thing which he suspects to be foolish and quixotic. When Mr. Bonamy, a few minutes later, entered his rarely used drawing-room, and discovered Jack and the two girls playing at Patience, he was in his most cynical mood. He stood for a moment on the hearthrug, his coat-tails on his arms, and presently he said to Jack, 'I am surprised to see you here.'

Jack looked up. The girls looked up also. I wonder you are not at the rectory,' Mr. Bonamy continued ironically, 'advising your friend how to keep out of gaol!'

'What on earth do you mean, sir?' Jack exclaimed, laying down his cards and rising from the table. He saw that the lawyer had some news and was anxious to tell it.

'I mean that he is in very considerable danger of going there!' was Mr. Bonamy's quiet answer. There has been a scene at Mrs. Hammond's this afternoon. By this time the story should be all over the town. Lord Dynmore turned up there and met him— denounced him as an impostor, and swore he had never presented him to the living.'

For a brief moment no one spoke. Then Daintry found her voice. My goody!' she exclaimed, her eyes like saucers. 'Who told you, father?'

'Never you mind, young lady!' Mr. Bonamy retorted with good-humoured sharpness. It is true! What is more, I am informed that Lord Dynmore has evidence that Mr. Lindo has been paying a man, who was aware of this, a certain sum every week to keep his mouth shut.'

'My goody!' cried Daintry again. I wonder, now, what he paid him! What do you think, Jack?' And she turned to Jack to learn what he was doing that he did not speak.

Poor Jack! Why did he not speak, indeed? Why did he stand silent, gazing hard into the fire? Because he resented his friend's coldness? Because he would not defend him? Because he thought him guilty? No, but because in the first moment of Mr. Bonamy's disclosure he had looked into Kate's face-his cousin's face, who the moment before had been laughing over the cards at his side-and with the keen insight, the painful sympathy which love imparts, he had read in it her secret. Poor Kate! No one else had seen her face fall or discovered her sudden embarrassment. A few seconds later she had regained her ordinary calm composure, even the blood had gone back to her heart. But Jack had seen and read aright. He knew, and she knew that he knew. When at last but not before Mr. Bonamy's attention had been

drawn to his silence—he turned and spoke, she avoided his eyes. 'That is rather a wild tale, sir, is it not?' he said with an effort, and a pale smile.

If Mr. Bonamy had not been a man of great shrewdness, he would have been tempted to think that Jack had been in the secret all the time. As it was, he only answered, 'I have reason to think that there is something in it, wild as it sounds. At any rate, the man in question has himself told the story to Lord Dynmore.'

"The pensioner?'

'Precisely.'

'Well, I should like to ask him a few questions,' Jack answered drearily. But for the chill feeling at his heart, but for the knowledge he had just gained, he would have treated the matter very differently. He would have thought of his friend only—of his feelings, his possible misery. He would not have condescended in this first moment to the evidence. But now he could not feel for his friend. He could not even pity him. He needed all his pity for himself.

'I do not answer for the story,' Mr. Bonamy continued, little guessing, shrewd as he was, what was happening round him. But there is no doubt of one thing-that Mr. Lindo was appointed in error, whether he was aware of the mistake or not. I do not know,' the lawyer added thoughtfully, "that I shall pity him greatly. He has been very mischievous here. And he has held his head very high.'

'He is the more likely to suffer now,' Jack answered almost cynically.

'Possibly,' the lawyer replied. Then he added, Daintry, fetch me my slippers, there is a good girl. Or, stay. Get me a candle and take them to my room.'

He went out after her, leaving the cousins alone. Neither spoke. Jack stood near the corner of the mantelshelf, gazing rigidly, almost sullenly, into the fire. What was Lindo to him? Why should he be sorry for him? A far worse thing had befallen himself. He tried to harden his heart, and to resolve that nothing of his suffering should be visible even to her.

But he had scarcely formed the resolution when his eyes. wandered, despite his will, to the pale set face on the other side of the hearth. Suddenly he sprang forward and, almost kneeling, took her hand in both his own. 'Kate,' he whispered, 'is it so?

Is there no hope for me, then ?'

She, too, had been looking into the fire. She could feel for him now. She no longer thought his attentions 'nonsense' as at the station a while back. But she could not speak. She could only shake her head, the tears in her eyes.

Jack waited a moment. Then he laid down the hand and rose and went back to the fire, and stood looking into it sorrowfully; but his thoughts were no longer wholly of himself. He was a typical gentleman, though he was neither six feet high nor an Adonis. He had scarcely felt the weight of the blow which had fallen on himself, before he began to think what he could do to help her. Presently he put his thought into words. 'Kate,' he said, looking up, and speaking in a voice scarcely above a whisper, 'can I do anything?'

She made no attempt to deny the inference he had drawn. She seemed content, indeed, that he should possess her secret, though the knowledge of it by another would have covered her with shame. But at the sound of his question she only shook her head with a sorrowful smile.

