lity who so seldom come abroad, all the well-connected bishops, deans, and canons of the High Church and the Broad Church, all the fine ladies and gentlemen who could beg, borrow, or win an invitation to be present. The Catholic portion of the marriage service was sung by some of the finest voices in Europe, imported from divers opera houses as the custom is. The gorgeous family plate and art treasures, collected by wealth and taste for countless generations were profusely displayed, and as the great folding-doors of the banqueting hall were flung open by the Duke's Chamberlain to his friends, the band of his Grace's old regiment, the Grenadier Guards, played them in amidst the blaze of diamonds, and the nodding of plumes on all the beauty and chivalry of the land.

Lord and Lady Newcomen received the wedding guests with the accomplished charm of a practised host and hostess; for our Duke and Duchess, in compliance with our English custom, left town immediately after breakfast for Beaumanoir, his Grace's place, in one of the Midland Counties, which Pope had called a wonder of the world. There more rejoicings awaited them. with

Triumphal arches were erected

"Our Young Duke, and Our Old Constitution,"

"Welcome HOME,”
"O. & H.,"

and other romantic and original devices inscribed upon them in flowers or coloured lamps. His Grace arrived in a carriage and four; his illustrious consort sat beside him, tall and upright as a wand, and the people loudly cheered them as they swept on to the stately castle gates of Beaumanoir, attended by a guard of honour composed of the County Yeomen. The park-keepers in their state liveries came forward to receive them, the ancient Norman church rung out a joyous peal from its time-honoured belfry, the militia band sprung into music on the lawn, and a salute was fired in the park. As they neared the castle gates, the Duke stood up and bowed repeatedly to the crowd. He was the same tall, gallant-looking gentleman who had slept at the Checquers Inn, and he was visible in the sight of hundreds as the perfect type and presentment of a great hereditary noble-the physical perfection of blood and race. Just then there was heard far above the bells and music, and above the roar of cannon, a wild shriek from a human heart which had broken, and a young woman, travel-stained, pale and haggard, fought her way through the throng, and flung herself in mad despair under the horses' feet. She was one of the numerous women of whose honour his Grace had made sport, but has nothing to do with our story farther than to illustrate that the Duke's marriage had its small cloud among so much sunshine. She was dragged away, a shapeless mass all huddled together; nobody paid any attention to the incident; the crowd closed round her, angry at the interruption, and thinking she was an impudent beggar. The carriage rolled rapidly on, and the Duke welcomed his wife to his ancestral home amidst deafening

huzzahs from his tenantry and dependants, as though he had done something great or good. But as the flag was hoisted on the battlements to announce his presence to the country round, and gave out its heavy folds to the wintry winds, it was remarked that his Grace looked a little unnerved, and that his hand trembled so that he could scarcely hold his hat in it. The newly-made Duchess looked at him with astonishment, and whispered in a rather crisp way she had learned from her mother, "Mon ami, vous feriez mieux de vous retirer." Then she turned graciously to acknowledge the congratulations of the kinsfolk and retainers of the great house who had assembled to do her honour, while the Duke found a pretext to go to his dressing-room and drink a deep draught of wine before he reappeared again.

CHAPTER II.

THE DUCHESS OF COURTHOPE.

THE marriage which took place under such auspicious circumstances to all outward appearance was not a very happy match. The husband and wife did not quarrel. Persons in their rank of life have no need to do that, because they can so easily avoid each others' society; and the Duke of Courthope lived much apart from the Duchess. Indeed his Grace did not like the restraints of married life, and his wife constantly galled and vexed him. She was a bright, sarcastic French person, who took very decided views of things, and was obedient only to her confessor. She had rather a contempt for her husband when she came to know him. She thought him dull and heavy-witted compared with her father, and the brilliant diplomatists she had been accustomed to meet every evening round her mother's tea-table. She got into a habit of sneering quietly at him, and the Duke winced under her covert taunts as if they were barbed arrows which struck him in the face and breast. Perhaps she had her own reasons for having a poor opinion of him; who can pry into the secrets of married life? His Grace had very little conversation. He was accustomed to be amused and made much of. He had been always king of every company he entered, the bright particular star of any firmament in which he deigned to shine, and he soon found out that his wife despised him. First he was astonished, then angry; but at last her contempt rendered him sullen and indifferent.

