But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark
at the man who had estimated his information
and himself at the value of a five-pound note,
proved too much for his caution and his self-
control. On the small neutral ground of self-
importance, the best men and the worst meet
on the same terms. Captain Wragge's
indignation, when he saw the answer to his
advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of
his own conduct: he was as deeply offended, as
sincerely angry, as if he had made a perfectly
honourable proposal, and had been rewarded for
it by a personal insult. He had been too full of
his own grievance, to keep it out of his first letter
to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten
himself, on every subsequent occasion when Noel
Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now
finally deciding the course he should take, it is
not too much to say, that the motive of money
receded, for the first time in his life, into the
second place— and the motive of malice carried
the day.

"I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge,
getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of
course, to the conditions agreed on between us.
We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where
you go: you don't ask where I go. From that
time forth, we are strangers to each other."

Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A
hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in
her look and manner. She refused the captain's
offered hand; and her tones, when she answered
him, were so low, that he could hardly hear her.

"We understand each other," she said; "and
we can now go back. You may introduce me to
Mrs. Lecount to-morrow."

"I must ask a few questions first," said the
captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be
run in this matter, and more pitfals in our way,
than you seem to suppose. I must know the
whole history of your morning call on Mrs.
Lecount, before I put you and that woman on
speaking terms with each other."

"Wait till to-morrow," she broke out
impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it
to-night."

The captain said no more. They turned their
faces towards Aldborough, and walked slowly
back.

By the time they reached the houses, night
had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars
were visible. A faint noiseless breeze, blowing
from the land, had come with the darkness.
Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to
breathe the air more freely. After awhile, she
turned her face from the breeze, and looked out
towards the sea. The immeasurable silence of
the calm waters, lost in the black void of night,
was awful. She stood looking into the darkness,
as if its mystery had no secrets for her— she
advanced towards it slowly, as if it drew her by
some hidden attraction into itself.

"I am going down to the sea," she said to her
companion. "Wait here, and I will come back."

He lost sight of her in an instant— it was as if
the night had swallowed her up. He listened, and
counted her footsteps by the crashing of them on
the shingle in the deep stillness. They retreated
slowly, farther and farther away into the night.
Suddenly the sound of them ceased. Had she
paused on her course? or had she reached one of
the strips of sand left bare by the ebbing tide?

He waited, and listened anxiously. The time
passed, and no sound reached him. He still
listened with a growing distrust of the darkness.
Another moment, and there came a sound from
the invisible shore. Far and faint from the beach
below, a long cry moaned through the silence.
Then, all was still once more.

In sudden alarm, he stepped forward to descend
to the beach, and to call to her. Before he could
cross the path, footsteps rapidly advancing,
caught his ear. He waited an instant— and the
figure of a man passed quickly along the walk,
between him and the sea. It was too dark to
discern anything of the stranger's face; it was
only possible to see that he was a tall man— as
tall as that officer in the merchant service, whose
name was Kirke.

The figure passed on northward, and was
instantly lost to view. Captain Wragge crossed
the path; and, advancing a few steps down the
beach, stopped, and listened again. The crash
of footsteps on the shingle caught his ear once
more. Slowly, as the sound had left him, that
sound now came back. He called to guide her
to him. She came on till he could just see her—
a shadow ascending the shingly slope, and
growing out of the blackness of the night.

"You alarmed me," he whispered nervously.
"I was afraid something had happened. I heard
you cry out, as if you were in pain."

"Did you?" she said, carelessly. "I was in
pain. It doesn't matter it's over now."

Her hand mechanically swung something to and
fro, as she answered him. It was the little white
silk bag, which she had always kept hidden in her
bosom up to this time. One of the relics which
it held— one of the relics which she had not had
the heart to part with before— was gone from its
keeping for ever. Alone on a strange shore, she
had torn from her the fondest of her virgin
memories, the dearest of her virgin hopes. Alone on
a strange shore, she had taken the lock of Frank's
hair from its once-treasured place, and had cast
it away from her to the sea and the night.

GONE TO JAIL.

The case of the woman-prisoner has been heard
and the sentence pronounced, and now off in the
prison van to that grim fortress of crime for the
long years' penal servitude, and weary watching
for the day of freedom. Few care to follow such
wretched women into that grim beyond; few ask,
and fewer know, how they live when shut out from
the world— what influences are about them, and
whether they are being fitted for a braver fight
with sin and evil circumstances, than they have