ment and at the clubs regarding the probable fate of Colonel Crawley, so lightly was his wife's character esteemed by his comrades and the world; but seeing the savage look with which Rawdon answered the expression of this opinion, Macmurdo did not think fit to enlarge upon it further.

Is there no way out of it, old boy?' the captain continued in a grave tone. Is it only suspicion, you know, or-or what is it? Any letters? Can't you keep it quiet? Best not make any noise about a thing of that sort if you can help it.' 'Think of his only finding her out now,' the captain thought to himself, and remembered a hundred particular conversations at the mess-table, in which Mrs. Crawley's reputation had been torn to shreds.

'There's no way but one out of it,' Rawdon replied― ' and there's only a way out of it for one of us, Mac-do you understand? I was put out of the way: arrested: I found 'em alone together. I told him he was a liar and a coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him.'

Serve him right,' Macmurdo said. Who is it?' Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.

The deuce! a marquis! they said he-that is, they said you

'What the devil do you mean? roared out Rawdon ; 'do you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt about my wife, and didn't tell me, Mac?'

The world's very censorious, old boy,' the other replied. 'What the deuce was the good of my telling you what any tom-fools talked about?

'It was damned unfriendly, Mac,' said Rawdon, quite overcome; and, covering his face with his hands, he gave way to an emotion, the sight of which caused the tough old campaigner opposite him to wince with sympathy. 6 Hold up, old boy,' he said; 'great man or not, we'll put a bullet in him, damn him. As for women, they're all so."

'You don't know how fond I was of that one,' Rawdon said, half inarticulately. Damme, I followed her like a footman. I gave up everything I had to her. I'm a beggar because I would marry her. By Jove, sir, I've pawned my own watch in order to get her anything she fancied and she-she's been making a purse for herself all the time, and grudged me a hundred pound to get me out of quod.' He then, fiercely and incoherently, and with an agitation under which his counsellor had never before

seen him labour, told Macmurdo the circumstances of the story. His adviser caught at some stray hints in it.

'She may be innocent, after all,' he said. She says so. Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in the house before.'

'It may be so,' Rawdon answered, sadly; but this don't look very innocent' and he showed the captain the thousand-pound note which he had found in Becky's I pocket-book. This is what he gave her, Mac and she kep it unknown to me and with this money in the house, she refused to stand by me when I was locked up.' The captain could not but own that the secreting of the money had a very ugly look.

Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon dispatched Captain Macmurdo's servant to Curzon Street, with an order to the domestic there to give up a bag of clothes of which the colonel had great need. And during the man's absence, and with great labour and a Johnson's Dictionary, which stood them in much stead, Rawdon and his second composed a letter, which the latter was to send to Lord Steyne. Captain Macmurdo had the honour of waiting upon the Marquis of Steyne, on the part of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, and begged to intimate that he was empowered by the colonel to make any arrangements for the meeting which, he had no doubt, it was his lordship's intention to demand, and which the circumstances of the morning had rendered inevitable. Captain Macmurdo begged Lord Steyne, in the most polite manner, to appoint a friend, with whom he (Captain M'M.) might communicate, and desired that the meeting might take place with as little delay as possible.

In a postscript the captain stated that he had in his possession a bank-note for a large amount, which Colonel Crawley had reason to suppose was the property of the Marquis of Steyne. And he was anxious, on the colonel's behalf, to give up the note to its owner.

By the time this note was composed, the captain's servant returned from his mission to Colonel Crawley's house in Curzon Street, but without the carpet-bag and portmanteau, for which he had been sent; and with a very puzzled and odd face.

6

They won't give 'em up,' said the man; 'there's a regular shinty in the house; and everything at sixes and

sevens. The landlord's come in and took possession. The servants was a-drinkin' up in the drawing-room. They said they said you had gone off with the plate, colonel,'— the man added after a pause :-' One of the servants is off already. And Simpson, the man as was very noisy and drunk indeed, says nothing shall go out of the house until his wages is paid up.'

The account of this little revolution in May Fair astonished and gave a little gaiety to an otherwise very triste conversation. The two officers laughed at Rawdon's discomfiture.

'I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home,' Rawdon said, biting his nails. You remember him, Mac, don't you, in the Riding School? How he sat the kicker to be sure! didn't he?

