no more right to search his establishment than "It is impossible, of course. "If your hypothesis is correct," said the old banker, "there must still be somebody behind Boss in the affair. Depend on it, that Hebrew would never return any thing he once got hold of. It is difficult to believe in such things looks like the freak of some hot-blooded youth. You don't know anybody of that kind in the neighborhood, do you, Severne? It seems a sort of Gads-hill adventure—a frolic of the mad Prince and Poins." VIVIAN, Who knew every thing, knew cryptography in its most intricate involutions. So, when he got hold of the Chief Constable's pocket-book, he addressed himself to deciphering certain mysterious memoranda which he saw therein. It is an elementary maxim that any enigma constructed by man can be solved by man; hieroglyphics and arrow-headed charac-in the present time, but this last transaction ters have been forced to yield their secret signification; and there seems no unsolved puzzle left except the epitaph on Ælia Lælia Crispis, which, in all probability, is a mere hoax. The majority of mankind may be of the Davus tribe, but there is sure to exist an Edipus somewhere. The amazing advertisements which fond lovers used to put in the second column of the "Times" have become more rare since some mischievous people took the trouble to decipher and explain them for the benefit of the public. Vivian made out the meaning of Severne's recondite entries, and found among them clear evidence that Boss was suspected. He acted with his customary promptitude; Severne, if on any reasonable pretext he could have instituted an immediate search of the jeweller's would have found noth-treat a highwayman. Perhaps he did this last ing to sustain his theory. But no such pretext could be devised. A sudden idea flashed upon the Chief Constable's mind. After a moment's thought he said: "There is Mr. Vivian, the gentleman staying at Broadoak Avon. It never occurred to me till this instant. The county patrol tell me he is often riding about the country at all hours of the night. And he has been abroad a great deal, leading a reckless sort of life, they say. He was at the dinner, of course; and there was much wild talk of the way in which you should trick for fun. But then, on the other hand, he Boss was a man of the highest respectability, a member of the Town Council, a giver of excellent dinners, and a liberal contributor to the local charities. How could he venture, on "He is a son of Sir Alured Vivian's," said mere suspicion, to hint at the possibility that the banker, "and there has been some hot blood the Jew was a receiver of stolen property? in the family. His great-grandfather was a deMost of the municipal authorities of River-termined Jacobite, and narrowly escaped atdale were of the average type-men with whom tainder. But I have always heard that this it was useless for Severne to take counsel. was far too clever a fellow to turn highwayman. There was, however, a single exception-Mr. | And he certainly can not want money." Paget, the banker, an alderman and a magis- Severne did not reply. He was trying to retrate, who, by education and connection, was call the incidents or the attack upon himself. lifted above the ordinary provincial level. Sev- He wanted to remember the appearance of his erne resolved to ask his advice in confidence. assailant. But the whole affair had been so Meanwhile, he made arrangements to watch rapid that his memory was baffled. the vicinity both of Boss's establishment and of the suspected public-house. He found Mr. Paget in the bank-parlor, occupied, not in financial business, but in the translation of Homer into English blank verse. This had been for some years his favorite amusement. Wherever he went he carried a small interleaved "Iliad," and worked away with his pencil whenever he had a moment to spare. The old gentleman took off his spectacles laid down his massive old-fashioned gold pencil-case on his beloved volume, and listened patiently to Severne's statements. "I am quite willing to believe that you may be right about Boss," he remarked, "but how are you to get at him? I have always thought there was something queer about the fellow. But without some tangible evidence, you have "There may be a clue in this direction," he said at length. "I have been trying to trace the bank-notes I received-there were ten fivepound notes-but it is almost impossible to find out any thing about them. One or two have names indorsed upon them, and I have communicated with the indorsers." "You must not expect much from that. Small notes are almost as untraceable as sovereigns. If a man writes his name on one, he will not remember to whom he paid it." "Well, I must watch this young gentleman in future, as well as Mr. Boss. But I propose to examine The Jolly Cricketers public-house to-day. I shall take it among several other houses of questionable character, so as not to make the landlord think we suspect him more than others." Severne, accompanied by a couple of his best officers, made his tour of inspection. He found The Jolly Cricketers unusually quiet and respectable. The landlord was ostentatiously grumbling over his want of custom. Severne, having gone through the upper part of the house, required to see the cellars. They were reached by a staircase cut in the sandy rock; half-way down there was a circular chamber, with rough seats