The Diamond Coterie

Only a moment did Sybil listen.

Five minutes, ten, and still they talked, and still Sybil stood, moveless and intent. Then, drawing back suddenly, she ran hurriedly down the hall, and had gained the foot of the stairs before the sound of the opening door admonished her that she had escaped none too soon.

In a moment she had entered the drawing room, and, with more of her olden gayety than they had seen in her manner for many long days, approached the loiterers at the piano.

"Mother! mother! your hand is out of time!" and, in a moment, she had drawn her astonished mother from the stool, and seated herself in the vacant place.

"Sing, Frank," she commanded, striking the keys with a crash that died away in discord. "We have been dull too long."

When Jasper Lamotte and his model son-in-law entered the drawing room, they found Frank singing, Sybil accompanying him with dextrous fingers, and Mrs. Lamotte half resting near them, with veiled eyes, and her serenest cast of countenance.

Casting one keen glance toward Burrill, which, being interpreted, meant, "I told you so, you fool," Mr. Lamotte seated himself beside his wife.

John Burrill, during his interview with his father-in-law, had become a shade more reasonable, and less inclined to think that, in order to vindicate his wounded sensibilities, he must "have it out with Sybil." But his face still wore a surly look, and Frank, who was not over delicate in such matters, looked askance at him, and then whispered to Sybil, under cover of a softly played interlude that he "scented battle afar off."

Sybil's only answer was a low, meaning laugh, and when he had finished his song, she played on and on and on. Sonata, bravura, fantasia, rondo; a crash and whirl—rapid, swift, sweet, brilliant, cold; no feeling, no pathos. A fanciful person might have traced something of exultation and defiance, in those dashing, rippling waves of music.

Presently she stopped and turned to Frank.

"What shall you do in the morning?" she asked, abruptly.

Frank ran his fingers through his hair, after a fashion he much affected, and replied, slowly:

"Well, really! Nothing important. Going to ride to the office—meaning Heath's office, not the mills. Can I do anything for you, sis?"

"I was thinking," began Sybil, as unconcernedly as if she did not know that she was about to astonish, more than she had already done, every one of her listeners, "that it would be a fine morning for a canter; that is, if to-morrow should be a counterpart of to-day; and I am hungry to be in the saddle."

Frank roused himself from his lazy position, and looked interested. He took a secret delight in annoying Burrill, when he could do it without too much openness or display of malice prepense; and here was one of his opportunities.

"Well, Sybil, you shan't be hungering in vain," he replied, gallantly. "Name your hour, and your steed, and I will even sacrifice my last best morning nap, if need be."

Sybil laughed lightly.

"We will have a moderately seasonable breakfast, Frank, not to make your sacrifice too great; and I will ride Gretchen. Poor thing! she will have almost forgotten me now."

"Then that is settled," replied Frank, tranquilly, and glancing furtively toward Burrill, who was beginning to wriggle uneasily in his chair. "Do you want to go anywhere in particular, sis?"

"No, unless you leave me for awhile at Wardour Place; I want to see some of Con.'s new dresses. You can ride into town and call for me later."

"Ah! very nice arrangement; then I can't call with you?"

"Decidedly not, sir. Who wants a man always about? They are conveniences, not blessings."

"Oh, well, I'm extinguished. I promise to vanish from your gaze as soon as you are within the gates of the Princess of Wardour, and now I think, after so much vocal effort, and so much self-humiliation, I will go and smoke. Adieu, sister mine; adieu mamma. Will you smoke, Burrill?"

"No, sir, thank you;" replied Burrill, with brief courtesy, and Frank, who knew beforehand what his answer would be, went toward his own room, smiling contentedly.

"I wonder what's up with Sybil?" he said to himself. "She has waked up decidedly; but she has let herself in for a rumpus with Burrill."

When he had gone Sybil arose, and seating herself near her mother, said:

"Mamma, you were saying something about going to the city yesterday; have you decided about it?"

Mrs. Lamotte, who had had no thought of going to the city, and who was fully conscious that she had made no remarks on the subject, looked up without a ruffle upon her placid countenance and replied, like a wise and good mother.

"No, my child, I have not decided."

"Then, when you decide to go, inform me beforehand, mamma. I think I should like to accompany you and do some shopping for myself."

Here Burrill showed such marked symptoms of outbreak that Mr. Lamotte who, throughout the hour they had passed in the drawing room, had been a quiet but close observer, thought it wise to interpose, and artfully attempted to avert the impending storm by saying:

"Now that sounds natural. I'm glad that you feel like shopping, Sybil, and like getting out more. Very glad, aren't you, Burrill?"

But Mr. Burrill had no notion of being thus appeased; instead of spiking a gun Jasper Lamotte had opened a battery.

