as Madam may guess"--glancing
at his mistress. "John Cale has got his orders, and he'll set 'em going
when the clock has struck twelve."

"Oh, is there no one who will run to stop it?" bewailed Mrs. Carradyne,
wringing her hands in all the terror of a nameless fear. "There may yet
be time. Rimmer! can you go?"

Hubert came out of his chair laughing. Rimmer was round and fat now, and
could not run if he tried. "I'll go, aunt," he said. "Why, walking
slowly, I should get there before Rimmer."

The words, "walking slowly," may have misled Mrs. Carradyne; or, in the
moment's tribulation, perhaps she forgot that Hubert ought not to be the
one to use much exertion; but she made no objection. No one else made
way, and Hubert hastened out, putting on his overcoat as he went towards
the church.

It was the loveliest night; the air was still and clear, the landscape
white and glistening, the moon bright as gold. Hubert, striding along at
a quick walk, had traversed half the short distance, when the church
clock struck out the first note of midnight. And he knew he should not
be in time--unless--

He set off to run: it was such a very little way! Flying along without
heed to self, he reached the churchyard gate. And there he was
forced--forced--to stop to gather up his laboured breath.

Ring, ring, ring! broke forth the chimes melodiously upon Hubert's ear.
"Stop!" he shouted, panting; "stop! stop!"--just as if John Cale could
hear the warning: and he began leaping over all the gravestones in his
path, after the irreverent fashion of Miss Kate Dancox.

"Stop!" he faintly cried in his exhaustion, dashing through the vestry,
as the strains of "The Bay of Biscay" pursued their harmonious course
overhead, sounding louder here than in the open air. "Sto--"

He could not finish the word. Pulling the little door open, he put his
foot on the first step of the narrow ladder of a staircase: and then
fell prone upon it. John Cale and young Mr. Threpp, the churchwarden's
son, who had been the clerk's companion, were descending the stairs,
after the chimes had chimed themselves out, and they had locked them up
again to (perhaps) another year, when they found some impediment below.

"What is it?" exclaimed young Mr. Threpp. The clerk turned on his
lantern.

It was Hubert, Captain Monk's son and heir. He lay there with a face of
deadly whiteness, a blue shade encircling his lips.

JOHNNY LUDLOW.

WINTER IN ABSENCE.