"Did you see nothing?" cried half-adozen voices as Susy entered, following Adolphe.

"We saw nothing at all; we met nobody anywhere," said he. "What is the matter with you all?"

Susy burst into tears of relief, and sanka wounded man, in another a woman in into a chair. The concierge looked on hysterics. compassionately at la petite dame as he called her, carried his pails into the kitchen, and returned on tiptoe, so as to show his friendly sympathy. How the morning passed Mrs. Dymond could scarcely have told; at twelve o'clock Adolphe appeared with a porter's knot upon his strong shoulders to carry her bag and her parcel of shawls. He had been vexed to fail her the night before; he was coming off when a messenger from Du Parc had met him with a parcel of letters, which he had been obliged to deliver. He had been about till one o'clock at night. "It was a real corvée," said Adolphe.

"But it was apparently in your service, madame," said he politely. "It is necessary in these days to make one's plans beforehand, and if people won't agree to reason, you must use a little compulsion." Susy did not understand very well what he was saying. She walked by his side, questioning him about Max and Jo. He could tell her very little, except that Du Parc had sent him on these errands. As they were walking along, side by side, suddenly a quiet-looking woman in a white cap and black dress crossed the street, and came up and caught Susy by the hand.

"Oh!" she said, "why do you stay here? You are English. What do you do here? It is not your home. Go home, go home; you don't know what dangers are about you here." Then she pushed Susy, and hurried on wildly.

"Curious woman," says Adolphe imperturbably. "She is not so far wrong. Come, madame, we must not be too late. There don't seem to be many people left anywhere," he said, looking about him.

"How strangely empty the streets are!" said Mrs. Dymond. The railway place is quite deserted, and the station, too, looks shut."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

AT THE TERMINUS.

THE station was shut, the doors and windows seemed closely barred, but as they looked they saw a side door which was held cautiously ajar. Adolphe kicked with his foot, and in a minute they were let in. Within was a strange scene of crowded confusion and excitement - baggage in piles, people in groups clinging together, women wringing their hands and weeping, men gesticulating. In one of the waiting-rooms there was a crowd round

Then they were told by a dozen voices of a fight which had taken place only a few minutes before in the open place outside the station. Some of the Federal prisoners were being brought up to the station to be taken to Versailles to be judged. It was a grave affair. They were accused of participation in the murder of the generals. The Federals had made a desperate attempt to deliver their men from the hands of the escort. The escort had driven off the attack, and fought its way into the station. The prisoners were all now safely shut up in the railway carriages and doubly guarded; the Federals had retreated whether for good, or whether they had only gone for reinforcements, it was impossible to say. Adolphe's face fell, though he tried to look pleased.

"They are all on a wrong scent," cries a man in his shirt-sleeves. "They have got hold of Papa Caron among others who never touched a fly. I saw the man who struck down Clement Thomas. I should know him again. He is not one of these. The old man was lying on the ground; they struck him down with the butt-end of their guns."

There was a murmur of horror all round, as the narrator, a natural dramatist, as most Frenchmen are, threw up his arms and re-acted the dreadful scene. Susy turned sick with horror.

"Your train will be starting in about ten minutes," Adolphe was beginning to say, when suddenly his tone changes. "Take care! take care! this way, madame," cries Adolphe, suddenly thrusting himself before her. "Up! up! on the seat!"

With a sudden cry the crowd began to sway, to fly in every direction; the great centre door of the station trembled under the blows which were being struck from without. There was a brief parley from a window, a man standing on a truck began to shout,

"Let them in! They want to deliver the prisoners! They will hurt nobody."

A woman close by screamed and fainted. As Susy was stooping and helping to pull her up upon the bench the two great folding doors suddenly burst open, letting in the

from which the Rouen train was starting. I not allowed a word. They were hurIt was approached by a turnstile, where ried off, and all three locked up in a they were met by an excited functionary guard-house, where they were kept during who let Jo and his return tieket through the turnstile, but angrily opposed the passage of Adolphe and the parcels. It was no use waiting to discuss the matter; the man was terribly excited, and time was pressing.