cut in the walls. In this place the Riverdale people had been in the habit of enjoying cock-fights, when that noble sport was prohibited by the law. I am told that the hotels and taverns of the town are full of such arrangements, and that cock-fighting in Riverdale was a fashionable sport long after it had been elsewhere forgotten. "Perhaps the young lady would remember them. Would you object to asking her?" "Not in the least. I'll order my carriage and drive to my son's house, and be here again in half an hour. Come up as soon as you have finished excavating." Severne and his men were alone in the cellar when the stud was found, so there was no possibility of Boss's hearing of this cause of suspicion against him. But when the landlord saw a whole posse of police arrive with shovels and pickaxes, as if they were about to dig a mine, he lost no time in causing the jeweller to be informed of these perilous movements. Boss's alarm may easily be imagined. He had done a little quiet business in receiving stolen goods for many years. A stolen watch The cellars, with a few beer casks in them, was brought to the worthy landlord of The Jolwere dreary enough by the insufficient lightly Cricketers, he asked no questions, gave cerwhich the police carried. Severne examined tain money for it, and passed it on at once to them as carefully as he could, but the light was his employer. This sort of thing went on insufficient. Any body who has tried to con- quietly enough; but in an evil day Boss was quer subterranean darkness with candles will induced by hopes of greater gain to give harbe aware of the difficulty. The Chief Consta- borage to Walsh and his followers, thinking he ble sent one of his men to the upper air with a should find some way of getting out of the message to the nearest chemist; he presently scrape. Unluckily Vivian's fierce and resolute returned with a coil of magnesium wire. The temper was too much for him-he could not splendid flame soon did good service; for it keep the gang within moderate limits of darshowed clearly that there had been recent dig-ing; and now Walsh and the rest were beyond ging in the sandy substance of the floor, and the reach of the police, and there was no one that the form of the cellar had undergone some who could help him in his difficulty. alteration. "I shall leave you here in charge, White," Severne said to one of his men. "We'll have some fellows in with spades, and see what all this means. Were you ever down here be fore?" "No, sir; I think Cowan was." True, there was Vivian; but the Jew was afraid of him. He had seen him in a passion, had heard of his stern dealings with mutineers. There was no guessing what this hasty young gentleman might do if matters came to the worst. Besides, as he had ordered off all his followers, perhaps he also was beyond the reach "He shall come over, then. But what is of harm by this time. Boss was in a state of that ?" The magnesium light had suddenly flashed upon something brilliant which lay on the cellar floor. Severne picked it up. It was a diamond shirt-stud of remarkably fine water. "Don't say a word about this to any body," he whispered. "It is more like a clue than any thing we have found yet. Keep quiet, and we may make a good thing of this." abject terror. Sometimes he thought he would secure his safety by informing against his confederates. But what a terrible fall for him-a municipal magnate-to confess himself a felon! He could not bring himself to this decided step. There must be some way of escape, if he could only find it. When the most ingenious rascal is regularly driven into a corner, his wits often desert him. Boss saw the police must inevita Feeling somewhat sanguine, Severne started to give his orders, determined to excavate a lit-bly discover the communication between the tle, and see whether the cellar contained any two cellars, and that the discovery could scarcemore mysteries. But before returning to the ly fail to ruin him. He sat in his private cellar, he went hastily to the bank, and com- room, revolving the situation with a confused municated his discovery to Mr. Paget. brain and a haggard face, and every moment expecting to see the door open and a police "I can't help thinking," he said, "that this is just the sort of stud Boss would be likely to wear. man. It is rather too fine for a real gentleYou don't happen to have noticed any thing of the sort when you have met him, I suppose, sir?" "Why, yes, it is rather singular that I have. I was at his shop a month or two ago, with my granddaughter, who bought a brooch, and she said to me afterwards that she had never seen such splendid diamond studs on such a frightfully dirty shirt." man enter. Meanwhile Severne's men were hard at work. The earth was shovelled away with which the iron gate had been concealed, and that portal was discovered. But where did it lead? There was earth also on the other side; and if there had not been, of course Boss's gas had long been extinguished, and his cellars were as dark as the grave. Now it became necessary to call in the blacksmith, and his part of the business was tardy and difficult, for the gate was heavy and the lock of complex construc- | long as there is any record of them, which is a tion. Severne, fretting with impatience, avail- confoundedly long period; but I am the worst ed himself of the delay to pay another visit to Mr. Paget, to whom he reported