"I'm delighted to hear that Mrs. Burrill has stopped moping," he said gruffly; "but I'll be hanged if I'm glad to hear myself left out of all the programmes, and I'll be cussed if I'm going to put up with it, either," and Mr. Burrill, being full in more senses than one, arose and paced the room with more fierceness than regularity.

Mr. Lamotte forgot himself so far as to utter an angry imprecation between his shut teeth, and to wrinkle his forehead into a dark frown. Mrs. Lamotte allowed a shade of contempt to creep about her lips as she turned her eyes upon her daughter, but Sybil looked not one whit disconcerted.

"I've got something to say about my wife," went on Mr. Burrill, "and I'm blessed if I don't say it."

What had come over Sybil? Heretofore she would in any way, in every way, have avoided an encounter with him; she would have quitted the field or have remained deaf as a post; but now, "Say it, then, Mr. Burrill, say it, by all means, here and now," she retorted in the coolest voice imaginable.

And Mr. Burrill did say it.

"I've had enough of being made a fool of, Mrs. Sybil Burrill; I've had enough of being a carpet under your feet, and nothing better. I'm your equal, and anybody's equal, that's what I am, and I'm going to have my rights. It's very well for you to announce that you're going here and going there, Mrs. Burrill; but let me tell you that you go nowhere except John Burrill goes with you, that's settled."

Sybil laughed scornfully.

"Not quite so fast, Mr. Burrill, just stand still one moment, if you can stand still, which I doubt. You say you will accompany me wherever I go; I say you may accompany me wherever people will tolerate you, nowhere else. You are not the man to force into a gentleman's parlor; you would disgrace his kitchen, his stable. The streets are free to all, you can accompany me in my drives; the churches are open to the vilest, you can go with me there; but into the houses of my friends you shall not go; I will not so abuse friendship. You have counted upon me to gain you entrée to Wardour and to a dozen houses, the thresholds of which you will never cross. If you are not satisfied with this, then you must be suited with less. I will not be seen with you at all."

Again Jasper Lamotte, vexed and alarmed for the denouement, interposed; knowing she was striking at Burrill's chief weakness:

"But Sybil, Miss Wardour, here in her meetings with Burrill, tacitly recognized his right to call."

She turned upon him swiftly.

"You know why she did it, sir; it is useless to discuss the question. You may calm Mr. Burrill in any way you please, or can. You know the terms on which he became my husband. He will continue my husband on my own terms. He shall not cross the threshold of Wardour, protected by my presence, and without it the door would close in his face. If Mr. Burrill does not like my terms, let him say so. It is not in his power or yours to alter my decision." And Sybil once more gathered together her silken skirts, lest in passing they should brush the now collapsed Mr. Burrill, and swept from the room.

"It is not in his power or yours to alter my decision."

Mr. Lamotte turned to his wife.

"You must talk with that girl," he said, savagely, "what the devil ails you all?"

Mrs. Lamotte arose and faced him.

"I should be wasting my breath," she replied, looking him straight in the eye. "You have tried that girl a little too far, Mr. Lamotte," and she followed after her daughter.

A roar, not unlike the bellow of a bull, recalled Mr. Lamotte to the business of the moment. John Burrill, having recovered from his momentary stupor of astonishment, was dancing an improvised, and unsteady can can, among the chairs and tables, beating the air with his huge fists, and howling with rage.

Seeing this, Mr. Lamotte did first, a very natural thing; he uttered a string of oaths, "not loud, but deep," and next, a very sensible thing; he rang for brandy and hot water.

And now the battle is in Mr. Lamotte's hands, why need we linger. Brandy hot will always conquer a John Burrill.

THE PLAY GOES ON.

When Sybil Burrill, after uttering her defiance in the face of father and husband, had swept from the room, closely followed by her mother, another form moved away from the immediate vicinity of the most accessible drawing-room window,—the form of Evan Lamotte. Crouching, creeping, shivering, cursing, he made his way to the spot where he had left Frank's horse, and led it toward the stables.

Anything but sober when he commenced his vigil underneath the drawing-room windows, he had been shocked into sobriety by his sister's violence, and his own rage against her tormentors. Growing more and more sober, and more and more sullen, he stabled the ill-used thoroughbred with his own hands, and then, avoiding alike both servants and family, he crept into the house, and up to his own room.

In the morning he awoke betimes, and arose promptly; he had come to know the habits of his father and John Burrill, and he had good reason for knowing them, having of late made their movements his study.

Burrill would sleep until nine o'clock; he always did after a debauch, and he, Evan, had recently formed a habit of appearing late at breakfast also. From his room he kept up a surveillance over all the household after a method invented by himself.

He knew when his stately mother swept down to the breakfast room, followed soon after by his father.

