have him now," she thought. "Another
schoolgirl—a fine pursuit for a man of his kind! I
should have been justified in tearing it open
and reading it. He has done us more injury
than that."

As she posted along, she met Doctor Macan,
the deposed physician, grown very decayed.
The other doctor had made tremendous way.
Indeed, " poor Mac" had become a serious
bore, and every one fought shy of him, if they
could. As Captain Filby said, " in the man's
hungry grin you could see, ' Lend me a five-
franc piece.' " Margaret was about passing
him, but she stopped suddenly.

"Can you tell me, Doctor Macan," she said,
hurriedly, " anything about the schools of Paris,
or any one who is likely to know?"

"Not I," said he, sourly. " She has sided
with White. Why do you ask me, ma'am? I
am good for little now, it seems. Any whipper-
snapper can supplant me. Apply to the other
shop, ma'am."

"No, indeed, Doctor Macan. I was just
going to send for you. My poor brother is in
a very poor way. Do come in the morning."

The doctor looked pleased. " I will, ma'am,
the first thing. You may depend on me. You
were asking—I'll tell you who knows all
about that, and has all the almanacks, and registers,
and lists—every school in the kingdom,
ma'am. The maire, ma'am—as good as the
mayor of Cork, any day. I'll make it out for
you, if you give it to me on a slip of paper.
Very well. ' Maison Favre.' So be it. All
right. I'll bring it up, never fear, to-morrow."

That night, as Miss West was sitting
dismally with her brother, Doctor Macan's servant
came with a note. It ran:

"Maison Favre isn't a school at all. At the
corner I met my brother, of the French faculty,
and, by very good luck, thought of asking him.
Favre's, a Maison de Santé. Favre is well
known in the profession. ' Favre sur la
Cervelle,' they say, is a great book. I never heard
of it. But don't trust these French. I could
tell you a much better house near Cork."

CHAPTER XXXI. A RESOLVE.

MARGARET'S stern warning was no vain
threat. Vivian had a horrid instinct, that she
was watching his every turn as he and Lucy
passed by through the crowd, in the gay Prado.
The indignant heart of our little Lucy swelled,
as she thought of this base treatment. " He
does indeed hate me; but I could not have
believed that he would have stooped so low
and to such means. Even when Vivian was
hurrying along by himself, making for the Post,
whither he now often anxiously repaired, he was
sure to encounter Margaret's eye fixed on him
boldly and steadily, and with the same triumphant
proclamation, " I hold you in my power. I am
watching, and can give you full line; but at any
moment—"

On one day the Messageries Royales was
late. There were no tidings of the malle poste
at Sody's, and, as of course, the eagerness of
the English became frantic. The whole
community repaired a dozen times to Sody's. The
Post-office was besieged. Every one at last
grew into the delusion that something was
denied to them, and that he was most cruelly
treated. The only genuine expectant who was
waiting the Paris post was Vivian.

The eye of his enemy had been on him as he
came and went. But now the whole day had
run by, and, in real anxiety, towards eight
o'clock he prepared to go up once more to
Sody's. Lucy had sympathised with him.
"This," he said to her, " concerns you too; and
who can tell? perhaps this long-expected
despatch may set us free from our troubles."

It was quite dark; as he went out, the lamps
were being swung up on their strings. The
streets were quite deserted. He walked up to
Sody's, and by the gathering and bustle saw,
even from afar off, that the long-expected malle
poste had come in. Torches were blazing,
lanterns flitting; for the diligence, a little overdue,
was also in sight. Vivian had turned away
homeward, and was thinking of a little solitary
turn down by the Pier, always attractive to
him, as it was to every man there with trouble
on his mind. It was a dull evening, and only
a few stragglers, who had been shut up all
day in the little dens, and could not get on
without their walk, came forth wrapped close in
mackintoshes.

Mr. West was among those stragglers who
hung round the port and saw the daily steamer
come in—a gloomy arrival, a few lamps, for it
was dark, and a few shadowy figures coming
ashore. In this oft-repeated event, when there
was not crowd, he had come to find a dismal
pleasure and occupation. He absently watched
the half-dozen passengers who came ashore in a
scant procession. But there was one—a bright,
quick, black-whiskered face, which he thought he
knew, and whose voice, speaking good French to
the porters, seemed familiar. He waited till he
passed under the lamp, and then remembered
it was that doctor he had met as he went to
Sir John Trotter's. He would have gone up to
him and spoken, but he was not in heart, and
had much the feeling towards him which people
often have to casual acquaintances met at a
watering-place—when our play is over, the
lights down, and we have no wish to see the
actors off their own boards. He was restrained,
too, by seeing that the traveller was joined and
greeted heartily by a figure whom he
presently, to his surprise, found to be Vivian.
They walked away together, and he heard the
doctor order his luggage to be taken to the
diligence-office.

There was nothing surprising in this, but it
came back on him suddenly, that, in talking over
Dieppe, which the doctor had said he knew
better than England, he had never affected to
know Colonel Vivian, though Mr. West
mentioned his name, and his going away to Paris.
West's restless mind, in a very unhealthy state,