"After a very short time, my youngest sister came out of the house to where we were, and just asking Madeleine if she would go with her to mamma, drew her away, and they both went into the house together." Monsieur Morlot paused at this period of his reading, to take breath, but neither master nor servant spoke a word, and very soon the latter, after glancing at the small amount of writing which remained for him to decipher, went on to the end. The "My dear doctor, I have no more to tell. At that interview between Madeleine and my mother there was, I believe, but little said. What words were spoken, were words of sympathy for what Madeleine had suffered, but none that could make her feel that her loving reception was a thing which she must look upon as a favour conferred. love that was to be hers was given freely; it was no slowly accorded concession, doled out with an unwilling hand. She was one of us. The struggle had been made in secret, while I sat upon the bridge and waited. What took place at that time between my mother and my eldest sister, I have never inquired, and over such things it is well sometimes to draw the veil. The issue of it was enough. It brought happiness to Madeleine and to me. "So ends the story, the beginning and middle of which are so well known to you already. Madeleine and I are together, to be, I fondly hope, parted no more. On a certain day next week, a ceremony is to be performed in our little village church, which will enable us to defy all the Tronchets and d'Elmars in creation, and which will give my dear Madeleine a protector for ever. "I have now only to tell you that very soon I hope to have the great pleasure of talking to you face to face. Immediately after our marriage we propose to start on our voyage to India, doing the journey, however, by easy stages. We shall join Madame d'Elmar in London, where she awaits us. She has been kept acquainted with everything that has passed here, but has resolutely refused to come to the house though most cordially invited by my mother herself. Perhaps she is right. It is too much to expect of her, after being shut up so long, that she should break through her habits of retirement and come among strangers-worse than strangers, too, to her, for my mother and my eldest sister had been slightly known to her in painful days gone by. We join her then in London, and shall all travel together to Paris, and then to Versailles. To that place Madame d'Elmar has become powerfully attached, and there, under the care of her old attendant Victorine, she will continue to live in the old apartments which it is fortunate that I was able to secure. The parting between the aunt and niece will, I am afraid, be a sad one, and Madeleine accuses herself of selfishness in leaving her. We shall remain to the full extent of time which my leave will admit of, at Versailles, in order to soften this parting to her as much as possible. I know one person at Versailles, at any rate, who will look after her when we are gone. "And now as we are to meet, I hope, so soon, I will bring this outrageously long letter to a close. I am very sorry if it has bored you, but if it has, you have only yourself to blame for it: the interest which you have always shown in the strange chain of events which seems from the first to have linked my destiny with that of Madeleine d'Elmar, having emboldened me to trouble you with this last act of the drama. 66 My mother and sisters, and especially my youngest sister, Amy, who is partly guilty of instigating me to the writing of this letter, desire me to send you the expression of their most grateful love; and I am, my dear doctor, "Always affectionately yours, "P.S.-I hope you will remember me very kindly to Monsieur Morlot, and tell him that if he should feel tired of your service, and anxious for a more changeful life, there is an opening for him in the family of an English officer returning to India, the said officer being in a position to offer him a highly adventurous career, with many chances of exercising his medical skill, abundant opportunities for the use of his leeches, and, above all, plenty.of horseexercise." There was a pause of some duration after Monsieur Morlot had finished his reading. "The chain of events which has brought all this about," said the doctor, at last," is, as the Englishman says, a sufficiently remarkable one.-Well, Morlot," he continued, lapsing out of a grave mood with all possible celerity, "what do you say to the major's proposal?" "I say, with monsieur's permission, that if the English gentleman would give me a thousand francs a week, it would not tempt me away any more." "Not even to be looked upon as a great doctor by the natives?" "Non, monsieur, I am quite satisfied with holding that position among the old wives at Versailles." "It is," continued Monsieur Morlot, after a little reflection, "very kind of the Englishman, all the same, to hold me in remembrance." "He is a brave," said Dr. Leboeuf-a conclusion in which it is earnestly hoped that the reader coincides. 331 CONCLUSION. THUS terminates the faithful chronicle of, after all, only six months of Henry Trelane's life. Those months were, however, eventful ones. It was the critical time of his career. When first we made his acquaintance, this man was beginning to drift. He was in considerable danger—in danger of falling into a listless, indolent condition, without what is called an object. He wanted waking up, and the earnestness of purpose latent within him needed. renewal. But he was worth powder and shot, and so circumstances came to his aid-circumstances which would arouse every good thing in him, and give the right bias to a nature that oscillated perilously. The events, then, through whose course we have been following Major Trelane, have occupied but a short space of time, but still the reader may have the consolation, if such it should prove, of feeling that concerning that space of time he knows ALL, and a six months' constant association with a man, supposing that we are behind his scenes, and that in the course of the time he is put to some |