They were for ever on the Steyne inaugurating races of this and of all possible descriptions: men racing with others on their backs one running backwards against another running twice the distance forward, and even races of the fish-girls for a gipsy hat. There was nothing that seemed too boyish to amuse the royal mind of his Royal Highness, now a man above forty years of age, and with much sobering experience at the back of them, one would have thought.

All this horseplay the Comtesse gazed out upon from the window. Yet when she turned to me there was a look of thought and trouble on her face, so that I knew she had not these things, nor been occupied with them.

seen

"Do you not think," she said, "that you will live to regret that you let him go?"

"I do not know," I answered, surprised. "I hope not."

"I hope not, too," she said. "I have a great deal to forgive you," she added, "in that you should have thought me capable of helping to steal your papers, but"-and there was a softer look on her face than I had seen there yet"you have a great claim on my forgiveness. For one thing, it is only a little thing, you have saved my life. And you have done more for me that you do not know of. I hope you never will know. But the day may come when we may want each other's help."

"You speak in riddles, madame," I said.

"On the contrary," she replied, "I speak with the utmost frankness-with a frankness that is entirely English between a man and a woman. Good-bye. We will shake hands English fashion, if you please. Some day you may understand these riddles."

"I hope so," I said.

"And I most earnestly hope not." "Still another riddle!" But to my

smile, as I said it, she looked back with an answering smile, as if there was understanding between us even to the extent of not wishing to ask the meaning of the riddles. "There is one secret that I will ask you to keep with me, if you will be so good. Besides our Lords of the Admiralty and one other, there is no one except yourself who knows the story I have told you of the robbery of the despatches. Will you keep the secret?"

"I will," she said. "I promise—as if I were the thief myself."

Then we shook hands "English fashion," as she said, and I went away feeling as if, instead of a thief, I had found a friend.

Going down on the Steyne among all the boisterous and boyish revelry I seemed to see no more of it than she had seen when she looked out, with thoughts far away, from the Lady Anne Murray's window; for between me and the racers, the revellers and the promenaders, came ever the figure of this graceful and beautiful woman, with the veil hanging from the golden bandeau, to whom I felt the more attracted by shame for the wrong I had done her in suspecting her of so shameful a theft; and yet more, maybe, by the interest of the mystery which still hung about her relations with the Frenchman, the veritable thief, in whose company I had fished her out from the sea.

The following morning I paid a call upon Major Blomfield, in waiting on his Royal Highness, to consult with him the best means and time of seeking an audience of the Prince, wherein I might lay my case before him, and ask his gracious services in my aid with the Lords of the Admiralty.

"Audience!" said Blomfield, when I proffered my request. "His Royal Highness has no great love of audiences, especially when he is down here at Brighton; but I will go in and see how

he is disposed. All depends on his humor."

"Audience! Plague the fellow! Who is it?" were the first words I heard, not wholly promising, as I sat and examined the fine violin on which this Blomfield, a man of as curious mixtures in his tastes as ever man was, had been playing at my entry.

I did not distinguish the equerry's answer through the partly open door; but the next sentence, in the Prince's pleasant voice, sounded more favorable.

"Is it that friend of Lord Nelson's? Why yes; what does he want of me? Let the fellow in now, and have done with him."

It needs not to tell again the tale that is known. I recounted to the Prince, who received me very graciously and asked to know why I had craved audience, the circumstances of the running my ship aground in order to save time in the delivery of papers of such importance, and the little account that the finding of the court-martial had made of the exceptional conditions. I concluded by submitting that, in my view, their importance was sufficient to justify me in taking a grave risk.

"Deuce take me!" he declared; "justified?-so, indeed, I should say. What do you say, Barrymore?" to Lord Barrymore, who was with him in the room.

"Justified, is it?" Lord Barrymore cried; "I should say you were justified, sir. With his Royal Highness and me, and the rest of us here, all sitting with our tongues out, like a thirsty dog, for news of Nelson, and nothing coming! And the Admiralty Lords would have you hesitate to run a King's ship aground to bring it to us! Deuce take me if I ever heard such folly."

The Prince laughed heartily. "You see Lord Barrymore's a statesman," he said; "that's the kind of man the nation wants at the helm of the ship of State. But to be serious, sir"-to me"I have a willing mind to help you in

this matter. I have no love of interfering with my Lords of the Admiralty, and I scarcely know that they have great love of my interference. They lack taste sadly. But I will promise you, sir, that you shall have my good word for a ship when the occasion offers. More than that I cannot say. We want men who will take responsibility, and run a ship aground when the service needs it.

