trinkets, representing metaphysical ideas, would be 'outside the suspicion of having jewels that would tempt a monarch to turn burglar. And very likely for the same reason he chose to lodge in Courland Street rather than in any other part of the townrogues never look under their noses for their prey, or else they would be wise men, and therefore not rogues. However, in spite of such an obvious and probable way of accounting for all the apparent eccentricities of Joseph Hagopian, a sense of mystery persisted in affecting Roland.

He was, therefore, more surprised than he had any reason for being, when, on reaching Doctor Joseph's door on the second floor, he found thereon a card nailed, whereon was inscribed ::-

Visitors are informed that Joseph Hagopian is absent on a journey to Moscow and elsewhere, returning on New Year's Day. Letters not requiring immediate attention may still be directed here, to await his

return.

Although Joseph Hagopian, so far as Roland was aware, never had visitors at all, still the announcement was sufficiently commonplace and business-like for a man supposed to be engaged in searching the world for great jewels, and whose affairs would consist of single great transactions carried out entirely by himself and necessitating long journeys, and not of daily letters and office details. But Roland, remembering nothing of such explanations as he had received last night, could not help connecting Doctor Joseph's sudden absence with the Opal, and he could not sufficiently blame himself for not having restored the jewel to its owner the night before. However, there was no help for it. Disagreeable and even dangerous as was the responsibility of possession, he would have to keep it safely during the many months that must elapse before Joseph Hagopian's return. Well for Doctor Joseph that it had fallen into honest hands!

"And now for my search for to-day's bread," he thought, placing the ring, within its case, in his breast pocket. "Yes-for bread," added his thought, not bitterly, but only with a sort of sad humour— "I, with a jewel upon me that would keep me well for years!" With the thought, his fingers touched a piece of paper in the same pocket, which he, being orderly in his ways, as became a student who had learned the value of method, could not remember as having been there. He had no correspondence, and his memoranda were always posted in proper books from day to day.

He drew it out: and this time he had a right to be surprised. For there, as plainly written as the card on Joseph Hagopian's door, he read a direction to a bank in the city to pay to Prince Nicholas Arsenieff, or his order, the sum of Six Thousand Pounds-endorsed by Nicholas Arsenieff, and signed Frank Standish. At first he thought himself dreaming. How had this come into his possession? What could it mean? This was stranger than the Opal. It was as if the skies were raining upon him jewels and gold.

one.

Doubtless it might be the effect of last night's carouse: but, if it were a practical joke, it was at best a foolish and, at worst, a cruel However, there was only one thing to be done-to postpone his own business until he had returned this bewildering piece of paper to his friend. Happily, out of the confusion of last night, he had preserved the recollection of where Standish was lodging in London. Too poor, though with two fortunes upon his person, to ride in the humblest way, he walked to the address given him hard by the Imperial. The sight of the scene of whatever had happened last night caused, for a moment, the apparent lifting of a cloud from his memory, but it was only for a moment: the cloud fell again and left everything as dark as before.

"Mr. Standish lives here ?" he asked at the address which some mental freak had enabled him to remember: but a little doubtfully, since his impression might easily have proved wrong.

"Mr. Standish? He has been stopping here, sir," said the servant who answered his knock. "But he's left this morning."

'Left-to-day? Do you know for where? For Gladsthorpe ?" "No, sir. He left sudden-for Australia. His ship, I heard tell, was to sail at ten. We did fear there was something wrong—if you're a friend. But of course

"By what ship-do you know ?"

"No, sir. All we know was he paid his bill. But Australia was the place that I know. For he said so himself: and I'd be sorry to think he was in trouble, for a pleasanter gentleman I never sawat least, till to-day."

And that was all Roland could learn of the man who had just come home, in such high spirits, to marry Mary Allen and Moor Farm.

66 But perhaps there is one thing you can tell," he asked the girl. "Can you tell me if there was a Prince Arsenieff among Mr. Standish's visitors-friends?"

"Oh, you mean Prince Arsenic-a tall foreign gentleman, with a moustache, and a red ribbon oh yes! he used to come most days.

If you'd like his address, I can find one of his cards. There's half a dozen upstairs."

This at any rate was something-some possible clue to the mystery of the cheque, which certainly, from the face and endorsement, belonged to Prince Nicholas Arsenieff, if to any man—as he had almost doubted, before he had audible assurance, that the Prince was something more than a name.

However, before communicating with the Prince, it was absolutely necessary that he should breathe some sort of wholesome air. And that meant Helen. In spite of the collapse of his memory with regard to last night, he was still oppressed as by the effects of an evil dream-one of those nightmares which, though every detail may be forgotten, will haunt a man, in a ghostly fashion, for years. Every now and then some slight incident will for an instant seem to "break the dream," as people say: but before the mind can grasp what its eyes have nearly seen, darkness settles thicker than before. The name of Nicholas Arsenieff did not strike Roland as one is struck with a new name, especially if it be a peculiar one. He had certainly never met with it in his reading, and, if he had, it was too marked a name to be wholly forgotten. It would not have lingered in his mind in the half stage between known and unknown, like those sensations without tangible cause which have, more than aught else, made people believe that they have lived in the world before they were born. In short, he was feeling himself full of the sort of fancies that he, as a practical mechanician, most heartily despised. If they came of disappointment, or nervous reaction after vain labour, they were disgraceful enough; if these things had been complicated by drunkenness, they were more disgraceful still. He needed to see Helen, if only to clear his brain by making his heart stronger.