About a year after their marriage a son and heir was born to them, and it seemed at first as though the strong link of an existence for which they were both responsible, and which was a part of their own lives, would have drawn them together. The Duchess certainly tried for a while to put a better face on things. She went singing about her nursery with her child in her arms, and tried to jest with her husband; but if there was one thing which his Grace could understand less than another it was a

joke. He was like most English noblemen of the highest rank-rather solemn, and had an excessive sense of his own importance. It irritated him to feel his moustaches pulled by merry fingers, and arms flung round his neck with screams of laughter, while a pair of dapper feet dangled half a yard from the ground, and clung to him. He liked to be made love to on hands and knees, and invited only toadies who flattered him, to his table. Madge, if she had had ever so little education, only just enough to speak and think in conventional English, would have fooled him to his heart's content. She would have made him supremely happy. He would have been faithful to her, because he would have found no such adulation elsewhere; he would have been proud of her, because she would have been so proud of him. He and Madge had the same tastes and pleasures; they both loved horses and dogs, coarse plain food, and a country life in the open air. Lady Helena had not a wish or an idea in common with him. She was light-headed and witty, he was pompous and dull, not so much by nature as by habits which had overgrown his instincts. She liked the life of drawing-rooms, books, poetry, music, the arts, and the perpetual whirl of society; he hated all these things. So at last they gave up all attempt to understand each other; and one day the Duke, stung beyond endurance by her taunts, let fall a threat of fearful import, telling her rudely and plainly that she was not his wife, and he stood up in his wrath and cursed her.

"I knew it," she answered with keen contempt, "and am only too glad that my boy is all my own. Tenez, M. le Duc, si vous êtes duc-chose qui n'est pas trop sûre d'après ce que dit mon père. Vous êtes un lâche!" and she swept from the room, leaving his Grace livid with passion, and terrified by his own imprudence.

"Damn the wine!" he muttered fiercely, after she was gone; "if I had not drunk so much at the hunt dinner I should not have lost my temper. But never mind, my lady will forget it before morning, and at all events that old humbug, her father (who has done me so neatly), is too sensible to make` a row."

His Grace was partly right in this view of the case, and partly wrong. The Duchess did not forget it all before morning. On the contrary, she passed a greater part of the night closeted with her confessor, a wise old man, who had known the wayward girl from her birth, and the next day, while his Grace was out shooting, she quietly returned with the priest to her own home, taking her infant son and his nurse with her. On the other hand, Lord Newcomen pooh-poohed the whole thing very pleasantly, and walked with the latest news on his lips into his wife's boudoir, giving her jocular orders to bring her Grace to her senses, and his wife, who loved and trusted and admired him, did as she was bid. Then he walked down to White's, where a telegram had assured him he should meet the Duke of Courthope, and they talked the matter over in the bow window, most agreeably.

Said the Duke: "I give your lordship my honour I am extremely

distressed at having huffed her Grace-but, egad, I must tell your lordship it was after dinner; and the Duke smiled demurely. He did not wish to put a grave face upon the business.

"By the piper that played before Moses, as they say in my native country, the little vixen has got her back up, and there's no getting it down, your Grace, for a day or two," laughed the noble Marquis, who knew his daughter's stubbornness upon a point of conscience where she was supported by the priesthood.

"I leave myself entirely in your lordship's hands," resumed the Duke, with a courteous bow.

Lord Newcomen bit his lip, and his brow darkened almost imperceptibly for a moment. "Is there any proof against you, if you don't let the cat out of the bag to anyone else?" he asked suddenly. His lordship knew the value of a direct home question when least expected.

