"And who is Mr. Felton?" said Clare,
rising and laying down her pen. "I'll post them
as I pass through the village," she added.

"Mr. Felton is Mrs. Carruthers's brother,"
said Mrs. Brookes. "He has been in America
many years, but she said something lately about
his coming home."

Clare said no more, but took her leave, and
went her way. She posted the packet for
George Dallas at the village, and, as she rode
on, her fair face bore the impress of a painful
recollection. She was thinking of the morning
on which she had ventured to send the warning
to him who was so unworthy of the fancies she
had cherished— him of whom she could not
think without a shudder, of whom she hardly
dared to think at all. When the post was
delivered the following morning at the Sycamores,
a large packet was placed before Miss Carruthers.
It was directed to her, and contained two
numbers of The Piccadilly, with two instalments
of George's serial story, and on the fly leaf of
one were the words, "From Paul Ward."

   CHAPTER X. ONCE MORE TIDED OVER.

AN air of respectability and the presence of
good taste characterised the house in
Queen-street, Mayfair, now occupied by Mr. and Mrs.
Routh. These things were inseparable from a
dwelling of Harriet's. She had the peculiar
feminine talent for embellishing the place she
lived in, however simple and small were the means
at her disposal. The lodgings at South
Molton-street had never had the comfortless look and
feeling of lodgings, and now there was
apparently no lack of money to make the new home
all that a house of its size and capabilities need
be. Harriet moved about her present dwelling,
not as she had moved about her former home,
indeed, with happy alacrity, but with the same
present judgment, the same critical eye; and
though all she did now was done mechanically,
it was done thoroughly.

Harriet was very restless on the day that
was to bring George Dallas to their new
residence. She had duly received his message from
Jim Swain, and though the keen eye of the boy,
who was singularly observant of her in every
particular that came under his notice, had
detected that the intelligence imparted a shock to
her, she had preserved her composure
wonderfully, in conveying the unwelcome news to her
husband. Routh had received it with far less
calmness. He felt in a moment that the delay
of Harriet's projected letter, a delay prescribed
by himself, had induced the return of Dallas,
and, angry with himself for the blunder, he was
angry with her that she had not foreseen the
risk. He was often angry with Harriet now;
a strange kind of dislike to her arose frequently
in his base and ungrateful heart, and the old
relations between them had undergone a change,
unavowed by either, but felt keenly by both.
The strength of character on which Routh knew
he could rely to any extent, which he knew
would never fail him or its owner, made him
strangely afraid, in the midst of all the
confidence it inspired, and he was constrained in
his wife's presence, and haunted out of it.

Stewart Routh had never been a rough-spoken
man; the early tradition of his education
had preserved him from the external coarseness
of a vagabond life, but the underlying influences
of an evil temper asserted themselves at times.
Thus when Harriet told him gently, and with
her blue eyes bright with reassuring encouragment,
that Dallas was in England, and would
be with them on the morrow, he turned upon
her with an angry oath. She shrank back from
him for a moment, but the next, she said, gently:

"We must meet this, Stewart, like all the
rest, and it can be done."

"How?" he said, rudely; "how is it to be
met?"

"I will meet it, Stewart," she replied. "Trust
me: you have often done so, and never had
cause to regret the consequence. I am changed,
I know. I have not so much quickness and
readiness as I had, but I have no less courage.
Remember what my influence over George
Dallas was; it is still unchanged; let me use
it to the utmost of my ability. If it fails, why
then," she spoke very slowly, and leaned her
hand heavily on his shoulder with the words,
"then we have but to do what I at least have
always contemplated."

Their eyes met, and they looked steadily at
each other for some moments; then withdrawing
his gaze from her with difficulty, Routh
said, sullenly, "Very well, let it be so; you
must see him first; but I suppose I shall have to
see him; I can't escape that, can I?"

She looked at him with a queer glance for a
moment, and the shadow of a smile just flickered
over her lips. Could he escape? That was
his thought, his question. Did she ever ask it
for herself? But the impression, irresistible to
the woman's keen perception, was only momentary.
She answered the base query instantly.

"No, you cannot; the thing is impossible.
But I will see him first, and alone; then if I
succeed with him, no risk can come of your seeing
him; if I fail, the danger must be faced."

He turned sulkily away, and leaned upon the
window-frame, looking idly into the street.

"You don't know when he will be here, I
suppose?" he said, presently.

"I do not; but I fancy early in the day."

"It's too bad. I am sick of this. The thing
is over now. Why is it always cropping up?"

He spoke to himself rather than to her; but
she heard him, and the colour flew over her pale
face at his words. He left the room soon after,
and then Harriet sat down in the weary way
that had become habitual to her, and murmured:

"It is done and over; and he wonders why
it is always cropping up. And I—"

Stewart Routh did not return home until late
that night. Such absences had become common
now, and Harriet made no comment then or
ever. How she passed the hours of solitude
he did not inquire, and, indeed, she could hardly
have told. On this particular evening she had
employed herself on the close and attentive
perusal of a number of letters. They were all