progress. "Well," said the banker, "I am curious to know where you will emerge. It would be odd if you found yourself in some other person's cellar, after all." "And what does the young lady say to the stud?" "She thinks it very like those she noticed, but is not quite sure of it." "I got a clever detective down from London to do any work which my men could not manage. How would it be to send him to Boss's with the stud, under the pretext of having picked it up, and wanting to know its value ?" "A very good idea," said Mr. Paget. So the Jew was attacked on both sides-by force and by subtlety. As he sat ruminating in his private room, one of his shopmen knocked at the door, and announced that a person wished to speak to him. In a tremor of anticipation Boss entered the shop, and saw an individual who might have been almost any thing in the world-except a gentleman. He looked shrewd enough for a betting-man, respectable enough for a bank-clerk, genial enough for a commercial traveller. "Beg pardon for troubling you, sir," he said. "I'm a stranger here, and a few days ago I picked up a little article of jewelry, and I thought I'd inquire at a respectable shop what it is worth, and what I had better do with it.' "Perhaps this is a plant," thought Boss. "Come this way," he said; and showed him into the room he had just left. "It is a pretty thing," said the stranger, producing the stud. Boss recognized his own property, and felt reassured. He did not know where he had dropped it, and, fearing it might have been in the cellars, had made no inquiry. But now he did not doubt that it had been lost in the street. "This is mine," he said. "I shall be glad to pay you a fair reward for its recovery." "But how am I to know it is yours?" rejoined the stranger, taking it back from him. "I have two others exactly like it, which you shall see.' He went to the shop to fetch them. As he returned, he heard the sound of many footsteps, and was appalled to see a party of police, carrying lanterns and spades, ascending the steps which led from the lower part of his premises. CHAPTER X. VIVIAN SOLILOQUIZES. "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." "Ir is perfectly certain," thought Vivian to himself, lazily lying on a couch in his private sitting-room at Broadoak Avon, "that I am an awful fool. All our family have been fools so of the whole race. I suppose that it was that sun-stroke which did it: I was never quite a lunatic before, and now I am as mad as a hatter at a moment's notice. I wonder why hatters are madder that other people. "What ought I to do with a lucid interval, when I've got one like the present? I suppose the correct thing would be to start off to Colney Hatch, and request them to put me in a strait waistcoat. Shall I do it? I think not. It is pleasanter to sit here and smoke and drink iced cup. Only the worst of it is that I shall be doing something more desperate than ever. There's a fiend driving me to do things I hate and despise. I verily believe that story of Faust and Mephistopheles, only my demon is more mischievous than Faust's, and makes me do rascallier things. I am awfully afraid I shall carry off Eva some day, or that pretty plump Mary Ashow, that looks as melting a morsel as a beccafico. What the deuce am I to do? "Faust could see his Mephistopheles, if we believe Goethe. That was an advantage, at any rate. If I could see mine, I'd either twist his neck, or he should put an end to me. There's something mean about an invisible devil. Old Luther saw his demon, and hurled an inkstand at him; but mine is a mean scoundrel, and daren't face me. I'd like to get him on the summit of an awful cliff, a thousand feet above the maddest sea, and either throw him over or go down myself. Why can not the Christians work miracles, as their Founder did? I suppose the Pope professes to cast out devils. Shall I go to Rome and try the old gentleman? He likes the English; perhaps he'd consent to operate on an Englishman with plenty of money to spare, and no prejudices to lose. "There's no medicine for a mind diseased, according to the highest authority I know. My case is quite hopeless, if that is true; if these spiritual doctors don't know their craft. So I may just as well let my companion-fiend drive me to something desperate, and so make an end of every thing. Still, one may as well give one's self a chance. All roads lead to Rome, why shouldn't I get there by some extraordinary chance? I'll talk to a priest first. Plenty in Riverdale, no doubt. "Ah, but there's one nearer. I remember, in the autumn, I rode through Avoncliff, and saw the prettiest little gem of a Catholic chapel. Just below the Castle it was, with the river making green the margin of its small grave-yard. And close by were some conventual buildings. That's nearer than Rome, at any rate. I'll ride over and see what sort of a priest they've got there. Any priest may be Pope in time, so any priest is as good as the Pope. "Whose picture is that of the devil playing chess with some fellow for his soul? I've been at that game for a good many years, and every moment expect to hear Satan say, Checkmate in two moves.' But if I can get a priest at my elbow-not a mere Anglican, but a good black | So Vivian found himself in rather a pleasant Jesuit-perhaps it will be just the other way, parlor, whose bow-window looked across the and I shall be able to checkmate Cuvier's