Percivale strolled back alone up the garden path. The night was motionless and heavy. A lethargy seemed to lie on his soul like a weight. To-night he had realized a new thing. He had seen that the wedded bliss he had figured to himself was no dream, but a human possibility, which some attained, but which he had missed. How had he missed it?

Was it possible that he had married the wrong woman?

"Oh, Love, Love, no!" he cried, in his remorse. The fault was his, in some way, of that he was very sure. Had that unknown mother of his lived, she would have been his counsellor, and have shown him where he failed. His deep eyes filled with tears as the thought of that mother beyond the stars came vividly upon his soul. He felt a longing to be comforted—to have his unbroken loneliness scattered and dissipated by tender hands which should draw his weary head down lovingly to rest on a sympathetic breast, and, while telling him what had been his error, whisper consolation.

If there was one thing more than another for which he could not possibly look to his wife, it was for this. Elsa expected him to have his attention always fixed on her and her requirements. The idea that he could ever ail in mind or body never occurred to her.

He stood in the porch of Edge Willoughby, the suffocating sweetness of the verbena-bush, which grew beside the door, suffusing the air all round him. He remembered the night when he stood there with Fowler and Claud, just a year ago, bearing the news of Elsa's innocence.

If he could but charm away this bitter sense of failure!

A sudden determination to make one desperate appeal to his wife dawned in his heart. When first they were married he told himself she was in awe of him, she had not understood him. Now that she knew him better, was there not a chance that she might comprehend the fierce hunger which was in his heart? Surely yes.

Meditatively he walked down the hall.

As he passed along, his eye was attracted by a newspaper lying on the ground, folded tightly together as if it had fallen from some one's coat pocket.

Stooping absently he picked it up, with intent to lay it on the hall-table near. As he did so, his eye fell on a paragraph scored at the side with a pencil-mark. One word in that paragraph struck him like a blow. He started, stared, half laughed like one whom a chance coincidence has disturbed; then, his eyes travelling on, he slowly whitened and stiffened where he stood, his attitude that of a man thunder-struck.

For a couple of minutes or more he remained motionless, then put up an uncertain hand to his eyes as if to clear away a mist.

After another pause, he laid his left hand firmly against the hall-table near which he stood, and, so fortified, read the passage through.

The word which had first caught his eye was Littsdorf, the name of the obscure village of North Germany where his father and his mother lay buried. Glancing higher on the page he saw his father's name printed in full, and his own relationship to him openly proclaimed. So far, true; but the account then became inaccurate, repeating the old story of corruption and suicide which had so long passed current.

As it stood it was not the truth as he had told it to his wife, yet there were certain things in it which surely no one could have known except from his wife's lips.

Violently he repelled the thought, as if to think it were a sin. She! What, she! To whom he had trusted his honor—in whose hands he had laid his life and love—at whose feet he had heaped up the incense of a devotion which was all hers, and had never for a moment leaned towards any other woman!

And yet—yet—Littsdorf!

The writer of the paragraph must evidently have visited the place, to collect the names, dates, and inscriptions on the lonely grave of his mother in the little Friedhof. Chance might have taken him there; but could chance connect the name of R—— with the name of Percivale?

In comparison with the horror of this thought, the publication of this strange hash of truth and falsehood troubled him but little. Too many false reports of him had been circulated for the public to pay much extra heed to this last. If Henry Fowler questioned him, he could easily tell him the truth; but this thought—this ghastly chill which crept over him—this horrible suspicion that his wife had discussed the innermost core of her husband's heart with some casual acquaintance!

It was not true. It could not be. It must not be, or there seemed an end to all possibility of living on in the shattered temple of his broken idol. No! It must be some other way; some strange, marvellous coincidence must be at the root of it.

He would go to his darling and look her in the face—feel the pressure of her little hand, and curse himself for the unworthiness of his thought.

With a strenuous effort, he steadied himself mentally and struggled for his habitual calm. He determined not to go to his wife in the present excited condition of his nerves, lest he might say something which he should regret. He had not yet fully considered the bearings of the subject. Perhaps after all his fear was groundless. Was not some other solution possible?

Again he went out into the night, and for half-an-hour his restless feet trod the terrace, up and down, up and down, while he tried to banish suspicion.

