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CHAPTER LXVIL

A CONFESSION.

PATTY kept aloof from Nuna in sullen, determined silence, and Nuna judged it better to leave her to her husband than to try any outward means of softening this miserable mood. Only while she stood seemingly bent on watching the courier's movements in the court-yard below, as he hurried the stableman's operations, Nuna's lips moved in silent, prayer, that Patty might be saved from the fate she seemed to be tempt ing.

How long Mr. Downes was away! would he never come? He came at last, came slowly and heavily, and Nuna started at the sight of his face-it was so white and rigid.

He

"You must not wait any longer, Mrs. Whitmore." Then he whispered, "Will you start now, and will you say good-bye to me here? I don't want to leave my wife alone; I have told Louis everything, and he will go on with you till you are with Mr. Whitmore. God bless you." wrung Nuna's hand hard, and his eyes filled with tears; Mr. Downes resolved that she should know nothing of the awful story that had acted itself ut so near them all; it was among the few unselfish acts of his life towards anyone but Patty.

Nuna looked at Patty, but there was no movement.

"Good-bye," she said shyly. Patty gave one hurried, scared look at her: "

Good-bye," but she turned away as Nuna made a forward movement. "I had best go," Nuna whispered to Mr. Downes; "good-bye."

Mr. Downes looked after her as she went down the gallery. Till now he had been too much absorbed to realize Nuna's trouble, but it took a new, serious aspect.

"Poor thing; I hope she will find her husband, but who can say ? he may fall ill and die; and be buried next day in one of those out-of-the-way Cévénol villages, and none of us any the wiser. Pour

thing, I wish I could have gone on with her."

He went back into the room. Patty still stood where he had left her; defiant and gloomy.

"Come up stairs with me, Elinor," he said, "only for a few minutes."

His love for her guided him rightly so far; nothing but strength of will could have kept her from an outbreak of passion.

He took her hand and kept it firmly clasped while they went up stairs together; and as he felt how unwillingly it rested in his, his heart grew heavier, and sterner thoughts mingled with his desire to keep his wife beside him. But he was too merciful to let her go into the room without a warning.

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Stay a minute, I want to tell you something, Elinor." He did not look at her while he spoke. "I had a most awful shock when I left you just now. Some years ago, a young man and a girl were in love with each other; he forgot his love and the promises he had made to keep true to it-worse than that, he was rich and the girl poor, and when he met her afterwards alone in London, he broke away from her with a few cold words and an offer of money instead of love." Patty raised her head at last and began to listen. "I was that youth, Elinor, but the girl loved on to the end." He stopped, Patty's eyes were fixed on him; something in the solemnity of his tone and look frightened her. "Elinor, all this time she has been living with us, and I never once recognized her."

"Was it Patience ?" she whispered, and then she drew away from the door. Instinct and the look in his face told her he was seeking to prepare her for something from which she should shrink.

But he drew her on; they went in hand-in-hand-these two sinners; for it is sin, though the world may not call it so, to win affection, and then to leave it to wither unrequited-both gazing on the awful wreck of passion lying there so still.

For an instant Patty stood white and dumb; en she shrieked out in loud terrol, and clung to her husband.

"Oh, Maurice, Maurice, have mercy! Take me away-for God's sake, take me, or I shall die-I shall die." She laid her face on his shoulder, but he made no answer; it was only fear, he thoughtnot love that had worked this sudden change.

She shivered and left off screaming; then she glanced up in his face, and the fixed, rigid look she saw there awed her as much as her tear.

"Elinor," he spoke so coldly, so sadly, that all passion seemed hushed at the sound-"we have both helped to do this, to drive her to madness; but it is easier for me than for you to know how she suffered-from loving so well, so truly."

He stopped. Patty's bosom heaved tumultuously; with a sudden cry, she flung herself at his feet, and clasped her arms round him.

"Oh, Maurice, Maurice! for God's sake forgive me—if you can."

It

It seemed to Nuna as if that weary day would never end, and yet, as if she would give much to lengthen it. was getting dusk when they at length reached the village to which the courier said he had directed the English gentleman when they parted at Clermont. Louis had shrugged his shoulders at the notion of still finding Mr. Whitmore there; but he agreed that it was the only way of getting a clue to his further movements.

He left Nuna sitting in the jolting. vehicle in which they had come out from Clermont, while he got down to make inquiries at the cabaret. A dirty woman came to the door; Nuna bent forward to listen, but the patois sounded unintelligible.

The look of sudden concern in the courier's face startled her; she scrambled out of the high, clumsy carriage.

"What is it?" she asked; "have you heard anything?"

The man looked frightened. "What is it?" said Nuna to the woman; "has an English gentleman been here? tell me-I'm his wife."

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The woman stared, but she understood the lady's looks better than her words.

