in Paris he might live at free quarters in the Hôtel des Miracles.

A few days later the Versailles troops were inside and the street fighting began. The events that followed are amongst the most terrible that ever happened, even in the bloodstained history of Paris. Balmaine witnessed scenes that burnt themselves ineffaceably into his soul, and made him, like M. Senarclens, almost despair of mankind.

In some of the streets dead bodies were as numerous as autumnal leaves in a country lane; pools of blood as frequent as pools of water after a storm. From La Roquette to Père la Chaise human carcases lay as thick as the bodies of slaughtered pheasants after a great battue. Horrible as were the excesses perpetrated by the Communards, the atrocities committed by the troops were still more ruthless. To insurgents captured in fight no quarter was given. Prisoners were sorted; those with blackened hands, or shoulders which appeared to have been bruised with the recoil of muskets were shot without mercy. The others were reserved for execution later on, or transportation to Cayenne. No consideration was shown either for age or sex. The mere suspicion of being a Communard, above all a petroleuse, was equivalent to a sentence of death without inquiry or trial.

One day, while Alfred was watching from the Place de la Concorde the fires in which the doomed city was wrapped, he saw coming towards him a crowd of howling demoniacs, half-carrying, half-pushing along what at first sight looked like a bundle of rags. The bundle of rags was a woman, limp, helpless, and nearly unconscious; her dress in tatters, her hair dishevelled, and her white, bloodstained face agonised with fear.

"La petroleuse! la petroleuse!" yelled the crowd, and as they reached the point where Balmaine stood an officer stepped forward and, drawing his revolver, blew out the wretched creature's brains.

Balmaine took the trouble to inquire, but cautiously, lest he should draw on himself suspicion of being a Communard, how it was known that the woman was a petroleuse-on whose evidence she was accused. But nobody could tell him. On le dit, was the only answer he received.

One of the last fights that took place was in the neighbourhood of the Hôtel des Miracles. As the other lodgers had fled, and Madame Merveille was hidden in the cellar, the correspondent of the Day had the house all to himself, and he watched the operations

partly from an upper window, partly from the porte cochère between the tobacco-shop and the hotel. He saw the first attack on the nearest barricade, led by a plucky little officer with a walking-stick, who at the first volley bounded into the air with a scream and then fell flat on his face, stone dead. The insurgents contested the ground inch by inch, and repulsed the troops in the street over and over again. In the meantime, however, another detachment had entered the buildings on either side, and, breaking with pickaxes and crowbars from house to house, they fired on the Communards from the windows, and finally took the barricade in reverse.

Alfred, always on the outlook for incidents wherewith to enrich his correspondence, obtained permission to accompany one of these housebreaking parties; and exciting and perilous work it proved, though he took care to expose himself to no more danger than he could help. To make a hole in a wall big enough to admit a man was generally an affair of a few minutes, whereupon the soldiers would rush through and begin shooting from the windows or, as happened more than once, descend into the street, and engage in a hand-to-hand struggle with the rebels, who, taken between two fires, and knowing that no mercy would be shown them, fought with the ferocity of despair. At length, as night was closing on the murderous scene, they were driven the few who remained alive-into the very centre of the Rue des Apôtres, and close to the Hôtel des Miracles.

And now the end of the struggle is at hand. The soldiers (whose movements Balmaine is following) have reached the house contiguous to the wine-shop, next door to the hotel. They are in a large room in the third story, and while one party is firing from the windows a second is breaking through the next wall. The air is thick with lime-dust and powder-smoke. Two or three wounded men are lying on the floor; every now and again a lump of ceiling, dislodged by a bullet, falls with a crash, and all in the room are as white as millers. A large building on the opposite side of the street is on fire, and the flames throw a lurid light on the fierce, ghastly faces of the fighters, all of them damp with sweat, and some of them streaming with blood.

"En avant, mes enfants!" shouts the captain, who stands, sword in hand, near Balmaine, as a big stone is knocked out of the breach in the wall, now wide enough to

showed that he was far from being at ease, and that his words were braver than his heart. He was playing a part, and his insatiable vanity went far to supply the place of cour

age.

"You would be rather surprised to get my letter. You had not heard, I suppose? "No; I had not heard."

"Well, I want you to do something for me; but in return I will do a good deal more for you."

"Yes," said Alfred quietly; "what is it?" "Restore your wife's fortune."

"How?" exclaimed Balmaine, startled but incredulous, and expecting some trick. "By giving you properly legalised copies of Philip Hardy and Vera Leonino's marriage certificates-a copy of those, I mean, that Hardy had in his possession before he died, and which he gave to Gabrielle Courbet to take to his father in England."

"How do you know he did this, and how came these documents into your possession?" asked Alfred, almost confounded by this revelation, which nevertheless seemed to bear the versimilitude of truth.

