and wrong; accidents of straying feet; destruction
to young lovers and laughing children; the
suicide of love, despair, and guilt— all such sad
memories hovered, like restless ghosts, over the
dark pool. Laurence sat down by the edge, flinging
stones into the water still and unruffled at
the base, thinking with stormy passion over the
shame and misery of his present life, but not
thinking of his own wrong-doing, nor remembering
that he had been the author of his own
despair.

"You have chosen an intellectual occupation,"
said Annie's voice, falling dull and dead,
as usual.

Laurence started up. "Am I never to be
free of you!"

"You are polite, Laurence- the gentleman,"
sneered Annie, looking at him with her clayey,
impassible face, like some frightful mask
unearthed.

"The woman who received her guests as you
did last night is not the person to tax another
with impoliteness," said Laurence, angrily.

"I was about as good as my company, and
rather better than my husband," said Annie,
hanging her lip.

"Don't dare to mention yourself in the same
breath with me!" Laurence cried, with disdain.

"No? Why not? Well; I don't think
we are quite on an equality of vice either!
/ don't make an intimate friend of such a man
as Clarke Jones. / don't lay plots to make you
out mad, and get you taken to an asylum. /
don't carry my love to another, and do my
utmost to wreck the happiness of a life for
vanity. / do none of these things, as some one I
could name does!" And she flung her fingers
contemptuously against his cheek.

"No? But I will tell you what you do," said
Laurence, grasping her by the arms till she
winced and writhed: " you make your life an
incarnate lie; you creep into an honourable
family by a lie; you go through the world with
falsehood and shame written on your brow,
and hide your degraded origin by perjury and
fraud."

"What do you mean?" said Annie, struggling
to free her wrists.

"I mean that you are the child of an
unmarried servant woman; that you know this,
and knew it when you married me; that, for
fear of this ever being known to others, you
have left your mother to the workhouse; and
that, at this very moment when we both stand
here, Jane Gilbert, your mother, is eating
the pauper's bread, and wearing the pauper's
dress."

"Ah, you know this!" said Annie, with a
contemptuous smile: " I thought you did. And
if I did all this, what then? It was diamond
cut diamond; and mine was the hardest. Were
your pride and advantage only to be thought
of, and mine set aside? Was it no temptation,
that the daughter of a pauper should be the
wife of the proudest man of his county, and
bear a name which its owner thought scarcely
good enough for a princess? You thought
you got birth and money, and you had neither;
I knew that I got birth and station, and my
bargain was the best. You tried to outwit
me, and failed; I tried to outwit you, and
succeeded."

"Are you mad, to taunt me in this manner,
and in this place?" whispered Laurence, clasping
her arms still more firmly, while a terrible
expression stole over his face.

"No, not quite mad enough for your purpose
yet," said Annie, with a low, insulting
laugh. " Not mad enough, to have left you my
money, and so make my death an advantage to
you; when you go home you shall know who is
my real heir, and then, perhaps, you will understand me
better; not mad enough to be paraded
as mad before the world, to be goaded and
provoked, and then locked up at your pleasure;
not mad enough to let myself be made the
footstool of your fortunes, to be kicked over
when you are tired of it; not mad enough for
anything of this, Laurence Grantley, as you will
find to your cost! I am the natural daughter of
a pauper," she went on to say, " and you are
Mr. Grantley of the Hall. I turned your mother
out of the house; I foiled you from the first
day to the last; and I have not done with you
yet. Hear me! Attempt to lay a finger on me,
and all the world shall know the truth as you
know it, and the meanest wretch in this place
shall laugh at the story of the birth of Mr.
Grantley's rich wife, and how finely he got
taken in!"

What had passed over the scene? The leaden
sky hung low and black as before; the wild birds
shrieked as they flew across the vale, as they
had shrieked ten minutes ago; on the crags a
few stones were dislodged as if by a spurning
foot, and on the tarn rushed broad ripples,
circling swiftly about the pool. Laurence stood
on the cliff above the tarn alone. He dared not
stand there long. His brain swam, and he
turned wildly away.

Entering the little wood behind the crag, he
met Mr. Clarke Jones.

"Good morning, sir," said Jones, witli a
singular smile, and passed on. Generally he used
to stop and talk.

The Eleventh Journey of
THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER,
A SERIES OF OCCASIONAL JOURNEYS,
BY CHARLES DICKENS,
Will appear Next Week.