Nuna followed her through the dirty mud-floored kitchen, where a wretched animal, more like a jackal than a dog, and some tall lean fowls were feeding together. At the back of this came a close, dirty passage, with a door on each side. One of the doors had a glass top, and this gave light to the passage. The woman opened this door and went in; the glass was so smeared that Nuna could not distinguish anything; she held her breath and listened. She looked so pale and worn, standing there—this last blow had been worse than all-but suddenly light sparkled in her eyes, a glow rose in her cheeks, her whole nature seemed kindling with a glory of hope. It was Paul's voice. Nuna fell on her knees in the dirty little passage.

"Oh! spare him to me," she prayed, and then such an outspring of thanksgiving that tears came along with it.

She rose up and went gently into the room. Paul lay on a wretched little bed, so pale, so haggard, so unlike her own darling husband, that Nuna's heart swelled in anguish ; but the eyes were there unchanged, the eyes that sought hers with a wistful, longing tenderness she had never till now seen in them, and that drew her swiftly on till her arms were round him and her tears falling fast on the pillow on which he lay.

The woman stared a minute and went away. She thought this husband and wife a strange pair; after so long a parting, not to have one word for each other. She listened outside the

door, but she heard only some halfstifled sobs and a murmur of kisses.

"A dumb people, these English," she said; "she never asks him how he finds himself."

She came in again later on with some broth, and to tell the lady that the courier would stay, as it was too late to get back to Bourges that night.

"Comment, Madame," she said; and she looked in amazement at her patient. He was lying propped up, with a look of comfort and rest in his face that she had not seen there before.

"You shall speak when you've drunk this," said Nuna, smiling; and she kissed the hand she had been holding. "You don't know how I've been practising nursing, darling; you shall be well in a week," and she held the spoon to his lips.

Paul looked and listened in wonder. It seemed to him this could not be the careless, impulsive girl he had left in St. John Street. There was a subdued womanliness, mingled with such a glow of tenderness, it was as if Nuna's timid, shrinking love had suddenly blossomed into a full and perfect flower.

"My darling," he said presently, resting his head on her shoulder, with a blissful trust in his eyes that made Nuna's heart almost too full for happiness, "I didn't deserve ever to see you again. Do you really want me to get well?"

eyes.

He smiled into the tearful

That long look seemed to tell Nuna something had gone away out of her love for ever. No more trying to find out what would please or displease her husband. She was in his heart, and she knew for evermore every thought and every wish of the life bound up in her own.

A radiance like sunshine filled her eyes.

"I suppose, if I were quite to tell the truth," she smiled mischievously, "I would like to keep you always as you are now; you are obliged to be good and obedient, and I'm not going to let you speak another word to-night."

CHAPTER THE LAST.

TIME has been merciful to Dennis Fagg. Only a year since we saw him helpless ; now he can limp about without crutches, and his words come easily.

"Kitty," he calls, "come out in the garden, do, old woman, and leave Bobby to fry his supper himself."

Bobby is a good-sized schoolboy now, with redder hair than ever. He has been out catching fish, and objects to trust his precious victims to any cookery but his mother's.

"Well"-Mrs. Fagg looks lovingly at her greedy darling; his holidays are so near ended that it is necessary he should have his own way in all things— "perhaps, Bob, dear, you've had as many of them perch as is wholesome at a sittin'; so I'll go to father." Then turning a sharp look towards the kitchen as she washes her hands, "Have a care, Bob, you don't go asking Anne to cook 'em, it 'ud be like whippin' a dead horse. Why, child, she'd as like as not fry 'em scales and all."

Mrs. Fagg finds Dennis 'smoking, as he limped up and down the walk, between the espaliers, laden with their red and brown fruit.

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'Kitty," he takes his pipe out of his mouth when she joins him, "since you came back from London, I've heered nought of Miss Nuna's baby; all your talk has runned on Mr. Whitmore. I mind when he usen't to be such a favourite."

"A favourite! not he; he's not one of my sort, Dennis; he keeps his talk too much to himself-not but what he's a deal altered for the better. I'm real pleased, that I am, to see the care he takes of Miss Nuna, and the store he sets by her; she deserves it every bitbut then we don't always get what we deserve, whether for praise or blame— do us, old man?"

Mr. Fagg had gone on smoking. He takes his pipe out again, and gives a littie dry cough, shy of what he is going to

say.

"You're right, Kitty; but listen here. Don't you mind you never liked me to

think well of Patty Westropp?" Mrs. Fagg turns her head and makes a sudden swoop with her apron on the jackdaw pecking at the fast-ripening apples.

"Well, Dennis," she sets her apron straight" of course I didn't like it; it weren't in nature that I should."

Mr. Fagg had raised his fat forefinger as he began, and he holds it so raised during his wife's interruption. He brings it down emphatically on her arm.

"The day after Mr. Whitmore sends for you, Kitty, Mrs. Bright, she drives over to see Bobby; that's how she got the news of Miss Nuna's baby so soon. Between ourselves, Kitty, she were a bit huffed she warn't sent for in your place, that she were-no, no; Mr. Whitmore knew what he was about, I'm thinking" -Mrs. Fagg's lips twitched with impatience, but she held her tongue,-" and, says she,-mind you, Kitty, it mustn't be mentioned to a soul, Mrs. Bright let it out quite unawares,-but Patty have done wall, after all; she have gone and married some grand gentleman up in Scotland."