"I will tell you." And with a self-satisfied air, as if he were telling something that redounded to his credit, Corfe explained how he had come by the papers, and how he had sold them to Saintly Sam and Ferret. "They are shrewd fellows, both of them," he went on to say, "and there are not many, I expect, who ever got the better of the lawyer in a deal, though he does drop his h's and talks with a Lancashire twang. But I did. After going to Balafria to make cock-sure that the place had been burnt down and all the records destroyed, we went to Milan to make sure that the duplicate certificates in my possession were sufficient to establish the validity of the marriage according to Italian law. There was then nothing to be done but exchange the papers for a five hundred pound draft, as per agreement. About this we had some little difficulty, for I wanted the money before I parted with the security, and they wanted the security before they parted with the money. We got over it by meeting each other half way. I surrendered the documents with my right hand and received the draft with my left. But a good deal of this was rather make-believe on my part. I had taken my precautions in advance. The certificates I gave them were worthless--at any rate, for their purpose."

"You are trifling with me," said Balmaine sternly. "Did you not say just now that these documents were certified copies of the

original entries in the parish register of Balafria ?"

"And so they were," answered Corfe coolly, as he knocked the ashes from his cigar; "but, as I said just now, I took my precautions. While Ferret and his client were looking at the cathedral on the day of our arrival-I had seen it so often that I did not care to see it again-I went to a notary and got sworn copies of both certificates, properly legalised, and such as would be received as proofs of the marriage by any court in Italy and, as I take it, in England. I have them now, or, what comes to the same thing, I can tell you where they are and how to get them."

"Well," exclaimed Balmaine warmly, "I think I never heard of such a rascally business in all my life! I knew that Saintly Sam had not much principle nor Ferret many scruples, but I never supposed they were capable of taking part in such a cruel and shameful fraud." "Yes; they are a bad lot. But I was too many for them, sharp as they thought themselves," observed Corfe complacently. The imputation of being a rascal did not appear to disturb him in the least.

"You are going to tell me where these papers are, I suppose? You are anxious to make such reparation as lies in your power." "Reparation! Ah, I understand. Call it

what you like; only if I put you in the way of getting these papers, you must do something for me."

"What?"

"I have a mother, Mr. Balmaine," said Corfe, dropping for the first time during the interview his cynical manner; "I have a mother, the only relative for whom I ever cared, and who has never treated me badly. My father is a hard, severe man, who used to punish me unmercifully, and, I believe, begrudged me the very bread I ate. But my mother was always good to me," she shielded me from his anger, and got me out of many a scrape. A few years ago, unknown to him, she gave me a large sum of money to save me from a great dangernever mind what. I promised to give it her back, and I have not been able to keep my word. My father has found it all out, and he is awfully savage, reproaching her always, and making life a burden to her. should like her to have that money, and if I let you have these papers you must send it to her; that is my condition."

Now I

"You are not absolutely destitute of conscience after all, Corfe!"

"Of course I am not; what made you think so?" returned Corfe, with a look of injured innocence. "Well, how is it to be?"

"What is the amount?"

"A mere trifle; eight hundred pounds." "It shall be done," said Alfred, after a moment's thought; "always provided, of course, that my wife recovers her fortune by means of these papers."

"Of course. That goes without saying. And now I must tell you where they are. I made some money during the Commune, but lost it all in the crash, except two or three thousand francs, which, together with some private papers-those relating to the Hardy marriage among them-I hid in the house where I was taken, and where I had gone for the purpose of getting them. They are in an oaken cupboard in a room on the fourth story, which I once occupied. You will easily find it; and I shall give you a letter to the proprietor, authorising you to take possession of my effects, though there is naught worth taking but the money and the papers, which, as I said, are hidden. The back of the cupboard is panelled, and all the panels are fastened with four nails, save one, which is fastened with five. Remove it, and behind you will find a recess in which is a little iron box. That box contains the papers and the bank notes. Destroy all the papers but those you want; they concern nobody but myself."

"And the bank notes ?"

"Send them with the eight hundred pounds to my mother; say they were my last gift. And now I have a last request to make of you."

"And that is

"What! you won't shake hands?" asked the prisoner.

"With you? Certainly not."

"You have got all you require, and now you want to insult me, I suppose. But you need not get on your high horse; my family is quite as good as yours, let me tell you.'

"So much the worse for your family. I won't touch your hand, Corfe, because it is stained with blood. By a shameful fraud you deprived my wife of her fortune, you did your best to murder me; I firmly believe that you killed poor Esther Brandon, and you richly deserve the punishment you are about to receive."

With that Balmaine turned on his heel and left the cell. He never saw Corfe again. The director, of whom he inquired as to the time of execution, thought it would not take place until the following week, and promised to let him know betimes. But peremptory orders came early next morning, and within an hour of their receipt the culprit was shot in the prison yard.

