A Terrible Temptation. Charles Reade Reade

to combat that foulest and direst of all a miscreant's weapons, an anonymous letter. She, in her goodness and innocence, never dreamed that any person she did not know could possibly tell a lie to wound her. The letter fell on her like a cruel revelation from heaven.

      The blow was so savage that, at first, it stunned her.

      She sat pale and stupefied; but beneath the stupor were the rising throbs of coming agonies.

      After that horrible stupor her anguish grew and grew, till it found vent in a miserable cry, rising, and rising, and rising, in agony.

      “Mamma! mamma! mamma!”

      Yes; her mother had been dead these three years, and her father sat in the next room; yet, in her anguish, she cried to her mother—a cry the which, if your mother had heard, she would have expected Bella's to come to her even from the grave.

      Admiral Bruce heard this fearful cry—the living calling on the dead—and burst through the folding-doors in a moment, white as a ghost.

      He found his daughter writhing on the sofa, ghastly, and grinding in her hand the cursed paper that had poisoned her young life.

      “My child! my child!”

      “Oh, papa! see! see!” And she tried to open the letter for him, but her hands trembled so she could not.

      He kneeled down by her side, the stout old warrior, and read the letter, while she clung to him, moaning now, and quivering all over from head to foot.

      “Why, there's no signature! The writer is a coward and, perhaps, a liar. Stop! he offers a test. I'll put him to it this minute.”

      He laid the moaning girl on the sofa, ordered his servants to admit nobody into the house, and drove at once to Mayfair.

      He called at Miss Somerset's house, saw Polly, and questioned her.

      He drove home again, and came into the drawing-room looking as he had been seen to look when fighting his ship; but his daughter had never seen him so. “My girl,” said he, solemnly, “there's nothing for you to do but to be brave, and hide your grief as well as you can, for the man is unworthy of your love. That coward spoke the truth. He is there at this moment.”

      “Oh, papa! papa! let me die! The world is too wicked for me. Let me die!”

      “Die for an unworthy object? For shame! Go to your own room, my girl, and pray to your God to help you, since your mother has left us. Oh, how I miss her now! Go and pray, and let no one else know what we suffer. Be your father's daughter. Fight and pray.”

      Poor Bella had no longer to complain that she was not commanded. She kissed him, and burst into a great passion of weeping; but he led her to the door, and she tottered to her own room, a blighted girl.

      The sight of her was harrowing. Under its influence the admiral dashed off a letter to Sir Charles, calling him a villain, and inviting him to go to France and let an indignant father write scoundrel on his carcass.

      But when he had written this his good sense and dignity prevailed over his fury; he burned the letter, and wrote another. This he sent by hand to Sir Charles's house, and ordered his servants—but that the reader knows.

      Sir Charles found the admiral's letter in his letter-rack. It ran thus:

      “SIR—We have learned your connection with a lady named Somerset, and I have ascertained that you went from my daughter to her house this very day.

      “Miss Bruce and myself withdraw from all connection with you, and I must request you to attempt no communication with her of any kind. Such an attempt would be an additional insult.

      “I am, sir, your obedient servant,

      “JOHN URQUHART BRUCE.”

      At first Sir Charles Bassett was stunned by this blow. Then his mind resisted the admiral's severity, and he was indignant at being dismissed for so common an offense. This gave way to deep grief and shame at the thought of Bella and her lost esteem. But soon all other feelings merged for a time in fury at the heartless traitor who had destroyed his happiness, and had dashed the cup of innocent love from his very lips. Boiling over with mortification and rage, he drove at once to that traitor's house. Polly opened the door. He rushed past her, and burst into the dining-room, breathless, and white with passion.

      He found Miss Somerset studying the deed by which he had made her independent for life. She started at his strange appearance, and instinctively put both hands flat upon the deed.

      “You vile wretch!” cried Sir Charles. “You heartless monster! Enjoy your work.” And he flung her the admiral's letter. But he did not wait while she read it; he heaped reproaches on her; and, for the first time in her life, she did not reply in kind.

      “Are you mad?” she faltered. “What have I done?”

      “You have told Admiral Bruce.”

      “That's false.”

      “You told him I was to be here to-day.”

      “Charles, I never did. Believe me.”

      “You did. Nobody knew it but you. He was here to-day at the very hour.”

      “May I never get up alive off this chair if I told a soul. Yes, our Polly. I'll ring for her.”

      “No, you will not. She is your sister. Do you think I'll take the word of such reptiles against the plain fact? You have parted my love and me—parted us on the very day I had made you independent for life. An innocent love was waiting to bless me, and an honest love was in your power, thanks to me, your kind, forgiving friend and benefactor. I have heaped kindness on you from the first moment I had the misfortune to know you. I connived at your infidelities—”

      “Charles! Don't say that. I never was.”

      “I indulged your most expensive whims, and, instead of leaving you with a curse, as all the rest did that ever knew you, and as you deserve, I bought your consent to lead a respectable life, and be blessed with a virtuous love. You took the bribe, but robbed me of the blessing—viper! You have destroyed me, body and soul—monster! perhaps blighted her happiness as well; you she-devils hate an angel worse than Heaven hates you. But you shall suffer with us; not your heart, for you have none, but your pocket. You have broken faith with me, and sent all my happiness to hell; I'll send your deed to hell after it!” With this, he flung himself upon the deed, and was going to throw it into the fire. Now up to that moment she had been overpowered by this man's fury, whom she had never seen the least angry before; but when he laid hands on her property it acted like an electric shock. “No! no!” she screamed, and sprang at him like a wildcat.

      Then ensued a violent and unseemly struggle all about the room; chairs were upset, and vases broken to pieces; and the man and woman dragged each other to and fro, one fighting for her property, as if it was her life, and the other for revenge.

      Sir Charles, excited by fury, was stronger than himself, and at last shook off one of her hands for a moment, and threw the deed into the fire. She tried to break from him and save it, but he held her like iron.

      Yet not for long. While he was holding her back, and she straining every nerve to get to the fire, he began to show sudden symptoms of distress. He gasped loudly, and cried, “Oh! oh! I'm choking!” and then his clutch relaxed. She tore herself from it, and, plunging forward, rescued the smoking parchment.

      At that moment she heard a great stagger behind her, and a pitiful moan, and Sir Charles fell heavily, striking his head against the edge of the sofa. She looked round—as she knelt, and saw him, black in the face, rolling his eyeballs fearfully, while his teeth gnashed awfully, and a little jet of foam flew through his lips.

      Then she shrieked with terror, and the blackened deed fell from her hands. At this moment Polly rushed into the room. She saw the fearful sight, and echoed her sister's scream. But they were neither of them women to lose their heads and beat the air with their hands. They got to him, and both