BLACK SHEEP!

BY THE AUTHOR OF "LAND AT LAST," "KISSING THE ROD,"
&c. &c.

BOOK III.
CHAPTER VIII. THE SEVERING OF THE HAIR.

THE storm which had swept unheeded over
the heads bent over the gaming-tables at the
Kursaal that wild autumn night, was hardly
wilder and fiercer than the tempest in Stewart
Routh's soul, as he, making one of the
number of the gamblers, played with a quite
unaccustomed recklessness, and won with
surprising sequence. This was earlier in the
night, when the powers of the air were
only marshalling their forces, and the
elemental war had not extended beyond the
skirmishing stage. Many times he looked
impatiently round, even while the ball was rolling,
as if expecting to see some one, who still did
not appear; then he would turn again to the
green board, again stake and win, and resume
his watch. At length a touch on his elbow
caused him to look round in a contrary direction,
where he saw a man standing, who
immediately handed him a note and went away.
Then Routh smiled, read the words the note
contained, smiled again, swept up the money
which lay before him, and left the room. The
battle had fairly begun as he stepped out from
the shelter of the portico, and, buttoning his
coat tightly across his chest, and pulling his hat
down to his eyebrows, set himself, with bent
head, against the storm. His way led him past
his own lodgings, and as he took it on the
opposite side of the street, he saw, indistinctly,
Harriet's figure, as she sat close beside the
window, her head against the panes. Something
dreary and forsaken in the aspect of the
window, with its flimsy curtains wide apart,
the indistinct form close against the glass, no
light within the room, made Routh shiver
impatiently as he looked at it; and just then the
light in the street flickered and swerved
violently under the influence of a sudden blast,
which drove a sharp cascade of rain rattling
against the window.

"Moping there in the dark," said Routh,
with an oath, " and making things a hundred
times worse, with her cursed whining and
temper."

The Schwarzchild mansion was near, and he
was soon removed as far from all associations
with discomfort and dreariness as brilliant
light, a blazing fire of odorous wood burning
in a room too large to be overheated by it,
luxurious surroundings, and pleasant expectation
could remove him from such discordant realities.
Presently Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge
made her appearance. The room was a long
one, and she entered by a door which faced the
chimney where he was standing. Much as he
had admired her, irresistibly as her beauty had
captivated him with its ordinary charm of
recklessness and lustre, with its rare, far-
between moments of softness and grace, he had
never really understood until now how beautiful
she was. For there was a mingling of both
moods upon her as she came towards him, her
amber silk dress, with the accustomed drapery
of superb black lace falling round her, and
sweeping the ground in folds such as surely no
other mere gown, made by mundane milliner,
had ever accomplished. Rich purple amethysts
were on her neck and on her wrists, and
gleamed on the comb which held the coils of her
hair. Wax-lights in profusion shed their softened
light upon her, upon the cream and rose
tints of her brow and cheeks, upon the scarlet
of her lips, upon the marvellous darkness
of her eyes; and the capricious blaze from
the burning logs shot quivering streaks of
light among the folds of her dress, glancing
over the jewels she wore, and playing redly on
the hand which she held out, while yet some
steps divided her from Routh, gazing at her in
absorbed, almost amazed admiration.

"How tired and pale you look," she said,
as he took the proffered hand, and she allowed
him to hold it. The words were slowly spoken,
in the tone of solicitude for him, which is one
of the most potent weapons in a beautiful
woman's armoury. "Sit there," she went on,
drawing her hand gently from his hold and
indicating a seat, while she settled herself into
the recesses of a huge German sofa. "How
could you imagine I would go to the Kursaal
to-night? Just listen!" She held her hand
up; a cloud of filmy lace fell back from the
beautiful round white arm. Then she dropped
the hand slowly, and waited for him to speak.
He spoke with strange difficulty; the spell of
the power of her beauty was upon him. This
was not what he had intended. He had meant