I could not bear that. That must have been removed long ago. I went down at once to the sea shore, but a crowd of people had gathered round the place, and after a hurried glance down the cliff I retired, determining to return when night had driven those idle busy bodies indoors. Having returned home, I went upstairs, and happening to go into my bedroom, I noticed that the suit of tweeds which I had worn the day before were marked all over with greenish mould. It was another curious coincidence. Had I been, by some absurd freak of fortune, accused of having caused poor Ida's death, would not some say that I had soiled my clothes by leaving They my room by the window at night? might call it, in their legal jargon, "circumstantial evidence." Ha, ha! I got a brush and made short work of the circumstantial evidence. Night came, the moon arose, and I went down to the cliffs. I was alone. How softly the water lapped upon the stones far below! And it was here-yes, it was here. There were the marks of a struggle on that spot of ground fenced off by the police. How brightly the moon's rays lit up the dark water out there! When had I seen it shining just in that way? Not so long ago. I was waiting for some one I Was like a dream; but I could not recall it. I went home, and slept as usual. In the morning, when I went down. stairs, a policeman met me in the hall. He followed me into the sitting-room. I sat down, and he stood opposite me, speaking of the accident which they said had happened to Ida. He seemed to think I was mixed up in it. "What's that you have in your hand, sir?" he asked, suddenly; and darting forward, he took from me something which I had drawn from my pocket, and had been absently twining round my fingers. I looked at it without much interest, but he seemed to think it of great importance. It was only a fragment of stuff, such as women's dresses are made of. I remember Ida used to wear dresses of that sort of material; but of course it could not possibly have belonged to her or I should not have let him have it. That very day he took me to see the magistrates, and they actually sent me to prison. My trial has not come off yet-or rather it did come off and was postponed. I have come here to wait until the assizes come round again. It seems a long, long time. I believe they have forgotten me, or else they have bribed the superintendent to detain me. Sometimes I think they mean to keep me here always—always— always. But I know now who pushed my dar ling over the cliff, down among the cruel stones-it was that fiend in my own shape that I saw sitting by the window in the moonlight. CATHERINE MAIDMENT'S BURDEN. A STORY IN TWELVE CHAPTERS. Br MARGARET MOULE. CHAPTER L IT was a hot afternoon in July, and Catherine Maidment had walked nearly two miles but she did not look hot. She was standing under a large spreading yewtree which grew outside a farm-house. There were two of them in the farm-house garden, and they were cut into fantastic shapes resembling enormous birds. That is to say, a hundred years before they had, perhaps, to the designer's fancy, resembled birds; but now, with the cutting and trimming of many generations of tenants of the farm, the resemblance had nearly ceased, and only grotesqueness remained. But they gave a thick, impenetrable shade, and this was the reason why Catherine Maidment had chosen the large one under which to take her stand. Facing her, in his shirt-sleeves, with his hat off and lying on a bench which ran round the thick trunk of the tree, stood the tenant of the farm. He was a man of about fifty, with a face which at the moment expressed nothing so clearly as perplexity-the perplexity of a slow mind which is struggling to be diplomatic. held his spud in his right hand and applied it erratically to the few weeds in the gravel path, as if to assist his thoughts, while he said, slowly : He "Well, Miss Maidment, I did say something of that sort, now I come to think of it. But I don't remember anything so clear as a fortnight bein' named between me and your brother." "A fortnight from the thirtieth of June, he told you, Mr. Roberts," Catherine Maidment answered. Mr. Roberts moved his spud more meditatively instead of speaking, and Miss Maidment looked at him, resting her hand on the handle of ber sunshade meanwhile. It was a small hand, but it held the carved wooden ring in a firm grasp, and though she was wearing loose soft gloves it was easy to see that its shape was firm and decided. The same decision expressed itself in her upright pose-she did not move or alter her position in the most trifling manner as she looked at Mr. Roberts and waited for him to speak again. Either something in her eyes compelled him to try, or his mind was struck with an idea which he hoped might prove useful and gain him his point, for he suddenly left off the contest he had waged with a struggling dandelion plant, and said, abruptly: "But look at my losses, Miss Maidment! You know I lost two heifers only last month. Young and promisin', both. And this very week as we are in, I've had to sell hal my long corn-rick at a loss. And I've had a considerable outlay this spring with extra hands I've took on. More claims than I can say, there is." "This is doubtless very reasonable, Mr. Roberts, but it does not affect the fact that the rent is the first and most important claim, and must be met." The curious contrast between the last words themselves and the womanly voica that spoke them, increased, instead of detracting