The family all aimed to breakfast before the obnoxious Burrill had come to his waking time, and so were rid of him for one meal, all but Evan. He and his brother-in-law breakfasted together later, and in the most amiable manner. After a time he heard Frank go down, and the ring of his heels assured Evan that he was equipped for the saddle.

A little later, and, from his post at his front window, screened by the flowing curtains, Evan saw the horses led around, saw Sybil come down the steps in her trailing, dark cloth habit, saw her spring lightly to the saddle, and heard a mocking laugh ring out, in response to some sally from Frank, as they cantered away.

Evan saw Sybil and Frank canter away.

"Act one in the insurrection," said Evan, as he turned away from the window. "Now let me prepare for action." His preparations were few and simple; he removed his boots and coat, and crept out, and softly along the hall until he reached Burrill's door. Here he paused, to assure himself that he was not observed, and then softly tried the door; as he had expected, it opened without resistance, for Burrill had been escorted to bed, by his faithful father-in-law, in a state of mellowness, that precluded all thought for the night, or the dangers it might bring forth. Evan entered, cautiously closing the door as he had found it, and approached the bed. Its occupant was sleeping heavily, and breathing melodiously. Satisfied on this point, Evan opened a commodious wardrobe near the bed, threw down some clothing, spread it out smoothly, and then stepping within, he drew the doors together, fastening them by a hook of his own contrivance, on the inside; for Evan had made this wardrobe do service before. Then he laid himself down as comfortably as possible, and applied his eye to some small holes punctured in the dark wood, and quite invisible to casual outside observation.

He had began to grow restless in his hiding-place, and fiercely disgusted with the sleeper's monotonously musical whistle, when his waiting was rewarded. The door once again opened cautiously, and this time, Jasper Lamotte entered. He looked carefully about him, then closing and locking the door, he approached the sleeper.

"I knew it," thought Evan; "the fox will catch the wolf napping, and nail him before he can fortify himself with a morning dram."

It took some time to arouse the sleeper, but Jasper Lamotte was equal to the occasion; this not being his first morning interview with his son-in-law; and, after a little, John Burrill was sufficiently awake to scramble through with a hasty toilet, talking as he dressed.

"Business is getting urgent," he grumbled, thrusting a huge foot into a gorgeously decorated slipper. "I'd rather talk after breakfast."

"Pshaw, you are always drunk enough to be unreasonable before noon. Turn some cold water upon your head and be ready to attend to what I have to say."

What he had to say took a long time in the telling, for it was a long, long hour before the conference broke up, and the two men left the room together.

Then the doors of the wardrobe opened slowly, and a pale, pinched face looked forth; following the face came the body of Evan Lamotte, shaken as if with an ague. Mechanically he closed the wardrobe, and staggered rather than walked from the room. Once more within his own room he locked the door with an unsteady hand, and then threw himself headlong upon the bed, uttering groan after groan, as if in pain.

After a time he arose from the bed, still looking as if he had seen a ghost, and, going to a desk, opened it, and took therefrom a capacious drinking flask; raising it to his lips he drained half its contents, and the stimulant acting upon overstrained nerves, seemed to restore rather than to intoxicate.

"At last," he muttered to himself, "I am at the bottom of the mystery, and—I am powerless." Then, like his sister on the previous day, he muttered, "There is but one way—only one—and it must be done!" Then throwing himself once more upon the bed, he moaned:

"Oh, that I, the accursed of the family, heretofore, should live to be—but pshaw! it is for Sybil I care. But—for to-day let them all keep out of my sight—I could not see them and hold my peace."

He pocketed the half empty flask, and made his way from the house to be seen by none at Mapleton for the next twenty-four hours.

After that morning interview with his father-in-law, John Burrill blusters less for a few days, and makes himself less disagreeable to the ladies. He accepts the situation, or seems to; he rides out on one or two sunny afternoons with Mrs. Lamotte and Sybil, and on one of these occasions they meet Constance Wardour, driving with her aunt. The heiress of Wardour smiles gayly and kisses the tips of her fingers to the ladies, but there is no chance for him—he might be the footman for all Constance seems to see or know to the contrary. This happens in a thoroughfare where they are more than likely to have been observed, and John Burrill chafes inwardly, and begins to ponder how he can, in the face of all the Lamottes, gain a recognition from Constance Wardour. In his sober moments this becomes a haunting thought; in his tipsy ones it grows to be a mania.

One day, during this lull in the family siege, Sybil and her mother visit the city, doing a mountain of shopping, and returning the next day. Sybil keeps on as she began, on the night when she listened to her father and husband, while they held council in her mother's room. She is full of energy and nervous excitement always, and the old stupor of dullness, and apathetic killing of time, never once returns. But Mrs. Lamotte likes this last state not much better than the first; neither does Constance; but they say nothing, for the reason that it would be useless, as they know too well. Sybil goes out oftener, sits with the family more, and seems like one waiting anxiously for a long expected event.

