towards the speaker in the doorway—the speaker who, white and trembling, opened her arms and received her on her throbbing breast. Harriet Wesden had come back again!

CHAPTER XI.

EXPLANATIONS.

Mattie shed many tears of joy at Harriet's return; she was a strong-minded young woman in her way, but the tension of nerve, and the reaction which followed it, had been too much for her, and she was, for a short while, a child in strength and self-command. For awhile they had changed places, Mattie and Harriet—Mattie becoming the agitated and weak girl, Harriet remaining firm, and maintaining an equable demeanour.

"Courage, Mattie!—what have you to give way at?" she said, at last.

"There, I'm better now," said Mattie, looking up into Harriet's face, and keeping her hands upon her shoulders; "and now, will you trust in me?—tell me the whole truth—keep nothing back."

"From you—nothing!"

"And if he has been coward enough to lead you away by the snares of your affection——"

"Affection!" cried Harriet. "I hate him! Coward enough!—he is coward enough for anything that would degrade me—and villain enough to spare no pains to place me in his power. Oh! Mattie—Mattie—what had I done to make him think so meanly of me?—to lead him on to plot against me in so poor and miserable a fashion?"

"You have escaped from him?"

"Thank God, yes!"

Mattie could have cried again with joy, but Harriet's excitement recalled her to self-command—Harriet, who stood there with her whole frame quivering with passion and outraged pride—a woman whom Mattie had not seen till then.

"Mattie," she said, "that man, Maurice Darcy, thought that if I were weak enough to love him, I was weak enough to fly with him, forget my woman's pride, my father, home, honour, and fling all away for his sake. He did not know me, or understand me; my God! he did not think that there were any good thoughts in me, or he would not have acted as he did. I have been blind—I have been a fool until to-night!"

She stamped her foot upon the floor until everything in the room vibrated; she caught Mattie's inquiring, earnest looks towards her and went on again—

"You and I, Mattie, must keep this ever a secret between us; for my sake, I am sure you will—for the sake of my good name, which that man's trickery has tarnished, however completely I have baffled him and shamed him. Mattie, he was at the Eveleighs' last night with his guilty plans matured. I had every confidence in him and his affection for me. I was off my guard, and believed that he was free from guile himself. At ten o'clock—beyond my time—I left the Eveleighs'; he was my escort to the railway station; he spoke of his love for me for the first time, and I was agitated and blinded by his seeming fervour. I told him of my promise to Sidney, and what I had done for his sake. I led him to think—fool that I was—that he had won my love long since. At the railway station he told me the story of his life—a lie from beginning to end—of his father's pride, of the secrecy with which our future marriage must be kept for awhile, away from that father—talking, protesting, explaining, until the train came up and he had placed me in the carriage."

"Ah! I see!" exclaimed Mattie.

"He followed me at the last moment, stating that he had business in London, and then the train moved on—for Dover!"

"Yes, he was a villain and coward!" cried Mattie, setting her teeth and clenching her hands spasmodically; "go on!"

"In less then five minutes I was aware of the deception that had been practised on me. I woke suddenly to the whole truth, to my own folly in believing in this man. He would have feigned it to be a mistake at first—a mistake on his own part—and for my own safety, alone with him there, and the train shrieking along into the night, I professed to believe him, and mourned over the clumsy blunder which was taking us away from home; but I was on my guard, and my reserve, my alarm, kept him cautious. I sat cowering from him in the extreme corner of the carriage, and he sat maturing his plans, and marking out, as he thought, his way. He confessed at last that it was a deeply-laid scheme to secure what he called his happiness. He swore to be a brother to me, a faithful friend in whom every trust might be put until we were married at Calais; but the mask had dropped, and my heart, throbbing with my humiliation, had turned utterly against him. I lowered the carriage window, and sat watchful of him, knowing every word he uttered then to be a lie, and feeling that he looked upon me as a girl easily to be led astray—a shop-keeper's daughter, whose self-respect was quickly deadened, and whose vanity was sufficient to lead her on to ruin. But I bade him keep his seat away from me, and give me time to think of what he had said—time to believe in him! We were silent the rest of the way to Ashford. My throat was choking with the angry words which burned to leap forth and denounce him for his knavery—he who sat smiling at the success in store for him. At Ashford, thank God! the train stopped."

"Thank God!" whispered Mattie also.

"I opened the door suddenly, Mattie, and leaped forth like a madwoman; he followed me to the platform, when I turned upon him like—like a she-wolf!" she cried, vehemently, "and denounced him for the cowardly wretch he had been to me. There were a few guards about, and one gentleman, and they were my audience. I claimed their protection from the man; I told them how I had been tricked into that train and led away from home; I asked them if they had daughters whom they loved to protect me and send me back again secure from him. Mattie, I shamed him to his soul!"

"Bravo!—bravo!" cried Mattie, giving two leaps in the air in her excitement; "that's my own darling, whose heart was ever strong and true enough!"

"Only her head a little weak, and likely to be turned—eh, Mattie?" said Harriet, in a less excited strain; "well, I am sobered now for ever—and every scrap of romantic feeling has been torn to shreds. I must have been under a spell, for it seems like an evil dream now that I could ever have thought of loving that man."

"And they took your part at the station?"

"Yes,—and gave me advice, and were kind to me, and he who attempted to deceive me skulked back into the carriage, muttering a hundred excuses, which I did not hear. The gentleman who had listened to my story, and been prepared to defend me, had it been necessary, followed Mr. Darcy to the carriage, added a few stern words, and then returned to offer me advice how to proceed. He was a strange, eccentric man, very harsh even with me in his speech, and disposed to preach a sermon on the warning I had had, as though I were not likely to take a lesson from my over-confidence, after all that had happened. But he was very kind in act, and meant all for my good, though he might have spared me just a little more. He consulted the railway time-tables for me, made many inquiries of the guards, whom he appeared to disbelieve, for he went back to the time-tables again; finally told me that there was no train till a quarter past five by which I could reach home. He showed me an hotel adjacent to the station, and left me there, after again upbraiding me for my want of judgment; and at a quarter past five—what an age it seemed before that time came round!—I left Ashford once again for home."

"And are here safe from danger—to make my heart light again with the sight of you. Well, my dear, we'll think it all an ugly dream—and shut him away in it for ever."

"And now—what will the world think of me?—how much of the story will it believe, Mattie?" was the scornful answer.

"What will the world know of it? You and I can keep the secret between us. Mr. Darcy will not boast of his humiliation. The old people need not be harassed and perplexed