"Take the bag and find some places," Max cried, handing the things over the barrier to Jo.

the two days. Late on the afternoon of the second day they were moved to a second corps de garde. On their way from one place to another they fortunately passed Marney in the street. "I shouted to him," said Jo, "for I knew he would let you know, and I knew he had been at work, when Caron received a message through one of the soldiers - they were Susy paused for one minute. "Good- most of them half Federals that we bye, Adolphe," she said; “I shall never were to be rescued. I don't think he or forget your kindness — never, never." I were in very much danger," Jo added, Then she raised her eyes, looking steadily" but the third man had been a soldier, into Du Parc's face. All the passing flush and would have been shot, so Caron told of success was gone from it. He was me afterwards. He was a fine fellow drawing his breath heavily; he looked half an Englishman; they called him Rusanxious, harassed. Susy, too, was very sell, or some such name." pale, and she held by the wooden barrier. "II can't leave you in this horrible place," she said passionately. "How can I say good-bye?" and as she spoke she burst into uncontrollable tears.

"I shall come to you; don't say goodbye," he said; "we are not parting," and he held her close and breathless to his beating heart, and then in a moment more he had put her away with gentle strength, and pushed her through the gate. The wooden turnstile was between them, his pale face was immediately lost in the sway of the crowd; she found herself roughly hurried along; thrust into the first open carriage. Jo leapt in after her; the door was banged. There were other people in the carriage - some sobbing, some talking incoherently, all excited, exasperated, incoherent. "C'est trop! c'est trop! c'est trop!" one man was shrieking over and over again. "I can bear no more. I am going - yes, I am going!" Another young fellow sat with his face in his hands, sobbing. Jo was very silent, and sat for a long time staring at his fel. low travellers. It was not till they reached Rouen, and the reassuring German hel mets came round about the carriage windows asking what had happened in Paris, that he began to talk to Susy that he gave her any details of his escape and his captivity. He had met Caron that morn. ing after he left them at the villa, and was walking with him from the station, when they were both suddenly arrested, with a young man who had only joined them a few minutes before. They were

"Oh! Jo, I have got you safe," said Susy, beginning to cry again. "I can't think I can't speak —I can't feel any more."

66

Why should you?" said Jo practi cally. "Give me your ticket, for fear you should lose it," and then he settled himself comfortably to sleep in his corner, smiled at her, and pulled down the blind. Susy could not rest; she sat mechanically watching the green plains and pop. lar trees flying past the window. She was nervously unhinged by the events of the last two days; the strain had been very great. She longed to get back to silence, to home, to the realization of that one moment of absolute relief. She felt as if she could only rest again with Phrasie in her arms, only thus bear the renewed suspense, the renewed anxiety. But she knew at the same time, with grateful, indescribable relief, that her worst trouble was even over now, though prison bars, distance, a nation's angry revenge, lay between her and that which seemed so great a portion of her future life.

They reached home on the evening of the second day. The carriage was waiting at the station with Phrasie in it. The drive did Susy good after all these tragic, distorted days, during which she had been living this double life. Little Phrasie in her arms was her best comforter, her best peacemaker. A gentle wind blew in her face, a gentle evening burnt away in quiet gleams, the sky was so grey, so broken; the soft, golden gates of the west were opening wide, and seemed to call to weary spirits to enter into the realms of golden peace. The hedges on either side were white with the garlands of spring. The dogs, which

had been set loose, came barking to meet | lowed Susy's departure from Paris. Mar. them, as the wheels turned in at the familiar home gates. The servants appeared eager to welcome. Jo silently gave the reins into the coachman's hand, and sprang down and handed out his step mother with something of his father's careful courtesy. Little Phrasie woke up bright, delighted to be in her mother's arms once more and at home; she went running from room to room. It was home, Susy felt, and not only home but a kind, tender home, full of a living past, with a sense of the kindness that was not dead. Phrasie was put to bed; dinner was laid in the library for the young man and his stepmother. Jo sat still silent, revolving many things in his mind. From a stripling he had grown to be a man in the last few weeks. His expedition, his new experience, Tempy's marriage, his own responsibility all these things had sobered him, and made him realize the importance of the present, of conduct, of other people's opinion.

