ments than his soi-disant daughter had been. He rushed into a back-room where Mr. Hudspeth was quietly smoking his pipe, after his custom, in his shirt-sleeves, with his legs gracefully poised upon the window-sill. He seized him by the collar, and dragged him towards the door.

"He has got them - all of them; quick quick."

"Are you mad, or drunk, you old idiot?" exclaimed his astonished partner.

"Oh, do not speak-do not delay, or we shall lose them. Come-come!"

"Lose what, in the devil's name?”

"Oh, the notes the good bank-notes, that Danville won to-night. He has them all. I saw them -felt them," said the Italian, in an agony of excitement; "one thousand and fifty pounds in his pocket-book,—and he has gone through the brick

field.

Oh, Con, dear-dear Con, he has them all, and it is dark. D-n you, get them back, or we are ruined. Oh, Con, my best friend, we can win all back once more, and be rich-rich, if you will but help. Come-come!"—and the little old man dragged him to the door, caressing and coaxing, and raging about a thousand pounds and the dark brickfields, till at last his meaning became apparent.

"Why did you not speak plain out at once," said Hudspeth, with an oath, "and not stand jabbering there? Which way is he gone, whoever it is ?"

"This way-quick;" and seizing up a thick stick from a corner, Hudspeth rushed out of the house, following the Italian, five minutes after Hugh Trevor had left it.

He found Signor Amadina's twenty yards the longest and the roughest that he had ever traversed. The ground was full of sudden holes, and pools of water, which he could not see, for the moon was now overshadowed with heavy copper-coloured clouds, which told that a thunderstorm was brewing. However, he trudged briskly on, thinking of the admirable piece of acting performed by Lorenza before Amadina. Her intention was now clear to Hugh. Having set the Italian's suspicions at rest, she would escapemeet her husband at the railway-station. They would travel by special train to Dover, cross to Calais, on to Wiesbaden. A day and a half would be time enough for the journey, and suffice to obtain the divorce. He would return alone to Trevor Hall, and then--a crash came upon him as though his skull had been beaten in, and he became insensible.

"The pocket-book; get that; never mind anything else; the notes are in it—I saw him place them there," said Amadina, standing apart, trembling with

fear and eagerness, whilst Hudspeth began to rifle the prostrate body.

Why, by G-," he exclaimed, starting back, "I've done this fellow's job before!"

"What?-ha!" exclaimed Amadina.

"Hold your row," said his partner, fiercely, grasping his bludgeon, "or I'll make you. What did I say ?"

66

Nothing-nothing at all, dear Con-nothing. But the pocket-book!"

"I have it. Ha! is that a light?" exclaimed Hudspeth.

"The police!-quick! away!" whispered the Italian. And the robbers ran back to Amadina's house. They were astonished to find the hall-door wide open.

"Who has done this, to draw attention to the place?" said Hudspeth, angrily; "the Signora, I'll be bound-just like her. Where is she?"

"I'll call her; it is as well to know where she is not, for fear she may be listening. Lorenza?" he called "Lorenza?"

He ran up-stairs-"Lorenza, where are you?" At her bed-room door-"Lorenza?" "Lorenza-Lorenza -Lorenza?” all over the house.

Lorenza was gone.

So also, when they came to open the pocket-book, were the notes !

૧

CHAPTER XVII.

WEDDING BELLS.

Ir is a genial July day in Trevor Park. The sun is up, and shining brightly in a cloudless sky, and there is just enough breeze astir to wave the ripening corn lazily, and to waft to you the distant sound of chimes. There is good cheer up in the belfry yonder, you may be sure, though it requires only the recollection that they are ringing Eleanor Trevor's wedding pealthe kind, gentle lady—to nerve the knotty arms of the ringers, and to make them send the great bells swinging till the grey old tower quivered again with the din. There is not a shop in the village that is not closed to-day; and not a man, woman, or child in it that is not out, dressed in their Sunday best, to do it honour. Down by the wicket leading to the churchyard are standing twenty of the prettiest girls that can be found in the county, dressed all in white, and carrying baskets of the choicest flowers that the cottage gardens can afford-and they are sweet flowers too-to be flung in the path of the bride as she passes a wife from the altar. They are

there, ready and waiting, long before the appointed time, pulling out their dresses and settling their wreaths-why should not they? They have thought of nothing else for the last month. There stand their fathers and mothers (and maybe a lover or two), watching them proudly, each considering his or her own favourite in that pleasant little band, its belle, and being horribly jealous of all the rest. There, too, are the rough quarrymen prowling sheepishly about in twos and threes, half ashamed to have it known that they are going to give up a day's work and a day's pay, to see the last of Miss Eleanor.

It is a great delight to the old people to tell how they have known them both-bride and bridegroom— "since they were so high ;" and "what a little fairy thing she was, to be sure;" and "how she used to come flying through the village upon her rough pony, with her bonny hair all in a tangle, and her cheeks all in a glow, to bring good things from the Hall for poor Jessy, when she was down after the fever; and how, years afterwards, when it turned out that Jem Burns was wrongfully convicted at the 'sizes, she up and wrote to the great Government folk with her own hand, and got him let out of jail; and how kind she had been about old Jepson's daughter, and never pretended to know aught bad about her, but just got her a place in service far away, where