come loose, and was driven by the wind against the glass. He broke it off, and returning with it in his hand, flung it upon the red-hot coals, where it curled and writhed and crackled until it was consumed. I began to think there was some foundation after all in those rumours. "No doubt you think me very fidgety," he explained, with a short, hard laugh, as he wiped his damp forehead-yet it was anything but a warm evening-"but I can't endure these little interruptions. They affect me very strangely." And he gave me a quick, stealthy glance, which seemed to ask, "Does my explanation satisfy you?" I nodded my head. "Just so," I answered, gravely; "I've felt the same thing myself, though I'm not much troubled with nerves as a rule." There was another pause after thisthen : "I knew a man once," he began, staring at the fire, "who one night, as he sat alone, heard something tapping at the windowjust as we did a moment ago. At first he took no notice, he thought it was only the branch of a tree outside. But at last the sound was so persistent that it began to weary him, so he, too, went to the window and looked out." There He made a long pause here. fleeted across my mind a wild thought: Was this really some one else's story he was telling me, or was it his own? "And did your friend see anything?" I asked, with an affectation of indifference. "He saw a face pressed close against the window-pane. A dead, white face which he had last seen in its coffin, only now the eyes were wide open and looking at him." The low, monotonous tone in which he related this ghastly incident so impressed me, that I could scarcely refrain from shuddering. "Then he recognised the face?" I asked, involuntarily sinking my voice. "It was his "did he really hesitate before he uttered the next word, or did I only imagine it "his father's, who had died the year before under rather strange circumstances." I should have liked to have asked what those circumstances were. Perhaps he had been drowned! "And what did your friend do?" was the question I substituted. "Oh," with a yawn and a shrug of the shoulders, as though dismissing the subject, "he went mad, or shot himself—I'm not quite sure which." "A guilty conscience, I suppose," I ventured to remark. "Something of the sort. Shall we turn the subject? It is not a very lively one." 'By all means," I replied, with pretended alacrity. Then it could not have been his own story, after all; and yetI should have preferred to continue the conversation in the same channel; for the subject, though grim and improbable, fascinated me. It was a wild night, and, as I took my way home, it was with some difficulty that I succeeded in turning the different street corners, round which the wind seemed to lie in wait for me. But I trudged on, with my head down, and took little heed of its boisterous attentions, for I was too much occupied with my own reflections to be susceptible to outward influences. CATHERINE MAIDMENT'S BURDEN. A STORY IN TWELVE CHAPTERS. BY MARGARET MOULE. CHAPTER IV. "INDEED, Miss Arbuthnot, it is not that I am unwilling to lend you any horse in my stables. Need I say so? It is simply that I do not consider Queen Bess a safe mount for a lady." "That is all very well, Mr. StewartCarr," was the laughing answer. "I don't believe you though. The truth is that you think I am not horsewoman enough to be allowed your best mare." Mr. Stewart-Carr's expected guests-six in number-had all duly arrived at the Castle on the evening before. They were at this moment all assembled in the breakfast-room, which was a larger, more imposing room than the library, where Mr. Stewart-Carr had taken his solitary breakfast the morning before on his first arrival. It was hung with a rather dark old tapestry at each end; but the gloom of this had been successfully counteracted by the paintings which covered the oak-wainscoted walls on each side. They were excellently hung, and all by the best painters of the day; Mr. Stewart-Carr was a connoisseur in pictures. The table was covered with the ordinary appliances of a well-appointed breakfast-table. This table was so well appointed that not even the disarrangement consequent upon the end of a meal could entirely destroy the first effect; and it was decidedly disarranged, for the hour was eleven and breakfast was just over. The girl who spoke was leaning up against the frame of the large bow-window which overlooked the park, and made a cheerful break in the heavy tapestry at the upper end of the room. She was a very pretty girl of threeand-twenty, with fair, curly hair fastened in the most modern style at the back of her small head, fresh colouring, bright brown eyes, and a rosy, mobile mouth. She was dressed faultlessly, if complete compliance with fashion constitutes faultlessness, in a close-fitting tweed frock; and she wore one or two very handsome rings on her well-shaped, small hand. Miss Grace Arbuthnot was rich, and she was to be richer some day, being sole heiress of her mother's large fortune. She smiled defiantly at Mr. Stewart-Carr when she had done speaking, and the smile showed a pretty row of white, even teeth. "You know that is really it," she repeated. Before Mr. Stewart-Carr could find the words he wanted, she turned round with a quick, unexpected gesture. She turned towards a young man who was standing beside her. He was a very good-looking young man, of eight or