bad opinion of her master, and it was she who had set afloat the rumours concerning his cruelty to his mother, in which she herself firmly believed.

One day John Baselow had left Ashmead early and gone up to town by one of the morning trains, saying that he would not return that night. After a long day's absence Beatrice did not make returning home as agreeable to him as he thought he had a right to expect. He had just replenished his purse by the sale of some of the stock, and had promised himself a little pleasure, as a reward for the not very pleasant business which he had to transact in seeing the lawyer who was managing his case, and in the periodical visit to his mother's quarters, in order to pay her board, which he had guaranteed a month in advance. He might say what he chose about business, however, Beatrice knew that he was bent on pleasure, and she wanted to share it. She had asked to go up with him, and he had refused to take her. But that was no reason why she should stay moping there all by herself. She could surely go up to town without asking her husband's leave. She wanted to know how they were getting on at home-whether Jerry had recovered (poor Geraldine, on whose grave the grass was growing green already); whether Ada still lived with her cousin, and what father and mother and Albert and his wife were about. The desire to see them had come upon her often of late. She was discovering, rather to her dismay, that she had a heart after all, and that the memories of home were stirring it strongly.

To-day, no sooner had she begun to long for home, than she resolved to gratify her longing; and no sooner had she formed her resolution than she began to act upon it. She dressed herself without delay in her plainest and quietest things, and started off for the station, about a couple of miles off from the house. She was so far fortunate that she almost immediately caught a train, and modestly seating herself in a second-class carriage, was soon whirling along the line to London.

When she arrived at the London terminus, she hailed an omnibus and proceeded on her journey. Ere long she reached the familiar main road, and was set down close to the door of the house which she had left as Beatrice Lovejoy. She hurried up to it, oppressed by a feeling of consciousness for which she could not account, and which made her shade her face with her parasol, and keep her eyes steadily fixed on the ground. At length she stood before it, and was about to lift her hand to the knocker, but she had almost fallen forward, for the door stood wide open. She advanced a step or two and looked into the front parlour. It was empty. It seemed as if the painters were in the house, for there stood on the hearth a bucket and a brush, but no one was there. She stood still for a moment, and the life she had lived there passed before her eyes with a vivid ness she had never before realised the possibility of.

Turning away, she passed up the stair, which echoed as the stairs of empty houses echo. She looked into every room; each seemed to have some old story written on its walls. A feeling of loneliness, of desolation, almost made her weep. She quitted the house without knowing what she should do next. Timidly she ventured to knock at the next door and inquire where her friends had gone to. The woman who opened it recognised her, but treated her as a stranger, evidently more than doubtful of her respectability. Beatrice asked if she knew where her neighbours had gone to? It was a difficult question to ask, for it revealed her ignorance of what she ought certainly to have known-the abode of her own parents. More than ever doubtful of her, the woman answered that she knew nothing about them, adding that she always kept herself to herself, a statement which she made as if it contained the sum of human wisdom.

Beatrice turned away, hiding her hurt. She was feeling faint, for she had breakfasted early and lightly, and had still a long journey before her, so she went into the shop of a third-rate baker and confectioner, and bought a penny bun, with which, and a glass of cold water, she regaled herself, debating in her mind the while whether or not she should cross London's extreme breadth, and seek from Fanny some information concerning her family. She had just made up her mind to do this, when, turning a corner, she ran up against her husband. But for the actual contact causing both to start and stare, they would have passed unrecognised and unrecognising.

"What are you doing here?" cried John Baselow, in a voice of angry astonishment; "I thought you were safe at home."

"I am safe enough here," replied the reckless Beatrice.

"I ask you what you are doing here?" he shouted.

She looked at him defiantly. "I have been to see my father," she said.

"What business had you to come without letting me know?" he replied, thoroughly enraged.

"I did not think of it till after you were gone," she answered. Her instinct told her that the tug of war had come, and that if she yielded she would be this man's slave for the rest of her life. They stood still, glaring at each other, and Beatrice did not flinch.

"Well, and where are you going now ?" he asked. "Home," she thought fit to answer. She did not care to pursue her purpose that day.

"You'll be sorry you married me if you do this sort of thing often," he said.