John Burrill is a little disturbed at Sybil's visit to the city. He knows that she will go and come as she pleases there, unquestioned, and, if she choose, unattended by her mother. And, without knowing why, he feels inclined to rebel; but he is still under the spell of that morning interview, and so holds his peace.

Evan, too, under the same uncanny spell, goes about more morose than usual, more silent than usual, more sarcastic than usual. More and more, too, he attaches himself to John Burrill; they drink together in the dining room, and then repair together to "Old Forty Rods," or some other favorite haunt. Together they seek for pleasure in the haunts of the vilest, Evan continually playing upon the vanity and credulity in Burrill's nature, to push him forward as the leader in all their debauches, the master spirit, the bon vivant, par excellence.

And Burrill goes on and on, down and down. He begins to confide all his maudlin woes to Evan, and that young man is ever ready with sympathy and advice that is not calculated to make Jasper Lamotte's position, as bear trainer, a sinecure.

But Evan contrives to leave Sybil tolerably free from this nuisance for a time; but only for a time. John Burrill has other advisers, other exhorters, other spurs that urge him on to his own downfall.

Burrill begins to throw himself in the way of Constance Wardour; to meet her carriage here and there; to stand near by as she goes and comes on her shopping excursions; to drive past Wardour Place alone and often.

At first, this only amuses Miss Wardour; then it annoys her; then, when she finds her walks in the grounds so often overlooked by the slowly passing Burrill, she begins to mark his maneuvers with a growing vexation.

But Burrill perseveres, and the more nearly he approaches the fourth stage of his intoxication, the more open becomes his stare, the more patent his growing admiration.

JOHN BURRILL, PLEBEIAN.

It is night, late and lowering; especially gloomy in that quarter of W—— where loom the great ugly rows of tenements that are inhabited by the factory toilers; for the gloom and smoke of the great engines brood over the roofs night and day, and the dust and cinders could only be made noticeable by their absence.

In a small cottage, at the end of a row of larger houses, a woman is busy clearing away the fragments of a none too bountiful supper. A small woman, with a sour visage, and not one ounce of flesh on her person, that is not absolutely needed to screen from mortal gaze a bone. A woman with a long, sharp nose, two bright, ferret-like brown eyes, and a rasping voice, that seems to have worn itself thin asking hard questions of Providence, from sunrise till dark.

The table has been spread for two, but the second party at the banquet, a gamin son aged seven, has swallowed his own and all he could get of his mother's share, and betakened himself to the streets, night though it be.

The woman moves about, now and then muttering to herself as she works. The room is shabbily furnished, and not over neat, for its mistress spends her days in the great mill hard by, and housekeeping has become a secondary matter. Only the needs of life find their demands honored in this part of W——. Too often needs get choked and die of the smoke and the cinders.

It is late, for the woman has been doing extra work; it is stormy, too, blustering and spattering rain. Yet she pauses occasionally and listens to a passing footfall, as though she expected a visitor.

At last, when the final touch has made the room as tidy as it ever is, or as she thinks it need be, there comes a shuffling of feet outside, and a tremendous thump on the rickety door. After which, as if he was sufficiently heralded, in comes a man, a big man, muffled to the eyes in a huge coat, which he slowly draws down and draws off, disclosing to the half curious, half contemptuous gaze of the woman the auburn locks and highly tinted countenance of Mr. John Burrill.

"So," she says, in her shrillest voice, "It's you, is it? It seems one is never to be rid of you at any price."

"Yes, it's me—all of me," the man replies, as if confirming a doubtful statement. "Why, now; you act as if you didn't expect me."

"And no more I did," says the woman sullenly and most untruthfully. "It's a wonder to me that you can't stay away from here, after all that's come and gone."

"Well, I can't," he retorts, amiably rubbing his hands together. "Anyhow, I won't, which means about the same thing. Where's the little duffer?"

"He's where you were at his age, I expect," she replies grimly.

"Well, and if he only keeps on as I have, until he gets up to my present age, he won't be in a bad boat, eh, Mrs. Burrill the first."

"He's got too much of his mother's grit to be where you are, John Burrill, livin' a lackey among people that despise you because you have got a hand on 'em somewhere. I want to know if you don't think they will choke you off some day when they are done using you?"

John Burrill seated himself astride a low wooden chair, and propelling it and himself forward by a movement of the feet and a "hitch" of the shoulders, he leaned across the chair back in his most facetious manner, and addressed her with severe eloquence.