What a coward and traitor was the man who could doubt his own wife without proof! Anything else might happen—a miracle might have revealed the closely hidden secret; anything but that.

The big hall clock striking midnight made him start. He must go indoors or he would waken Elsa, and nothing so put her out of temper as to be waked from her first sleep.

He went indoors, shutting out the hot and heavy darkness of the night with a sigh almost of relief, drew the bolts into their places, extinguished the hall lamp, and quietly went upstairs through the silent house.

He expected to find his room in darkness, but, rather to his surprise, lights were burning, and Elsa sat in an armchair, reading a novel. She glanced up, and yawned as he entered.

The room was transformed since the arrival of Mrs. Percivale's trunks and Mrs. Percivale's maid. A mass of various articles of apparel strewed the chairs and sofa, the dressing table groaned under its load of silver-topped essence-bottles, ivory brushes, hair-curling apparatus, and so forth. The mantel-piece was adorned with knick-knack frames containing photographs of a certain tenor who sang in the opera in Paris, and for whom Elsa had conceived a violent admiration.

The young lady herself was in dÉshabillÉ; she never looked more beautiful than when half-dressed. She wore a white embroidered petticoat and low bodice, much trimmed with lace. Her golden hair streamed all over her creamy neck and arms.

Tossing away her book, she yawned and laughed, lifting said arms and folding them behind her head.

"Oh, is it you? Just fancy! How late it is. I was so tired of trying to undress myself, for Mathilde went to bed the minute she arrived, and I won't let old Jane touch me. So I felt so hot, and I sat down to rest; and this book was so fascinating that" (yawn) "I've been reading ever since." The last five words were almost lost in a large yawn. "Isn't it hot, Leon?"

"Very," he said, as he closed the door, and, drawing up a chair, took a seat at her side. "I am glad you are up still, though. I was afraid I should wake you."

"No; I am not very sleepy. I feel inclined to sit up and finish my book."

"Sit up and talk to me instead," he said, taking one of her hands in his, and looking down lovingly at its slender grace. "The coming back to this place has put me in mind of so many things, my darling, I have been remembering the night—just such a night as this—when I saw you lying asleep on Miss Ellen's bed, dressed in blue——"

"Oh, yes!" her laugh broke in. "That fearful old dressing-gown of Aunt Ellen's! What a fright I felt! I was so ashamed for you to see me. It had shrunk in the wash. Did you notice?"

"My own, I thought you were the most perfect creature I had ever looked upon—as I think still."

"It is rather disappointing, Leon, to find that you don't like me a bit better, now that I really do dress properly, than when I was such a frump. Look at that now," indicating, with a white satin-shod foot, the wondrous toilette she had worn that evening, which lay across a chair near. "That really is pretty, if you like; but it is nonsense to tell me that I looked well in that old blue dressing-gown."

"I tell you that you looked lovely—lovely! There you lay, calmly sleeping, with your life shadowed over by a false accusation!" Falling on his knees beside her chair, he caught her in his arms in an irresistible access of love. Could he suspect her—he, the champion of her innocence when everyone else forsook her?

His head, with its soft curls, lay against her neck. In a passing impulse of affection, begotten of the novel she had been reading, she bent down, kissed him, and stroked his hair.

"Be a good boy, and don't suffocate me quite," said she. "It is very hot to-night."

He did not lift his head, but still clasped her close.

"Elsa, my sweet," he said, "I am ashamed to look in your face. I feel a traitor; I have been thinking evil of you, my heart! I want to confess—to tell you of it. May I?"

"I"—yawn—"suppose so. Yes. But don't be long. I think I'll go to bed now."

"To think that I was mean enough, poor-spirited enough, in face of a few suspicious circumstances, to dream that my wife would break her word to me, would shatter my trust in her, by talking of my private affairs, of the secret which I gave her to guard——"

He felt the girl start in his arms, and a corresponding thrill, a sudden sense of horror, went through him. Letting her go out of his clasp, and lifting his eyes to her face, he saw her crimson from brow to chin.

"What made you say that, Leon?" she asked sharply.

"This," he said, as, scarcely knowing what he did, he laid the paper on her knee.

She took it up and read it quickly through, the color ebbing and coming as she sat.

