mission to Sardinia, and knowing no other way to accomplish it, he determined to provoke a duel with Count de Roguin, in other words to assassinate him.”

His audience listened with amazement.

“ He lies in the forest dead, and will trouble us no more. On his person, I found documents confirming all I have said of his relations with the Prussian government, which, when you please, I will show you. Now, Count de Roguin, have I not earned the right to compete for your daughter's hand ?"

“But you see, Captain de Luc, while acknowledging all your services, and feeling, certainly, the profoundest gratitude, I must-a-look at the prudent side of things. Here is Monsieur de Cheauvelins, a wealthy gentleman, of good birth, to whom my daughter is engaged, although I admit she does not seem to be at all in love with him ; while you, whom she really likes, I am afraid, are only a poor soldier, the son of nobody knows whom, with prospects as uncertain as your birth."

"Count, I have deceived you. I am the Marquis de Villeroy."

Count de Roguin fell into a chair, old de Cheauvelins stared in amazement. Mademoiselle Marguerite smiled mischievously, and the Mar. quis, observing this, seized her hand and im. printed a kiss upon it.

Villeroy:n fell into a Madem

The secret dispatches reached Sardinia safely, and were of great importance in framing the policy of that government towards France in the singular political events that followed.

Cut off from the People.

HALL CAINE.

Adapted from “ The Deemster.” Dan Mylrea was the only son of the Bishop of Ballamona on the Isle of Man. He was a careless, idle fellow-hotheaded and passionate, yet, notwithstanding his faults, he was loved by all for his kind heart and loyal nature. His two cousins, Ewan and Mona, had been his playfellows from childhood. Ewan he loved as a brother, but dearer to him than all the world had grown his gentle cousin, Mona.

False rumors reached Ewan concerning Dan and Mona and he sought Dan to accuse him of dishonor. Dan, furious with rage, too proud to deny the charge, fought and killed his cousin in a duel. Then he gave himself into the custody of the Deemster, pleading guilty of the murder of Ewan, and refusing to reveal the cause of the quarrel. Upon his own father, the Bishop of Ballamona, devolved the duty of passing sentence.

At eleven o'clock the crowd at Tynwald had grown to a vast concourse that covered every foot of the green with a dense mass of moving heads. The Deemster was there in his carriage and his wizened face was full of uncharity. Suddenly the great clamorous human billow was moved by a ruffle of silence that spread froin side to side, and in the midst of a deep hush the door of the chapel opened, and a line of ecclesiastics came out and walked toward the mount. At the end of the line was the Bishop, bareheaded, much bent, his face white and seamed, his step heavy and uncertain, his whole figure and carriage telling of the sword that is too keen for its scabbard. When the procession reached the mount, the Bishop ascended to the topmost round of it, and on the four green ledges below him his clergy ranged themselves. Almost at the same moment there was a subdued murmur among the people, and at one side of the green, the gate to the west, the crowd opened and parted, and the space widened and the line lengthened until it reached the foot of the Tynwald. Then the cart that brought the sergeant and his prisoner from the castle entered it slowly, and drew up, and then, with head and eyes down, like a beast that is struck to its death, Daniel Mylrea, dropped to his feet on the ground. He was clad in the blue cloth of a fisherman, with a brown knitted guernsey under his coat, and sea-boots over his stockings. He stood in his great stature above the shoulders of the tallest of the men around him ; and women who were as far away as the door of the inn could see the seaman's cap he wore. The sergeant drew him up to the foot of the mount, but his bowed head was never raised

to where the Bishop stood above him. An all. consuming shame sat upon him, and around him was the deep breathing of the people.

Presently a full, clear voice was heard over the low murmur of the crowd, and instantly the mass of moving heads was lifted to the mount, and the sea of faces flashed white under the heaviness of the sky.

“ Daniel Mylrea," said the Bishop," it is not for us to know if any hidden circumstance lessens the hideousness of your crime. Against all questions concerning your motive your lips have been sealed, and we who are your earthly judges are compelled to take you at the worst. But if, in the fulness of your remorse, your silence conceals what would soften your great offence, be sure that your Heavenly Judge, who reads your heart, sees all. You have taken a precious life ; you have spilled the blood of one who bore himself so meekly and lovingly and with such charity before the world that the hearts of all men were drawn to him. And you, who slew him in heat or malice, you he ever loved with a great tenderness. Your guilt is confessed, your crime is black, and now your punishment is sure.”

The crowd held its breath while the Bishop spoke, but the guilty man moaned feebly and his bowed head swayed to and fro.

“ Daniel Mylrea, there is an everlasting sacredness in human life, and God who gave it guards it jealously. When man violates it, God calls for vengeance. Woe unto us if now we sin against the Lord by falling short of the punishment that he has ordered. Righteously, and without qualm of human mercy, even as God has commanded, we, his servants, must execute judgment on the evil-doer, lest his wrath be poured out upon this island itself, upon man and upon beast, and upon the fruit of the ground.”

A deep murmur broke out afresh over the people, and under the low sky their upturned faces were turned to a grim paleness. And now a strange light came into the eyes of the Bishop, and his deep voice quavered.

“Daniel Mylrea,” he continued, “it is not the way of God's worse chastisement to take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and to spill blood for blood that has been spilled. When the sword of the Lord goes forth it is sometimes to destroy the guilty man, and sometimes to cut him off from the land of the living, to banish him to the parched places of the wilderness, to end the days wherein his sleep shall be sweet to him, to blot out his name from the names of men, and to give him no burial at the last when the darkness of death shall cover him.

“ Daniel Mylrea, you are not to die for your crime."

The prisoner staggered like a drunken man, and lifted his right hand mechanically above his