"Look here, Mrs. Burrill number one, don't you take advantage of your position, and ride the high horse too free. It's something to 'ave been Mrs. J. Burrill once, I'll admit; but don't let it elevate you too much. You ain't quite so handsome as the present Mrs. Burrill, neither are you so young, consequently you don't show off so well in a tantrum. Now the present Mrs. Burrill—"

"Oh, then she does have tantrums, the present Mrs. Burrill," sneered the woman, fairly quivering with suppressed rage. "One would think she would be so proud of you that she could excuse all your little faults. Brooks says that they all talk French up there, so that you can't wring into their confabs, John."

"Does he?" remarked Burrill, quietly, but with an ominous gleam in his ugly eyes. "Brooks must be careful of that tongue of his. You may reckon that they all stop their French when I begin to talk. Now, don't be disagreeable, Nance; it ain't every man that can take a rise in the world like me, and I don't put on airs, and hold myself above my old friends. Do you think that every man could step into such a family as I belong to, Mrs. Burrill? No one can say that John Burrill's a common fellow after that feat."

"No, but a great many can say that John Burrill's a mean fellow, too mean to walk over. Do you think the men as you worked along side of, and drank and supped with, don't know what you are, John Burrill! Do you think that they don't all know that your outrageous vanity has made a fool of you? Chance threw into your hands a secret of the Lamottes; you need not stare, we ain't fools down here at the factories. Maybe I know what that secret is, and maybe I don't. It's no matter. I know more of your doings than you give me credit for, John Burrill. Now, what must you do? Blackmail would have satisfied a sensible man; but straightway you are seized with the idea that you were born to be a gentleman. You! Then you form your plan; and you force, by means of the power in your hands, that beautiful young lady to marry you."

"Seems to me," interrupts the man who has been listening quite contentedly, "that you are getting along too fast with your story."

"Yes, I am too fast. When you first hatched out this plan, you came to me and put a pistol to my head, and swore that if I didn't apply for a divorce from you at once, you would blow my brains out. I had swore more than once to have a divorce; and Lord knows I had cause enough; what, with the drunkenness and the beatings, and the idleness, and the night prowlin', and all the rest; but I never expected that."

The woman paused for a moment, and then resumed her tirade of mixed eloquence and bad grammar.

"I didn't expect to be drove into the divorce court at the point of a pistol, but that's how it ended, and you was free to torment Miss Lamotte, poor young thing! Don't you let yourself think that I envied her! Lord knows I had had enough of you, and your meanness, but I pitied her; and if I had knocked out your brains, as I've been tempted to do a dozen times, when you have rolled in here blind drunk, I'd have done her a good turn, and myself too. The time was when Nance Fergus was your equal, and more too; but you left England with the notion that here you would be the equal of anybody, and you've never got clear of the idea. I've tried to make you understand that there's a coarse breed of folks, same's there is of dogs, and that you are of a mighty coarse breed. I've lived out with gentle folks over the water, and they were none of your sort. But, go on John Burrill, the low women you are so fond of, and the girls at the factory, have called you good lookin', until your head is turned with vanity. You have got yourself in among the upper class, no matter how, and I suppose you expect your good looks to do the rest for you. I mind once when I was at service in Herefordshire, the Squire had a fine young beast in his cattle yard, black an' sleek, an' handsome to look at, and the young ladies came down from the big house and looked at it through the fence, and called it a 'beautiful creature,' but all the same they led it away to the slaughter house with a ring in its nose, and the young ladies dined off it with a relish."

John Burrill stroked his nasal organ fondly, as if discerning some connection between that protuberance and the aforementioned ring; but he made no attempt to interrupt her.

"You was bad enough in England, John Burrill; what with your poaching and your other misdeeds, and sorry was the day when I left a good place to come away from the country with you, because it was gettin' too hot for you to stay there. You couldn't get along without me then; and you can't get along now it seems, for all your fine feathers, without you come here sometimes to brag of your exploits, and pretend you are lookin' after the boy."

"Nance," said Burrill, "you're a fine old bird! 'Ow I'd like to set you at my old father-in-law, blarst him, when he rides it too rough sometimes, and, what a sociable little discourse you could lay down for the ladies too, Nance; but, are you about done? You've been clean over the old ground, seems to me, tho' I may have dozed a little here and there. Have you been over the old business, and brought me over the water, by the nape of the neck; because, if you haven't—no, I see you have not, so here's to you, Nance, spin on;" and he took from his pocket a black bottle, and drank a mighty draught therefrom.

"No, I'm not done," screamed the woman. "You've come here to-night, as you have before, for a purpose; one would think that such a fine gentleman could find better society, but it seems you can't. You never come here for nothing; you never come for any good; you want something? What is it?"

He laughed a low, hard laugh.

"Yes," he said, taking another pull at the black bottle; "I want something."

