taking that step which, to say the least of them, require consideration. I should be obliged, for instance, to give some sort of explanation to my family."

"In other words, you would like to consult George and Caroline. By all means consult them, then. You can tell them that I alone am to blame; but it will not be necessary for you to tell them that, because they will be quite convinced of it in advance. They will pretend to be shocked; but in reality they will be delighted to think that I have ruined myself socially, and that I shall be seen no more in the great houses to which they can't get invitations. You need not fear any serious opposition from them."

Mr. Brett winced. He could not deny that he was desirous of consulting his brothor, nor could he help admitting that there was a certain degree of justification for Marcia's sarcasms. Finally he said: "We will speak of this again the day after tomorrow, if you please. I believe I understand what your wishes are, and if I find that I can conscientiously gratify them, I will do so."

That a man who was thoroughly straightforward and honest, should have appeared to her to be a canting hypocrite was not astonishing. Straightforward and honest men are not always happy in the phraseology which they see fit to adopt, and it is unlikely that Marcia's verdict upon her husband would have been modified if she could have overheard a conversation which took place in the City on the following day between him and Sir George Brett. The younger brother stated his case as impartially as it could be stated, and the elder listened to him with a lenient, but slightly contemptuous smile.

"I don't want to be rude, Eustace," was Sir George's comment upon what had been related to him; "but the long and the short of all this is that you can't make your wife obey you. Now I'm not going to give you a word of advice one way or the other. I don't choose to take a responsibility which doesn't properly belong to me; but if you ask me what I think, I don't mind telling you that in my opinion you have made an ass of yourself. It is very evident that your wife will get her own way-Caroline, I may tell you, foresaw long ago what the end of it would be-and I only hope that nothing more scandalous than an amicable separation will come of it. In the event of a separation being decided upon-which, mind you, I don't for one moment recommend—I should say that you had better

allow the boy to see his mother from time to time. Still, if I were in your place, I should reserve to myself a contingent right of withdrawing him from her altogether."

Contingent upon what?" inquired Eustace, who did not quite like his brother's tone, and had not expected to meet with such ready acquiescence in that quarter.

Sir George drew down the corners of his mouth, raised his eyebrows, and jerked up his shoulders. Upon her good behaviour, of course. Far be it from me to insinuate that there is a chance of her behaving badly, but in making arrangements of this kind it is always well to guard oneself against painful possibilities."

The younger brother went away sad and disheartened, nor were his spirits much raised by a very sympathetic letter from Caroline which reached him the next morning. Caroline took up something the same line as her husband had done. She could not advocate the severing of a tie so sacred as that of holy matrimony; yet she was bound to confess that if such a proceeding could be allowable in any case, it would be in this. For a long time she had seen with deep sorrow that Eustace's health was being undermined by the daily worries which he was called upon to endure, and that he should by some means or other be delivered from these was her earnest desire. She could only pray that he might be guided to do what was just and right, etc., etc.

"Evidently," thought Mr. Brett, "she thinks as George does, only she is too merciful to say so. A man who cannot make his wife obey him is like a man who cannot control his horse; the best thing he can do is to get out of his saddle."

The same afternoon he signified his renunciation to Marcia. "I may have failed in my duty to you," he said, "I can't feel certain about that; but what seems to me beyond question is that I have failed to make you happy and contented. There is no hope of my being more successful in the future than I have been in the past, so that, after full and careful consideration, I believe I shall be right in acceding to your wish that we should part. Your wish remains unchanged, I presume?"

He had a faint hope that she might have thought better of it, but of this he was at once deprived. Marcia paid little attention to the matters of detail, pecuniary and other, which he submitted to her with punctilious exactitude; her only anxiety was with reference to Willie, and as soon as she heard that

no objection would be raised to the boy's spending at least half of his spare time with her, she declared herself abundantly satisfied.

"It would be absurd to say that we shall part friends, Eustace," she remarked; "but at least we shall not be enemies now, and I should think that will be a relief to you as well as to me. You will be able to live your own life, and perhaps I shall be able, after a fashion, to live mine."

Mr. Brett made an inarticulate murmur which might be taken to imply assent. Marcia, he was thinking, had some reasonable prospect of a life as happy as that of the majority of human beings; but, for his own part, he could look forward to nothing but work and solitude, and eventually death. And he could not help realising how greatly matters would be simplified, and how resigned to the will of Heaven everybody would be, if he were to drop down dead there and then.

(To be continued.)

A Night with the Circulating
Medium.

WHEN I last sought to interest the sympathetic reader in my poor little history, I had no thought that I should ever return to it more.*

In company with a sister-note for £10, I then lay a horrified witness of the mutilation which awaits the Issue of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England on their first return to their native home in Threadneedle Street.

Only one little batch of notes lay between us and the merciless hands of the operator, and I felt myself slowly sinking into space.

It was in a haze of stupor that I became conscious, after a time, that some one had come from somewhere, and arrested the work of mutilation. It came to me, in a dreamy way, that certain notes were "wanted" about a cheque which had been fraudulently tampered with, and somebody swindled. A cheque for eight pounds, some one said, had been raised to eighty, but what of that? the circumstance had no interest for me. What did anything matter!

But, when presently my ears caught-afar off, as it seemedthe words "Goldney-Silverton-Private Bank," my indifference vanished in a moment, and I was thoroughly awake.

My thoughts at once flew back to a cheque, the presenter of which, I well remembered, had gruffly refused payment in Goldney Notes and was paid in TENS, of which I was certainly one, and my companion-note another.

Was it possible, I put it to her eagerly, that this was the fraudulent cheque ?

Her answer was that she neither knew nor cared.
Before I could frame a reply to this surprising avowal, it was

*See "A Tale of a Ten Pound Note," MURRAY'S MAGAZINE,' Sept. 1888.

announced that the note specially wanted was 2200001-my own

mark and number! How I longed to cry aloud "Here I am :" but we LEGAL-TENDERS have the gift of speech only with each other, or with other members of the Circulating Medium. We cannot hold converse with the human species.

98

Other notes were described as wanted, particularly22022 which I knew to be my companion's number: and, after what seemed to me a search of endless duration, most of the notes wanted were found, and finally placed in the hands of the Detective in charge of the case.

Placing my sister-note and myself in a secret compartment of his pocket-book, he left the Bank; and the same afternoon we were speeding smoothly and swiftly westwards in a fast train from Paddington.

In a flush of elation, I confided to my friend that I was almost faint with happiness, to which she responded that her feelings were of an entirely opposite description.

I asked in amazement-" Was she not rejoiced at our escape?" "Certainly not," was the answer. "I want no reprieve. It is only putting the thing off a week or two, and having to go through the misery of it all a second time. I hate the very thought of going into society again."

Of course, in her draggled and hardly presentable condition, these sentiments were only natural-but I did not say so, as I had no wish to wound her feelings afresh.

On the contrary, just to change the subject, I remarked"What a multitude of 2's, dear, there are in your number!" "Yes," she assented; "I was known amongst our sisterhood in the Department of Issue as Too-Too."

I said I thought it a pretty name; a little Canadian and squaw-like.

"Perhaps," she sneered, "you would have preferred TWOTLETUMS, which a particular friend of yours once called me in the hearing of every note in the till, the odious little wretch!"

In order to divert this turn in the conversation, I said, "We are off to Silverton again, no doubt."

"No doubt," was all the rejoinder: but I was too happy to take offence, and went on :—

"I wonder," I said, "if the Goldney Notes will be glad to see us again?"