His heart was beating so fast he could hardly breathe, his whole soul sick with an awful fear. The paper fell on her lap, and she remained still, as if not knowing what to say.

"Elsa," he cried, "how could those words have been written unless the writer of them knew—what you know?"

The girl tossed the paper from her, flinging herself back in her chair defiantly.

"That mean, hateful woman," she cried, with passion. "She deserves—what does she not deserve?—when she solemnly vowed to me not to tell a soul——"

She stopped short, the words died away. The blaze in Percivale's eyes seemed to wither and strike her dumb.

"Elsa!" Rising, he stood before her, laying his hands on her shoulders. "Do you mean to tell me that you have been speaking of what should be sacred in your eyes—no, no! Consider what you are saying."

"Nonsense, Leon!" Angry tears sprang to her eyes. "Let go of me—you hurt! You speak as if I were a criminal."

His face, as his hold relaxed and stepped back, was pitiful to behold.

"To a woman," he said. "To what woman?"

"To that odious Mrs. Orton."

"Elsa, you are mad! Mrs. Orton?"

"Leon, you don't know what hateful things she said of you. She said she knew them for facts. I was obliged to tell her the real truth, I could not stand to have her pitying me, and telling me she knew better than I did. And she declared she would not tell. I made her promise."

He laughed harshly.

"So, though you could betray your husband's confidence, you did not think that she could betray yours! Oh, Elsa! Elsa!... God help me!"

"Leon, it is very inconsiderate and unkind of you to frighten me so! I—I—shall faint or something. What harm so very great have I done? They often put stories about you in the papers. Nobody will know that this is true."

"The world may know, for aught I care. What is the world to me? Less than nothing. All my life I have never valued public opinion. I could bear with perfect fortitude to be an outlaw—tabooed by society, if—if I knew there lived on earth one woman I could trust."

He went to the window. The purple darkness outside seemed in sympathy with him. The verbena scent welled up in waves of perfume. Elsa began to cry bitterly, and then to let fall a torrent of excuses.

She had done it for him, because she hated to hear a spiteful woman speak ill of him. It was because she loved him so that she had been tempted; and there was no great harm done, and now he spoke to her as if she were a dog. He was unkind, he terrified her. She would not bear to be so scolded, she was not a child any more, etc.

Through it all Percivale stood immovable by the window, wondering what could possibly happen next. He felt rather like a man who, having received his death-blow, awaits with a dumb patience the moment when death itself shall follow. Was this woman really the Elsa of his adoration? Had he indeed to this slight, trifling, deceitful nature surrendered himself body and soul as a slave? How could he live on, a long life through, with a wife whom he despised?

Despised? His feeling came nearer to loathing than to contempt as he looked at her. Her very beauty sickened him—the outer covering which had won his fancy. He hated himself for ever having loved her.

She could not see that it was the act itself, not the consequences of it, which he so condemned. So small was her nature that she was unable even to comprehend her transgression. He could not make her understand the horror with which he must regard such a breach of trust.

"There was no great harm done?" was her cry.

"Harm!" he said, brokenly. "There is murder done. You have killed my faith, Elsa, for ever more."

"It is very rude and unkind to say that you will never tell me anything again, just because I let out this one thing. And I only told one person. I never so much as mentioned it to anyone else. I might have published it all over London, to hear you talk!"

It was impossible to answer a speech like this. She had only betrayed him to one person! She had not so much as mentioned it to anyone else! And this was his wife, his ideal!

Claud Cranmer had said,

"If you wish to preserve your ideal, you must not marry her."

He sank into a chair, covered his face, and groaned.

"Come, Leon, don't behave like that—you are the most unreasonable person I ever met!" cried Elsa. "Go away, please, to your dressing-room, and leave me alone. I want to go to bed. You have made me cry so that my eyes are scarlet, and my head feels like lead. I think you are extremely unkind; when I have told you I am very sorry, and begged you pardon. I don't see what more I can do."

"No, Elsa," he said, rising, "you can do nothing more. You cannot make yourself a different woman; and nothing short of that would avail to help us much."

He passed her without looking at her, and shut himself into his dressing-room.

His wife crossed the room, and stared at herself in the glass.

