"She has joined them," whispered one at my elbow to some other, both hidden in the stark darkness; "she is here, almost within reach of our hands. I reckoned, truly, this passage would bring us to the place to serve our purpose. Whether she did well or ill in trusting those she meets so unseasonably, no mischief can come of the means we have adopted to make her safety sure."

"You are welcome," said Ridsdale, addressing the figure now standing before him; "you are welcome, though I am not your debtor for a similar courtesy. Your circle has grown too dainty for me, eh? your society has become too refined to admit old friends. But not lovers in such a category-not lovers that might be grandsires. What says madam? Quite silent; has the bride elect no speech but for the gallant groom?" and he motioned to lay hands on her he spoke with, for the figure was a woman.

"Put no touch on me," exclaimed the full, deep voice of Madam de Beauplans; "I am here to receive and pay for intelligence; are you prepared to communicate it?"

"I am; and a good pennyworth you shall have. But first some earnest of the bargain; my friend the captain here is somewhat greedy of gold."

"I'll take her word for more than she can carry of it," cried the person to whom this observation applied, dashing the meerschaum from his mouth; "I've done it before, and I will again. The brother of the fraternité will ride for her errand on the green sea, as he did on the green sward of the Bois de Boulogne-on honour. So now despatch, and let's aboard, for the tide of ebb has been running down for the last hour."

"Take the money," said Caroline; "I give it in advance as the best means to secure your being brief. Be to the purpose, if you can and will.”

"Both, lady bountiful," responded Ridsdale, taking the heavy purse offered him, and speaking in hollow, harsh tones; "ye shall have no fault to find with me on either score. You would have tidings of the Baron Von Hoffman, who, as you imagine, wounded all but to the death the benefactor of your youth and the present patron of your fortunes in their worst need? Know that the Jew was denied the retribution he coveted; mine was the hand that struck him down. Hoffman was but permitted to be the paramour of his master's daughter. You start; the marquis has not made you acquainted with these facts? I had forgotten, he learnt them but yesterday."

"Villain! monstrous, murderous villain!" shrieked the unhappy woman; "it's a lie-a damned lie! coined in hell, and uttered by the most accurst of its fiends!"

"He was prevented," continued Ridsdale, without noticing the interruption," sending you the news, no doubt in consequence of his attendance at the death-bed of a foreign gentleman, who died from wounds he inflicted on himself at a hotel a few days after his arrival in London, the effect, it is rumoured, of some communication made to him by a mendicant. I must not forget to tell you the stranger was the son of your friend, the Marquis de L-, and the youth in

whom you took such interest when he was the inmate of your chateau at Versailles-the young Italian-your brother."

Again at my elbow there was a sound, but now only a convulsive effort at articulation. To these ominous words Caroline made no reply, neither did she move, but her arms fell to her side, and she stood erect as a corse might stand. For some minutes all was still and silent, and then the figure of the woman fell to the earth as a statue drops from its pedestal. As it fell Ridsdale caught the inanimate form in his arms, at the same time exchanging a signal with the smuggler, and instantly the boat, which had been lying in the offing, was alongside the pier. Towards this he bore his burden with desperate energy, while close at my side a rough, firm voice sang out-" Avast, avast there! off graplings! Jacob Lyall an't the man to stand by quietly and see a woman keel-hawled! Curse the door! burst it, if you can't find the handle!" This was addressed to a companion who was already endeavouring to force the wicket, and whom I at once recognised to be the Jew, Von Hoffman. "It's made fast in some way," I said, "the only hope is to break it open-one effort and together." We threw ourselves against it several times before it gave way, and the opportunity thus afforded was not neglected by Ridsdale and his party. They were, of course, aware that an instant alarm would be raised, even if those about to come to the rescue should, of themselves, be unequal to defeat their design, and they strained every nerve to carry out the attempt in which they had engaged.

Caroline had been placed in the boat, and it was already several fathoms clear of the land, as we rushed down the causeway. I had flung myself from the steps, and was the first at the water's edge, but the light vessel was already flying fast from the shore under the strong strokes of the rowers. All hope was at an end; and, in the passion of my rage, I cried aloud, and the name of her on whom I called was borne after them on the wild night wind. It is possible that she heard it-that the sound of well-remembered accents aroused her, for, as a stream of bright moonlight fell on the waves through which they were bounding, I saw her struggling fiercely with Ridsdale. As I gazed on them, torn by anxiety and fury, there was a yell, and then followed a heavy splash, and the waters foamed-and the struggling figures were seen no more.

*

I watched the boat till it ran under the cutter's quarter; marked some men leap from it to the deck; then all the canvas that would stand crowded on her, and she darted with the speed of a bird to seaward. Although this outrage had been perpetrated within fifty yards of an inn, still filled with waking guests, nothing was known of it till the alarm was given by Jacob Lyall, who summoned them to give such assistance as they might, while I continued to strain my eyes after the fast disappearing vessel. Presently all the small craft in the harbour was under way, but neither on the surface nor beneath it could proof be found of the character or extent of the catastrophe we had witnessed. Fatal casualties were things by no means rare

among the visitors to this rendezvous of free trade, but such an event as this was without a parallel, and struck both natives and foreigners with consternation. Its effect on Panton Ridsdale was terrible; he made no observation, indeed, but his efforts to keep down his feelings were like death-throes, each leaving the sufferer more and more prostrated. I did not part from him during the remainder of the night, and with the first light we were on the scene of the fatality. It was dead low-water, and a wide extent of dry beach spread before us. Thither we bent our steps, mournfully; and, a few paces from the spot where, but a few hours before, she had stood full of life and beauty, lay the cold dank form that once was Caroline de Beauplans.