The Duke of Courthope flushed crimson, his lips moved once or twice with a painful spasm, but no sound came from them. He could not force himself to tell a direct lie, and at last overcoming his emotion by a strong effort, he blurted out, "By God, my Lord, I don't know," and then he bit his nether lip till the blood flowed.

Lord Newcomen looked very hard and keen when he heard this startling answer; and then said briefly, "Let me know the facts; perhaps I can tell you. What's the woman's name?"

"Zephirine Malvoisin."

The Marquis nodded.

"The opera dancer ?"

"No; her niece," answered the Duke, not sorry to relieve himself of his terrible secret to a man so clear headed and expert in business as the Marquis.

"Where is the girl now ?"

"She died in the county hospital shortly after my marriage?"

"Marriage!" echoed Lord Newcomen, with a slight tone of scorn, and raising his eyebrows; then remembering how much any manifestation of feeling impedes business, and renders a mutual understanding between gentlemen difficult or impossible, he asked with perfect politeness and good temper," Any children, Duke ?"

"Two, a boy and a girl," answered his Grace, determined to make a clean breast of it.

"For the life and soul of me I cannot tell," and the Duke, in mere nervous irritability and to give emphasis to his denial, rang the bell sharply, and asked the waiter for change for a sovereign.

Lord Newcomen looked out of the window and nodded to an acquaintance on the other side of the way till it was brought. He owed half his success in life to the fact that he never lost an opportunity of being civil. "Do any of the women's relatives know anything about it?" he asked, waiting patiently till the Duke had put up his change.

VOL. XXVIII.-NO. 165.

14.

"Her brother does. He was present, but he put himself out of court by forging my name to a bill of exchange."

"Have you got the paper ?"

"Oh, yes," said the Duke with a wry smile, which only moved one side of his mouth.

"Where is the man ?

"He lives at Rouen, and wrote me a bullying letter yesterday. I received it just as the hounds were about to throw off in my park."

"Let me see those papers," said Lord Newcomen quickly. “I mean the forgery and the begging letter."

.

"They are here," answered the Duke, recovering his pomposity. "I was about to place them in the hands of Mortmain, my solicitor, to protect me against that kind of impertinence."

Lord Newcomen looked at him out of the extreme corner of one eye, and he thought" Dolt," but he said, "No, no, Duke, leave this business to me. Lord Protocol, in Paris, owes something to me for having got him out of a scrape with an under-secretary at F. O. last year. I think we shall be able to give Monsieur Gontran de Malvoisin his choice between a vice-consulate in South America, on condition that he never returns, or the hulks at Toulon. It is quite immaterial to us which of the two he accepts, we must get rid of him."

The Duke brightened into extreme grandeur and dignity at this unexpected relief. He had great confidence in Lord Newcomen, and a well-founded faith in the occult powers of government when set in motion by competent hands. Upon my soul I am monstrously obliged to your Lordship," said his Grace, extending his hand with great cordiality, but somehow or other the noble Marquis did not see it, and the Duke was obliged to withdraw his outstretched fingers untouched.

Lord Newcomen had sent for the Clergy List, and was now turning over its pages, with a very stern expression come back into his face. If he had chosen to say what it meant he might have told that he intended to drive the nail he had in hand well home, indifferent as to any fine feelings it might pierce on its way, or any sensitive nerves which might try to evade its point. With this purpose he was framing a few more questions. He never left business half done.

"Where did the marriage take place, Duke?' "At Enghein," answered his Grace, wincing. "Enghein!" mused Lord Newcomen.

or British chaplain at Enghein."

"Pooh! there's no consul

"I did not say there was," replied the Duke slyly.

Why then, hang it, Duke, you were not married at all," exclaimed the Marquis, throwing himself back and laughing heartily. "A Catholic marriage don't count for anything except in Ireland-but stop, perhaps your private chaplain was one of the party?"

"Yes," said the Duke.

"Well, he didn't register, of course?"