They looked at each other for a moment, and
Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge left the room without
another word. When she was alone, Harriet
sat down by the table wearily, and covered her
face with her hands. Time went on. but she
did not move. Servants came in and went out
of the room, but she took no notice. At length,
Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge entered in travelling
dress, and with a paler face than any mirror she
had ever looked into had ever reflected. At
the same moment a carriage came to the door.

"You are quite ready?"

"l am."

"It is time to go."

"Let us go. One minute. Mrs. Routh,
I—I don't think I quite knew what I was
doing. Can you forgive me?" She half
extended her hand, then drew it back, as she
looked into Harriet's marble face.

"Forgive you! What do you mean? You
are nothing to me, woman; or, if anything,
only the executioner of a sentence, independent
of you."

Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge did not attempt to
speak again. As they went out of the door,
a telegram was handed to her. It was from
Routh. "Impossible to see you to-night.
Letter by post."

She handed the paper silently to Harriet,
who read it, and said nothing until they were
seated in the carriage.

"Does that make any difference?" then
asked Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge, timidly.

"To you, none. Possibly it may to me; he
need not know so soon."

Not another word was spoken between them.
Harriet stood on the platform at the railway
station until the train moved off, and as Mrs.
B. Ireton Bembridge caught the last glimpse of
her stern white face, she threw herself back in
the carriage, in which she was fortunately
alone, in an hysterical agony of tears.

Routh did not come home that night; he
sent a message that business detained him in
the City, and that he wished his letters and
some clothes sent to him in the morning.

"This is well," said Harriet; "he is making
his preparations, and he does not wish to see
me before he must. The night can hardly pass
without my hearing or seeing George."

Late that evening, Harriet posted the letter
which Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge had written.
But the evening and the night passed, and
George Dallas did not come or send. The
hours were full of the agony of suspense for
Harriet. They brought another kind of suffering
to Mr. Felton and his nephew.

At eight o'clock that evening, George Dallas,
alias Paul Ward, as the police phrase had it,
was arrested at Mr. Felton's lodgings, charged
with the murder of Mr. Felton's son. George's
agent had done his work well, and the notes
changed at Amsterdam, which the old
bookseller's death had released from their hiding-
place and put in circulation, had furnished the
clue to Mr. Tatlow's dexterous fingers. The
notes bore Arthur Felton's initials; they had
been paid to him by the Liverpool Bank; they
were endorsed in full, with date too, by Paul
Ward.

"And a case," said Mr. Tatlow, who had a
turn for quotation, "neater, completer, in every
feater, I don't think I ever was in."

MEN OF FIRE.

THE above is no fancy title to a bit of literary
handiwork, but the definition, soberly and truthfully
applied to a useful calling by the men who
practise it. "We, the Men of Fire, humbly
petition your honourable board for an increase
of wages, provisions being very dear, and we
being unable to keep our families on our
present earnings;" "We, the Men of Fire, having
a firm conviction that our services are indispensable,
mean to insist, civilly but firmly, upon a
larger share of the company's profits than is
now vouchsafed us;" "We, the Men of Fire,
will certainly give a practical paraphrase to the
poet's line, and 'leave the world to darkness
and to ye,' unless we receive a bonus in the
shape of a joint of meat this Christmas time;"
are fair specimens of the memorials presented
by the workmen we are about to visit. The
terms of the description never alter, and are
literally true. The prayers, or rather demands,
vary with circumstances, but may be generally
summarised as "asking for more," and are in
letter and spirit fairly represented by the
imaginary quotations we have given. The calling
is a dreadful one. Once acclimatised, the men
are healthy and strong, eat and drink—
especially drink—well and heartily; and suffer fewer
casualties and less illness than many skilled
labourers whose work is apparently less hazardous.
But the process of acclimatisation is so trying
that those undergoing it become rapidly
disabled, lose appetite and colour, languish and
faint, and then give up, as they think finally, a
labour for which they are physically unfit. In
most cases this is done several times. The novice
works for a few months with rapidly decreasing
vitality, falls out, takes to other work, recovers,
and, tempted by the high wages, offers his
services once more as a Man of Fire. After two
or three of these experiences, he either gives
up the experiment as hopeless, or becomes
hardened and follows the calling regularly.

Nestling behind the King's Cross railway
station, and so hidden by narrow streets and
crowded tenements that its very existence is
unsuspected by the thousands who pass its portals
daily, is the gas factory we have come to see.
The men of fire are the stokers feeding the huge
retorts in which coal is converted into gas and
coke, and this is one of their business homes.
They work by relays night and day; Sundays
and week days; all the year round. One Sunday
in the month is their holiday; but most of them
give up this, and receive a double day's pay as
compensation. Stripped to the skin, a grimy
pair of canvas trousers and thick boots their