Amabel Vaughan.*

" I am engaged to my cousin Reginald , " was all she said . With a sudden cry of pain the young man sank down into a chair , and burying his head in his hands , sobbed like a child . There is something terrible in a man's grief , when it is so great a grief as this . To see a strong man weep is pitiful indeed . Mabel , with a woman's tenderness , tried to soothe him in vain with words of symand then the rush of

pathy , but at last , with a great effort , he mastered his emotion , pride came back upon him , and he was a man again . " Good-bye , Mabel , " said he , with a proud quietude of manner ; ' " good-bye , and may your cousin make yon happier than I could have clone . " " Nay , Mark , do not go yet , " she answered . " Will you not stay with us at least for to-day' ? " ancl seeing his pale face and the big tears trembling in his eyes , she fell at his feet saying : " Oh ! forgive me , forgive me : I did not know . " And he lifted her up very gravely and very courteously , took her hand , pressed it to his lips , but never said a word , ancl then went away .

CHAPTER IX . THE WEAPON SALVE EOR LOVE . IT was night , and the moon shone full upon the town of Wolverston , and lighted up the sea . The shadows now fell darker on the shade , and the brightness of the glow the waves seemed brihter from the contrast of the gloom . It was bitter coldand

upon g , the keen frosty air swept by in gusty eddies of rude wind , which sighed ancl moaned as if in mighty sorrow for some lost soul . Nothing disturbed the silence of the night but those sad winds which seemed to wail a mournf id requiem for the dead . But hark ! Was that a voice—a human voicethat cried above the winds' ? No ; it is but the scream of some night birddisturbed by the fierce howling of the

, coming storm . Again that shriek ; surely it is a drowning cry ! The great pier is shrouded awhile in the darkling of a cloud that is passing swiftly ghost-bke across the moon . A moment , and it is bright again—ancl suddenly , solemnly still . But where is the voice now—that despairing , awful shriek—that pierced the air

anon . Oh ! nevermore shall that sad cry be heard , ancl nevermore shall those sad eyes be seen . Two clays after the interview between Mark Seaton ancl Mabel Vaughan , some fishermen came to Mr . Seymour on important business . They said that one of them had been out the night before with his mate in their fishing boat , off the new pier at Wolverston , when they fancied they heard a cry of

distress . Imagining that it came from the neighbourhood of the breakwater , they rowed tMther with some difficulty , for there was a heavy swell on , but nothing could be seen . It was then high tide , and about two o ' clock in the morning . Being certain that something had gone wrong they laid by till morning , when , as the tide ebbed awayleaving the rocks bare at the end of the ierthey found the body

, p , of a drowned man . Nothing was discovered about his person which coidd identify him—indeed the body was fearfully mangled , ancl the face cut so as to defy recognition ; but on the pier above , from which he had fallen , —so it appeared , —there lay a pocketbook , with the name Marcus Seaton written therein , and a letter addressed to him at " The Elms , Wolverston . " . Little doubt remained in the minds of our Mends , then , that poor Mark had come