"Umph! I thought so."

"I want to tell you," here he arose, and dropping his careless manner, laid a threatening hand upon her arm. "I want to tell you, Nance Burrill, that you have got to bridle that tongue of yours; d'ye understand?"

She shook off his hand, and retired a few paces eyeing him closely as she said:

"Oh! I thought so. Something has scared ye already."

"No, I'm not scared; that thing can't be done by you, Nance; but you have been blowing too much among the factory people, and I won't have it."

"Won't have what?"

"Won't have any more of this talk about going to my wife with stories about me."

"Who said I threatened?"

"No matter, you don't do much that I don't hear of, so mind your eye, Nance. As for the women at the bend, you let them alone, and keep your tongue between your teeth."

"Oh! I will; one can't blame you for seeking the society of your equals, after the snubbing you must get from your betters up there. But that don't satisfy you; you must drag that poor fellow, Evan Lamotte, into their den; as if he were not wild enough, before you came where you could reach him."

John Burrill took another pull at the black bottle.

"Evan's a good fellow," he said somewhat thickly. "He knows enough to appreciate a man like me, and we both have larks, now let me tell you."

"Well, have your larks; but don't sit and drink yourself blind before my very eyes. Why don't you go?"

"Cause I don't want'er—," growing more and more mellow, as the liquor went fuming to his head, already pretty heavily loaded with brandy and wine. "Where's the little rooster, I tell yer."

"In the streets, and he's too much like his father to ever come home, 'till he's gone after, and dragged in."

"Well, go and drag him in then, I'm goin' ter see 'im."

"I won't!" shrieked the woman, now fairly beside herself with rage; "go home to your lady wife, and take her my compliments; tell her that I turned you out."

John Burrill staggered to his feet, uttering a brutal oath.

"You'll turn me out, will you? You say won't to me; you are forgetting my training, Mrs. Nance; I'll teach you that John Burrill's yer master yet; go for the boy."

But the woman did not stir.

"You won't, eh!" clutching her fiercely, and shaking her violently, "now will you?"

"No, you brute."

"Then, take that, and that, and that!"

"Then take that, and that."

A rain of swift blows; a shriek ringing out on the stillness of the night; then a swift step, the door dashed in, and John Burrill is measuring his length upon the bare floor.

The woman reels, as the clutch of the miscreant loosens from her arm, but recovers herself and turns a bruised face toward the timely intruder. It is Clifford Heath.

"Are you badly hurt?" he asks, anxiously.

She lifts a hand to her poor bruised face, and aching head, and then sinking into a chair says, wearily:

"It's nothing—for me. Look out, sir!"

This last was an exclamation of warning, John Burrill had staggered to his feet, and was aiming an unsteady blow at the averted head of Doctor Heath.

The latter turned swiftly, comprehending the situation at a glance, and once more felled the brute to the floor.

By this time others had appeared upon the scene,—neighbors, roused by the cry of the woman.

Doctor Heath bent again to examine her face. He had scarcely observed the features of the man he had just knocked down; and he now asked:

"Is—this man you husband, madam?"

The woman reddened under her bruises.

"He was my husband," she said, bitterly. "He is—John Burrill."

Clifford Heath started back, thinking, first of all, of Sybil, and realizing that there must be no scandal, that could be avoided, for her sake. He had never seen Burrill, save at a distance, but had heard, as had every one in W——, of his divorced wife.

Turning to one of the neighbors, he said: "I was passing on my way home from Mrs. Brown's, when I heard this alarm. I think, good people, that we had better let this fellow go away quietly, and attend to this woman. Her face will be badly swollen by and by." Then he turned once more toward Burrill.

Once more the miscreant was struggling to his feet, and at a command from Doctor Heath, he hastened his efforts. Hitherto, he had had only a vision of a pair of flashing dark eyes, and an arm that shot out swiftly, and straight home.

Now, however, as he gained an erect posture, and turned a threatening look upon his assailant, the onlookers, who all knew him, and all hated and feared him, saw a sudden and surprising transformation. The red all died out of his face, the eyes seemed starting from their sockets, the lower jaw dropped abjectly and suddenly, and, with a yell of terror, John Burrill lowered his head and dashed from the house, as if pursued by a legion of spectres.

NANCE BURRILL'S WARNING.

The sudden and surprising exit of Burrill caused, for a moment, a stay of proceedings, and left the group, so rapidly gathered in Nance Burrill's kitchen, standing en tableaux, for a full minute.

Dr. Heath was the first to recover from his surprise, and as he took in the absurdity of the scene, he uttered a low laugh, and turned once more toward the woman, Nance, who seemed to have lost herself in a prolonged stare.

