ld go and tell him I
forgave him, now. I do think he deserves it, poor little man!"

"Yes, yes!" cried Matilda; "I'll go--I'll go at once! Thank you, Miss
Parkinson, for telling me what you have!" And then, as she remembered
some dark hints in Leander's letter: "Oh, I must make haste! He may be
going to do something desperate--he may have done it already!"

And, leaving Miss Parkinson to speculate as she pleased concerning her
eccentricity, she went out into the broad street again; and,
unaccustomed as she was to such expenditure, hailed a hansom; for there
was no time to be lost.

She had told the man to drive to the Southampton Row Passage at first,
but, as she drew nearer, she changed her purpose; she did not like to go
alone, for who knew what she might see there? It was out of the question
to expect her mother to accompany her, but her friend and landlady would
not refuse to do so; and she drove to Millman Street, and prevailed on
Miss Tweddle to come with her without a moment's delay.

The two women found the shop dark, but unshuttered; there was a light in
the upper room. "You stay down here, please," said Matilda; "if--if
anything is wrong, I will call you." And Miss Tweddle, without very well
understanding what it was all about, and feeling fluttered and out of
breath, was willing enough to sit down in the saloon and recover
herself.

And so it came to pass that Matilda burst into the room just as the
hairdresser was preparing to pronounce the inevitable words that would
complete the goddess's power. He stood there, pale and dishevelled, with
eyes that were wild and bordered with red. Opposite to him was the being
she had once mistaken for a fellow-creature.

Too well she saw now that the tall and queenly form, with the fixed eyes
and cold tinted mask, was inspired by nothing human; and her heart died
within her as she gazed, spellbound, upon her formidable rival.

"Leander," she murmured, supporting herself against the frame of the
door, "what are you going to do?"

"Keep back, Matilda!" he cried desperately; "go away--it's too late
now!"

A moment before, and, deserted as he believed himself to be by love and
fortune alike, he had been almost resigned to the strange and shadowy
future which lay before him; but now--now that he saw Matilda there in
his room, no longer scornful or indifferent, but pale and concerned, her
pretty grey eyes dark and wide with anguish and fear for him--he felt
all he was