from, their insistant emphasis. Mr. Roberts seemed to feel the emphasis, for he said, in a tone less aggressively injured and more accommodating: "Mr. Maidment will give me time yet, perhaps?" "He will give you until the end of this week, Mr. Roberts." "The end of this week? It's Tuesday now, and how am I to raise that money in five days?" "That is your own affair, Mr. Roberts. All I say is that it must be paid." "Surely-another fortnight-or even a month, Miss Maidment? If Mr. Maidment would give me till harvest, now?" "My brother has Mr. Stewart-Carr's interests to consider, Mr. Roberts; surely you understand this? He cannot extend the time." Miss Maidment raised her head a little more. She had been facing the man before her steadily, all the time she spoke, but there was a little added air of firmness about this small movement which had an unconscious effect on Mr. Roberts's will. He gave up the struggle all at once, planted his spud firmly into the gravel, and said, with the air of a man who, because he is conquered, is determined to look as if victory were his own : "Very well, Miss Maidment. Business is business, of course. You can tell Mr. Maidment he shall have the money by Saturday. Though how I am to find it" he added, relapsing into his former tone quickly. But Catherine Maidment took not the smallest notice of the last words. "By Saturday," she said. "You will not mind, Mr. Roberts, giving me a written memorandum to that effect?" Mr. Roberts gazed at her for a moment, then, feeling confusedly both that he had not arranged things so well as he intended, and that Fate was especially hard on him in giving him Miss Maidment to cope with, turned with a gesture he intended to be taken for acquiescence, and said, brusquely: "Will you come in the house and see my wife while I see to it, or stay out here, Miss Maidment?" "I'll wait here, please. I must get back at once," she answered. "Another day I shall hope to come and see Mrs. Roberts." Mr. Roberts turned, and went down the box-bordered path that led to the farmhouse. The summer afternoon sun was shining on the windows, and the bees were hard at work in the carnations and mignonette that grew on each side of the box, and in the large orange lilies which grew in a little cluster on Catherine Maidment's right hand. There was no sound as she waited there but the low humming of the bees, and the note of a bird, which came, softened by distance, from a spinney near. Miss Maidment listened to it for a minute, and a little smile began to break over her face-a smile of remembrance. It was the curious, monotonous note of a greenfinch, and she remembered how, as a child, she had always called it and thought of it as "a lonely bird," because its note was so much more plaintive than any other. And the thought brought back for a moment her childish days and feelings. But the smile faded, and she gave one short, quick sigh as Mr. Roberts came out of the house and up the gravel walk towards her again. "Here it is, Miss Maidment," he said, as he reached her, holding out a sheet of paper. "It'll be all right, tell Mr. Maidment. Not but what my word's as good, if I'd once given it. However, there's no doubt he's right to be particular. But Mr. Stewart Carr himself couldn't be more so. However, that's as it should be, you're | little face. Catherine Maidment's face thinking. changed quickly and entirely as she looked at him. All the decision and firmness left it, and it grew suddenly soft, with a sympathetic look of interest. "What in the world is the matter, Tommy?" she said, cheerily. "Why aren't you at home at tes?" And however aggrieved he might have felt at having had his will thwarted by a woman, he gave no outward sign of it, and opened the garden gate for her, if awk-I wardly, yet as courteously as any gentleman could have done; and she passed out of it into the white, dusty road. Catherine Maidment was very pretty. Though the word pretty is always more or less inadequate when used to describe any personality possessing character, yet the word beautiful would have been less fitting still. She was not beautiful. Women, in speaking of her, were often wont to call her unusual, and perhaps the vague term conveyed the clearest definition possible of her. She was neither short nor tall; her figure, however, was so slight that she was generally spoken of and thought of as a small woman. She was very dark, with a broad, white forehead, and clear, delicate features, the character of which seemed to be all accentuated and defined by her small, pointed chin. She had dark, well-marked, straight eyebrows, and eyes that were always a surprise when she lifted them; for, instead of the brown or black eyes which ought to have gone with her dark colouring, she had grey ones. They were large and wide-opened, and in some moods of hers their soft grey colour looked almost blue. Her hair was a curious dark brown, nearly black, with lighter shades here and there of a reddish colour. It was very wavy and abundant, and was not hidden even by the large shady black hat she wore. She had glanced at her watch as she left the farm-house, and walked away now very quickly, with rapid, even steps. She sighed very sharply, once or twice, and her face did not alter at all, nor lose the firm, decided expression it had worn in Mr. Roberts' garden. Suddenly she turned aside from the road towards a stile which led into a field. She got over the stile quickly, and was preparing to cross the field at the same rapid pace