The trees round about the Grove had donned russet hues, and to a fanciful observer their foliage seemed to shiver in anticipation of the coming equinoxes and the chill October weather.

Still it was a pleasant time. The days were sunshiny, though the nights might be cold; the roads and pavements were dry under foot; people had not yet begun to wear winter clothing; and the ladies shopping in the Broadway appeared in between-season dresses, which, while recognising the fact that summer had departed, did not rush in point of material to meet Father Christmas, who, whether accompanied by frost and snow, or mild open weather, always comes quite soon enough.

All along the Romford-road the stranger felt the influence of this change into autumn weather. The flowers that he before noticed in gardens by the wayside were dead and gone, and others, wel

VOL. XXXVII. NO. CCXIX.

come, perhaps, but not so fair, were blooming in their stead. Dahlias had succeeded to roses, and nasturtiums were running wild over the faded carnations. The one thing which remained, and gave out its scent stronger and more welcome than ever, was mignonette. It perfumed the air; its odour mingled with the autumnal flavour, and rendered even that pleasant and mystical. Not a

Mr. Hay walked on. nice road now, the highway to Romford was only a degree more agreeable then. There were fewer funerals, and there was more country, but the country could not be considered beautiful; and when processions of mourningcoaches are constantly passing to a cemetery, it does not much matter whether there are fifty or a hundred per diem.

Mr. Hay did not like the road; from the first he had disliked it, but a power he could not define, an attraction he felt impotent to resist, had drawn him thither once again. He desired to know how it fared with Mr. Palthorpe; he wished to see for himself if Mrs. Palthorpe seemed happier than was the case on the summer's day when she spoke of their utter penury, and by implication contrasted her own position with those born Fortune's favourites.

He had been away for a long time, first abroad upon business, which detained him for a period quite beyond his expectations, and then almost constantly in Scotland with a dying grandfather, whose favourite he had been ever since

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he was sent, a delicate child, to that picturesque manse situated amongst the hills, where the air was balmy with the perfume of wild thyme, and the scent of the pine forests was pleasantly pungent as it was wholesome; and now when at length he had some leisure it appeared as natural to him to turn his steps once again eastward, as though the people living there were his oldest friends.

And yet as he paced rapidly along there was a struggle going on within him. Some instinct warned him to turn back, bade him leave the Palthorpes, whether in weal or woe, unsought; but a stronger feeling impelled him to proceed, forced him unresisting to an end he might easily have avoided if he had ever looked fairly into his own heart, and not striven to delude himself with specious arguments and plausible

excuses.

All the way he went he wondered whether he should find Mr. Palthorpe better or worse, living or dead; indeed, these questions had never for a day been quite forgotten. When he was abroad, when he was in Scotland, he kept constantly thinking of the sick man, of the flowers and the weeds in the little garden, of the quiet room where jasmine and roses peeped in at the windows; of Mrs. Palthorpe standing under the dark laurel-tree; of the morning when she called to him in the twilight, and he stood at the low gate looking at her, a white, ghostly, lonely figure, surrounded by the silence and the perfume and the solitude of night.

How would she appear to him? In perfect health, or worn with watching in a dress such as he had last seen her wear, or clad in mourning?

It would have been easy for him

to write long before to Doctor Dilton, any one might have thought, and satisfy himself as to the state of that gentleman's patient, but he shrank from doing so. When he thought of the Palthorpes he felt as though they had been friends of his for years; but when he recalled the doctor's bitter words of warning, he remembered he had seen Mrs. Palthorpe but thrice, and her husband only once.

As he considered these things he walked a little faster. As some men drink deep to drown care, so he hurried his pace in order to stifle the warning voice which never remained quite silent.

In what case would he find them? He must soon know now; there, close before him, were the mean cottages, the little gardens, the shading trees, the Portuguese laurel. His heart throbbed quicker, and there was a look of eager expectancy on his face. He stepped forward rapidly, he put his hand over to lift the latch of the gate, and as he did so he raised his eyes, and saw that the house stood empty..

