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VOL. I.]

EVERY SATURDAY.

ZELDA'S FORTUNE.

A FOURNAL OF choice readING.

BOOK IV. PALMAM QUÆ MERUIT, FERAT.

CHAPTER III. (continued.)

A HUNDRED times since her father's ruin Claudia had believed that she had drained the cup of trouble to the dregs, and each time she had found a deeper depth beyond. Now, in one day, she, in utter solitude, had to watch by the death-bed of her father, while she knew that he who was yet more dear to her was being tried for murder, and had already been prejudged by all the world. And she could do nothing but weep and bury her face in her hands -now thinking of the dead, and always of the living, who might be worse than only dead ere long. Even she guessed at last what was meant by despair and there was no one to write words of trust and comfort to her. She sat all day long like a Hebrew mourner, and laid her soul in the dust. She was unable to form a coherent thought. Past, present, and future were rolled up into one unending instant that outlasted the whole of what others called a day. Not that the day seemed long to her it was all Now, and had nothing to do with time.

She believed in judgment and mercy, and what had she done to deserve such a climax of evil? It was not her fault that, without knowing it, her heart during that lingering Now rebelled. She was no willing martyr to sorrow; and, unless the martyr's crown hangs before our eyes, no creed, however constant, can stand without trembling before Fortune's ninth wave of waves her tricumion of tricumia, compressing the force of all that go before into one. So now at one full draught Claudia felt at once the full flavor of all her sorrows and trials, large and small.

It was in vain she instinctively sought to blame herself for all - she remained blameless, even in her own self-despising eyes. And if she, without fault, had thus been visited, might it not be the same with him? Even hope came to her in too fearful a form -like a monstrous demon, that could not be looked upon without terror: a formless creature, clothed in all kinds of confused and impossible hues, with madness for its promise, even if by some

SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1874.

miracle it should be fulfilled — horrendum, informe, cui lumen ademptum. But if prayer needed words, if it even needed hope, it would be most useless when most needed. Her very hopelessness was in itself a prayer.

All the time that Harold Vaughan stood in the dock before the jury, she lay stretched by her father's deathbed, unconsciously praying for him with all the strength of her helpless desolation. Not a word formed itself on her lips or a hope in her heart, but she was abandoned to grief, suspense, and solitude. No flash of sympathy told her when he was safe from bodily death and free from prison chains. No news came, even at evening, and she lay prostrate through the twilight as through the day. There were no eyes to see the full abandonment to passion of one who had always hidden her slightest emotion from all eyes

even from her own.

It was late when a loud, monotonous voice under her window roused her with the words "St. Bavons Murder Verdict of the Jury." She sprang up, but dared not run to the window for fear of hearing more. But there was no need. Carol had travelled up as fast as the news, and was at her door as quickly as the newsmongers.

For one instant, as she looked hungrily and desperately into his eyes, she even forgot that her father lay dead in the room.

She thought she could read the worst, for never had Carol looked so gloomy as now. She felt the mist of faintness already seething up between her and him, but she nerved her ears to hear, as a victim nerves himself to receive the already descending knife of the guillotine.

"Acquitted Not Guilty," said Carol; but in so gloomy a voice that she could not understand his words. "Not Guilty," he said again, in a yet gloomier tone.

She caught at the nearest chair, and felt as if her wits were gone.

"Not Guilty," he said a third time; and then she sat down, and saved herself by a hair's-breadth from a swoon. She rose in an instant, and without a word knelt down by the bed and hid her face away. It was over at last, and she had shown no more emotion than Carol could account for when he looked beyond the bedside.

He shook the ashes from his pipe

[No. 1.

without heeding where or how they fell, put his hands in his pockets, and went slowly to the window. He saw what had happened, and knew not what to say or do.

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"Poor old gentleman!" he said at last. 66 Perhaps you'll be wanting me, Miss Brandt-I won't go just now, beyond your studio. Don't be illdon't give way, there's a dear girl please don't cry; I can't stand seeing you cry. Have some brandy hang it, what an idiotic fool I am !" No- - don't go," whispered Claudia through the tears that choked her without finding freedom through her eyes. She was one of those whose tears are as silent as their words who weep hard, like men. "Wait in the studio-I will follow you. I must hear of the trial before you go." He went, and she bathed her eyes and

followed.

"So it's all over," he said.
"I found him this morning- asleep
like a child."

"And you're all alone?"
"All alone."

"And about the trial? It was Not Guilty, sure enough; but the poor fellow's done for, as bad as if he was hanged."

"What do you mean? "

"Got off by a dodge-a slip between the rope and the neck, that's all. That's Law. He's innocent by law, and everybody thinks him guilty. That's Justice. And he's off to America, I take it, or enlisted in the name of Jones. That's — that's — Emigration." "He is gone ?

"Under water - yes, like most men in their time. That's Nothing."

He frowned and spoke so strangely that Claudia almost thought he had been drinking.

"We shall never meet him again, Miss Claudia, unless I chance to tumble over him at the Antipodes. Lord Lisburn himself cut him dead, and he went off without a word. He didn't come up by train, that I know. By Jove, though, it's hard, Miss Claudia."

"What more? Is there more still to come? Is he saved only to be lost again?

Well-yes

there is some more. I dare say you think I'm a queer sort of fish, Miss Claudia. And so I am. I'm the poorest man in the world, and I dare say I make you stare sometimes. That's my line-get yourself stared

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