when a small stifled sound arrested her attention. It was the sound of a little frightened sob. On the grass at the corner of the stile was a little heap, which resolved itself into a small boy, with a miserable, tear-stained "Me and another boy's been playing cricket," said the small boy, sobbing, "and I've fell off the stile and hurted my foot. can't get home and I can't walk no more." Tommy's sobs redoubled as he reached the crisis of his short tale, but they were not so hopeless, and a wonderful look of relief had come to the small face at the sight of Miss Maidment. "Can't walk!" she said. "Why, Tommy, you little goose, what have you done?" She knelt down beside him, and very tenderly touched and felt the small swollen ankle presented for inspection. Seeing at once that the child had sprained it, she rose again quickly. "Come along, Tommy," she said. "It will soon be well again, but you'd better not walk on it now. hold my sunshade; I'm going to carry you home." Following up her words with a quick gesture, she stooped and picked up the small boy, whose woebegone little face now wore a faint smile at this unexpected and delightful way out of his trouble. You She walked almost as quickly with this burden in her arms as she had done before, and in less than ten minutes Tommy was handed to his mother, who, with a group of neighbours round her, cheerfully forebcding the worst possible end to Tommy, was watching for him from a cottage door. "Lor', Miss Maidment," she said, as she took him from Miss Maidment's arms, "you've never carried him from the Elms stile! He'll have made your arms ache dreadful. But I do take it kind of you. Excuse my bein' so free as to say it, but it's like you to do it. There isn't many as would." Catherine Maidment only smiled, and with a promise to his mother to come and see Tommy, and a few words of counsel about the sprain, she said good-night, and walked away up the village street. The street in question was very short, consisting principally of scattered cottages; and Catherine Maidment soon reached its limits, and turned in at a large entrancegate on her left hand. It was an imposing looking entrance with a pretty lodge just within it, and beyond were the spreading trees of a large park. There were children playing in the pretty garden at the lodge. Catherine Maidment nodded to them with a smile as she passed, and walked still quicker on the soft turf till she came to a narrow gravel drive branching off the main road to the right. She turned down this and reached, almost directly, a narrow white house. It was picturesque, architecturally, being built in the fashion of two hundred years ago. Its windows were mullioned, and its door had a heavy stone door-frame. If all the grey stone front had been carefully painted white by some unappreciative tenant, climbing roses, clematis, and ivy had done their best to destroy the effect of that outrage on good taste. Catherine Maidment opened the door and went through a small neat passage, into a room on the left hand. The room was oak-wainscoted; and furnished, though scantily, very carefully. Every bit of furniture, worn and shabby as it was, bore the unmistakeable imprint of constant care and good keeping. There was a large arm-chair in the window, with a leathern covering very worn, but carefully mended, and a mahogany frame that shone with polishing, Opposite to this was a low wicker chair with bright cushions. Catherine Maidment put her hat and gloves and sunshade into this last, and proceeded to make the tea, which stood waiting on the table. While she did this, she looked round her with a quick look of surprise on her face. She had not expected to find the dining-room empty, and scanned every corner for some indication of the reason of its emptiness. She covered up the teapot when she had finished, and went to the door, "Margaret," she called; "Margaret!" For answer, another door at the end of the little passage opened, and a woman came out a woman with a curious nondescript cap, something between the orthodox servant's cap and an old woman's. She had a very plain, hard-featured face, only redeemed by a pair of keen, sympathetic dark eyes. "Yes, Miss Catherine," she said. "When did Mr. Frank go out? I suppose he is gone out, as he is not in the dining-room?" Yes, miss, he's out. He went out about a quarter of an hour since. He said he was going for a stroll in the grounds; he wanted some air, he said." "Very well, Margaret; thank you." The woman disappeared, and Catherine Maidment went back into the room, shutting the door, and sat down in her place at the head of the table. But she did not attempt to begin tea. She turned herself half round, so that she could see out of the window, which looked out over the park, and her face grew anxious, thoughtful, and careworn as she looked. Suddenly the door-handle was turned with a jerk that made her start and turn hastily; it opened and a man entered. "Hullo, Kit!" he said. "I wanted a mouthful of fresh air, and I didn't think you'd be back from old Roberts yet." "How is your head?" Catherine asked, looking up with the anxious look on her face deepened. "Oh, it's all right now. Come, Kit, let's have something to drink." And with these words, Frank Maidment threw himself into a chair opposite his sister; and folding his arms on the table, looked across at her. Frank and Catherine Maidment were brother and sister, and it was very difficult to say whether the likeness or the unlikeness between them was the