It was he that had made love to her during the time that he was married. It was he who, for the sake of putting her under an obligation, had found out the fact of her having been married. He had betrayed Lord Festiniog in doing this, and had been false to him about it since. But he had got no nearer to Mrs. Arnaud's heart. She despised him for the treachery which had benefited her.

His affection for George Drummond was singularly strong. A lonely man all his life, George Drummond, with his innocence and talent, both as boy and as man, had been a great pleasure to him. He wanted to do that

young man a great service, and himself a greater. He wished to marry Mrs. Arnaud even though she hated him. It seems strange, but it was so; we see the thing every day if we look for it. His last chance for

gaining his object was in George Drummond -and in murder. It is no use disguising the fact. A certain life, as he thought, stood between him and his object; and that life must go. There was no actual necessity for it, but a secret which will leak out soon about him will account for his folly. He could never think on a certain subject consecutively.

Yet in most things he was a respectable man. He had an excellent practice and a most excellent income. He had more business than he knew how to get through with; yet it was observed, by those who cared about his affairs, that he had not made his son a lawyer but a gentleman, as if the two things were totally incompatible, which, we are happy to say, is not the case. He had not used his son's great talents by educating him for the law, and taking him into practice.

He had other designs for him, and his business friends thought him a fool, for George Drummond could have made the business

6

twice what it was. Why, then, was he kicking his heels at the Home Office?' they asked.

Her father desired no confidant in his business; it is the oldest story in the world. One man was mad about one woman, and there was a wild and ever fading chance of her, through carefully planned assassination.

'If I fail in that,' he said, 'I will kill her, and then myself. I am not sure that I had better do both those things this very night. I would do it, only I have some lingering superstition about the next world. However, the cub shall go. That will pave the way.

'How on earth shall I ever get into the household? There will be the difficulty. If

I could only get them to Italy I could do it, or rather she could; but there is no chance of it.'

The dexterous, keen-headed lawyer was left without any power of decision whatever. Murder 'tirled at the pin,' but the murder must be done by another hand; and there was only one which he could command. It never struck the man that wealth, honour, and virtue would be in the end too strong for him. Least of all did it strike him that Nature would in this case invade civilisation, and solve the matter in her own peculiar way.

Let him disappear for the present, ready for any mischief, but not quite sure of his means. Charged with 100 lb. of compressed gun cotton, let us leave him to go off under the bottom of that very safe ship the 'Festiniog.'

CHAPTER XV.

MOVEMENTS AT NUMBER SEVENTEEN.

THE pleasant and almost whimsical life of Mrs. Arnaud went on. She had seen trouble, and serious trouble, nay, had been close upon tragedy. Now, however, her ship was sailing with a perfectly fair wind in a tolerably smooth sea. If any one had told her of great danger, she would have smiled; had any one told her that the quiet middle-aged lawyer Drummond was prepared to blow her and others into the air, she would have laughed.

There was a great attraction towards Number Seventeen, to all the people we have