiberta entered were most daintily and exquisitely furnished.

'How do you like it all?' said Miss Fitzroy. 'I am conceited about my house, and like to hear people make remarks about it, though I know it is bad taste.'

Of course then Philiberta praised it; she could not certainly have spoken of it without praises.

'And how do you manage when you travel?' she inquired.

'I never do travel if I can help it,' was the reply. 'As long as I can get an engagement in Melbourne I leave travelling to others. I love Melbourne, and I am fond of this little place. Fond of comfort, too, which travellers don't often get. When I am compelled to go I leave the house to Himmons, who is a jewel of a manager.'

Himmons, a soft-voiced, soft-robed, soft-shod woman, entered at this moment, to say that lunch was ready. And at the same instant came a loud rap at the door.

'Who can that be, Himmons?'

'It's Mr. Parkinsson's knock, miss.'

'Don't let him in then. I won't be pestered to-day with men.

Yet, stay; the fellow is hungry, I expect, and he-may help to amuse Miss Morven. You may as well show him in, Himmons.'