gram- Priory-fields. At his demand for refreshment, inivorous friend. Egad, I'll try. These fellows a neat-handed waitress appeared, and he was ought to know the moves. What a lark it supplied with a monster cheese of double Glou would be to shut him up! He'd go off in a cester, and some strong home-brewed ale in a blaze, I suppose, and leave a fine fragrance of huge silver tankard, whereon a talbot was emsulphur behind him. blazoned. Therewith came crisp lettuce and radish, and water-cresses from the neighboring brook. What a picture is a fair fresh sallad arranged by an artist's hand! The deft artistic fingers should of course be feminine. "Yes, I'll try." Whereupon Vivian packed a few things into a knapsack, ordered round his favorite bay mare, and rode away through the park. Just at the gates he met lady Eva in her pony-carriage. "I am going away for a day or two, Eva," he said. "Excuse me to Rupert. He knows my irregular habits." Avoncliff village is only about four miles from Broadoak Avon. It is a picturesque old vicus, with some of the oddest old-fashioned houses in it that I have seen anywhere-quaint picturesque buildings with rare old gardens, and a general look of cosiness and port-wine about them. It has three streets, which form a kind of scalene triangle, surrounding a large open slope of meadow-land where once stood the great Priory of Avoncliff, and where still remains the fragment of a gateway. Two or three rivulets intersect the village, bubbling through orchards, and supplying water to some tanyards in the valley before they reach the Avon. Between Avoncliff and the river are the enormous ruins of one of England's noblest baronial castles. Half the mansions in the county have been dug out of this vast edifice, yet its remains would still furnish material for a dozen rows of the Marquis of Westminster's huge buildings. It is worth while to pay Cerberus his necessary two-pence, and climb some winding stair in a remote turret of the lordly pile, and look from its summit across the plain which Avon brightens, while shadows of flying clouds traverse the rich landscape. Even in its ruin, Avoncliff Castle bears witness to the greatness of the extinct forces which caused its existence. The barons of England are gone, as absolutely as the patricians of Rome; if any body builds a castle now, it is the fenerator or the railway contractor. Not such castles as this, though; this nineteenth century has its capacities, but could no more produce an Avoncliff Castle than a York Minster or a Hamlet. Vivian, having made a hearty luncheon, confided to the pretty waitress that he should want dinner and a bed, and then strolled out to find the Catholic chapel which he recollected, and to carry out his new notion. The little edifice was soon found. Its grave-yard was cool beneath summer foliage, and on the grassy tombs were crosses and coronals of flowers. Especially did these abound in that part of the ground where a beautiful arrangement—all the young children lay. Delia lilia date, says an ancient Latin epitaph. Alas! how vain to strew flowers which loving fingers never more can grasp! The chapel door stood open; a dim religious light pervaded the interior; but Vivian could see candles burning on the altar, and fragrant flowers in pots around it. The atmosphere seemed rather overladen with odor. Vivian walked round the chapel and leaned over the wall, looking meditatively at the river which ran beneath. As he expected, he was soon joined by a priest. An Anglican parson, if he sees a stranger within his precincts, gets out of his way; a priest of the Roman communion does just the reverse. This priest was a man not more than thirty; tall, dark of complexion, with the darkest eyes Vivian had ever seen. They looked as if the light had faded in them- -as if they had burnt out; but now and then they shone with a sudden lustre. After an interchange of complimentary conversation, the two men began a serious dialogue. I quote a portion of it. Vivian. "I came here to find a priest." The Priest. "You are a Catholic?" Vivian. "No; I am nothing. I was born a member of the Church of England, you know. English gentlemen generally are." The Priest. "May I ask if you are married?" Vivian. "I am not. Ask what questions you please: my answers will usually be negative. I am a negation. But let me tell you briefly what I want. I am mad, sometimes. It seems as if a fiend possessed me, and drove me to do things entirely against my own will. You have heard of such cases?" One of the quaintest houses in the village is its principal inn, the Talbot-kept by one John Talbot, who is very proud of the coincidence of name and sign. A short ruddy old host is he, who brews his own ale and drinks it, and is himself the best possible advertisement of its quality. To this inn Vivian rode, gave his mare to a hostler, and entered the public-room. The majority of English country inns are surrendered to the commercial traveller, and a wayfarer of any other kind is horror-stricken by the furniture and the society of what is styled the "commercial-room." But the Talbot is saved from this by the fact that numerous visitors to Avoncliff Castle require entertainment. | times.' The Priest. "Of very many." Vivian. "Can you exorcise the demon ?" The Priest. "It has been done. It is possible, sometimes. At any rate, the Church can fetter the fiend. I am myself in your condition. My demon