"You shall have your rue with a difference,
there is yet time,—time to punish you both.
Turn that lying hound, South, out of the room.
Shut the door as you go, sir, no creeping,
shut it with a bang, sir, like the sound of a
cannon!"

Strengthened by his purpose, he managed to
raise himself—

"Give me some wine, give me some brandy,
give me anything for half an hour's strength.
I told you to destroy all my papers, all unread,
now festering within that desk; you have
sworn to do it, and you are truth itself; you
are the only Middleton on record who never
lied. Wine, wine, Cecil!" She poured some
into a tumbler. "Fill it, fill it!"

He snatched it from her trembling hand,
gulped it down, and cast the glass from him.
"Now, I will not spare you. You shall live,
as I have lived, with the sword above your
head; but it will be sharper, sharper to you
than to me! Destroy not one of these papers.
It is my last injunction. Not One! Search,
search, search, and enjoy, you, and that ledgerman,
enjoy what you will discover! I'm glad, glad,
I did not destroy what I—" the last sentence
came thickly and faintly from his lips, he signed
for more wine, and having drank it threw his
long wasted limbs off the sofa. He seemed to
desire to stand, and Cecil tried to help him,
"Keep back" he muttered, and a fearful change
passed over his face, and he laughed hideously.
"I should like to see you, and him, when the
dread of the—what might be—turns you blue!
You are not so bad, Cecil; but keep the secret,
Cecil, until after your marriage, or you would
lose your beggarly lover. You are a poor washed
out thing, Cecil, need regilding, gilding! Now,
unless you want me to curse you where you
stand, promise to read, to search out and read,
every line, every line you find! Promise!"

"I do," she said.

"A treat, a treat, a treat to dash down the
cup of happiness when it is brimming full!
What, doctor!" he continued, as the
physician entered. "Oh I am better. I have played
off a joke, a joke, by Jove!" At that instant the
bells of a neighbouring church commenced their
weekly evening practice.

"The bells of Middleton Lea!" he exclaimed,
and his head fell forward. "The bells, the bells
ringing for my coming of age!" They lifted
him back on the sofa, he gasped out a few
wandering words, and but few; his mind had
strayed back to his childhood, and he spoke
as if to his mother, lovingly as a child would,
and asked her to kiss him.

Gerald Middleton fell asleep that night to
wake no more in this world.

CHAPTER IV.

THE last ceremony was over. Major
Middleton had left no will, encumbered his property
with no gifts, no legacies, and Cecil Middlcton
was an undisputed heiress. Having locked
herself into the library, she was seated with her
brother's desk open before her; she had
deferred opening it, day after day; she had gone
through and arranged all other papers with her
"man of business;" all was clear and straight
forward. But an undefined dread took hold of her
whenever she looked on that grim ebony desk,
clasped and studded with iron. She had parted
with Ronald Chester in the drawing-room:
only until the evening, when he was, to return
and dine with her and her lawyer, who was an
old family friend. She would get through
those papers before dinner, there were not so
many of them.

Poor Cecil! Often her cheek flushed and her
hand trembled; there were delicate notes, which
a man of honour would have destroyed; locks of
hair of all tints; trinkets; some Indian, but more
frequently French, minatures; everything she
unrolled, and having examined cast into the fire.
There were letters containing the most bitter
reproaches, one evidently from a husband whose
wife had abandoned him for the protection of
Major Middleton; all the world had heard of
that, and Cecil remembered when the fair
frail woman had been her school-mate, and
child friend. There were letters containing
passionate protestations of love; on the back of
one, her brother had sketched the inamorata,
in his ever active spirit of caricature.

His mother's letters and hers, received when
he was abroad, were clasped together and placed
in a separate drawer, quite away from the
contamination of the other contents of his desk.
She thanked him for that, and tears, large heavy
tears, fell on the records of his mother's love.
She had hoped that her task was ended, a few
party coloured embers were all that remained
of what had once been warm and fresh and
treasured. All gone except that last pure and
precious packet. She murmured a few words
of gratitude, and could not help wondering
again and again, why at the last he had set her
such a task, sufficiently painful without a doubt,
and yet! was there anything else? She tried,
and retried every spring and projection, fearing
there must be something more, and at last, at
the back of a small drawer she saw a tiny
steel knob; she pressed it, a little door flew open;
within was a roll of paper, or papers, tied
together with a bit of twine, and something—a flat
packet—round which a newspaper had been
crushed and twisted. Cecil unfolded it, and saw
a large case covered with soiled white velvet. It
was difficult to open, the fastening was stiff, the
minature (for such it was) was laid on its face,
it had endured rough usage, the gold was
battered as if it had been crushed on the ground
by a heavy foot. When Cecil lifted it, the
shattered glass that once had protected the
delicate painting, fell on the table; the picture
was double, the likenesses of two persons, one
evidently her brother, the other a dark woman,
in young but imperial beauty; her right hand
was clasped within his, her left hung lightly
over his shoulder, and the thick ring of
marriage and its brilliant keeper circling the
third finger; the attitude of that hand seemed
to say, "look at this, I am a wedded wife."