XXI.

THE GHOST.

T was nearly two hours later, when Miriam

I house

and Sir Rohan approached the house from the shore and paused at the foot of the lawn, near the white camellia-bush where he had seen her crowned with azalias. As they left the strand, a dun glare shone upon the wild sky, and the waves, so shortly since gray and dimly foam-capped, tossed like fanged serpents in the fiery light of their enchantress who, gathering as a magnet great vapors round her, rolled veiled and angry her glimmering rack up the great obscurity.

They paused now, because Arundel was leaving the door. He observed them, however, and drew near, with an extinguished cigar in his hand.

If a voice had whispered by his ear, "Be still.

Do not murder pity; do not destroy remembrance. Take mercy for a staff. You hate him?

But

see! that swift blood ebbs in hectics; these frosts work like fire; he is weaker to-day than yesterday; his disease consumes him surely; this deceitful decline delivers him to death. Can you not suffer Miriam to mourn a lover? Must you needs poison grief; make tears a sin; turn joy to disgust; stab the memory of love? Take mercy, you are free so soon Had such a

voice whispered, it would have been hushed in the imperious "Speak now!" of his will; because the last was destiny.

"I have been giving St. Denys the heads of that story I promised you, Miss Miriam," said he, after wishing them good evening. "And, if you like, you shall have it as well, since I may not be able to come again immediately.'

Miriam glanced at Sir Rohan to see if he were protected from the damp. But he wore a cloak, and it was not a cold evening.

"Go on," she replied, with a nod. "We attend."

"It's not a long story," he said, walking to and fro before them. "O, by the way! Some

time since, it occurred to me I might be of service to you in the line of my profession, by elucidating your mystery, Miss Miriam, if I had any clew. I intimated as much to St. Denys, who asked you what was that last whisper of your old nurse. And you said, he tells me

"That the ring my dying mother wore was hid beneath the seventh stone in the court-yard of the Tower," Miriam replied quickly, not choosing to hear the words from him.

"Exactly so. That the ring your mother wore, when dying, was buried in a book beneath the seventh stone from the gateway of the Tower. I wished to ascertain if I were quite correct. However, that's not my story.

"You must know," continued Arundel, stooping to pluck a blade of grass, "that the way in which I learned these facts—for they are true, Miss Miriam-has in it some dash of the supernatural. I first received a suspicion from certain ways and actions of a person whom I met; and putting together one thing and another, remembering old county scandal; questioning somebody who had reason to be acquainted with the matter; detecting a likeness; and as I became more in

terested, visiting the various localities and obtaining further and satisfactory information from the original sources, -I soon made out a complete case. But through it all, I have felt as if some one were directing me; the right thing turned up at the right time, so that not a moment has been lost, and I could almost swear that I have been assisted by some extraordinary and inexplicable agency."

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"O, charming," said Miriam, " a ghost in it!"

"Well, to begin. It appears that several years ago, before you were born, and I was but a child myself, two boys left school for the University. No matter for dates or names, just yet; -facts hold good for John as for Peter. They were warm friends, notwithstanding a slight difference in their years; for one, the elder was a quiet cheerful boy, and was attracted, perhaps, by the recklessness and brilliance of the other. This other had a species of heroism about him, — so it was called, — a flashing, uncertain element, but no more resembling the real thing than a will-o'-the-wisp resembles that solid red heart of a burning back-log. That is to say, he would go through fire and water to do some famous deed,

Posi

but I doubt much if he'd have held an umbrella over an old woman with a shabby bonnet. tively, I think he was a sorry fellow. However, the bigger boy saved him many a flogging, and he, in return, rendered him some important service, besides correcting his Greek exercises and writing his Latin verses. And so, fast friends, they left, as I said, for the University. The younger had been an orphan two or three years when they took their degrees, and the other was now, also, to receive possession of his estate; to which, accordingly, having been put through the mill, they went down together; and in the press of business that met the heir, it is not at all strange that he was obliged to leave his friend much alone.

"One of the tenants on this estate was a woman between fifty and sixty in age, who held a tolerably good reputation, though more than once. accused of too great intimacy with the gypsies and strolling women; some thought she had come out from them. Still she was honest, and paid her rent, but had not much to say to her neighbors, who called her, on the whole, odd. She was a widow, and lived alone with a grand-daughter, a pretty girl,—no, something more than pretty,