"I know my eye-lids will be all swelled to-morrow," she thought, with a keen sense of injury. "I never saw Leon in such a rage. I hope he will soon get over it. I don't think he is a very good-tempered man; I call him rather sulky. Osmond was much greater fun."

A few minutes after she was in bed, the door opened and Percivale came in. He had changed his dress clothes for his yachting suit, and his cap was in his hand.

"Leon! Are you mad?" cried Elsa.

"I think not," he said, gravely, as he came to her bedside, "but—but—Elsa, forgive me, I cannot stay here and go on as if nothing had happened. You have given me too severe a shock for me to recover from all at once."

"Leon, what nonsense! You talk in such a strange way sometimes I think you cannot be quite right in your head. I do not understand you."

"No," he said, his voice almost a cry, "that is the trouble, Elsa. You do not understood me. I have not understood you either. I have been mistaken. I was ignorant of life. I did not know you, and now that, suddenly, I have seen you as you are, and not as I fancied you, I must have time to grow used to the idea. Poor child, poor child! You could not help it. It is I who am to blame, far more than you. Forgive me that I expected too much."

"What are you going to do? Go away and leave me alone here with the aunts for a punishment?"

"I am going to take the yacht round to Clovelly for Lady Mabel, as was suggested. It will not be very long, and by the time I come back I shall be calmer. I shall be able to face this new aspect of things better. Elsa, Elsa, have you no word for me—nothing to heal the wound you have made? Do you not see, my child, what you have done? Can't you realize how despicable a part you have played! Elsa, face this conduct of yours—what should you say of another man's wife who had betrayed her husband's confidence to his enemy—abused the trust confided to her? Can you not even see the nature of your fault as it is?"

"I have said I am sorry, and I will say it again if it will please you. I know it was stupid to tell her. I thought so several times afterwards. I did not like to tell you; but I do think you make too much fuss, Leon. A thing is out before you know it, but I can't see that it is such a sin as you want to make out."

He tried no more. He bowed his head to utter failure.

Stooping, he gently put his lips to his wife's pure brow, shaded with its innocent-looking curls of gold.

"Poor child," he said, tenderly, "poor, beautiful child. Sleep, Elsa, I must not keep you awake, or make you grieve. It would spoil your beauty; and it is your mission to be beautiful. Good-night!—good-night! I am not angry with you."

"Then why do you go rushing off in the middle of the night instead of coming to bed like a Christian?" she cried, pitifully. "Leon, Leon, why are you so strange—so unaccountable! You make me so unhappy—without my knowing why! You—you are—so very very hard on me!" Suddenly she burst into a passion of tears. Lifting herself from her pillows, she cast both arms round him, clinging to him. "I—I do love you," she gasped, "don't be so cruel to me, don't!" The tears welled up in the young man's beautiful eyes in sympathetic response.

He drew the lovely head down upon his breast, and soothed her with infinite compassion. Like Arthur, the stainless gentleman whose wife had failed him in another—a worse way—"his vast pity almost made him die," as he held her closely, caressing her like a child until her sobs had ceased.

"You are not angry any more?" she asked at last, lifting her wet eye-lashes with a wistful, appealing glance.

"No, Elsa, no. I am not angry. I am penitent. There is no need to make yourself unhappy. Go to sleep."

"I am very sleepy," she sighed, "but you will wake me if you move me."

"I will sit here until you sleep."

"Thank you. You are a good, dear boy. Good-night, Leon."

"Good-night, Elsa."

There was stillness in the room—utter stillness as at last Percivale laid his sleeping wife down, and, bending over her, bestowed a parting kiss.

He felt somewhat as a man who gazes upon the dead form of one beloved.

His dream-Elsa was a thing of the past—vanished, dead.

What would the fresh life be like which he must begin with her? A life of strain—of the heavy knowledge that never while he lived could he hope for sympathy, could he satisfy the mighty craving of his soul for a wife who should be to him what Claud Cranmer's wife was to her husband.

Everything was changed.

Never, in all his solitary youth, in all the remote wanderings of the Swan, not even when he laid to rest his tutor, the one friend of his childhood, had he felt the terror of loneliness as he felt it now. It was grey dawn when he came down to the beach. MÜller, who was on the look-out, saw the misty figure of his master standing upon the shore, and at once launched the gig and took him on board.

