"Very well. What motive, then, could Mr. Carlton have had to work her ill? The very worst man permitted to live on earth would not poison a fellow-creature, and a stranger, for the sake of pastime; and Mr. Carlton is an educated man, a man of a certain refinement, and, so far as I have seen- -for I met him two or three times before I left home-he is a pleasant and agreeable one. Assuming for the moment's argument that your views were correct, what motive could have actuated Mr. Carlton ?"

Frederick Grey leaned his head on his hand. The question was a poser: in fact, it was the precise point that had puzzled him throughout. Judith Ford, the widow Gould, Mr. Stephen himself, had all testified that the lady had come to South Wennock a stranger to Mr. Carlton as to the Greys.

"I don't deny that that's a point difficult to get over, or that the case is completely shrouded in mystery," he confessed at length. "It puzzles me so that sometimes I can't sleep, and I get thinking that I must be wronging Carlton. I ask myself what he thought to gain by it. Nothing, that I can see. Of course he now keeps up the prejudice against papa to get his patients; but he could not have entered upon it from that

"For shame, Frederick!"

"Dear mamma, I am sorry you are so vexed, and I wish I had not mentioned it at all. I tell you I have lain awake night after night, thinking it over in all its aspects, and I see that any probable accession of practice could not have been his motive, for the draught might have been made up by me or by Mr. Whittaker, for all Mr. Carlton knew, and in that case the odium could not have touched papa. I see that you are angry with me, and I only wish I could put away this suspicion of Carlton from my mind. There is one loop-hole that the man he saw concealed on the stairs may have been the villain, after all."

:

"What man? What stairs?" exclaimed Mrs. Grey in astonishment.

"As Mr. Carlton was leaving the sick lady's room that same night, he saw-Hush! Here's papa!" cried the boy, breaking off abruptly. "Don't breathe a word of what I have been saying, there's a dear mother."

Mr. Stephen Grey came in, a gloomy cloud on his usually cheerful face. He threw him

self in an armchair opposite his wife's sofa,

his mood one of grievous weariness.

"Are you tired, Stephen?" she asked.

"A move?" she repeated, while Frederick turned round from the window, where he was now standing, and looked at his father.

"We must move from this place, Mary, to one where the gossip of Stephen Grey's having supplied poison in mistake for safe medicine will not have penetrated. It gets worse every day, and John's temper is tried. No wonder: he is worked like a horse. Just now he came in, jaded and tired, and found three messengers waiting to see him, ready to squabble amid themselves who should get him first. 'I am really unable to go,' he said. 'I have been with a patient for the last seven hours and am fit for nothing. Mr. Stephen will attend.' No, there was not one would have Mr. Stephen their orders were, Mr. Grey or nobody. John is gone, unfit as he is but this sort of thing cannot last.”

:

"Of course it cannot," said Mrs. Stephen Grey. "How extraordinary it is! Why should people be prejudiced in the face of facts?"

“I had a talk with John yesterday, and broached to him what has been in my own mind for weeks. He and I must part. John must take a partner who will be more palatable to South Wennock than I now am, and I must try my fortune elsewhere. If I am ruined myself, it is of no use dragging John down with me; and, were I to stay with him, I believe the whole practice would take itself away.'

Mrs. Grey's heart sank any one wonder?-hearing years must be broken up. go?" she cried in agitation.

within her. Can that her home of "Where could we

"I don't know. Perhaps London would be best. There, a person does not know his next-door neighbour, and nobody will know me as the unfortunate practitioner from South Wennock."

"It is a great misfortune to have fallen upon us!" she murmured.

"It is unmerited," returned Stephen Grey; "that's my great consolation. God knows how innocent I was in that unhappy business, and I trust He will help me to get a living elsewhere. It's possible that it may turn out for the best in the end."

"What man was it that Mr. Carlton saw on the stairs that night?" inquired Mrs. Grey, after a pause, her thoughts reverting, in spite of herself, from their own troubles. And Frederick, as he heard the question, glanced uneasily at his mother, lest she should be about to betray confidence.

"Nobody can tell. And Carlton fancied

it all. We shall have to make a move."

that the moonlight deceived him. But

there's not the least doubt some one was there, concealing himself, and I and John have privately urged it upon the police never to cease their search after him. That man was the guilty agent."

"Frederick, this is one of your crotchets. Be still; be still!"

CHAPTER XXXII. AN UNLUCKY ENCOUNTER.

RECLINING languidly in her easy chair one

an awe-struck pause.

"I feel sure of it. No reasonable being can entertain a doubt of it. But for this mistaken idea that people have picked upthat the mistake was mine in mixing the sleeping draught-there would not be two opinions upon it in the town. The only point I cannot understand, is-Carlton's having smelt the poison in the draught when it was delivered; but I can only come to the conclusion that Carlton was mistaken, unaccountable as it seems for him to have fancied a smell where no smell was."

"How full of mystery it all sounds!"

"The affair is a mystery altogether; it's nothing but mystery from beginning to end. Of course the conclusion drawn is-and the coroner was the first to draw it-that that man was the ill-fated young lady's husband, stolen into the house for the purpose of deliberately destroying her. If so, we may rest satisfied that it will be cleared up sometime, for murder is safe to come out, sooner or later."