A movement in Mrs. Fagg, as if her cap and the rest of her apparel bristled like the crest of an angry dog.

"Who told Mrs. Bright?"

Denuis sniggers most ungratefully at her sharp question.

"Don't excite yourself, old woman, there's no mistake. Mr. Will found out Roger in London, that time he went to take care of Miss Nuna, and the old man told him all about Patty. Roger died quite lately, so Mrs. Bright says, and he's left all he's got to Miss Nuna." "And did you hear the name of the gentleman as have married that girl?"

"No;"- Dennis looks disappointed —“she don't know it. Mr. Will won't tell, she says; any way, Patty's a grand lady, and lives in the Highlands of Scotland."

"Well," Mrs. Fagg gives a little gasp;

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"I'm glad to hear she's so far off, and I hope she's got some conduct along with her grandeur. Poor soul," she goes on presently, "she won't come to much, let her be where she will; Patty Westropp ain't one as 'ud ever like to be guided: she'd bite against any curb but her own will."

Maurice Downes has taken his wife to his home in Scotland; his hope is that, severed from all outward temptations to frivolity, Patty may be brought to love him truly; but it is for him a weary waiting, and at times he feels how doubtful is the end.

It is past sunset; soft wreaths of mist float up to the terrace of a gray old-fashioned dwelling, float up till the pine-trees in the steep valley below loom through it like grey phantoms. Before the mist rose there had been the glimmer of a tarn among the monotonous, blue verdure; but that is veiled by the soft wreaths rising higher and higher towards the granite mountain beyond.

Its summit is reddened with a faint glow of sunset, and between this and the wreathing mist, the rugged granite is awful in dark, stupendous grandeur.

Patty paces up and down the long terrace; the glow does not reach her face; it is pale and sad. Her black velvet gown trails as she walks, and she has drawn her black lace shawl over her head, for the air grows chill.

"How will it end?" she says,-her under-lip droops more heavily than it did three years ago. "Maurice says good people are always happy. I'm sure trying to be what he calls good makes me miserable."

Courage, Patty; the glow is on the summit of the mountain-the troubled mists, the rugged cliffs, come first-but, these once past-there is the soft warm light above!

THE END.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.

BY J. R. GREEN.

II. TOWN AND GOWN.

IN the good days when George the Third was king, and the course of academical study was stili theoretically co-extensive with the bounds of human knowledge, Lord Eldon used to amuse his friends by the tale of his Oxford examination in history. It consisted of a single question, "Who was the founder of the University?" to which the orthodox answer was, "King Alfred." Recent changes have somewhat enlarged the amount of historical information w is now required by an Oxford ex but the Chancellor's question answer still sum up pretty accurately the knowledge of their own academic history which is actually possessed by Oxford men. A stranger can hardly realize the utter indifference to its past which prevails among the learned persons who inhabit one of the most historic cities in the world. It is certainly not the fault of the place itself. The most entertaining among the art-critics of France has found in the picturesqueness and variety of its monuments the only parallel to the glories of Venice; but the life of Venice has ebbed away from its palaces, while the life of Oxford still beats fresh and vigorous round the relics of its earliest origin. The scholar of to-day can look back along a line of historical memorials to the scholar who sat at the feet of Vacarius or listened to Master Gerald's amusing itinerary. As one wanders down "the sinuous windings of that glorious street," or plunges into the meanest of her suburbs, Oxford fronts the most careless of observers with traces of each age of her history. The spire of the Cathedral still marks the site of the little minster of St. Frideswide round

which its first settlers grouped themselves in the darkness of the eighth century. The tower of the Norman conquerors still frowns over the waters of the mill. The suburb of the Friars recalls the genius of Roger Bacon, and the new intellectual life of the England that sprung from the Great Charter. College after college marks step after step in the long struggle between mediæval faith and modern inquiry; the grandeur of the church of Wykeham and Waynflete is stamped upon New College and Magdalene, the figure of Wycliffe starts into memory at the sight of Queen's, Corpus recalls Erasmus and the New Learning, Christ Church is the memorial of the Reformation. The great civil strife which followed still lives in Oxford tradition; the ghost of Laud haunts the library of St. John's, the great quadrangle of All Souls has not forgotten the tread of Jeremy Taylor, or the hall of Wolsey the presence of a Parliament; while the two buildings of Ashmole and Radcliffe preserve for us the scientific impulse which had its birth in the circle of Puritan scholars who gathered round Wilkins at Wadham to form in after years the Royal Society of the Restoration. To literature Oxford has given far less than her sister university, though the somewhat prim serenity of the finest of our essayists still lingers around Addison's Walk. But the two greatest movements of English religion have begun within her walls the chapel bell of Lincoln recalls the ascetic fervour of Wesley, and the memory of John Henry Newman still flings its glory around Oriel.

But if the monuments of Oxford

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