"Your persecutor does not like my looks, apparently," he said, at the same time taking from his pocket a small medicine case. "Or was it some of these good friends that put him to flight?" And he glanced at the group gathered near the door.

A woman with a child in her arms, and her husband with two more in charge, at her heels; a family group to the rescue; two or three old women, of course; and a man with a slouching gait, a shock of unruly red hair, and a face very much freckled across the cheek bones, and very red about the nose; the eyes, too, had an uncanny squint, as if nature had given up her task too soon and left him to survey the world through the narrow slits. This man had always an air of being profoundly interested in the smallest affairs of life, perhaps because the slits through which he gazed magnified the objects gazed upon, and he peered about him now with profoundest solicitude. This was Watt Brooks, a mechanic, and hanger-on about the mills, where he did an occasional bit of odd work, and employed the balance of his time in gossiping among the women, or lounging at the drinking saloons, talking a great deal about the wrongs of the working classes, and winning to himself some friends from a certain turbulent class who listened admiringly to his loud, communistic oratory.

Brooks had not been long in W——, but he had made rapid headway among that class who, having little or nothing to love or to fear, are not slow to relieve the monotony of very bare existence by appropriating to themselves the friendship of every hail fellow whom chance throws in their way.

Accordingly Brooks had become a sort of oracle among the dwellers in "Mill avenue," as the street was facetiously called, and he was ready for any dish of gossip, not infrequently making himself conspicuous as a teller of news; he was faithful in gathering up and retailing small items among such ladies of the "avenue" as, being exempted from mill work because of family cares, had time and inclination, and this latter was seldom lacking, to chatter with him about the latest mishap, or the one that was bound to occur soon.

Prominent among the gossips of Mill avenue was that much abused matron Mrs. John Burrill number one, and she had not been slow to discover the advantages of possessing such an acquaintance as Mr. Brooks; accordingly they gravitated toward each other by mutual attraction, and it was quite a common thing for Brooks to drop in and pass an evening hour in the society of Mrs. Burrill, sometimes even taking a cup of tea at the table of the lone woman on a Sunday afternoon.

As Doctor Heath laid his case upon the small pine table, and prepared to deal out a soothing lotion for the bruised Mrs. Burrill, Brooks advanced courageously, supported on either hand by an anxious old lady, and the chorus commenced.

"It warn't us as scared him out, sir," said Brooks, positively. "He's seen all o' us, first and last. Maybe as he's had cause for remembering you, sir?" and Brooks peered anxiously at the doctor, as if hoping for a prompt confirmation of this shrewd guess.

"Sure, an' it was a guilty conscience, if ever I seen one, as made the brute beast run like that, from the sight of the doctor," chimed in first old lady, who quarreled with her "old man" on principle, and seldom came out second best. "Faith, an' the murtherin' wretch has half killed ye, Burrill, dear."

"I was that scart with the screamin'," said the mother of three, "that I nearly let the baby fall a-runnin' here."

And then they all gathered around Mrs. Burrill, and talked vigorously, and all together, while Brooks, hovering near the doctor, pursued his investigation.

"A bad lot, that Burrill, sir. I've seen him, frequent; and so he's had occasion to know you, sir?"

"No, my good fellow; I never had the honor of meeting Mr. John Burrill before," replied Doctor Heath, smiling at the man's pertinacity.

"Now, I want to know," exclaimed Brooks, in accents of real distress, "then what could have set him off like that?"

"I suppose we were getting too many for him," replied the doctor, easily.

"Not a bit of it, sir. Burrill ain't no coward, especially when he's in liquor; and he and me's on good enough terms, too; though, of course," said Brooks, recollecting himself, and glancing anxiously at the reclining figure of the injured one, "of course, I would never stand by and see a lady struck down, sir."

"Manifestly not," replied the doctor, drily. "Then, as he would not fear you, and could not fear me, he must have been in the first stages of 'snake seeing.'"

"It's my opinion, he took you for somebody else, as he has reasons to be afraid of," said one of the women, with an emphatic nod.

But here the voice of the heroine of the occasion rose high above the rest.

"John Burrill wasn't so drunk as to run away from a man he never saw, or to see crooked," she said, fiercely. "I saw the look on his face, blinded tho' I was, and he's afraid of you, Doctor Heath. I don't know why. There's some secrets in John Burrill's life that I don't know, and there's more that I wish I didn't know; but here, or somewhere else, he has known you, sir. Perhaps only by sight; but he's afraid of you, that's certain."