As Stephen Grey concluded the last words he quitted the room. Mrs. Grey approached

her son.

"My dear, you hear what your papa says. How is it possible that you can suffer your suspicions to stray to any other than that concealed man?"

The boy turned, and wound his mother's arm about him as he answered, his frank, earnest eyes lifted trustingly to hers.

"I am just puzzled to death over it, mother mine. I don't feel a doubt that some wicked fellow was there; I can't doubt it; and of course he was not there for good. Still, I cannot overget that impression of falseness in Mr. Carlton. There is such a thing as bribery, you know."

"Bribery!" repeated Mrs. Grey, not understanding his drift.

"If Carlton did not commit the ill himself, he may be keeping the counsel of that man who did. Mother dear, don't take your arm from me in anger. I can't drive the feeling away from me. Mr. Carlton may not have been the actual culprit; but, that he knows more of the matter than he suffers to appear, I am as certain of as that I am in life."

And Mrs. Stephen Grey shivered within her as she listened to the words, terrified for the consequences should they come to be overheard.

The reaction of the passionate excitement, arising from the blow dealt out to her so suddenly, had come, and she felt utterly weary both in mind and body. Some little bustle and talking outside was heard, as if a visitor had entered, and then the room door opened. There stood Laura Carlton.

"Well, Jane! I suppose I may dare to come in?"

She spoke in a half laughing, half deprecating tone, and looked out daringly at Jane from her dazzling beauty. A damask colour shone in her cheek, a brilliant light in her eye. She wore a rich silk dress with brocaded flounces, and a white lace bonnet all gossamer and prettiness. Jane retained her hand as she gazed at her.

"You are happy, Laura ?”

"Oh, so happy! was the echoed answer. "But I want to be reconciled to you all. Papa is dreadfully obstinate when he is crossed, I know that, but he need not hold out so long. And you, Jane, to have been here going on for a fortnight and not to have taken notice of me!"

"I have been ill," said Jane.

"Oh I daresay! I suppose the fact is, papa forbade you to call at my house or to receive me here."

"No, he did not. But let us come to a thorough understanding at once, Laura, as you are here it may spare trouble to both of us; perhaps some heart-burning. I must decline, myself, to visit at your house. I will receive you here with pleasure, and be happy to see you whenever you like to come but I cannot receive Mr. Carlton."

"Why will you not visit at my house?"
"Because it is Mr. Carlton's. I would

prefer not to meet him-anywhere."
Laura's resentment bubbled up.
"Is your
prejudice against Mr. Carlton to last for
ever?"

"I cannot say. I confess that it is strong against him at present. I never liked him, Laura; and his underhand conduct with regard to you has not tended to soften the dislike. I cannot extend my hand in greeting to Mr. Carlton. It is altogether better that we should not meet. Like him, I never can." "And never will, so long as you persist in shutting yourself out from all intercourse with him," retorted Laura. "What! would it hurt you, Jane, to meet my husband?"

last of them a twelvemonth ago last June, and no trace of her since then can be discovered. Our only conjecture is, that she must have gone on the Continent with some family, or elsewhere abroad. Papa has caused the lists of passports at the most frequented ports to be searched, but without success; but that we think little of, as she may have been entered "the governess." In short, we have searched for her in all ways, and the police have searched; and we can hear nothing of her. The uneasiness this gives me, Laura, I cannot express to you; and papa-in spite of your opinion of his heartlessness-is as much troubled as I am."

as

"I know I bad; one; but it gave me no clue to where she was. It was the letter that came to us last New Year's day, to wish us the bonne année,"

"That was not the last letter you had from her?"

"Yes, it was. I wrote three letters to her subsequent to that, the letters that I afterwards found lying at the library, unclaimed. Do you recollect my telling you of a very singular dream I had, relating to Clarice-a disagreeable dream?"

Laura did not care. She had been in the habit of laughing at Jane's dreams, and she would laugh still. Jane Chesney had certainly had two or three most singular dreams, which had borne reference in a remarkable degree to subsequent realities of life. One of them had foreshadowed her mother's death, and Jane had told it before the death took place. That the events following upon and bearing out the dreams were singular coincidences, can at least be said. And yet Jane Chesney was not by nature inclined to superstition, but the dreams had, in a degree, forced it upon her. She buried the feeling within herself, as we all like to bury those feelings which touch wholly on the imagination-that inner life within the life. But of all her dreams, never had she been visited by one bearing, half the vivid horror, the horror of reality, as did this last one relating to her sister Clarice.

"It is very deceitful of you, Jane, to persist to my face that you have not heard from Clarice since the new year," resumed Laura.

Jane raised her eyelids. "I have not heard from her since."

"Where's the use of saying it, Jane?" and Laura's voice took a peevish tone, for she had as much dislike to being kept in the dark as had her father the earl. "You know quite well that you had at least one letter subsequent to that, and a most affectionate and loving one."

Jane was surprised. "I do not know what your head is running on, Laura, but I do know that I never had a line or syllable from Clarice subsequent to that January letter."