"For that matter," she answered, "I'm sorry enough already, and I mean to do as I please."

Beatrice certainly was not a manageable person at the best, reckless and defiant she was still less so. She looked dangerous.

"The sort of woman to get a man into a regular mess," was her husband's flattering opinion of her.

He turned with her, however, and saw her into the omnibus, and on leaving her he touched his hat mockingly, an action of which she took outwardly no potice, but which roused her passionate and vindictive temper to the utmost.

scream.

Once at home, Beatrice gave way to her passion, and indulged in fits of hysterical rage and weeping. Calm succeeded storm, and storm succeeded calm in her ill-disciplined mind, till she had completely worn herself out; then she went to bed and fell asleep from exhaustion before the evening light had faded from the sky. How long she had been asleep she did not know, but she was suddenly awakened by the crash of some heavy body falling. She started up, and listening intently, thought she heard a suppressed She jumped out of bed, and opening her bedroom door, stood rooted to the landing, while the man and his wife below carried on a horrible altercation. Beatrice's blood was rising and her heart beat wildly as she heard the poor creature pursued and taken, pleading all the while to be let alone for fear of waking the mistress. Beatrice was brave; she hastened back to her room, threw on some clothes, and went down-stairs, making as much noise as she could. "There's the mistress coming," she heard the woman say, who immediately came out of the kitchen and met her on the stair, entreating her to return. 'He will murder me-he will murder both of us!" she whispered. But Beatrice went on. She paused, however, on the threshold and looked in. The drunken wretch had flung a chair at his wife's head. That was the cause of the noise which had resounded through the house and awakened its sleeping mistress. There he was, a strong, terrible beast, and Beatrice wavered, though he looked cowed when he saw her. Just then she happened to see the key in the lock outside the kitchen door, and adroitly, and without the least appearance of terror, turned it on him, and left him to his own reflections, commanding his trembling wife to come and sleep in her room, where she made a bed for her on the floor.

347

attended court. Beatrice and her husband were there, and Beatrice looked unusually beautiful under the veil which she kept over her face to hide the flush of anxiety and excitement that had settled upon it. Both she and her husband had suffered a good deal during those final weeks of waiting-neither of them confessed to the other how much; neither of them sought the sympathy of the other. John Baselow was doubtful of the issue of the case, on which for him so much depended, because he was doubtful of his father ever having any good intent toward him, and he had naturally communicated his doubt to Beatrice; and Beatrice had not assured him that it would make no difference to their happiness, as most young wives would have done, fully believing also in their own anticipations, however fallacious. Neither had he whispered, as married lovers will, that with her he held a prize greater than wealth or worldly inheritance. There was certainly no romance about Beatrice and her husband. The question which had absorbed them day and night was, whether they were to be sent back from whence they came, into the crowd of strugglers for bread, or were to grasp the reality of that wealth and position, whose semblance had been tantalising them for those months past. They coveted wealth now as they had never coveted it before. There was no longer any possibility of happiness for them apart from it. They positively shuddered at the prospect of the life which might once have satisfied them both-he at his desk in the City, she at the cares of the little household which a City clerk could maintain. They were each too selfish to imagine what the depth of the other's disappointment would have been in the event of the loss of their cause, else they would have displayed a little more sympathy when the end came-a sympathy which might have gone far to sweep away the barrier which was rising between them. The case broke down even before all the witnesses had been heard on the side of the defendant, the jury declaring themselves satisfied that old Mr. Baselow, up to the time of his decease, was in full possession of his faculties.

Philip was in attendance at court, and but for him so would Fanny Lovejoy have been. She had proposed bringing Ada and Lucy, as they were very anxious to hear the result; but a hint from Philip had sufficed to keep them away. Philip was a purist, and he feared that the facts of this man's impure life might be brought out during the trial, and therefore desired to keep Lucy and Ada away from it. But Fanny was to bring them to the Hall in the afternoon when the trial was expected to be over, and Ada was to meet her sister there for the first time since her marriage.

Beatrice had made another effort to see her family. She had written to Fanny, and ascertained the address of the lodging to which her father and mother had removed. Ada had refused to communicate with her. Ada was like a musical instrument of great