one for each letter it may have been-and then she knelt before that rude altar and prayed. There was a spot too sacred for the tread of the Jewish Lawgiver. There are some scenes on which it would be profanation to intrude. There are revelations from the inner life, sparks from the soul, on which no alien eye may linger, where curiosity is stagnated and criticism powerless-and Alice Mowbray's prayer was one of

these.

CHAPTER VIII.

TRINODA NECESSITAS.

Or the trio who had independently of each other gone to Bannerley from Frickney, Elton probably was the least satisfied with his visit. All of them to a certain extent were disappointed, or at all events discontented with the result, as an analysis of their feelings afterwards will show; or perhaps the most correct way of putting it would be to say, that the satisfaction their respective visits produced was so mingled with the vague sense of uncertainty to which they had given rise, as to be almost counteracted by it. Taken in their definite order of succes

sion, they illustrated progressive grades of contentment, neither of them very marked in themselves or remote from each other.

In the first place, Elton felt and knew he was at the mercy of a woman. With his peculiar estimate of the sex, it is not a matter of surprise that he did not like his position, or put much trust in the continuity of fair weather and plain sailing, which so far had attended his schemes. With him there was always an uncomfortable feeling of insecurity uppermost in his mind, bidding him look out for squalls, however cloudless the horizon, and anticipate breakers ahead, however calm the tide of events with which he was floating. Women, as a rule, he believed to be volatile and garrulous, capricious as the winds of heaven, and with as much stability about them as there is in a rainbow. Their faculties, like its tints, were bright enough as long as they lasted, and that was only when. the glowing rays of prosperity or self-interest were full and fervent. This being the case, he could not dissociate from his mind the fact, that his holdfast upon the Howlet's secrecy was of a

very precarious nature. As long as he was close at her side, and able to influence her actions, by a free use of the practical arguments he had already proved to be successful, he did not despair of keeping her quiet, but when away from her, he could neither answer for her discretion nor be sure she would not betray his secret to the first comer. Then, again, his suspicion that he had seen Curtis at Bannerley was not exactly reassuring. He knew him well, knew him to

be a deep-dyed villain at heart, more than a match for the Howlet, if he thought he could get anything out of her; and beyond this, he was well aware that he would leave no stone unturned if thereby he could retaliate upon his master the grudge he had owed him for years. He had been the means of laying Curtis under a heavy obligation, and he took good care to let him feel that he had done so, lording it over him in an imperious manner, and by a thousand petty innuendoes, giving him to understand that he had not forgotten, any more than he would suffer the factotum to forget, the mutual relation in which they stood to each other. So he deter

mined on the course to adopt to see Curtis immediately he returned, to charge him point blank with having been at Bannerley, and to extort from his confusion an assurance of the truth of the assertion, should a direct confession of the fact prove too great an effort for his duplicity. Sending for him the moment he was certified of his return, he gave him no time to get up an excuse or opportunity of fencing with his questions, but then and there made his accusation :

"You have been to Bannerley, Curtis, and I saw you there."

“I have been to my sister's funeral, sir," the other responded; and then for the first time Elton remarked that he was clad in a full suit

of black, very new and glossy.

For a moment or two he was staggered and taken aback by this discovery. It was so unlikely Curtis should put on mourning unless he was obliged to do so, both on the grounds of economy and taste, that he almost began to fancy he had wronged him by the supposition. But no! he could not overcome the notion he had conceived on the