stealthily listened at the door. Tom crept over the road crouching like a tiger, until he had reached the kerb-stone, and then he sprang upon Ransford with a shriek of hate.

"You infernal villain!" he yelled, leaping at his throat and hanging there for a moment. Then tightening his hold with the left. hand, he released his right and dashed his fist in Phil's face-once, twice, thrice, with the rapidity of a pugilist.

"Damn you!" he screamed again and again. Phil staggered against the door, all too surprised and stunned to offer any defence, while Tom rained blows and curses upon him with the ferocity of a fiend.

In the midst of the struggle the Hermitage door opened, and Phil Ransford fell into the passage, bleeding and insensible, in presence of the terrified household.

CHAPTER XI.

ASHES.

FIVE o'clock in the morning. Bright, dewy, glowing summer. The smell of newly-mown hay comes from the fields outside Dunelm. Everything is fresh and beautiful. The birds are singing everywhere. Up in the Cathedral tower the rooks are calling to each other. In the Hermitage garden blackbirds are hopping about among the old-fashioned flowers. The showy jay darts hither and thither. Broods of young birds are flying about in the meadows. June is just merging, green and radiant, into July, the loveliest month. of all the year in this northern land. Arcadia might borrow the tints and sunshine of this summer-time of Dunelm. That wood where Tom Mayfield proposed to Clytie, it was a paradise at five o'clock in the morning.

How still it is! How supremely beautiful! As if last night's brawl had never occurred. As if Tom Mayfield had not lain down for ever all purpose and ambition in life. As if Mr. Philip Ransford were not lying at the Hill bruised and cut and chagrined beyond repair. As if old Waller were not lying asleep, worn out with abusing the girl who is standing by his side pale and wild with fear, remorse, and indignation. As if there were no possibility of that sad look of hers, as she bends over the old man, being her last. As if she had not resolved to leave the Hermitage for ever!

Oh the cruel sun, to come streaming in upon that scene of desolation! "You will cast me forth to-day," said the girl, looking at the unconscious old man; "I am cruel, faithless, a curse upon you, a

blight; I am to be driven out, and Dunelm shall point at me with scorn! I do not think you meant all you said, but I am sick of it all-sick-weary. I must go, and I will go, Heaven help me!" The old man was lying on the sofa in the room which was dining and drawing-room and library all in one at the Hermitage. It was the snuggest and prettiest of rooms. Papered with a light sea-green paper, it was furnished in walnut, and carpeted with a dark crimson piece of Brussels. The door was oak, the skirting board round the room was oak, the mantel-piece was black marble; the window was draped with lace curtains, and a basket of flowers stood in the recess of the window. At one end of the room was a well-filled bookcase; at the other, Clytie's piano and work-table. A couple of easy chairs, a loo table, a handsome chimney glass that reflected a couple of fine bronze statuettes, made up the catalogue of the furniture. Clytie took in all the happy, comfortable picture at a glance, and her heart almost failed her. The sun poured a flood of light into the room. Clytie laid her hand upon the piano affectionately as if it were a thing she loved. She kissed the flowers in the window-took up the vases and jars separately and kissed them.

Oh, let me go quickly," she said to herself, "before I repent, or before the day comes and they thrust me forth, and the women of the city point at me and jeer, and call me the names you called me, O cruel grandfather!"

She opened her work-table, took out a purse, and then sat down and wrote:

My dear grandfather, I am gone. I could not endure it any longer. Your cruel words, dear, you did not mean them, but I could not bear them any longer, and I am so wretched and sad, and it would have killed me to be thrust out into the streets and have all

Dunelm pointing at me. O my dear grandfather, you should not have said that, and never, never should you have called me names, and in their presence, and before all. Oh forgive me, dear! Be happy without me. I am not what you think me. I am not guilty. I am an unfortunate girl-unhappy and unfortunate. O my dear grandfather, don't fear for me; I can work, and when you love me again, and can think of me as you used to do, I will come back to you. It is better that I should go, and save you the pain of sending me forth and disgracing and humiliating me before the people of this cruel, hateful, lying and slanderous city. Good bye; don't follow me; soon I will tell you where I am. Pray for me, forgive me, and try and think of me as I was. On my soul and by the

memory of my mother I say it! I have not deserved the cruel, dreadful things you said, nor the punishment I have to undergo. I kiss you while you sleep, my dear grandfather, and am gone."

