prevented him from entertaining affection for him; but he thought himself bound to defend and advance his interests for all that, even to his own hurt-save in one particular. He could not, and he would not, assist him to marry Maggie Thorne.

If you had opened John Milbank's heart, you would have found her name engraved on that true metal, more deeply than her father had ever cut into steel. No one had read it there, as he had flattered himself, until an hour ago, when Richard had taunted him with that fatal secret. He had never told his love, nor thought of telling it; it would have been of no use to do so, it was true, since Richard, his superior in every way in the eyes of womankind, had declared his intentions of winning Maggie; but still it was for Richard's sake that he had never so much as sighed for her; had buried her, as it were, in his heart, and sorrowed for her loss, as though-almost-she had been really dead to him. It was that "almost" which had of late become the fiery trial of John Milbank's life. There had been a temptation to him far beyond that of wealth-to keep the knowledge of his uncle's will from Richard, so that his marriage with Maggie should have been rendered impossible, through lack of means. He had put that from him, like a man-for few women in such a case would have exercised a similar self-denial-and had been in some degree rewarded for it. The marriage which poverty might, after all, have hastened in one so reckless as his brother, had been at least postponed. It afforded John no actual hope, indeed, but it was a reprieve from what would have been despair. On the other hand, Richard had discovered that he was his rival, and thereby possessed himself of a weapon against which he had no defence, and the wounds of which were terrible; and he had already shown that he would not spare to use it.

Gloomy as was the prospect of the next twelve months for

John, it was not that which now weighed upon his mind, as he sat alone at quiet Rosebank-soon to be the scene of unwelcome revelry and riot. Discomfort and insolence he would have to bear, no doubt; but it was not of himself that he was thinking, nor of the ordeal through which he was about to pass. He looked beyond that time, and shuddered at the fate that was awaiting Maggie. The heartless selfishness and brutal vice of Richard Milbank were revealed to him as they had never been before, and it was Maggie who would be their helpless victim. He did not believe that any conduct of this man, in the meantime, however gross, would alienate her affections from him, though he could not refrain from speculating upon the possibility of such an occurrence. Richard had bewitched her from the first, and had retained her love without an effort on his part; nay, notwithstanding that he had been remiss in his attentions to her, and notoriously given up to vice and folly. He had been faithless to her, too, John knew, though Maggie probably did not; and that reflection was accompanied by another. Should he let her know it? It would be a base thing to do, in one sense; but if nothing short of having her eyes opened to the depravity of this man could save her from life-long wretchedness, would it not be justifiable? Perhaps. Yet if he, John, were to be the cause of her enlightenment, would it be to save her from Richard, or to recommend to her himself? A question not to be satisfactorily answered; and, moreover, he could never recommend himself to her that way. No; nor, as it seemed, in any way. Maggie had never liked him-had never spoken a really pleasant word to him until that afternoon, and then it had only been to thank him for his generosity to Richard. It had been delicious to him to see her smile, to hear her gracious words, to take her little hand, and feel it press his own; but it had also been wormwood; for did not her very gratitude

imply that she and Richard were already one, or as good as one! No; if Richard were dead, he should be no nearer to possessing her, since she had evidently an antipathy to him. (He was wrong here: Maggie had no antipathy to him, though little sympathy with his character-which she nevertheless secretly respected and admired; but she resented his virtues, the possession of which seemed a reproach to his brother, and especially the praise of them by others.) How cruel and unjust it seemed! All his heart was hers; all his thoughts were for her. To work for her would have been the greatest bliss his imagination could conceive. Yet all this devotion weighed as nothing against a few passionate glances from Richard's eyes, a few careless vows from Richard's lips!

What was it that his brother possessed, and he did not, which, notwithstanding the former's follies, made him everywhere the favourite with all women, and with nine-tenths of their male acquaintance, including even so business-loving and sedate a personage as had been their Uncle Matthew? Poor John even went the length of looking at himself in the little pier-glass, as though some explanation of the phenomenon might be discovered there. And, indeed, in the rueful countenance which now confronted him-so seldom regarded by himself that it was quite a novel study-he did seem to recognise some of his social defects. It was not, he owned, as a young man's face should be; there were lines about it that looked like the autograph of Time himself; the forehead was not smooth; and the muscles about the mouth were hard and set, not mobile, as in those who areg iven to smile. "She thinks me a dull dog, no doubt," sighed he; "well, at least she shall have no cause to call me a surly one.'

Did all his bitterness, and murmuring against the hardness of his fate result, then, but in resignation? Did he intend to submit patiently to all indignities that might be put upon

him, well content if he should secure an acknowledgment of his forbearance from Maggie's lips? Or did he entertain a hope that before the year was out something might happen yet to reward him for years of silent but supreme devotion; that her love for Richard might wane through his own reckless ill-doing; and that her pity for himself might grow to love, or at least to the toleration which he was willing to accept in its stead? It is a question that at present cannot be answered, since, if he had that day been asked it, John Milbank could not have answered it himself.

CHAPTER VIII.

FORGIVEN.

THOUGH not usually what is called "a man of his word," Richard Milbank kept it as respected his proceedings at Rosebank to the letter. He assembled there the jovial spirits of whom he had spoken to John so eulogistically, and showed him "life," in what he well knew would prove to be a very unattractive form. Hitherto, the two brothers had lived almost wholly apart-the elder occupying "apartments" in the more fashionable part of the town; and John, in lodgings near the factory. They had had few acquaintances in common, and those who were now Richard's most frequent guests at the cottage were not among them. John had indeed met Dennis Blake, just after it had become pretty well known that his brother was paying court to Maggie; and something that "Denny" had said to him regarding that young woman-by no means intended to be disagreeable, but spoken out of the fulness of the young gentleman's -well-animal spirits, had offended him mortally. He had received the remark with nothing beyond a cold disapproval, that had caused Mr Blake to say of him that "it was easy to see he was not of the right sort;" but, as a matter of fact, he had been within an inch or so of taking his brother's ally by his bull neck and shaking the life out of him. It was very unreasonable in him to be even annoyed-as those friends to whom Mr Blake confided the matter (which he did as a