knew from spying where his keys were. She took out his cash-box and examined it. There were about six thousand pounds in notes. She first took two hundred-pound notes for necessary expenses, then she took three, then she took four, and locked up the cash-box, virtuously refusing to take another farthing. She came of a very decent banditti family, and the honour of her family appealed to her strongly not to take more than was absolutely necessary. She had actually locked up the cash-box, when the Neapolitan blood of her mother came through her head like a wave, and told her to take the whole seven thousand pounds. But then the blood of her father, who was a Genoese, and consequently a calculating man, a trader, came to her assistance, and said, 'The doctor knows that there is nearly ten thousand pounds here; if you take it all you will be

found out.' She invoked the Virgin for this suggestion, which doubtless came from above. She opened the box, took out another hundred pounds, and felt transcendently vir

tuous.

Is she the only person in the world who has thought that she has made her peace with God by committing a small crime when she might have committed a greater one?

She went to look at the sleeping man. He was sleeping very quietly. She had been familiar with him in old times, and now she was but his nurse. He was lying, as she thought, uneasily, and she tucked his clothes in. A yellow old paper dropped from the tumbled clothes. She picked it up, and, taking it to the candle, read it through.

'You are one artful sinner, James Drummond,' she said. 'I see now why you got rid of that woman Arnaud in the way you

did. After

your illness you were tired of her. I can't think what you ever saw in her, myself. Now I have you in my hands, my lad. The doctor, when you unlocked the cash-box and gave it back could never have seen this; even he would not have withstood the temptation. Why, this paper is worth a hundred thousand pounds.'

Well, we will deal with this wondrous

paper afterwards. It was worth nothing, but James Drummond and Lord Festiniog both thought that it was. Not to make any mystery, it was a grant of the whole Barri estates to Tom Killigrew, signed by Charles the Second. There was no date, and but one witness, whose name was undecipherable, but who had written pathetically under the word, 'Don't know what it is all about.'

She secured this paper, and then went to see after the sick man again. He was ex

tremely quiet-so much so that she moved the bedclothes from his face. She looked at him only once-she had seen the thing before. She went down to the doctor at once and said, 'I wish you to come up with me.'

The doctor came, but fifty doctors could not alter circumstances-James Drummond was dead.

CHAPTER XII.

LORD FESTINIOG'S CONFESSION.

THE present writer is not the only person who considers that the practice of confession, as carried out in certain Communions, is a most objectionable thing. Still there is much to be said for it by its admirers. It is used in almost all sects under various names. Some call it confession,' some religious

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advice,' some experiences of conversion.' All mean, to a certain extent only, the same thing the desire to confide to some one else what is too great a burden for your own heart. Lord Festiniog was one of the