She kissed the old man and laid the note by his side; and ten minutes afterwards she had put on her bonnet and shawl, and slipped out into the fresh morning air. The birds continued to sing, and the sun went on dancing upon the river as if the organist's granddaughter were going on a happy visit to the flowers that lay waiting for her in the wood. The trees spread out their arms over her as she hurried through the Banks, and the perfume of the hay from the Cathedral meadows fell about her; the little waterfall by the North Road sparkled and chattered to her; the blue-bells in the hedges nodded at her, and the air was full of the humming music of bees. She hurried on, her pretty feet presently pattering along the road towards the little village station at Helswick, where Phil Ransford hoped to have carried her in his carriage.

It was nearly two miles to the station, and she knew there was a train at half-past six going south, because she had seen it pass the train in which she went to Newcastle when her grandfather long ago gave her permission to visit some friends there for a whole day, and she had started very early in the morning.

The stationmaster looked curiously at the pretty girl when she asked him if there would not soon be a train for the south. But he was too much occupied with the shunting of a coal train to say more than "Yes ;" and almost at the moment the train was signalled. Clytie took a ticket for York. She did this with a vague notion that she would avoid discovery by staying a few hours at York, and then rebooking for London, where she had resolved to fight her own battle. The train came panting up to the little wayside platform as she left the ticket-office, and the next minute Clytie, crouched in the farthest corner of an otherwise empty carriage, her face buried in her hands, was on her way to the great hard-hearted city of London.

When old Waller awoke the Cathedral bells were chiming for morning service. He read his grandchild's letter, and was frantic. His first thought was to hurry to Tom Mayfield's rooms. Mrs. Wilding received him there.

“Aye, come in, come in, by all means," said Mrs. Wilding. "You're just in time."

The old man followed the landlady into Tom's room.

"A nice affair this is. Why in Heaven's name didn't ye send your lass away with her die-away eyes, as you threatened long ago?" VOL. X., N.S. 1873.

M M

exclaimed Mrs. Wilding, with a sweep of her arm that comprehended a general indication of the scene before them.

"Good heavens, woman, don't talk to me in that strain. What is the meaning of this? I am a broken-hearted man."

"Oh, yes, I know all that, and I'm sorry for you; but you should have brought her up different, poor lass; she'd no mother, or she'd not 'a done it. Don't make faces at me; I know all about it,know what happened last night; all Dunelm knows."

"My poor child!" exclaimed Luke. "Do you know where she has gone?"

"Gone! how? I thought you stopped her, and Mr. Mayfield half killed him."

"She has left me," said the old man; "gone away-fled, woman, before my cruel threats. Where is Mr. Mayfield?”

"He's gone too," said Mrs. Wilding, "don't you see?"

She swept her arm round the room, pointing out generally a bust smashed in a hundred pieces, books scattered about, letters torn up, and a general disorder.

"Left me fifty pounds, and instructions to send his luggage by train, to be left at York station till called for, and all through that girl of yours. He was the best lodger I ever had, and I loved him as

a son."

"Gone! He gone too?" said the old man, with a sad, puzzled look; "am I awake, or is it all a dream?"

"You're waken enough, I reckon," said Mrs. Wilding; "it's a pity your eyes weren't open before, that's the bother."

"Has he gone with her?" said the old man, in a stupid, inquiring

tone.

"Not him!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilding. "Dostn't see that plaster thing; that's her; he's smashed her all to bits. No, depend on it he's done with her; and he didn't care to stop here and hang for her-as they say that Ransford is half dead."

"Curse him!" said the old man.

"With all my heart," Mrs. Wilding replied.

"Both gone," said the old man, sitting in Tom Mayfield's chair among the ruins of the statuette. "I want air; open the window. Thank you. I only want to think a little. I am a stronger minded man than you fancy. I shall pull myself together soon. Pardon my intrusion," he said. “And you don't think he knew that my poor girl was going away?"

"If he had known, he'd have gone in another direction, depend on it."

"You think so? You are a woman, and can judge better. You think he's gone on account of Ransford's hurt ?"

"Disappointment; the folly of setting his heart on a pretty, empty

head."

"No words against my child!" exclaimed the old man, suddenly rising to his feet.

"Well, then, don't ask me questions," said Mrs. Wilding.

"I will not, I will not; I will question the past-question my own heart, my own experience," said the old man, with touching pathos. "Have you a daughter?"

"Thank goodness, no," said Mrs. Wilding.

"Then you could not understand what I was about to say. Good morning, Mrs. Wilding. I am sorry to have troubled you."

And Mrs. Wilding stood alone contemplating the wreck of Tom Mayfield's room, and wondering what old Waller would have said to her if she had had a daughter.

(To be continued.)