The curtains had disappeared from the upper windows, the shutters of the parlour were closed, the garden was a wilderness. They were gone. What could have happened? Had a change for the worse taken place? Was Mr. Palthorpe dead?

He remained leaning against the gate, looking stupidly at the house, in a sort of mute amaze, letting his glance wander over the neglected garden, till a living in the next cottage aroused his attention.

woman

She spoke to him over the hedge, and asked if he wanted any

one.

'Yes,' he answered, entering the garden and moving closer to where she stood. 'Is the gentleman-is Mr. Palthorpe dead?'

Away where?'

Out Epping part, getting on for Barkingside, I believe. I have never been there myself; but I am told it is a nice air, though for that matter the air hereabouts is good enough for anybody, I should have thought.'

'Do you know the name of the place to which they have gone?' asked Mr. Hay.

'I do not, sir. It is some farm, but I cannot tell you any nearer than that. The doctor could give you the direction, though,' she added, brightening up; he was wonderful good to them, was the doctor always in and out, and rode over, so the nurse told me, the very afternoon they moved.'

"Thank you,' said Mr. Hay. slowly falling into a reverie even as he spoke.

Is there anything more I can do for you, sir?' asked the woman. 'If you have come far, perhaps you would like to walk in and rest.'

Mr. Hay started, and answered, 'No, thank you; I have not come very far.'

Then he put half-a-crown in her hand, and, taking a last look around, passed out of the garden and closed the gate behind him.

A real gentleman,' commented Mr. Palthorpe's late neighbour, contemplating the coin lying in her palm.

Once again westward towards London walked Mr. Hay; but this time he did not stride along

briskly; on the contrary, he pursued his way slowly and thoughtfully, with his head bent and his eyes paying but little heed to external objects.

He was debating within himself whether or not he should call at Doctor Dilton's. He did not want to go there, and yet he did wish to find out where the Palthorpes had removed. Should he decide to leave the Grove to his right, and let the sick man, now he was on the high-road to recovery, fade out of his memory? Should he go back to his office and his business, and never again see those people whose lives had crossed his so sharply, and aroused within him so unaccountable an interest?

He did not wish to become identified with them. The paths along which he had hitherto walked through existence had led him as far from Romance as Bohemianism, and he entertained about an equal dread of both on the morning when Doctor Dilton asked his name; and at the fear of even seeming to be mixed up with such an anachronism as a gentleman by birth and breeding lying stretched on a mean bed in a house fit only for the habitation of a porter or a mechanic, led him to suppress one very important addition to his name. He was

ashamed of the interest he felt in the case, and he dreaded being chaffed about his adventure ;' and possibly if he went to the doctor's, that gentleman might in some roundabout way discover his identity with the guest who had made one at Mrs. Marker's 'dance.'

The proprieties were strong within him he had been brought up bound in their chains. As a child, as a boy, as a man, he had never even thought of overleaping those conventionalities which formed the rule of life with the

persons who surrounded him. As he had been taught so he believed; that which he had seen done was the course he elected to follow. No strong temptation coming in his way, he felt sure the ways of virtue were easy; no struggle ever taking place in his heart, he was confident that struggles never really took place in other hearts; that if a man went wrong, he chose his course of malice prepense, and selected the downward path out of the mere wantonness of sin.

Reared a Calvinist in morals and habits as well as in religion, he had no doubt whatever that his own ways and the ways of his own peculiar people were the only paths which could insure respectability and happiness in the passage through this world, and peace when the time came to depart from it.

Although to some extent his own views had in many respects been modified by the influence of the English opinions by which he was surrounded, yet it would not be going too far to say that the man was a Pharisee, and belonged to one of the straitest sects of that body.