stronger. At first sight the likeness was most apparent. The general outline of the features, of course, bore a strong natural resemblance to hers, and Frank Maidment's eyes were, like his sister's, grey-blue. He was dark, like her; and his hair, like hers, was dark brown. But there it ended. There was nothing in the expression of his grey-blue eyes that was like hers; hers were steady, his were restless and moved incessantly. His chin was square, not pointed; his mouththough like hers, well cut-was, unlike hers, irresolute and wanting in strength. It was, however, completely hidden by a heavy moustache. He had a tall, broad figure, and his movements and pose, allowing for the difference in physique between a man and a woman, were also curiously like his sister's. He stretched out one arm, and lazily took the teacup she handed him. Catherine Maidment filled her own cup in silence, and then she said: "Mr. Roberts will pay up on Saturday. I got a written promise. "That's all right!" responded her brother, carelessly. "I never thought you'd get it out of him. But I never knew you were going." "Yes, Frank, you did," she answered, gently, in a lower tone. "Why, you told me just now you did not expect me back yet." Frank Maidment coloured slightly. "Oh, Kit, yes, of course-I forgot; you said you'd go at dinner. It's this confounded headache that's been making me such a fool all day." He held out his cup to his sister to be refilled. "Is the post in" he said, quickly, and rather as if he wished to change the subject. "It must be. It's half-past six. Ah, yes," as the servant who had spoken to Catherine Maidment before tea, came in with a packet of letters. "Thank you, Margaret," Catherine Maidment said, as the woman went out again. "Any for me?" she added, looking at her brother while he turned them over. He shook his head, and began to open his own. Catherine relapsed into silence, and there was no sound in the room but the faint hissing of the tea-urn, and the slight crackling Frank Maidment made in handling his letters. He flung the two first down unopened, with a frown and a look of annoyance. "Carters' bill for the seeds again," he said, "and that other fellow's, I believe, too. You'd better look at them," he added, to his sister. She stretched out her hand for them, took them, and opened them silently, while he went on with the others. He read them, and laid them beside him one by one with various comments, articulate and inarticulate. Reynolds wants to see me to-morrow," he said to Catherine. "He'd better come here, I suppose?" Yes; or I could go to him," she said, abstractedly, being still occupied in studying the two bills. "It's those school subscriptions at Stoneleigh, is it?" "Yes," he said. "Stewart-Carr!" he went on, taking up the last letter of the pile. "I saw his large fist; but I thought he'd keep. It's sure to be money. He's always wanting money. He can't have it this time, though, if what you said yesterday is true, Kit; he must wait till some more comes in at Midsummer. It won't hurt him to wait," he said, musingly, running his eyes over the letter. The next moment he threw it down excitedly. "Good gracious !" he exclaimed. "What is the matter?" his sister asked. "Matter! He's coming down here. Coming down here to stay 1" "Mr. Stewart-Carr is coming to live here for good?" make it. Bit who would have thought of his coming here? I couldn't have imagined anything less likely if I'd had a b.t on it!" "When?" a lot of people, he says, coming on the eighteenth into the bargain. That means plenty of work to be got through first, somehow. He wants all the necessary orders given, and everything seen to. He's not been here for more than three yearɛ. Wasn't it before you came, Kit?" "Yes. Just before I came." "What on earth has induced him to come now? He must be going to be married, or something. He's the very last sort of man to settle down till he was obliged." Frank Maidment got up and began to gather up his letters. "I'll go and tell them up at the Castle, I think," he said; "Mavors and Shepherd and the rest." Catherine, who had risen too, laid her hand on her brother's arm. "Don't mind about them to-night," she said. "It'll be quite time enough if you let them know tomorrow. Stay here, and, when tea's cleared away, we can go through the things that must be seen to, and I'll make a list "All that'll do to-morrow, Catherine, perfectly. I shall walk up to the house. I-my head isn't-I should like the turn in the air." He took her hand from his arm quickly but not angrily, and turned to go out of the room. "Who would have thought it ?" he said again, as he shut the door. Catherine Maidment rang for the tea to be cleared away. When this was done, she went to a large cupboard in the wains cot, and took down two large business-like looking books, filled with blue ruled paper, and containing entries that were nearly all in her own clear handwriting. She laid them on the table, and, seating herself before them, opened one of them, and began to make notes from it on a sheet of paper. She worked for an hour with intent energy. Then she closed it again ; but, instead of opening the other, laid her hands on it, and her face down on them, with a heavy sigh On SEPTE IBER 26th will be commenced a NEW SERIAL ENTITLED BY RIGHT OF SUCCESSION. The Right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors. Published at the Office, 26, Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by CHARLES DICKENS & EVANS, Crystal Palace Press, |