nineand-twenty, tall, and very upright, with a simple, honest face, rather clouded at present; and he possessed that air of quick precision about him which seems inseparable from military life and training. He held a newspaper in his hand; but he appeared to be taking a very cursory interest in its contents, and a close observer might, indeed, have detected the fact that the advertisement sheet was outside. He looked up instantly, with a slight lifting of the cloud on his brow, as Miss Arbuthnot turned round. "Captain Carnforth," she cried, "come here and bear testimony to my horsewomanship." Long before she had finished her words, he had dropped his newspaper and joined Miss Arbuthnot and his host. "Is 'horsewomanship' the right word?" she said to Mr. Stewart-Carr, smiling. "I'm not sure if it is; but, anyway, Captain Carnforth knows I can ride." "I am aware of Miss Arbuthnot's powers," said Mr. Stewart-Carr to him, with a smile that took away from the stiffness of his words. "I have every confidence in them. I saw you ride in Paris, remember," he added to Miss Arbuthnot. "Oh, yes; so you did! was a horrid, hard-mouthed vicious besides, as you saw. manage him all right, indeed trust me with Queen Bess." Well, that brute, and If I could you might "It is Queen Bess I do not trust," said her master. "I know she'll behave like an angel with me," said Miss Arbuthnot; and as Mr. Stewart-Carr smiled at her energetic assertions she turned to Captain Carnforth. "Can't you say something more to support me?" she said. "I'm dying to mount her." Grace Arbuthnot was what unkind critics frequently called "a very horsey girl." But the unkindness in the comment was quite undeserved. Grace took an intense interest in horses. She understood them very well, and she loved them as enthusiastically as a woman does when she cares about them at all. If she was a little apt to introduce into her conversation scraps of "horsey" talk and racing information, it was from no other reason but that her very simple keen interest in everything connected with horses made her often forget that it was not shared to the same extent by every one; and also that there was a prejudice against the expression of it by women. She was not in the least what is known as a "fast" girl; she was thoroughly good-natured and womanly at heart. Mr. Stewart-Carr was the possessor of a very fine stud, and after dinner on the evening before she had insisted on inspecting them all under his auspices, and had set her heart on riding the animal in question, a beautiful, fiery bay mare. "You will lend her to me?" she added to Mr. Stewart-Carr, dropping her defiant manner, and relapsing into a pretty pleading one, that made her very attractive. "Please " "No," he said, firmly. "I am grieved beyond words to seem so rude to a lady, but I do really consider her a dangerous animal. I could not think of your mounting her." "And I could not think of doing without her," she said, resuming her former manner, with a saucy smile at him. "It is awkward, isn't it?" "Surely, Miss Arbuthnot, it would be madness to run risks." Captain Carnforth had been listening to the conversation for the last few moments in silence, his ingenuous countenance undergoing several changes meanwhile. The last expressed consternation, and he endeavoured forthwith to clothe this sensation in the aforesaid tentative words. "Risks!" she said, lightly. "What I'm trying so hard to prove is that there are no risks. But she was inter rupted. crushed any well-meant efforts on Captain Carnforth's part even if they had not been delivered, as they were, with a somewhat pointed disregard of his presence in the group. Mrs. Arbuthnot meant the disregard to be pointed. If she had not been a very well-bred woman, she would cheerfully have turned her back on Captain Carnforth. He was one of the trials of her existence at present. Mrs. Arbuthnot was a good-natured, good-hearted woman of about fifty. WithThe other four guests had divided, on out possessing any obtrusive match-making rising from the table, into couples. One characteristics, she was reasonably anxious, consisted of two elderly ladies, who had instantly engaged in a flowing conversation; the other of a lady who would have described herself as young, and a middleaged man, with a good sensible face. One of the elderly ladies suddenly broke off in the conversation. "Pray forgive me, dear Mrs. Kenyon," she said, "I must speak to my daughter for a moment." And it was her descent on the little group in the window that cut short Miss Arbuthnot's words. "My dear Mr. Stewart-Carr," she began emphatically and breathlessly-she was rather stout and the slightest exertion made her tones spasmodic "I surely heard you say something of a dangerous horse. Let me beg you not to listen to Grace if she wishes to ride it. She is so terribly rash!" Mrs. Arbuthnot cast a regretful look at her daughter as she spoke. But the girl disregarded her mother's look; for all she did was to turn a sunny, smiling face upon her. "You don't ride, dear mother!" she said, laughing. "You are no judge in this case of the perils of the way!" "I trust you, Mr. Stewart-Carr," Mrs. Arbuthnot continued, looking at him. "Indeed, Mrs. Arbuthnot, you may," Mr. Stewart-Carr said emphatically, and, as he spoke, his eyes rested on the pretty, pouting face with a lingering glance. "I don't mind any of you!" Grace Arbuthnot