That he did, old boy,' said the good-natured captain.

Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gownboys, in the chapel of Whitefriars School: thinking, not about the sermon, but about going home next Saturday, when his father would certainly tip him, and perhaps would take him to the play.

He's a regular trump, that boy,' the father went on, still musing about his son. 'I say, Mac, if anything goes wrong-if I drop-I should like you to-to go and see him, you know and say that I was very fond of him, and that. And-dash it—old chap, give him these gold sleeve-buttons: it's all I've got.' He covered his face with his black hands; over which the tears rolled and made furrows of white. Mr. Macmurdo had also occasion to take off his silk nightand rub it across his eyes. cap

Go down and order some breakfast,' he said to his man in a loud cheerful voice.-'What'll you have, Crawley ? Some devilled kidneys and a herring-let's say-And, Clay, lay out some dressing things for the colonel: we were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my boy, and neither of us ride so light as we did when we first entered the corps.' With which, and leaving the colonel to dress himself, Macmurdo turned round towards the wall, and resumed the perusal of Bell's Life, until such time as his friend's toilette was complete, and he was at liberty to commence his own.

This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain Macmurdo performed with particular care. He waxed his moustachios

into a state of brilliant polish, and put on a tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat: so that all the young officers in the mess-room, whither Crawley had preceded his friend, complimented Mac on his appearance at breakfast, and asked if he was going to be married that Sunday?

CHAPTER LV

IN WHICH THE SAME SUBJECT IS PURSUED

B

ECKY did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion in which the events of the previous night had plunged her intrepid spirit, until the bells of the Curzon Street chapels were ringing for afternoon service, and rising from her bed she began to ply her own bell, in order to summon the French maid who had left her some hours before.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and though, on the last occasion, she rang with such vehemence

as to pull down the bell-rope, Mademoiselle Fifine did not make her appearance,-no, not though her mistress, in a great pet, and with the bell-rope in her hand, came out to the landing-place with her hair over her shoulders, and screamed out repeatedly for her attendant.

The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many hours, and upon that permission which is called French leave among us. After picking up the trinkets in the drawingroom, Mademoiselle had ascended to her own apartments, packed and corded her own boxes there, tripped out and called a cab for herself, brought down her trunks with her own hand, and without ever so much as asking the aid of any of the other servants, who would probably have refused it, as they hated her cordially, and without wishing any one of them good-bye, had made her exit from Curzon Street.

The game, in her opinion, was over in that little domestic i establishment. Fifine went off in a cab, as we have known - more exalted persons of her nation to do under similar circumstances: but, more provident or lucky than these, she secured not only her own property, but some of her mistress's (if indeed that lady could be said to have any property at all)-and not only carried off the trinkets before alluded to, and some favourite dresses on which she had long kept her eye, but four richly gilt Louis Quatorze candlesticks, six gilt Albums, Keepsakes, and Books of Beauty, a gold enamelled snuff-box which had once belonged to Madame du Barri, and the sweetest little inkstand and mother-of-pearl blotting-book, which Becky used when she composed her charming little pink notes, had vanished from the premises in Curzon Street together with Mademoiselle Fifine, and all the silver laid on the table for the little festin which Rawdon interrupted. The plated ware Mademoiselle left behind her was too cumbrous probably, for which reason, no doubt, she also left the fire-irons, the chimney-glasses, and the rosewood cottage piano.

A lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner's shop in the Rue du Helder at Paris, where she lived with great credit and enjoyed the patronage of my Lord Steyne. This person always spoke of England as of the most treacherous country in the world, and stated to her young pupils that she had been affreusement volé by natives of that island. It was no doubt compassion for her misfortunes which induced the Marquis of Steyne to be so very kind to Madame de Saint-Amaranthe. May she flourish as she deserves, she appears no more in our quarter of Vanity Fair.

Hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the impudence of those servants who would not answer her summons, Mrs. Crawley flung her morning robe round her, and descended majestically to the drawing-room, whence the noise proceeded.

The cook was there with blackened face, seated on the beautiful chintz sofa by the side of Mrs. Raggles, to whom she was administering maraschino. The page with the sugar-loaf buttons, who carried about Becky's pink notes, and jumped about her little carriage with such alacrity, was now engaged putting his fingers into a cream dish the footman was talking to Raggles, who had a face full