CHAPTER VI.

UNMASKING.

NEXT morning, just about the time. when Ernestine was starting off to her hospital, armed with perhaps a little more patience than usual to face the manifold interests and experiences of a walk in the streets, Laura Doldy came down to breakfast. She had purposely waited until Dr. Doldy's carriage had driven away. She did not want to meet him again before Mr. Yriarte's call, for she had no new conjectures to offer as to the reason of that gentleman's absenting himself on the previous day. The incident annoyed her more than a little, when she had been representing him as so ardent a lover, and she felt as if she would rather postpone further mention of it until the occurrence was explained.

So she came down to breakfast later than usual, and lounged over it alone. She sat by the fire, her two pretty slippers on the fender, a novel in her hand, and a drowsy drooping look about her eyes, as if sleep had scarcely consented to surrender them. The footman informed the kitchen that Miss Laura looked lovelier than ever this morning, for she had all her languid ways on, that so became her. The little lady was quite aware

that these languid ways became her, and when a loud knock at the door was followed by a familiar voice in the hall, she suppressed the excitement which would have made her start to her feet. With

out raising her eyelids even, she quietly told the footman to shew Mr. Yriarte in; and she waited until he had nearly approached her chair, and she had heard the servant close the door, before she looked up at him.

"My angel! You are more beautiful than ever to-day!"

"Are you paying compliments in order to try and make me forget your neglect yesterday ?" Laura looked up as she spoke, and beheld Don Jose Yriarte standing by her side, with clasped hands and eyes bent sideways on her in an extraordinary leer of admiration.

"I could not come; but now I am here, and my angel of beauty will not be cruel to me." He drew a chair up as he answered, and sat down very near Laura, gazing on her the while with an insinuating ogle. He retained this smile on his face all the time he spoke to her, shewing an upper row of formidable-looking white teeth.

"You will remember," he went on, "how you saw me go into the office of Mr. Lingen, which you had just left. I found there

business for me which kept me all the day. It was very disagreeable; and how often did I not long for my charmer that I could not fly to!" This explanation, even helped out by that singular sideways smile, did not seem to quite satisfy Laura. She put on a little petulance, and tapping one foot on the fender, said impatiently, "I believe you might have come if you had cared

to.

"What! can you doubt your dear Jose? Did you find that nasty lawyer's office agreeable to stay in? do you like business? No, I know my Laura is too gay and brilliant to care for such things; and yet she will not be sorry for her poor Jose, condemned to business all the afternoon. I wondered, indeed, what could have prevailed on such a fair butterfly as my Laura to stray into that nasty office."

"Oh, I went to settle some money matters," said Laura, carelessly, with her eyes bent upon the bracelet on her arm, which she was clasping and unclasping as she spoke. She was thinking of the bracelet, not of the money matters, and was entirely unconscious that the

gaze which was so fixed upon her had become penetrative instead of admiring as soon as she cast down her own eyes.

"Money matters! they are disagreeable for a fair creature like my Laura. Well, soon your Jose will take away all that trouble from you, and will arrange these things, while all you will have to know will be that you have the finest jewels and prettiest horses in London. Ah, my Laura shall have such a pair of bays-your Jose understands the horses a lady should have-and you must drive in London in an open carriage. will not have my jewel hidden away in a brougham like I saw her yesterday, when she was

I

driving from Mr. Lingen's. And what was it you went to Mr. Lingen's to arrange?"

He had laid his hand on her arm while he spoke, and poured his words, so pleasing to Laura, softly into her ear. The question at the end came so naturally, and Laura was so lost in the sensations which he was adroitly imparting to her, that she replied at once. She would have answered him in any case, for she had no idea of concealing anything, but possibly she would not have spoken so straightforwardly if she had not been thinking of other matters.

I went to settle on my uncle some of the money which will come to me on my marriage. He will pay such debts as I owe, and I shall be released from the trouble of trying to understand them."

"How much have you settled on him?" asked Yriarte.

on

"Ten thousand pounds," answered Laura, her eyes still fixed the bracelet and her soul still full of the conviction that Yriarte was absorbed in contemplation of her profile. But she was doomed to be speedily startled from her dream; for as the words passed her lips, Yriarte took his hand from her arm and started to his feet. Laura looked up in surprise and saw standing before her, her lover, in so new a guise that she sat motionless, gazing on him in the deepest amazement. The man, who in his handsomest and most engaging moments was regarded by Dr. Doldy as a fair imitation of an amiable monkey, now shewed himself with the brutal part of his nature outward.. It was visible in every line of his cadaverous face-in the glaring of his sunken eyes, in the lips quivering over those prominent teeth,. in the feverish movement of the long white fingers, tipped with. long nails-he was in a passion.

Too much in a passion even to speak, apparently. For a moment he gasped for breath, while Laura remained dumb and amazed. But at last he found words.