cried, defiantly. "Mr. StewartCarr, you are very unkind. I must ride her, and "—with a saucy look at him"I shall." as is every mother, probably, to see her daughter well and comfortably married. With this end in view, she entertained largely in town, and did her duty abundantly as a chaperone in the season, made up large house parties in their house in Scotland in the autumn, and, whenever it was possible, pursued with Grace a round of country-house visits. She wished Grace to have the opportunity of "making an impartial choice," she said; and as far as impartiality went, Grace had more than met her mother's views. She had distinguished no one whatever by her approbation, saying, as a general description of her sentiments on the subject, that she preferred horses to men, as being more interesting. This was all very well at first. But this year was Grace's third season, and Mrs. Arbuthnot began to get anxious. It would be terrible to have Grace spoken of as being "passée," or to have the interest in her which had been created by her mixture of frank unconventionality and sweet temper flag and disappear, as it too often did in the case of girls who had been too long in the social arena. So she determined that Grace must be married without delay-if possible, this year. During the course of what Mrs. Arbuthnot, with a great inappropriateness from a personal point of view, described as a "little run on the Continent at Easter, they had met Mr. Stewart-Carr. He had struck her at once as in every way very eligible, and she had taken a great liking to him personally. He had also been decidedly impressed by Grace, and it was Captain Carnforth gave a dismayed look with some effusion that Mrs. Arbuthnot at her, and seemed to endeavour to frame had accepted his invitation to spend a a new remonstrance. But whatever it fortnight at Moreford in July. might have been, it was unsaid. Mrs. Since then Grace had, in some theatricals Arbuthnot began a long series of remarks in town, made Captain Carnforth's acon rashness, recklessness, and thoughtless-quaintance. They had the love of horses ness, which in themselves would have in common, and he appeared to interest Grace more than any man had done yet, and they had improved the acquaintance, to Mrs. Arbuthnot's inexpressible annoyance, rapidly. Knowing Grace's independent nature, she wisely forbore to remonstrate with her daughter; but she promoted strenuously everything that could recall Mr. Stewart-Carr to her mind, and threw every possible obstacle in the way of her meeting Captain Carnforth. Her intense vexation, therefore, when she discovered that Captain Carnforth also knew Mr. Stewart-Carr, and was also to be a guest at Moreford, may be imagined. "It's an awfully good idea!" cried Grace Arbuthnot, enthusiastically, before any one else could speak. She was echoed by Miss Neville, who expressed herself, being a person of adjectival and adverbial conversation, to the effect that it would be "charmingly delightful." Every one else having assented, Mr. Stewart-Carr arranged to start at two o'clock, and was moving towards the bell to ring and order the carriage, when the door was opened, and a footman entered. He came up to his master, and said: "Miss Maidment wishes to see you, sir. She told me that she came by appointment, sir." Mr. Stewart-Carr pulled out his watch. "Twelve," he said, regretfully. "So it is. I am so sorry," he said to the little group, "but I have a business engagement with my agent this morning." However, nothing could be done to prevent it; and she thought it would be short-sighted to back out of the invitation when she was so very anxious to instal Grace some day as mistress of Moreford Castle. And also, she said to herself, that, "Do you go in for the employment of after all, it was strange if she could not women, Stewart-Carr ?" asked the middlemanage Grace. So she arrived at More-aged man, with a smile. ford with a firm determination to ignore Captain Carnforth, and unobtrusively to throw Grace and Mr. Stewart-Carr as much together as she could. She would on no account have interfered with a plan such as this, for riding, which would certainly throw them together, but that her motherly anxiety was really stronger than her diplomacy. She was very truly fond of her only child, and it was with real relief that she heard Mr. Stewart-Carr say, in answer to Grace's last defiant assertion about riding Queen Bess: "Never, Miss Arbuthnot, if I can prevent it!" He had far too pleasant an expression on his face for her to be in the least hurt by the firm tone; and she smiled at him as he continued: "Shall we leave argument for the present? I have a plan of my own I want to propose. Dare!" he called to the middle-aged man, "will you ask Mrs. Kenyon and Miss Neville to come here? And come here yourself, will you? I thought," he went on after a slight pause, during which the other three guests had joined them, "if you thought it a good idea, that we might drive this afternoon to Beaumont Priory. There are some wonderful old ruins there, I am told. I don't know them myself; but I believe they're well worth seeing. And I would tell them to put a hamper in the carriage, and we might have afternoon tea there." "Women! No! What do you mean, Dare?" "The man announced Miss Maidment," was the reply. "Miss Maidment! Fenton's an ass! He meant Mr. Maidment, of course. Dare," he went