*

Rumour was not slow in bearing the sad event to the retreat at Alum Bay; but it was evening ere I could put on resolution to visit it. The simple yet stern grief of the domestics was the best test of the power which that extraordinary woman had gained over their affections. But there were others by whom her loss was mourned with a passionate sorrow; which neither gratitude, nor esteem, nor reverence, can beget. It is true that they whom she had bound to her by such ties knew not her folly or her guilt; but one there was whose love would have felt no change had they been fifty times as dark as they were. When the rose-bud fades and withers, her fragrant sisters sorrow alike, whether blight or canker have spoiled her bloom and

sweetness.

It was dusk when I entered the library, and but for a sound as of some one breathing hard, I should not have known that it was already occupied. The servant who attended me proceeded to light a lamp, and, by its first faint ray, I discovered my uncle buried in his arm chair. He neither by word nor sign appeared sensible of my presence until we were alone, and then, as it were instinctively, he spoke:

"Hyde, you are, of course, not ignorant of the purpose which brought me here: I know your errand-let this serve, as much as may be, to spare details. As she would have had a right, if left but a little longer, to such office at my hands, it shall not be foregone because of a too premature bereavement. I came to lead her to the altar: I will remain and follow her to the tomb!" Here he gasped convulsively-his breath choked him-his brow grew black-his lips ashy white: I thought his last agony was come. "I will see her laid in her grave," he resumed, recovering himself by a mortal struggle, "the better to fit me for other obsequies which I shall soon be required to attend: to you I entrust the conduct of the solemnity; an occasion"-and his speech was the accent of a broken heart" an occasion I might have averted, for I felt the hand of fate was on her when she went abroad last night. I besought her not to go. Oh! why did I listen to her persuasion-or, at least, why went I not also-to die with her, as I shall for her?"

The old man's passion of despair was strangling him-his clenched fingers strove to grasp the air-his eyes glared and grew dim—and, with a shout of ghastly laughter, he fell to the floor cold and rigid as

ice,

As the night advanced, my uncle grew more calm, and he conversed with me freely about the future, recurring occasionally to the past-but reluctantly. "It was ever my presentiment," he said, in the course of his observations, "a feeling I could not shake off, that the prediction of the French woman, Lenormande, would be fulfilled -"the boy's folly shall be the old man's fate"-it will be accomplished to the letter. This may have come of chance, or my belief in it of moral weakness; but might she not have foretold the end from divining that property of my character? These are mysteries which only affect us little, because they exist in all the issues of life and

nature.

"Let us, however, speak of facts. I shall not long survive this blow: neither the hard realities of experience nor the idealities of philosophy have fitted me to outlive hope-I thank God for it. Your career is before you: such provision as I considered necessary to enable you to support the [position to which you were born, I secured to you by deeds in the hands of my agents-executed at the same time with the conveyance of my Staffordshire estates to her whom we have lost.

"These and all else she possessed are bequeathed to her sister. The attachment between you and that admirable girl is known to me, and I cordially approve it. By your union with her my fortune will return to the channel from which I did not once imagine it would ever have been diverted-let the vision be confined to the dreamer. You need rest, so we will bring this discourse to an end. To-morrow, early, let me see you again—I shall have matter of concern to dispose of."

It was past midnight before I reached Yarmouth, and, on inquiring for Panton Ridsdale, learnt that he had left soon after my departure for Alum Bay. I found a note from him, however, in which, after some expressions of deep regret for his brother's presumed fate, he informed me it was his intention to hasten into Yorkshire to break the intelligence to his family.

As I read, some one knocked at the door of the chamber; the visitor of so unseasonable an hour was Von Hoffman: his manner was as abrupt as his mission.

"I told you," he began, "it was probable we should meet again, and that I should be the bearer of news you would fain know. I was here last night to fulfil that intimation; why it was delayed need not be explained. You heard the disclosure of Launcelot Ridsdalethat terrible revelation, befitting the infernal spirit that made it.

"Whence he had his materials matters not-enough that they were true. I told the boy, who had been his lady-love-I told the father the story of his children. I come now to tell you who that same Marquis de L- may be. He is that Charles who lured and led me to perdition-the other fruit of his Italian connexion being Madame de Beauplans and her sister.

"These he consigned, in infancy, to the care of Major G▬▬, one of his early associates; while he pursued his career of reckless villany and desperate vice. Madame de Beauplans became acquainted with

H H

the latter fact during the early portion of her residence in France, and previous to the rencontre in the Palais Royal, of which you were witness. Indeed, at the time, she was an agent of the society of which she subsequently was the leader; while Ridsdale ostensibly stood at its head. Her sister, I believe, was never made acquainted with the history of her birth. The secret of his son's existence was unknown to the Marquis,' till he owed the intelligence to me: how I learnt it, and more, I may yet reveal to you. For the present we part-I came not to ask you for money," he observed, as I drew my notecase from my pocket, "my funds have been recruited from a source I have less reluctance to take advantage of than the generosity of impulse."

And thus ended my knowledge of this extraordinary man-whose days had yet to number some years of a modern swindler's life, without a parallel in fiction.

A FRENCH AUTHOR ON SPORTING SUBJECTS-LIBEL AGAINST OUR COUNTRYMEN-THE RACES IN THE CHAMP DE MARS-OUR HERO SUCCESSFUL-AN OLD FRIEND WITH A NEW FACE-A CASE OF "NOBBLING"

THE FAVOURITE.

DISCOVERY OF THE OFFENDER.

At the end of our last chapter, we left our young hero in Paris, about to proceed to the races in the Champ de Mars. Before, however, we proceed in our narrative, we must beg the reader's pardon for the digression we are about to make; but we cannot, while on the subject of French racing, refrain from alluding (and, we trust, with good feeling) to a work that has lately emanated from the Parisian press, and which treats of horses and horsemen. It is entitled, "La