Corfe failed to make good his boast of "dying game," for though he struggled hard to keep up an appearance of composure, he completely broke down at the last moment, had to be dosed with brandy, supported to the place of execution between two warders, and propped in a fainting condition against the prison wall.

CHAP. LXXIV.-DISPOSAL OF THE FORTUNE.

"WHAT would you say, Vera," asked her husband, on the day after his return from Paris, "if I were to tell you that you are going to get your Two Millions after all?"

"I should say you were joking; would not you, Cora?"

"I am not sure. If Alfred says so I should think he is very likely to be right." "Are you serious, cher ami?"

Quite. I did not like to say anything until I had seen Mr. Artful. Well, I saw him this morning, and after hearing my statement, he said there was no doubt the fortune could be recovered; and I took the liberty of telling him to begin proceedings for its recovery forthwith. Did I do right, Vera mia?"

"Whatever you do is right for me, mon maître," said the young wife fondly; "but tell us all about it, please; we are both dying of curiosity."

Alfred told them all about it. The two women were so deeply interested in the story and so much excited by the perils their hus

band and cousin had undergone, that the fortune question fell for a moment into the background.

"What an awful villain that man was!" said Cora, meaning Corfe; "it makes one's blood run cold to think of him."

"And he tried to have you shot!" said Vera, turning pale.

"That he might marry you," said Balmaine.

"How do you account for the existence of such a monster of iniquity?"

"You might as well ask me how I account for the existence of evil. Yet I have no doubt there are many more like him-as vain, as devoid of moral principle, and as hard and cruel-as potentially bad though not actually so wicked. But there are, fortunately, few equally unscrupulous who have Corfe's gifts and education, and opportunities for evil. Those who have, become, like him, great criminals."

"And always come to a bad end, it is some satisfaction to know," put in Cora.

"Not always, I fear. If Corfe had not got mixed up with the Commune I do not see how he could have been brought to book for the crimes we know he committed. It is well he did, for a man of his capacity and moral callousness is more dangerous than a homicidal lunatic. But enough about Corfe. Do you think " (smiling) "the fortune will be too great a responsibility for you, Vera?" "Not when you share it with me. we must turn it to good account." "How?" asked Cora, rather sarcastically. "I cannot conceive of anything more difficult than to dispense a large fortune judiciously that is if you mean to give it away."

But

"But we don't. Vera and I have discussed the subject often, and imagined what we should have done had the fortune come to her; and I think we are agreed that there are better ways of helping people than bestowing indiscriminate alms, subscribing to churches and the rest. We should give something for charitable purposes, of course-probably a good deal-but nothing is easier than to give money when you have plenty of it, and as often as not charity pauperises. I would rather try to prevent pauperism and help the poor without impairing their self-respect by making them recipients of relief."

"That is easier said than done." "True. But few things worth doing are done easily. You will perhaps say that what one man can do is hardly worth mentioning-that it is only as a drop of water to the ocean. Well, the ocean is made up of

drops after all; and if a sufficient number could be taken from it, even the volume of an ocean might be perceptibly diminished. From what I have lately seen, both in this country and others, I feel convinced that more good may be effected by raising people's ideals, improving their morals-using the word in its widest application-and combating erroneous views than by mere doles, however proper and carefully bestowed. For instance, if anybody could persuade the people of this country to lessen their expenditure on drink by five or ten millions a year, and eat-I exclude of course the indigent a little more moderately, he would do more good than would be done if every millionaire in the land were to sell all he had and give it to the poor. Adam Smith, who was the first to show the errors of the protective system, and the men who brought about the repeal of the Corn Laws, probably did more to diminish the sum of human misery than all the philanthropists of the century."

"Very likely," put in Cora, "but what is the practical application? Adam Smiths are not to be bought to order, and there are no more Corn Laws to repeal."

"There are other bad laws to repeal though, and I only mentioned Adam Smith as an illustration of the idea I wanted to convey-that the greatest and noblest of all functions is that of the teacher; second to it is the work of those who devote themselves to the repetition and enforcement of the teacher's lessons; for of all evils ignorance is the greatest-if men were wiser they would be both better and better off."

"You must have a newspaper, Alfred." "I mean to have one if Vera will let me?"

"Allow you! Of course I will; but why do you ask?"

"Because my newspaper will not be a money-making concern. I shall not conduct it on commercial principles. It must be sold at a low price or it will not reach the people whom I want most to influence; it must be well and brightly written, or it will not please my readers, and fearlessly written, without respect to persons and parties, or it will not please me. The columns of this paper will be open to all who have anything really good to say, and I shall pay my contributors handsomely, always on condition, however, that they sign their articles, for I will neither take the responsibility of other men's articles, nor ask them to suit their views to mine. And it is only right that the public