on, "take care of the ladies for an hour for me. See that no one is dull, will you, including yourself?" he ended, with a little laugh, as he opened the breakfast-room door. He closed it again behind him and crossed the hall, and went along a passage towards the library in some wonder. "Miss Maidment!" he said to himself with a smile. "What an idiot Fenton must be! I knew he hadn't many brains." He opened the heavy library door, thinking confusedly at one and the same time of his servant's stupidity and of the books he was to investigate. "Good morning, Maidment," he began, cheerily; then raised his eyes and stopped abruptly. Sitting in a heavy oak chair by the window, with two large books in her arms, was Catherine Maidment. She rose as he came up to her. "I am sorry my brother is not able to keep his appointment," she began, before Mr. Stewart-Carr could speak. "He isill this morning, and I have come to take his place, if you will allow me to do so." Catherine Maidment was very pale. Her eyes were heavy, and her lips more set than usual. Mr. Stewart-Carr looked at her without answering for a minute. He was so taken by surprise that he could not collect his ideas, or grasp sufficiently what she had said to answer it coherently. He said in the meantime, courteously: "Please do not stand, Miss Maidment." Then, seizing the one idea that was clearest, he continued: "I am sorry Mr. Maidment is ill-very sorry. Possibly our long, hot walk yesterday tired him." "I do not think so, but I am not sure," Catherine answered. "He is subject to very bad headaches, and he is suffering from one this morning." "Ah! then of course it is the sun. am really very sorry." I "Will you let me go through the books with you" pursued Catherine. "I think I know all that he would wish to say; and he would be very glad to have it done." "Go through the books with me!" echoed Mr. Stewart-Carr, forgetting his courtesy for a minute in his surprise at the idea. "If you please," continued Catherine, moving as she spoke towards the table, as if to lay the heavy books upon it. "Allow me," said Mr. Stewart-Carr, taking them from her. "I beg your pardon for not taking them sooner.' "I hope I am not late," said Catherine, looking at him as he hesitated and did not open them. "Certainly not," he replied. "The appointment I made with your brother was for twelve o'clock, and it is only just that now. But do you really wish to go through them ?" he said, looking at her. "Because, though of course I should be glad to get through them, and I hardly know when I may have another hour, they could wait; for I do not really like to trouble you, Miss Maidment." "It is no trouble," she said, simply. 'May we begin?" He looked at her once more, and coming to the conclusion that she was quite in earnest, drew two chairs to the library table. "I am at your service," he said. Catherine sat down, drew the books nearer to her, and opened the largest. "This," she said, "is the summary of accounts for the three years since your last visit here. The other is the record of the work done on the estate, and the exact expenditure it has cost. My brother said he had told you of his plan for keeping these, and you approved of it. the accounts first?" Shall we take "If you please," he said. Mr. StewartCarr expressed no more surprise; he felt no more astonishment. The curious position in which he found himself seemed to have become suddenly perfectly natural; he seemed to catch from the woman beside him her quiet, matter-of-fact way of regarding it. She began at the first page, and showed him, month by month and year by year, every item entered clearly and methodically, every balance correct; and every moment he spent in the inspection made him feel more accustomed to the situation, and more completely at ease in it. When he realised the fact that many of the entries were made in a neat, small handwriting, which he knew was not Frank Maidment's, he seemed to know instantly whose it was. And when she said, quickly, as she first turned a page on which it was, "I have, you will see, copied in some entries for my brother," her words came to him only as an expected confirmation. After half an hour's minute examination of the book he signed his name after the last entry, as acquiescing and approving of the whole, and Catherine opened the other book. "These are the improvements my brother has attempted on the estate," she said. "I believe he has written to you, though, and obtained your separate sanction to each of them." "He has, certainly," replied Mr. StewartCarr. And, as he spoke, a recollection came over him of various letters he had during the past three years received in Paris, Vienna, Florence, and many other places; letters which he had read and answered, though generally assentingly, rather cursorily. The curious contrast between the surroundings in which he had written those answers, and the surroundings in which he was now to criticise their results, struck him suddenly. He could not help glancing once more at the woman beside him. She was apparently not in the least aware of his look; her head was bent over the book, and her grey eyes were intent upon it. "The first is the road you had made from the Far Lane to the village," she said. She raised her head as he turned his to look at the entry. "I cannot tell you what a blessing it has been to the people out there. The children from the |