-

"Here we are beginning our life to gether again, Mrs. Dymond," said he at last. "We get on very well, don't we?"

"Very well, dear Jo," Susy said smiling, "until some one who has more right to be here than I have comes to live at the Place."

"What are you talking about?" says Jo, blushing up. "I don't mean to marry for years to come, if that is what you

mean."

"Ah, my dear," said Susy, with some emotion, "make no promises; you do not know; you cannot foretell. One can never foretell."

He looked hard at her. He guessed that Susy had not come back to them as she went away. She turned a little pale when she saw his eyes fixed upon her. It seemed to her as if her story must be written in her face. She might have told him she need not have been ashamed - but she felt as if his father's son was no proper confidant.

Long after Jo had gone to bed she sat by the dying fire, living over and over those terrible days, those strange, momentous hours.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CARON.

WE must refer those of our readers who take any interest in the subsequent adventures of Max and his contemporaries to the pages of the Daily Velocipede for some account of those days which fol

ney's eloquent pen, dipped in dynamite and gunpowder, flashing with flame and sensation, became remarked beyond the rest, and brought readers by hundreds to his paper. He was everywhere, saw every. thing, so graphic were his descriptions, so minute, so full of enthusiasm, that it was impossible for more experienced newspaper readers than Susy to say how much he wrote from his own observation, or what hearsay legends he translated into his own language, which, whatever its merits or demerits, did not lack in vivid. ness. Susy scanned the columns day by day with anxious eyes for more and more news. She found so much that she was almost bewildered by it, and scarcely knew what to believe; as for direct intelligence of Max, scarcely any came to her, though Madame sent letters from time to time from her farm at Avignon. But Madame's letters chiefly described her olive-trees, her cow, her pig, her eggs, and her toma. toes. Max delayed; he did not rejoin her as she had hoped he might have done; he left her to do it all, to engage the man, to contract with the hotels for her eggs and butter. Susy wrote to Madame from time to time, telling her about little Phrasie and the two boys, who were doing well at their school. In one letter Susy also described a domestic event, of which the news had reached Tarndale soon after her return from Paris. Uncle Peregrine Bolsover had died suddenly from the effects of a snake bite. He had left no will, but Charlie became undisputed heir to the Bolsover estates, and Uncle Bob now transferred to him the allowance which Peregrine had hitherto enjoyed; but this news did not interest Madame du Parc in the least. The price of butter had fallen, and her mind was preoccupied by more present contingencies.

As the events multiplied in France, as the storms raged more and more fiercely, those who had remained, hoping to stem the waves, felt every day more helpless; the sea was too rough, the evil blasts too high- what voice could be heard? What orders could prevail? Captains and leaders were powerless now. For the first time Caron lost courage and confidence. The murder of the hostages seemed like a death blow to the dear old man who could not believe in the wickedness of men whom he had trusted and lived with all his threescore years, during which he himself, though he did not know it, had been as a hostage for good and for truth

among the angry and the ignorant people. | to his quiet study, where old Madeleine He moped, his blue eyes were dim, his was at work against his return, a mad steps were slow. Max hardly recognized crowd had gathered in an adjoining street, him one day when he met him coming out and was pursuing with cruel rage a of his own doorway in the Rue de Bac. wretched victim who flew along a narrow He was carrying some letters to a post- alley, and came rushing across the paveoffice hard by; he seemed glad to take ment upon which Caron was walking. Du Parc's strong arm.