"And more I could not ask, sir. I thank your Royal Highness;" and therewith I took my leave, feeling that my business, if not half done, was at least right well begun.

CHAPTER XVII.

Next to those who were concerned in my own affairs, I think the person who interested me most for the moment was the Comte d'Estourville. Even before my last interview with the Comtesse, convincing me how groundless were my suspicions that she had any ado with the affair of the despatches, I had conceived an interest in this lady of which, until that interview, I had felt more than half ashamed. It was humiliating to confess, even to oneself, any attraction towards a person whom one could suspect at the same time of such baseness, and I strove by all the power of my will to expel her image from my mind. But now that that suspicion was removed I could let my thoughts dwell upon her with every satisfaction in life, save for one person -the Comte d'Estourville. Was he alive, or was he dead? The fact that the Comtesse appeared without a trace of widow's weeds afforded presumption that he was alive. But if so, where was he, what was his age, character, why did he not accompany her? In fact, I was, as the French say, so intrigué to know the history of Madame la Comtesse that I could not rest at ease until my longing was satisfied.

To this end I repeated my call at Madame d'Arcy's house on the morning following, at a rather earlier hour, at which I deemed she was likely to be within. And so I had the fortune to find her. To my apologies for the all too speedy repetition of my visit the kind old lady replied graciously:

"Eh, not at all. Just sit ye down and tell me all your news. I was most concerned yester morn to be compelled to leave you your lane with Madame d'Estourville. I'm sure you'll have missed me sadly, the both of you."

I comprehended her archness perfectly, but replied, as in duty bound, that I greatly regretted to have seen so little of her.

"Yet did not even think to wait to bid me good morn nor send me a word of your regrets, I noticed."

"No, madame-no, it is true," I replied in some confusion. "My mind was very full of a conversation with · Madame d'Estourville, and I omittedBut I have returned this morning to repair, by your good leave, the omission."

"Eh, eh," and the old lady held up a rebuking fan, "that was not badly thought of on your part. We may make a courtier, of a nautical sort, of you yet, for all your mind is so full, as you say, of Madame d'Estourville."

"By your leave, madame, of a conversation with Madame d'Estourville," I corrected. "But à propos, can you inform me whether the Comte d'Estourville is expected in Brighton shortly?"

The old lady passed her fan before her face ere she answered demurely, "I have not heard of his immediate coming."

"He is bold, is he not, to leave so beautiful a young wife to come abroad by herself, unprotected?"

"Maybe the poor man could not help himself," said she.

"Do you mean, madame, that the Comte d'Estourville is in prison?" "'Deed no-the Comte d'Estourville

I know not where he is, nor any other body in the world, poor man!"

"I do not understand you. What is your meaning, madame?"

She laughed her pleasant, shrill old laugh, that puckered up her nutcrackery but still handsome old face till the chin and nose seemed as if they would meet with a little encouragement given. "Eh, my poor boy," she said, "I will torment you thus no longer. The Comte d'Estourville is in heaven. Or else he is elsewhere. It is for that I said I did not know where he was. Which of us knows where he or she will be? Not I, forsooth; but I hope it will be some place where I may have my joke, and more like Paris I would have it than like our own Auld Reekie, though there's more Scots than French should win to heaven. So there, or elsewhere, the Comte d'Estourville is, poor body; and that, no doubt, is why he leaves his lady to come unprotected, as you call it, though she had with her, as she tells me, for her protection her cousin Marigny. But business took him posthaste to London on their landing-in which you did them the service to assist, as I am told-whence she has not since heard from him, and is sorely put out on that account. But she stays with a respectable family of French émigrés in this town."

I am glad to say my head was too intent on this news of the Comte d'Estourville for me to pay heed to this remark about M. de Marginy, or I might have said unwarily that I had made the lady's mind easy on that head. "It is very sad," I said.

"What is sad?" the old lady asked sharply.

"That the Comte d'Estourville should have died," I said; "died so-so young," I added, feeling her gray Scotch eye upon me.

The old lady burst out laughing "Ye're just a foolish gomeral," she declared, with her delicious French ac

cent savoring the Scotch words. "How old did I tell you d'Estourville was when he died?"

"I-I don't remember, madame." "Neither do I remember telling ye. But however old he was, you just mind this, young man, that I'm no so young that a young man can mak' a fule of me. I'm gey old, and I'm gey wicked. Do you know why the Devil is SO wicked? It's because he's so old; and that why he's so clever, too." And then, of a sudden, all her expression changed, and the raillery and diablerie went right out of her gray old eyes, and that pathos came into them that, somehow, I think only the Scotch, and only the old Scotch ladies have. "It's awful wicked for me to be talking so of him. My old tongue should be cut off, as they would have done to it fifty years agone in my own country, for a witch. It was just the saddest tale in all the world the way d'Estourville died, the poor young fellow; for he was young, as you said, though you did not know, and altogether innocent, as they say, of what he died for, though I'm not saying it was not worth dying for if it was true."

