parted. The girl’s mother indignantly adopted the quarrel, and though aware of the state of her daughter’s heart, widened the breach between the lovers, and almost forced her into marriage with another. The end is easily guessed at. Amyce Charlton was a wretched wife, he who had deserted her an embittered, disappointed man. Once, and only once again in life they met. It was in a crowded street, and an unexpected encounter with the woman he had loved so dearly withdrew Sir John’s attention from the spirited horse he rode, and he was thrown and seriously injured. And then a woman, Hedworth Charlton’s wife, had fainted, surprised into a terrible confession of interest in one who ought to have been to her as a stranger, and too late—too late John Cloyse learned what a fatal mistake had been his. Amyce died (happily, perhaps, for her) in prematurely giving birth to a son. She died with her husband’s reproaches sounding in her ears, and—as one afterwards told John Cloyse—she died deliriously calling to him to save her. Not once or twice over did she say that he had broken her heart. And perhaps she said truth. It was a sad, sad history; no wonder it saddened all Uncle John’s after life, and made him shrink from intercourse with his fellow-creatures.
STAVROS MACDONALD RIMOUSKI.
I was brought up to the wholesale haberdashery business, but had the misfortune to lose my situation last May. It was on one of the few fine days during the month of June, that wearied with wandering the streets I strolled forth into the country, and found myself in a footpath leading to Hornsey, where, fatigued with the length of my walk, I laid myself down under a hedge for a few minutes’ rest. As I lay there, I observed a man approaching, dressed in a volunteer uniform, with his rifle in his hand. When he drew nearer I recognised my acquaintance, Stavros Macdonald Rimouski.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed, “Peter; what are you doing here, 2.30, p.m.? You ought to be in Aldermanbury.”
“So I should,” I replied, “but I’ve lost my berth. What brings you to this place?”
“Oh! I’ve just been having a turn at the Hornsey butts. I’m an idle man, like yourself. The wine-business in Crutched Friars didn’t pay. So I’ll sit down beside you, and hear your story, and you shall hear mine. Take a cigar,” said he, presenting a case, “a genuine Lopez.”
While Rimouski was talking, I regarded him earnestly with a sensation of repulsion amounting to alarm. Though a good-looking fellow, his features had at all times a Mephistophilean expression, but now their aspect was absolutely Satanic. I glanced hurriedly at his boots. He observed my movement.
“Too dandified for suburban walking, are they not? but never mind,” said he gaily. “I have something more important to think about, something that will produce boots and everything else I want in profusion.”
“I should like to know the recipe,” I rejoined, “for my cash is getting uncommonly low.” “Willingly,” he answered. “I want a partner, and you are the very man I should have selected, especially as Providence” (he laid a sneering emphasis on the word) “has thrown you in my way.”
He then proceeded to detail his project. It involved severe bodily exertion, a calm judgment, and an utter contempt of the value of character, liberty, and life. I listened for upwards of an hour to the musical voice of the tempter, as he poured forth his schemes into my ear. I thought of approaching poverty, the apparent hopelessness of obtaining employment—and consented.
The singular name of Rimouski may excite some curiosity. It is easily gratified. His father was a Scotchman, named Macdonald, who settled in Poland, and, from patriotic or other motives, adopted the surname of Rimouski. Being implicated in the national insurrection of 1832, so mercilessly crushed by the Emperor Nicholas, he fled to Greece, and there married a native lady. Their son, young Stavros, enjoyed a remarkably cosmopolitan education. Born and nurtured in Greece up to the age of ten, he received his schooling at Clapham, and subsequently studied at the university of Jena. Consequently he spoke half-a-dozen languages with equal ease, and in England always passed for a thorough Englishman.
“So you agree to become my partner in this enterprise?” said Rimouski.
“I do.”
“Then,” continued he, rising to his feet, and throwing away the remnant of his cigar, “you had better be enrolled in the fraternity.”
“I don’t comprehend.”
“You will presently. Oblige me by examining this bullet,” said he, handing me a cartridge from his cartouche-box.
“I see nothing but one of Eley’s cartridges, containing a common Minié bullet.”
“Please to make it an uncommon one then, by scratching upon it any mark you think proper.”
I took out my penknife, and scratched P. R., being the initials of my name—Peter Railton. I then handed the cartridge to Rimouski, who at once loaded his rifle with it.
“Now,” said he, “I am going to fire in the air. When I say ‘Catch,’ hold out your hand.”
He said “Catch,” fired, and in a few seconds I felt a sharp blow on the palm of my hand.
I opened my hand, and there was the P. R. bullet. I expressed my astonishment.
“It is nothing,” said Rimouski, “only a common conjuring trick, which Robin or Frikell would do better than I can.”
“But how about the enrolling?” I asked.
Rimouski opened his hand, and showed me a small circular mark, showing the tricolor—red, white, and blue, arranged in concentric circles.
I instinctively examined the palm of my own hand. There, on the spot where the bullet had struck me, appeared a precisely similar mark.
“Stavros,” I said, solemnly, “I don’t like this; I shall back out of it.”
“Nonsense, my dear fellow. What! on account of that elegant little emblem? Consider how conveniently it is situated. No one sees the inside of your hand. It might have been on the