His training had been strict and hard and inflexible, unburdened by troublesome thoughts about outside sinners and persons who lacked all backbone morally, and the perplexing human butterflies that it is so difficult to imagine are responsible creatures and possessed of souls at all. The laws laid down for his guidance were few, and, though never perhaps expressed in words, proved binding. First of all, a good man believed-that went without saying. He questioned nothing; he accepted what his Bible, as interpreted in the pages of the Westminster Confession, taught him without ever a thought of further inquiry. On this foundation other creeds,

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likewise admitting of no dispute, were built. A good man honoured his father and his mother, was true to his wife, just to his children, fair in his dealings with his servants, paid his bills honestly, made money by strict attention to business and by neglecting to drive no bargain which could be driven without deviating from the strict line of rectitude. good man would not go to a theatre; he would eschew frivolous society (ah! this good man ought not to have accepted Mrs. Marker's invitation); he would not consider beauty in marriage or think too much of a maiden because she was fair; he would be sober in his deportment and prudent in his speech. After such fashion had his people ever comported themselves. In his family there had been no 'wasters,'no 'profligates,' no daughters who brought shame on those connected with them; none of his kindred had aspired too high or sunk too low, or got into scrapes, or formed objectionable acquaintances, or entered into undesirable alliances. Men and women they had been careful to keep themselves to themselves; everything they did was weighed ; all their actions could have been detailed without fear in a court of justice.

For the rest, if they had succoured-as very possibly they would-the man who fell amongst thieves, before they committed themselves they would have wanted to know all about him. They were cautious, they valued their good name, they liked to think in their flock a black sheep had never been seen. They did not give themselves airs of superiority, it is true, because pride was sinful;

but they did feel they were very good indeed, and it was not even in their human nature to abstain from a thrill of pleasure

when they considered that, spite of all their advantages, they were not puffed up.

No one could consider such a school the best possible in which to train a man who had more than his full share of kindliness, more perhaps than a due complement of ready sympathy for his poorer fellow-creatures; and yet so far, Mr. Hay's education had stood him in sufficiently good stead.

In London there are always enough objects' which can be relieved through the agency of an obliging secretary. Nothing to do but send a cheque, or attend a meeting, or put down your name. Only find the money, and some philanthropist will kindly save you all trouble about seeing how it is expended. It is a sort of vicarious benevolence, which produces many thousands and millions of pounds in England, and manages to achieve remarkably little benefit after all.

Still a good sort of charity, and one quite safe for a man like Mr. Hay to practise. Better by far than running about the metropolis purchasing grapes and other delicacies for a total stranger. Safer and better and cheaper, as he found to his cost when, in the after days, he came to reckon up all that gift cost him.

How is it the French proverb goes? For the want of a nail the kingdom was lost."

Well, in his case, as small a beginning produced as mighty an ending; for a man's life is of as much importance to him as kingdom to a nation.

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Should he go to the doctor's or not?

His impulses said 'yes;' his prudence said 'no.' It would not do for him to get mixed up personally with a man he might see at the end of a few months

sitting at a clerk's desk in the office of some acquaintance.

If the matter got talked about in the City he need never expect to hear the last of it-never.

There were people, he was aware, who could visit about amongst all sorts and conditions of men, and never be called upon to account for their conduct; but he was not one of them. Except at his grandfather's he had never gone into the houses of those below himself in station; and in that remote village of course everybody knew everybody. In London it was different. Already he had been perhaps foolish in this matter; but he need not go on being foolish. It was quite as well Mr. Palthorpe had removed. No, he would not call upon Doctor Dilton.

He arrived at this resolution and the Swan public-house simultaneously.

Here, to reach Angel-lane, it was necessary for him to cross the wide space in front of St. John's Church; and, as he did so, every event connected with the morning when he first beheld that building, standing out against the rising sun, rushed prominently into his mind the white ghostly figure beneath the laurel-tree; the scent of the flowers, still heavy with the dews of night; the doctor's story; the sick man; the lovely lonely woman. He must think the matter over a little longer; he could not make up his mind just yet.

Unconsciously almost he turned along the Broadway as the most fitting place for his further reflections.

The pavement there is wide and even; rarely crowded, except on Saturday nights, when a stranger might imagine he was in the New Cut. In Angel-lane, on the contrary, Mr. Hay knew the side-path to be narrow and incon