It was all dark to him. He knew nothing of the past-only that the faint suspicion he had felt at the bazaar was justified, and that Kate had given away her heart. He did not dare to ask whether there was any understanding between her and his friend; and, not knowing that, what could he do? Nothing, it seemed to him at first. Then a truly noble thought came into his head. 'I am afraid,' he said slowly, looking at his watch, that Lindo is in trouble. I think I will go to him. It is not ten o'clock.' He tried not to look at her as he spoke, but all the same he saw the crimson tide rise slowly over cheek and brow-over the face which his prayer had left so pure and pale. Her lip trembled and she rose hurriedly, muttering something inaudible. Poor Jack!

For a moment self got the upper hand again, and he stood still, frowning. Then he said gallantly, 'Yes, I think I will go. Will you let my uncle know in case I should be late?'

He did not look at her again, but hurried out of the room. It was a stiff, formal room, we know-a set, comfortless, middle-class room, which had given the rector quite a shock on his first introduction to it. But if it had united all the grace of the balls of Abencerrages to the stately comfort of a sixteenth-century dininghall it would have been no more than worthy of the man who quitted it.

(To be continued.)

374

THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS,

ONE warm bright day I was strolling up the banks of a little oued, or stream, about a hundred miles from Algiers, and, looking on along my path, saw a great line of brush-fire and smoke across the narrow neck of the valley a few miles ahead. That line of smoke marked the spot where an effort was being made to check the Great Invasion (the locust inroad into North Africa this year deserves to be spelt with a capital letter, extending, as it does, from Egypt to Morocco). The dense hordes of Acridians which had crossed the frontiers of their territory, the Sahara, leaving their fastnesses for their annual summer 'outing' in the North, had now thrown forward their advanced-guard so far as this fruitful valley, and, if the effort to check them should be unsuccessful, the banks of the stream would be both the cradle and the grave of many of their race.

Now, in their case, the word 'cradle' is synonymous with 'famine,' and 'grave' spells 'pestilence.' This reflection, however, I did not make at that time, for my attention was suddenly drawn to a flock of little birds, not bigger than wrens, that was passing steadily over a long low hillock on my left, heavily clothed in dark furze, and round the corner of which, as round a headland, entry was gained into another large valley that ran up north towards the sea (an offshoot from the valley in which I myself was walking). These little birds were of light yellow and grey, and I had not readily distinguished them in that bright sandy landscape till I noticed them passing over the dark clump of furze into the side valley. Now, looking upward with quickened attention, I saw them passing also overhead (but the entire stream of them set steadily into the other valley), and in an instant the knowledge flashed upon me that these little birds were the locusts.

They were the advanced-guard of the 'flight' that was winging its way up through the great line of smoke, as unconcernedly as though that futile effort to stay them had never been attempted. The smoke was, as I afterwards found by sad experience, villanous enough to choke an ostrich—an ingenious evolution from sulphur and other devilish ingredients; but the only effect it had upon

the locusts was that considerable numbers of them sat down in the grass to cough before resuming their road.

As I advanced, the oncoming swarm grew more dense, till the air was filled with the beating of their wings. At first, hat in hand, I had vainly chased one after another of them, attempting a capture; afterwards, finding my efforts fruitless, I had tied my handkerchief on to the end of my walking-stick butterfly-netwise, but with no greater success, for the Acridians were too light of wing and too wide-awake to allow themselves to be caught, and warily gave me a wide berth. But now they had no longer room for free play. Filling the valley from side to side, and occupying the air from the ground to a height (so nearly as I could judge) of about two hundred yards, they flew against me till I was glad to cover my face with my arms, leaving the rest of me to be harmlessly cannonaded by their bodies. Looking downwards from under my coat-sleeve shield, I generally saw six or eight locusts upon my waistcoat. They would turn themselves about, so soon as they settled, like a grasshopper on a blade of grass, and then, hop! away went two or three, whose places were immediately filled by new-comers.

I left the path and made my way up the hillside, till I was free from the dense stream of them along the bottom of the valley, and then sat down to look at about a dozen that I had now captured and caged in my handkerchief. They were the dreaded yellow and grey (the colour showing the sex) pilgrims. Their bodies, on an average, were as large as my little finger; their closed wings projected about half an inch beyond their tails, and were of much the same shape and texture as those of our English dragon-fly, two on either side, and in flight they had been moved somewhat like those of a butterfly, but with a faster motion.

As I opened the neck of the handkerchief slightly to catch a glimpse of my captives, hop! out came one, and away; he nearly carried my right eye with him, and as to a lock of my hair, I remain a little uncertain. The next fellow tried to creep out, and, tightening the circle of my thumb and forefinger around the passage as he came out, I took him with the other hand by his back and wings, and held him up for a closer inspection. He stared at me with great beady optics, with a sort of half-stupid, half-cunning grin on his sardonic, ape-like face, but said nothing, and moved neither hand nor hopper; presently, however, he rolled