There was no reply from Doctor Heath; he was busy over his medicine case. He prepared a lotion, to be applied to the bruises, and a sedative, to be applied to the nerves of the patient, who was beginning to recover herself in a measure, and launched out into a torrent of invective against the author of her trouble; after which she rushed into a wild recital of her wrongs, beginning at the time when she left a good place in England, to follow the fortunes of John Burrill, and running with glib tongue over the entire gamut of her trials since. And all of this, although it was far from new to the dwellers of Mill Avenue, was listened to, by them, with absorbed interest, and the proper accompaniment of ejaculations, at the proper places. During this discourse, to which Brooks listened with evidences of liveliest interest, Doctor Heath remained seemingly inattentive, waiting for a lull in the storm; when it came at last, he ascertained as briefly as possible, who among the women would remain, and pass the night with Mrs. Burrill; gave her direction, as to the use she was to make of the medicines he had prepared, and buttoned his coat about him, preparatory to departure.

As his hand was upon the latch, the voice of his patient arrested him.

"Doctor," she said, earnestly. "It wouldn't be gratitude in me to let you go away without a word of warning. I don't want to pry into your affairs, but let me tell you this: You are not done with John Burrill; you took him by surprise to-night; but, I'll wager he is over his scare by now, and he is plotting how he can get another sight at you, unbeknown to yourself; and, if he has reason to be afraid of you, then look out for him; you have reasons for being afraid too."

Doctor Heath hesitated a moment, and a shade of annoyance crossed his face, then he said in his usual careless tone:

"Give yourself no uneasiness about this matter, madam; I never saw the scoundrel before, and he was simply afraid of my fist. However, if he ever should cross my path, be assured I shall know how to dispose of him;" and Clifford Heath bowed and went out into the night, little recking that he had left his life in the hands of five old women.

In a short time, Brooks arose and shuffled out, and then the tongues were once more loosened, the husband attendant had been ordered home with his two charges, and the chief subject of their converse was Doctor Heath, and the strange influence he had exerted upon John Burrill; and a fruitful theme they found it.

Meantime, John Burrill, who had fled straight on down the gloomy length of Mill avenue, found himself, and his senses, together, close under the shadow of one of the huge factories, and at the river's very edge.

Here, breathless and bespattered, he sat down upon a flat stone to recover himself, and review the situation.

"Curse the man," he muttered. "I would not have made such a fool of myself for a gold mine; but I couldn't have helped it for two," he added, after a moment's reflection, "if it's the man I supposed it to be! But it can't be! It is not."

He was by this time, comparatively sober, and he arose to his feet, finally, feeling his courage returning, but still deep in thought.

"Hang the luck," he muttered, kicking viciously at a loose stone. "If that's the man I fear, then Jasper Lamotte would be glad to know him. Why!" starting suddenly erect, "I can find out, and I will. I must, for my own safety," and John Burrill faced about and retraced his steps.

Cautiously this time, he went over the ground, heeding where he set his foot, lest some misstep should betray his presence in Mill avenue still; more and more cautiously as he neared the house from which he had so lately fled.

Closer and closer he crept, until at last he was under the window of the kitchen, and here he crouched, listening. He heard the mingled confusion of voices, then the firm tones of Clifford Heath, clear above the rest. Hearing this, he moved quickly away, for he was in instant danger of detection, should the door open suddenly, as it might at any moment.

He crossed the street and standing under the shadow of a small tenement, waited.

It was not long before the door opened, and the light from within showed him the tall form of Clifford Heath, clearly outlined against the darkness.

Out strode Heath, walking so rapidly, that the not yet quite sober, John Burrill, found himself compelled to exercise care, and expend some breath, in keeping him within sight.

On and on, went the pursued and the pursuer, and presently, out of the darkness, came a third form, gliding shadow-like; as if every step of the way were too familiar to render caution necessary; this third form, drew nearer and nearer to Burrill, who, all unconscious of its proximity, labored on after Doctor Heath.

Straight to his own cottage went the doubly shadowed young physician; he opened the door with a latch key, and the followers lost him in the darkness of the unlighted vestibule. Presently, however, a light was seen to glimmer through the partially closed blinds, and then John Burrill crept cautiously nearer, and feeling his way carefully, lest some obstacle at his feet should cause him to stumble; he gained the window, pressed his face close to the shutters and peered through.

Clifford Heath was pacing up and down his cosy sitting room, seemingly lost in perplexed thought, and, as again and again his face was turned to the light, the watcher studied it closely; finally he seemed satisfied with his scrutiny, for he turned away and groped back to the street once more.

"It's the other one," he muttered, drawing a long breath of relief. "I might have known it from the first; so he is the young Doctor they tell of! Well, it's a rum game that brings him here, and it's certain he don't want to be known. He can't know me, and—Jove, I'd like to pay him for the hits he gave me," and he fell to pondering as he turned his steps, not the way he had come, nor yet toward Mapleton, but in the direction of "Old Forty Rods." But long before he reached his destination, the creeping, stealthy shadow, had ceased to follow, and had vanished down a side street.