bered very well Mr. Beechley leaving by train late one evening, a fortnight back. His departure was the more strongly impressed on his recollection because the young gentleman, who was always remarkably kind and freespoken, was on that night strangely unlike himself—unlike in every way."

And Jim the porter, who carried his luggage, noticed the difference too.

"In what way?" questioned Mr. Boyer. "Oh, for one thing, he looked and seemed very ill, I thought," rejoined the clerk.

"Ay, that he did!" responded Jim the porter, who had been summoned to the conference.

"And then," resumed the clerk, "his manner was somehow so altered; and yet I can hardly say in what way; but he seemed excited and flurried, and not a bit jokey after his fashion, but restlessly, even angrily, impatient of delay -wanted to be off at once, and was quite snappish and huffy about it, though he knew no one was to blame. Being after dinner, however, and aware that the young college gents had been more than usually gay of late in honour of Mr. Beechley, I paid no heed, but

put it down he had indulged a bit too freely, and no doubt that was it."

"Was he was he alone?" asked the rector, dreading to hear the answer.

"Yes, quite alone," replied the clerk.

"And what place did he take his ticket for?" rejoined the tutor.

"For London."

"For London?" repeated both gentlemen.

Worn out by the unwonted exertions and excitement of the day, the doctor decided not to continue the pursuit of his son further that night (it was now evening), but to proceed to London by an early train the following morning. He and Mr. Boyer returned, therefore, to the hotel at which the former had put up on his arrival in Oxford, the two gentlemen spending the remainder of the evening together.

In the course of conversation, the tutor observed,

"I could not but see, Dr. Beechley, that your manner was full of anxiety as you asked the clerk whether your son was alone: what did you apprehend? Who did you fear was his companion?"

"I feared that some girl-some woman—was tempting him on to his ruin, ruin of soul and body," replied the rector, sorrowfully; "andI fear it still."

"I thought so," said Mr. Boyer; "but as far as my experience of Charles Beechley goes —and it extends, you know, through several years-I do not think there exists a young man for whom a father has less cause to fear on that account than for him. I would, without hesitation, stake anything I possess at this moment that he does not entertain a feeling of that absorbing passion you allude to for any living woman. You perhaps remember the old saying, 'Love, like a cough, can never be hid,' and do you imagine, doctor, that during all my long and close intimacy with your son I should not have discovered at some one period or another that far more powerful thoughts and feelings held his heart in bondage than mere love of literary success, had such been the case? No; a misplaced attachment has nothing to do with it."

The poor father was, he said, inexpressibly relieved by this assurance from one whom he so much respected as Mr. Boyer, for of all soul

destroying evils he regarded such sinful attachments the most so, seeing, as he declared, they inevitably lead to every other wickedness. His perplexity was but the more increased, how

ever.

"Then, if neither love nor debt has had aught to do with his flight, what can have caused it?" exclaimed the bewildered rector.

"Ah, there I am as lost as you are," rejoined Mr. Boyer. "I honestly assure you I have not the faintest conception of what the reason is. And yet, strange to say, who can be supposed so well acquainted with it as myself?—I, who was so closely united to him in all his pursuits, and who, during the past six months especially, knew how, and where, and with whom every day, I may almost safely say every hour, of his time was spent. not; I am as ignorant as you are, in fact, so completely in the dark, I cannot see a spot of ground large enough to place one foot of suspicion upon even."

But I do

The next morning Dr. Beechley received a hurried few lines from Sariann. Enclosed was -could he believe his eyes!-yes, a letter from the recreant Charles.

It had arrived, Sariann said, by the evening post, and been immediately forwarded. The contents were these, written in a hasty, scrawling hand, bearing so little resemblance to the clear, bold writing for which Charles was before remarkable that scarcely could the doctor recognize it,—

"MY EVER-BELOVED MOTHER,-A circumstance has occurred, God help me! over which I have no control, obliging me to at once leave my country, my home, and, in one sense, the world altogether. Ere this reaches you, therefore, I shall be far, far away. For how long a period I shall be absent I know not: it may be for months, it may be years, it may be for ever. Meanwhile, try to forget me, and do not dream of following, or striving to learn further particulars. It would be worse than useless; for to no living mortal but myself is my dread secret known; and rather than that-but there, I have said enough.

"Your once happy, now wretched Son,

"CHARLES BEECHLEY."

Sariann concluded with an agonized request