"You tell me!-tell me to my face!-you dare to tell me this!" "What do you mean!" claimed Laura, her face growing white.

ex

"I mean,' "" stumbling over his words in the excitement of releasing his rage, "that you have no right to give away your money. You are engaged to me, and I understand that you have certain money. And now you actually give it away as if it were a matter of no importance."

went on Yriarte,

Laura was thoroughly frightened and alarmed at this first sinking of the lover in the man; she scarcely realised what his words meant, so great a surprise were they to her. She loved money, but she had never known the dire need of it; and was scarcely able to realise a state in which every other love is subordinate to that. She trembled as she sat in her chair; but she made a great effort to recall her habitual imperious"I think," she said, "that it is only of importance to myself. And I am sure you ought not to speak to me like this."

ness.

"But I ought. I cannot tell how you dare do this without first consulting me. I am very glad you have told me now, instead of deceiving me to the end. You must go again to Mr. Lingen and have that deed cancelled. You must destroy it-you must burn it."

Laura pushed back her chair and rose. Two little red spots were coming in her pale cheeks. "I shall do nothing of the kind," she said.

"" 'But you must. Do you not see that you must? You have no

Ten thousand," repeated Yriarte, contemptuously; "do you

call that a fortune? And what's an income?" he added, peevishly, "I don't care about that; you said you had twenty thousand downa sum just worth the having." "You are speaking rather plainly," said Laura; it seems, after all, that you care more for the money than for me.'

She said it, half expecting that the reproach would touch him. She had not, even yet, awakened to the full sense of this new brutality: he had so completely sheathed his claws while he was winning her that she was really staggered when she saw them.

"I mean to have it, at all events," he said, savagely.

Laura looked in his face, and for the first time in the interview fully understood that he was quite in earnest. She felt, too, that her words, her eyes, had no power over him. Her gaze produced no change in him, her reproach failed to bring him to her feet.

"Jose!" she exclaimed, "what do you mean by such words? You have taught me to love you, by the love you professed for me. Surely that is not gone! Surely you are not changed!

She laid her hand on his arm and looked with passionate appeal into his face. But even her touch seemed to have lost its magnetic power. He shook her hand from

him.

"Come," he said, roughly," we can't afford to quarrel. Just you destroy that deed and we'll have smooth sailing again."

"I cannot," said Laura, passionately, "how could I be so mean, so ungenerous? how could I face my uncle? Indeed, Jose, you do not know what I owe to him. He has been everything to me, a girl left fatherless and motherless. He has spent his own income, year after year, in keeping up a house and a style which he would not have needed for himself alone. He has supplied me with money for my own expenses-he has denied me nothing. I insist upon leaving the matter as it is, so that he shall be left with a few thousands, which will but inadequately repay him for these years of expense and care."

"Laura," said Yriarte, sullenly, "you know it is no use talking like that to me. We must quarrel unless you do as I say; and we cannot afford to quarrel."

"I don't care," cried Laura, now thoroughly roused, "you shew too plainly that it is my money you want. You shall be disappointed. I'll break the engagement even now. I can live without you, Jose Yriarte, though you may think I cannot.”

"Very well," said Yriarte, quietly; he was cooling down while Laura was growing hot with anger; "as things stand now, that will suit me very well. Only just bear in mind that you have broken the engagement yourself. It is your own doing, Miss Laura."

and

Laura staggered back leaned against the wall as if her limbs were inadequate to support her. She said nothing she was aghast. The tone in which these words were uttered, and the accent which he imparted to the "Miss Laura" struck her with a chill horror of conviction. All was indeed over between them-and how easily!

"Go!" she exclaimed, as soon as she found voice; "wretch! don't in

sult me with your presence. I hate the very sight of your false face!"

"Good-bye, Miss Laura," he said, and smiled. That smile, so familiar to her, now seemed new in its falseness, and filled her with loathing. She turned away, but as she moved, her eyes caught the glittering of the diamonds in the bracelet she wore. She unclasped it, and held it trembling in her hands, while her pale cheeks grew slowly full of dark colour. She turned again towards him, holding the bracelet. He had taken his hat and was moving towards the door. In a changed manner she looked at him, in a low voice began to speak.

But-remember-" she hesitated-stopped-and stood silent. Yriarte looked at her and laughed a little, low-toned, cunning laugh peculiar to him.

"Ay, remember: and remember that this is all your doing, Miss Laura. Good-bye." He put on his hat, and moved again towards the door. Laura stood as under a spell for a moment, and then suddenly cried out violently-"Take the vile trinket away-and Heaven defend me from the sight of your evil face again!"

She flung the bracelet at him, and then threw herself down in the arm-chair beside her, and buried her face in the cushions: striving, with that sort of pride which belonged to her, that he should not hear the sobs which were rending her bosom.

Yriarte stooped, picked up the bracelet, and with a glance to see that it was uninjured, put it in his pocket. He then quietly walked out of the house, pausing on the doorstep to light a cigar. The

excitement, of course, had not been altogether without its effect upon his nerves; they were about the equivalent of a cigar and a glass of brandy below par.