With the gradual dawn, a faint breeze sprang up and lifted the mist that hung over the sea.

It filled the Swan's white wings as it rose and freshened, and just as the sun rose, she sailed out of the bay, her master, silent and pallid, standing on the deck, watching the dim roof which covered his perished hopes.

There lay the Lower House, snug in the valley. He sent an unspoken farewell to the good Henry, and to the happy husband and wife who were probably just awaking to a fresh day of love and hope and mutual help.

The warm sun-rays gilded Percivale's bright head, and glorified the still features as he stood. Old MÜller looked anxiously at him. Something was wrong, he guessed, and yet—oh, the joy to be putting to sea again as in old days, free and untrammelled by the fashionable wife or the sick maid!

The old man's spirit leaped up with the red sun. His blood rose, his eye kindled.

The bonnie yacht bounded over the freshening waves, the day laughed broadly over the sea, and the crew, animated by MÜller's delight, sang their Volkslieder as they went about their work.

That night, the last sultry heat of autumn burst in a storm more violent than Edge Combe had known for half a century. The first of the equinoctial gales raged from the south west, thundering against the battlemented crags of Cornwall, shrieking up the Devonshire valleys.

More than one large ship went to pieces on the wild coast; and fragments of wrecks were washed ashore at Brent and in Edge Bay.

But no trace of the Swan or of any of those on board of her was ever carried by the relentless ocean within reach of the hearts that ached and longed for tidings of her fate. She had vanished as she had first appeared, mysteriously, in a tempest.

To the fisher-folk there seemed to be something supernatural alike in her arrival and her disappearance.

For months they cherished among themselves the belief that she would return one day—that somewhere, in some distant port, or in far sunny seas she was gliding like a big white bird along her mysterious course.

They argued that some trace of her must have come ashore somewhere—she was cruising so near the coast, some fragment of her must have been washed up at some point—some dead sailor have been floated in on the tide wearing the white Swan worked on his jersey, to be a silent witness of the destruction of the yacht.

But no! No news, no sign, no trace of her end was ever forthcoming. She seemed to have melted away like a mythical ship into the regions of legend.

And it has now become a tradition in the Combe that if ever the day should come when some wrong done there shall cry aloud for justice, and there is none to help, that, on that day, will be seen the white Swan sailing into the bay in the sunshine, and her owner standing on her deck like a hero of ancient story, as he stood when first he approached the Valley of Avilion ready to champion the Truth.

THE END.

THE CURSE OF CARNE'S HOLD,

A STORY OF ADVENTURE.

From our perusal of the book we have no hesitation in declaring that the Story will be enjoyed by all classes of Readers. Their sympathies will be at once aroused in the characters first introduced to their notice, and in the circumstances attending a lamentable catastrophe, which breaks up a happy household in grief and despair. The hero of the story, broken-hearted and despairing, flees to the Cape, determined if possible to lose his life in battle. He joins the Cape Mounted Rifles, and in active service finds the best solace for his dejected spirits. Romance is again infused into his life by his success in rescuing from the Kaffirs a young and beautiful lady, whom he gallantly bears on horseback beyond reach of their spears.

From this point the Story takes up novel and startling developments. The hero's affairs in the old country are adjusted by a surprising discovery, and "The Curse of Carne's Hold" is brought to a happy and satisfactory conclusion.

Few authors possess in so eminent a degree as Mr. G. A. Henty the ability to produce stories full of thrilling situations, while at the same time preserving and inculcating a high moral tone throughout. As a writer of stories fitted for the home circle he is surpassed by none. His books for boys have gained for him an honoured place in parent's hearts. Whilst satisfying the youthful longing for adventures they inspire admiration for straightforwardness, truth and courage, never exceed the bounds of veracity, and in many ways are highly instructive. From the first word to the last they are interesting—full of go, freshness and verve. Mr. Henty fortunately for his readers, had an extensive personal experience of adventures and "moving accidents by flood and field," while acting as war correspondent. He has a vivid and picturesque style of narrative, and we have reason to say "The Curse of Carne's Hold" is written in his very best style.

Transcriber's Note: Variations in hyphens left as printed.