utmost resolution was not strong enough to
resist—when I said those five last words, "the
vestry of the church."

For a minute, or more, we stood looking at
each other in silence. I spoke first.

"Do you still refuse to trust me?" I asked.

She could not call the colour that had left it
back to her face—but she had steadied her voice,
she had recovered the defiant self-possession of
her manner, when she answered me.

"I do refuse," she said.

"Do you still tell me to go?"

"Yes. Go—and never come back."

I walked to the door, waited a moment before
I opened it, and turned round to look at her
again.

"I may have news to bring you of Sir Percival,
which you don't expect," I said; "and,
in that case, I shall come back."

"There is no news of Sir Percival that I
don't expect, except——"

She stopped; her pale face darkened; and she
stole back, with a quiet, stealthy, cat-like step
to her chair.

"Except the news of his death," she said,
sitting down again, with the mockery of a smile
just hovering on her cruel lips, and the furtive
light of hatred lurking deep in her steady eyes.

As I opened the door of the room, to go out,
she looked round at me quickly. The cruel smile
slowly widened her lips—she eyed me, with a
strange, stealthy interest, from head to foot an
unutterable expectation showed itself wickedly
all over her face. Was she speculating, in the
secrecy of her own heart, on my youth and
strength, on the force of my sense of injury and
the limits of my self-control; and was she
considering the lengths to which they might
carry me, if Sir Percival and I ever chanced to
meet? The bare doubt that it might be so,
drove me from her presence, and silenced even
the common forms of farewell on my lips. Without
a word more, on my side or on hers, I left
the room.

As I opened the outer door, I saw the same
clergyman who had already passed the house
once, about to pass it again, on his way back
through the square. I waited on the door-step
to let him go by, and looked round, as I did so,
at the parlour window.

Mrs. Catherick had heard his footsteps
approaching, in the silence of that lonely place;
and she was on her feet at the window again,
waiting for him. Not all the strength of all
the terrible passions I had roused in that
woman's heart, could loosen her desperate hold
on the one fragment of social consideration which
years of resolute effort had just dragged within
her grasp. There she was again, not a minute
after I had left her, placed purposely in a position
which made it a matter of common courtesy on
the part of the clergyman to bow to her for a
second time. He raised his hat, once more.
I saw the hard, ghastly face behind the window,
soften and light up with gratified pride; I saw
the head with the grim black cap bend
ceremoniously in return. The clergyman had bowed
to her—and in my presence—twice in one day!

The new direction which my inquiries must
now take was plainly presented to my mind, as
I left the house. Mrs. Catherick had helped
me a step forward, in spite of herself. The next
stage to be reached in the investigation was,
beyond all doubt, the vestry of Old Welmingham
church.

AN  IMPORTANT  MATTER

A MOST important matter is the vaccine
matter, which has now again become a subject
of particular attention in this country. Small-pox
recovers ground in England. The yearly
mortality from this disease was trebled in the
three years between fifty-five and fifty-nine. It
is again dreaded in many districts as an
epidemic. How does this happen? What are we to
do? In discussing these questions we shall derive
nearly all the facts we state, from an admirable
pamphlet just published by DR. ALFRED COLLINSON,
entitled "Small-pox and Vaccination
Historically and Medically Considered." Dr. Collinson
has given his heart to a thorough study of
the subject.

There can be no doubt that, until lately, secure
in the enjoyment of a vast relief from the old
rates of mortality, England, which gave
vaccination to the world, and yet herself made
a less perfect use of it than almost any other nation
in Europe, was content with letting tolerably
well alone. Now we are startled into some inquiry,
and by help of the indefatigable medical
officer of the Privy Council, Mr. Simon, who has
brought together in three reports more practical
truths about vaccination than any man before
him, it is possible that the best course of action
may be recognised and properly enforced.

It is easy enough to be content with even
an imperfect gain that is so vast a gain, as
the change from the old days when small-pox
depopulated cities, and blinded or
disfigured one-fourth of the human race—slaying,
in Europe only, half a million of people
every year—to the time when the chance
of being seized with it is for no man a
present dread. Let us glance back into history,
and fairly understand what Jenner achieved. It
is asserted and denied that small-pox was known
to the old Greek physicians. Probably it was not
known. But before the time of Hippocrates it
was a disease known in India and China. In
the sixth century it had reached Arabia, and is
said to have been carried into that country by
an Abyssinian army, which was attacked by it
when besieging Mecca. The date of this
incident corresponds nearly or exactly with that
of the birth of Mahomet. In the reign of the
Caliph Omar, small-pox was carried by the
Saracens to Egypt. The Arabian physicians
were the first who distinctly wrote of it, and
Rhazes first of all; but Avicenna was the first of
them by whom it was not confused with measles.
Averroes, at the beginning of the thirteenth