is bound so that he can not escape, but he tugs terribly at his chain some Vivian. "It is curious that I should come to tice of his subtle suggestions. There was methyou." od in his madness. He walked with him to the very gate of his domain, and sauntered back smoking, and confided to his cigar his opinion that he had nearly put his foot in it. The Priest. "It was appointed. I will tell you my story, but not now: I have a service to perform. Then, if you please, you can tell me yours." Vivian. "Come and dine with me at the Talbot at six. Afterwards we can talk at our ease." Rather to Vivian's surprise, the priest at once accepted. Then he entered his chapel to perform service, while Vivian lighted a cigar, and went to pass an hour amid the ruins of Avoncliff Castle. Vivian found his sacerdotal visitor very pleasant company. He was not like a good many of these gentlemen, an Irish alumnus of Maynooth; nor was he a mystic and sentimental Oxfordman, pervert by poverty of brain. He belonged to an old Cheshire family, which had never deserted the ancient faith. He was an admirable scholar, and possessed besides an immense store of recondite learning. After a simple country dinner of trout from the Avon, and a couple of capons, they sat over a bottle of excellent Madeira, highly recommended by the host, and talked very pleasantly. CHAPTER XI. THE CONFESSIONAL. "Confesser une femme! imaginez ce que c'est!" VIVIAN got, in the course of a few days, upon very intimate terms with his priest. He staid at the Talbot, but he passed a good deal of his time at the priest's dwelling, which was a residence specially designed for discomfort. And he gradually discovered, from slight signs and slighter self-betrayals, that the priest was an accomplished member of the Society of Jesus, and that he was quietly perverting the Protestant women of the neighborhood in a most successful way. There was the festival of a favorite feminine saint approaching, and the priest expected a large number of pretty penitents-many of them lambs from the rival fold. This discovery awakened in Vivian's brain But as the evening darkened, the priest grew that mischievous imp that acted as his evil gensilent, and after a long break in the conversa-ius. He rode over to Riverdale, and thence tion, during which Vivian enjoyed his cigar, he took train to London, and supplied himself with abruptly saidcertain chemicals, whereof chloroform was one. I always objected to ants till chloroform was "Now will you hear my story?" "With pleasure," said Vivian, and settled invented. Vivian returned from town with his himself into a listening attitude. little scientific package of murder and mystery Story-tellers, under ordinary circumstances, and mesmerism, and unscrupulously used it upon are bores, I allow; but there are times when I his sacerdotal friend. As a necessary conselike them. You have dined, you are smoking a quence, when the naughty feminine perverts of good weed, you have a bottle of sound wine close the neighborhood crowded to the confessional at hand. I maintain that it is rather amusing of the little chapel, Vivian was behind the bars. to hear a fellow prosing away at a tremendous He acquitted himself well. He heard a great length, like the affable archangel in "Paradise many secrets, and dealt mercifully with them. Lost, or that quaint "Marinere of Cole-But among the ladies who came to confess, there ridge's. I think I should prefer the seaman to were two whose arrival surprised him. One was the seraph. Lady Eva Redfern: the other was Mary Ashow. Vivian listened to the priest, and rather en- Both were easily accounted for. Lady Eva joyed his narrative, although it contained inci- came of a half-Catholic race, and was merely dents which, since this is not a sensational ro- returning towards an inherited pre-disposition. mance, I dare not print. The grand finale of the Mary had been at a boarding-school where there story was intelligible and suggestive. The nar- were a good many Romanist pupils, and the conrator was not a priest at the commencement. fessional had attracted her, as it does most girls. He held a commission in Her Majesty's army; And, when a priest come to Avoncliff with sinbut, the victim of demoniac possession, he com-gularly magnetic powers, it is not remarkable mitted a series of romantic crimes. Such was that these young women were drawn towards his statement. However, he was saved from him. eternal perdition by the sole possible methodnamely, becoming a priest. That was the obvious 'panacea. "Ah," thought Vivian, "I remember the beggar asked me if I was married. He wants to make a priest of me. Not if I know it! suspect that story of his is a tissue of lies. Now, if I were to confess to him all my slight improprieties, he'd have me in his power. think I'll wait." At any rate, they came on this day when a false priest was in the confessional, and they both told him their stories in a very simple fashion. The first to arrive was Mary Ashow. ViviIan, crouching in the sacerdotal niche, was amazed to see the innocent fair hair and soft blue eyes through the stone interstices; he of course knew nothing of her tendency to Catholicism. I So he made no response whatever to his priestly acquaintance's confession, and took no no The shy young maiden had heretofore becn troubled with no difficulties of confession. Hers had hitherto been trivial peccadilloes. She had |