self-destruction; no fears, no misgivings withheld him now; he was strong with a fever-born courage. The oil-light, in the corner of the room, was burning dimly, flickering, spluttering, for it had been consumed almost to the water. But there was light enough for the unhappy youth to see the pistols on the table, he grasped one of themstretched his jaws widely apart-clutched his teeth on the barrel, and in a moment he had fallen heavily on the matted floor-a mutilated, shattered

corpse.

Never had a more fearful deed been accomplished under the impression of a more miserable error. The mother of that wretched suicide was as pure, as unspotted as the snow on the mountain top. Harcourt had been to the house, but only to see little Clara Doleton. The child had felt poorly, and had complained to her mother, who, having wept over the death-beds of so many children, experienced more uneasiness on her favourite's account than indeed the occasion warranted, and had sent off immediately for Dr. Harcourt just as he was dressing to go to the mess. Dr. Harcourt had attended one of her other children, and Mrs. Doleton felt an entire confidence in him, as well as liked him for his kindness and attention. Upon the present occasion Harcourt had spent nearly two hours by the child's bedside, watching the effect of some medicine he had administered; and just before he rose to take his departure, Mrs. Doleton had implored him not

to mention little Clara's illness to her son, for she knew how the poor boy doated on his sister, and how miserable it would make him to think that there was the smallest fear of losing the child. Harcourt had promised; and it was for this reason that he had hurried past Doleton in the compound, with the hope of escaping unobserved; and it was for this reason that Mrs. Doleton had denied all knowledge of Harcourt's visit to the house. Her confusion and embarrassment were partly occasioned by the distracted state of her mind, owing to her daughter's indisposition, and partly by seeing her son so much sooner than she had expectedso immediately after planning to deceive him. Never a very strong-minded woman, she had felt herself bewildered, and had not attempted to enter into an explanation with her son-one word might have absolved her, but she had not spoken it; and before the morrow night she was childless.

CHAPTER XV.

Containing a great deal of Love, Hatred, Forgiveness, and other Things of the Kind.

RETURNING now to Peregrine Pultuney and his associates, we trust that this chapter will not, like our last, be all shadow and misery. Dark pages there are in the book of human life; but it has mercifully been decreed that there should be an abundance of bright ones. Upon one of the darkest of the most dark it is very certain that poor Doleton's name was written; but Peregrine Pultuney and Julian Jenks were more fortunate; they had a place amongst the bright.

The brightness, however, was more perhaps in the hearts of the young gentlemen, than in their peculiar destinies. Their minds were not easily overclouded; and Peregrine, though he was in precisely the same situation, which had filled poor Doleton with measureless fear and unutterable wretchedness, was as light-hearted and merry as a

bird. It was nothing to him that the long cornet had arrived with the treasured indignation of six months within him—nothing to him that he had an "affair" in prospect, which might, for all he knew, be laden with death.

"I'll tell you what it is, Jenks," he said, one bright cold weather morning, just after he had returned from an hour's recreation amongst wet grass, fog, and horned cattle, under the name of field battery exercises, "I'll tell you what it is, Jenks, the Wellesley must have come off the ghaut by this time, and I dare say that if we go into Calcutta this morning, we shall hear something of long Drawlincourt at Spence's."

“What a deuce of a hurry you are in,” remarked Julian Jenks.

"Why," returned Peregrine "I want to have it over; I don't like to accept any invitations to dinner until I have got this business settled, for fear a disappointment should be the consequence, and my empty chair be visible at dinner, damping the spirits, as of course it would, of all the rest of the party."

"Oh!" said Jenks "you may make yourself quite safe upon that score; a subaltern more or less, whether killed by fever or bullet, can make no difference in the world to the society of Calcutta.”

"But an empty chair may," interrupted Peregrine, "make a great difference to the dinnergiver; I know that Mrs. Parkinson for one, is ready

to die of an uneven number. Besides, to tell you the truth, I am rather anxious to know what the long cornet has to say for himself. Where the devil could he have gone off to, just as his presence was so particularly wanted?"

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Why that I can't say," returned Julian Jenks; "and as for knowing, you may depend upon it that you have not the slightest chance of ever knowing the real truth of the history. Do you think it bable that the long skulker will let you into the truth? No, no, my good fellow, never think of it; you may just as well save yourself the trouble of asking the question, for you are sure to get nothing but a good fat lie by way of answer."

Having delivered himself of these observations, which, it must be acknowledged, showed no small acquaintance with humanity, at least such humanity as was Cornet Drawlincourt's, Mr. Jenks, or Lieutenant Jenks as we ought to call him, began to call vociferously in one quarter for coffee, and in another for cigars and a light; and having at length, by dint of no inconsiderable pulmonary exertion, (for a bachelor's servants are always out of the way,) summoned a khitmudgar and bearer to his assistance, he established himself in the verandah quite comfortably, with the coffee and cigars on a tea-poy before him, and the sun shining full upon him-for a cold-weather sun, at seven o'clock in the morning, is rather to be coveted than eschewed.

Peregrine Pultuney was not long about following