Laura took out her purse, a handsome porte

"Yes," said Jane: "it was in March. The dream made me very uneasy, and I wrote, as I tell you, more than once to Clarice, begging tidings of her. They were the letters I speak of.

Every phase of that dream is as vivid to my mind now as it was then. There are moments when the superstition is all too strong upon me that it only shadowed forth the reality of Clarice's fate. I seem to know that we shall never find her-in life."

Laura would have liked to ridicule then. "Can't you tell me the dream, Jane?"

"No," shuddered Jane, "I cannot tell it. Least of all to you."

from it a small piece of paper that had once formed part of a letter.

"Look there, Jane. You would know Clarice's writing, is that hers or not? I put it in my purse to-day to bring to you."

Oh yes, it is Clarice's writing," said Jane, the instant it was in her hands. It was the upper part of the first page, where the writing commenced, and was dated from London on the 28th of the previous February. It began as follows:

My dearest, I am about to make a proposal to you, and

66 -without delay. Ever your own, Clarice."

Jane Chesney pondered over the words,

especially over the date. But she had never seen the note in her life before, and said so.

"Nonsense," said Laura. "If it was not addressed to you, Jane, to whom was it addressed? Clarice never wrote home to anybody but you since her departure."

"How did you become possessed of this?" inquired Jane.

"It came from home with my clothes." "Impossible," said Jane. "I collected your things myself and packed them. There was no such scrap of paper, as this, amongst them."

“I tell you, Jane, it came to me in my box of clothes. Some little time ago a pair of my lace sleeves got mislaid. I was angry with my maid, and turned the drawer, where my lace things are kept, out upon the floor. In picking them up to replace, I found the paper. That it had come from home with my lace things is certain, for they were emptied straight from the trunk into that drawer. And there it must have remained since unnoticed, probably slipped under the paper laid at the bottom of the drawer."

"It appears to me inexplicable," returned Jane. "I know that I never received the note; and, as you say, Clarice wrote home only But she never worded her letters in that strain: it is more as a wife would write to her husband."

to me.

"The display of affection struck me," said Laura, "I thought she had grown over-fond all on a sudden."

I hope

"Clarice has too much good sense to indulge in foolishly-fond expressions. I cannot understand this," resumed Jane. "It seems all on a par with the rest, full of nothing but mystery. Will you give me this scrap of paper, Laura?" "You may keep it, and welcome. we shall soon hear of her. It is so dreadfully inconsistent for Lady Clarice Chesney, or Lady anybody else, to be getting her living as a governess. But I suppose she cannot have heard of the change. Jane-to alter the subject-do you know that I saw papa at Pembury?"

"No."

"I did. I was visiting Colonel and Mrs. Marden, they are such nice people-but you know them for yourself. I was driving through the street in the pony carriage with Mrs. Marden, and we met Sir James's mail-cart, he and papa inside it. Between astonishment and fear I was nearly frightened out of my wits. I pulled the reins and started the ponies off, and the next day we heard that papa had left again."

"Are you going?" asked Jane, for Laura had risen.

"I must be going now. I shall come in again soon, for I have not said half I thought to say, or remembered half the questions. Good-by, Jane; come with me as far as the gate.'

"I don't feel well enough to go out," was Jane's answer.

"Nonsense, that's all fancy. A minute's walk in this bright sunshine will do you good."

Jane yielded to the persuasion. She muffled herself up and accompanied Laura to the gate. It was a balmy autumn day, the sun brilliant, and the red leaves shining in the foliage. Jane really did feel the air revive her, and she did not hasten indoors immediately.

Laura shook hands and proceeded down the road. Just after she had passed its bend, she encountered her husband. He was advancing

at a quick step, swinging a cane in his hand. Oh, Lewis, were you coming in search of

me?"

"Not I," said Mr. Carlton, laughing. "It would take I don't know what amount of moral courage to venture into the precincts of my enemy, Lady Jane. Has it been a stormy interview, Laura?"

"It has been a pleasant one. Not that Jane is a model of suavity in all things. She tells me I may go and see her whenever I please, but you are not to go, and she won't come to my house."

"Then I'd retaliate, Laura, by not going to hers."

answer;

"Oh, I don't know," was Laura's careless "I should like to go to her sometimes, and I daresay she'll come round after a while. Won't you walk home with me, Lewis?"

"I cannot, my dearest. A patient is waiting for me."

is

"Who is it?"

"A farmer's wife: nobody you know. She very ill."

They parted different ways. Laura went towards home, and Mr. Carlton continued his road up the Rise. As he passed the bend, he became aware that some one was advancing from an opposite direction, and recognised. young Frederick Grey. And Master Frederick was in a fiery temper.

A word of explanation as to its cause is necessary. At the Michaelmas just passed, a Mr. Thrupp and his wife, people from a distance, had come to live at a small farm just beyond the Rise. A short time after taking possession, the wife was seized with illness, and Mr. Carlton was called in. The farmer knew nothing and had heard nothing of the merits of the different practitioners of the place, but Mr. Carlton lived nearest to him, and therefore he was summoned.