"And what was it that he died for?"

"For a plot to restore the Bourbons. So at least they said. That was the ground of the trial; for they gave him form of trial. It was the time of the Prince of Condé's murder-execution, Buonaparte would call it. That was the spring of last year-you remember?"

"Prince of Condé! That is him we call the Duc d'Enghien?" She nodded. "Ay," I said. "They found letters from General Dumourrier, with plans of the Rhine, I remember, and some said there were letters from Lord Nelson. As to that, Lord Nelson himself told me he has never had a letter from the Duc d'Enghien, nor written to him in his life."

"Anyway, they took him-the Dukeat Baden, haled him to Vincennes, gave him a form of trial, and shot him as the dawn was breaking. Eh, it was the deed of a night, that; but no blacker than the murder of Hortense d'Estourville's husband."

"What was the way of that?" I asked.

"Eh, the devil was old and wicked that put it into the heads of them to take him the way they did. It was about this same Duc d'Enghien's plot, or pretended plot (they say he planned to assassinate the Corsican), and this young d'Estourville, they waited till he married-that was the villainy of the devils that accused him-the very day of the marriage, the hour of the marriage, just back from the Mairie, and bride and bridegroom about to start for the lune de miel, when the gendarmes came. He was hurried off, and the same day executed. So that is the tale of Hortense d'Estourville's wedded life, poor thing!-not a long one-wedded and widowed within an hour-wife and maid in one."

"They are piling up the count, the Corsican and his friends," I said, "and may I have a hand in the reckoning! But why-what was the object of this devilish cruelty-to await such a moment to take the man?"

The old lady shrugged her shoulders with one of the French gestures that went so quaintly with her Scottish speech.

"I do not know. There were the estates. The lands of the d'Estourvilles are broad. It is a marvel they did not take him and execute him unwed-it would have made the less complication about the estates of a traitor, as they say, reverting to the nation. But there was something; Hortense knows more of it than she cares to say. They had their own reasons, even as the devil, that is their master, has his."

I seemed to be arriving at it now

the cause of those sad lines that made the fair young face so Sphinx-like. Those times, in France, were rich in sad experience, but surely no experience ever was much more sad than that of the beautiful Comtesse d'Estour

ville?

"Poor thing! poor thing!" I said. "Did she love him, do you think?"

"Love him?-whom? This husband of an hour-that never was a husband? Why, love! No. There could not be love between them. They had scarce seen each other. We do not woo and wed in France as in my own bonnie Scotland In France we wed and woo -that is the order of affairs-and sometimes it is our own wife that we woo, but more often it is our neighbor's. No, no, there was no love lost. There was only the shock and the tragedy of it that was sad for her. The marriage bells will often ring up the curtain on a tragedy, it is not to be said they don't; but it is hard when it begins so soon and in such a manner."

I felt my sorrow for the young bridegroom grow marvellously more sincere

Longman's Magazine.

And then I felt less sure of my sincerity, but said no more than "Oh!"

"And she is in love, young man, in love with his memory now-says she lives only to avenge him-is romantic, as all young women should be; and so she will remain until

"Until what?" I asked, as the old lady paused pointedly.

"Until a living and a real love comes to take the place of this sentimental dead one-of this ghost that never was alive. But there, young man, I talk to you in a book that is closed to you, that you cannot read-in the first place because you are a man, and in the second because you are a young man. To read it you have to be a woman, and you have to be an old one-there," and she shut her painted fan with a vicious clasp, as if to close the chapter. Horace G. Hutchinson.

In 1861, when the firm of Morris and Company began its operations, taste in household decoration had sunk to its lowest conceivable ebb. We who are of a younger generation can hardly imagine the ugliness, the heaviness, the depressing stolidity which ruled in the habitations of that day. In one of his ingenious stories Mr. Wells imagines a young couple in the twenty-first century collecting quaint objects which pleased their great-great-grandfathers, "their antimacassars, bead mats, rep curtains, veneered furniture, gold

framed steel engravings and pencilled drawings, wax flowers under shades, stuffed birds and all sorts of choice old things." Seeing that most people collect rather what is rare than what they consider beautiful, there is nothing very absurd in this imagination. But the social historian of the twentyfirst century, when he deplores the taste which tolerated useless and hideous and trivial things, will also have to relate how towards the close of the nineteenth century there came a reaction. He will have to tell how atten.