And he did well. As if with a foreknowledge of his coming, Helen had arranged the room even as yesterday-flowers and all. Wise instinct had taught her that the beaten man must never be allowed to miss the victor's wreath at her hands, and that he must find at home with her everything that he might never win from the world. Yesterday, the flowers had been set out for the joy of herself; to-day, for the comfort of her lover.

Gustave Renouf, being a man of genius, had always done his day's work in half an hour, so that he had the rest of the day for dominoes. It is true that the half-hour never left anything in the way of result, save a good deal of litter; but then it left a good deal of that, and everybody, even dunces-indeed, especially duncesadmits that genius must work in its own way at its own times. So

that Roland always knew when he should find Helen alone. And to-day, even as yesterday, and even as always, when he entered that poor room he found, whatever the weather without, the sunshine that belongs to a better world.

She met him more lovingly than if he had been the hero that, eight-and-forty hours ago, he had believed himself to be. And he was conscious of something even beyond the happiness of her kiss of meeting-of a long, deep look into his eyes, searching his heart, and then brightening with delight at what she found therein.

"Ah, Roland! you need not tell me you have become brave; I can see it for myself," said she.

"If I am, my darling, it is you who have made me so. But if you could see me when I'm not with you, would you say the same?"

"Yes, indeed; a thousand times more. It's very easy for us both to be brave when we're together, you know. I can be brave then. I was looking to see what you are when you are alone."

"And-you little witch !—can you tell?"

"Of course I can—as if I don't know all you have been thinking and feeling! Roland, I believe there isn't a thought of yours I don't know."

"I wish you would tell me, then-for I have thoughts sometimes that puzzle me, more than the hardest problem I ever worked through -I have had them to-day. But there is one that you can read, if

you will."

66 That you care a great deal for me? Oh yes, I know that; so well that I have even left off being surprised."

"More than that. I love you-"

"I even believe that you care for me nearly as much as for—' By an extraordinary want of tact, she was on the very point of saying "as for the Screw." Crimson with the fear of her slip, she saved herself from the word just in time. But not in time to save the word from being read in her silence, though it was unheard.

"For my old hope?" asked he with a sigh, that was killed by a smile. "I care too little for that thing even to hate it, Helen. I have only new hopes now-and they are all yours."

It was good to hear, and to see, that she had lost a rival, though made of nothing more dangerous than cold steel. Poor as they were, and with the emptiest of prospects before them, they had never spent, even when together, a better hour. They had so much to speak of, so many glittering castles in the air to build, that when Gustave Renouf returned from his dominoes to his dinner, rather later than

usual, it seemed that he had not been absent half his usual time. It was thus, and thus only, that Roland had not told the strange story of his treasure trove; indeed, he had forgotten the very existence both of cheque and jewel when his future father-in-law returned. And, afterwards, he had his reasons for holding his tongue about these finds before that future father-in-law. He could tell Helen at any time of what, after all, had no important concern for him and her, but, with all respect for Gustave Renouf, he had an instinct that the latter's Genius might be unduly excited by the knowledge that his poor room contained six thousand pounds in money and a jewel of greater value still.

When he left Helen for that day it was altogether later than he had intended to begin looking after his own affairs. There was still time, however, to spend the whole of the afternoon in calling upon Messrs. Sternhold and Bowes, and in making any further inquiries that might suggest themselves, and there was certainly no occasion for losing the whole of the day in running about after Prince Nicholas Arsenieff. After business hours in the city would do very well. So he set about putting into exercise the courage with which he had been inspired by Helen.

Alas! he was not many hours in learning that he had ample need of it all, and of more. There is no need, for the thousandth time, to follow, one by one, the minutes of a few hours' search for instant work by a friendless and penniless man who was starting behind the field. He returned at last to his lodging, and refreshed himself with another crust and another draught of water before calling upon him to whom the cheque, so unaccountably in Roland Fanshaw's possession, presumably belonged. But he was tired, and therefore in low spirits, and the responsibility of Joseph Hagopian's ring began to trouble him. What was he to do with anything so valuable until the owner's return? He dared not leave it unprotected in his lodgings, and to carry it about with him in his breast pocket was only to substitute the risk of accidental loss for that of robbery. It had been lost in the street once before. There was, after all, no place so safe as his own little finger-at any rate after dark, and when nobody could wonder that a poor man should be searching all London for the humblest of situations while affording to keep such an Opal from the hands of the nearest pawnbroker.

So to his finger, whence it had been absent since last night, it returned.