life! Ever since Lewis met you yesterday he has been different. Oh, it's low, it's mean! I dare you to tell me any time when I ever gave you the least reason for thinking— the least encouragement. You know very well I'm not that sort!" the innumerable pigeons that trying your best to spoil my hovered and strutted around the tall flagstaffs. One o'clock had sounded, and the Piazza was almost deserted, when I saw a female figure coming towards me at a great pace. It was Erica Fane; she was unattended and evidently in a hurry; to her tight skirt, I think, it was due that she had the aspect of a hobbled horse attempting to canter. She came straight up to me, and as she drew near I realised with some amazement that she was quite unlike the Miss Fane whom I had formerly known. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were blazing, and her chin was protruded ferociously. She halted in front of me and surveyed me with a formidable stare. I saw then that she was in a furious temper. I "I want to speak to you!" she cried in shrill staccato. rose and pointed to a chair, but she remained standing in front of me. "Lewis says," she continued, "that he has had a long talk with you, and that it has cleared his mind. I don't know what that means, but I know that you have been setting him against me, and I hate you, I hate you," she dropped her parasol and clenched her fists. For 8 moment I imagined that she was about to make a physical onslaught upon me. I begged her to be calm. She tossed her head so that the feathers in her enormous hat nodded like the plume of Hector, and repeated the word with scornful emphasis. "Calm!" she cried. "Calm! I should think so, when you're "What on earth do you mean?" I cried. "Oh! you know quite well," she snapped, "and that's the reason why you've been talking to Lewis. Men are all the same, and I hate them!" I gasped, and yearned to laugh immoderately. The little fool had actually concluded that I was in love with her, and that jealousy had prompted me to drop poison into Arden's soul. This was too ridiculous, even from the Lordessa, and I resolved to give the idea a short shrift. "My advice to Mr Arden," I said, "was that he should marry you as soon as possible." She stamped melodramatically. "I don't believe it!" she cried. "You may have said so, but you said a lot of other things as well which were very different. was never like that before; I thought at first that he had gone mad." He I began to realise what had happened. Evidently, Arden had cleared his mind (as he called the process) during his conversation with me, and after working himself up into an eloquent mood had made a desperate bid for liberty, and had really succeeded in shaking the Lordessa's confidence in him, whereupon she had I feel just now as if I could never forgive that." Her face changed, and I saw tears at the corners of her eyes. "I believe you're wrong," I said, not altogether truthfully; "he's in one of his black moods, that's all." She shook her head vehemently. assumed at once that I had been able to make him do it. incited him to this course for reasons of my own. The assumption was quite preposterous: on the few occasions when I had spoken during my interview with Arden I had been entirely her advocate; but I perceived that I had made a vital mistake in allowing Arden to speak at all. I ought, I suppose, to have realised that the mere act of pouring out his whole story to another man would bring him face to face with the reality of the situation and excite him powerfully, so that he would no longer be content to drift, as he called it, but would begin to struggle once more. Yet, after all, could any one reasonably be expected to foresee such a contingency? "I'm extremely sorry," I said, "if I have done anything to cause trouble between you and Mr Arden. I assure you it was absolutely unintentional." The Lordessa bit her lip and looked at me with sullen eyes. "Oh, I dare say!" she said. "But you did it, all the same. He's changed; and I begin to think that I never really knew him. If he wants to get back my respect he'll have to take trouble." I stared at her blankly, for I had never dreamed that she was capable of any attitude towards Arden but one of adoration. He had evidently managed to shock her thoroughly. "I don't so much mind his turning against me," she went on; "he has done that before; he has a very queer temper. What I hate is that an outsider should have "No, I'm right," she asserted. "And you're at the bottom of it all. You may not have meant to be,-you say that,— but it's your fault. I hate you, and, whatever happens, I won't ever speak to you again." Once more she reminded me of a canary,a canary that was furious because it imagined that its lump of sugar was about to be taken away. I became slightly irritated; her shrillness was certainly provoking, and, after all, I had made some sacrifices. think you are too theatrical," I said. "I "Think what you please," she retorted tartly, " your thoughts don't concern me. But don't you try to interfere" she broke off suddenly and seemed to pant for breath. "Oh, don't you see?" she cried. "I love him, I love him!" She stood motionless, with her hands clasped tightly, staring at me, and then I realised that in spite of her tawdry clothes, her ridiculous theories, and her shrill voice, she was superb. The elemental woman in her blazed forth; she was no longer a featherheaded little governess, but a passionate soul that cried for its mate, and writhed in agony because it feared to lose the made life I sat there in silence, feeling insignificant. She remained standing in front of me for about a minute, then she turned and walked slowly away. For once her clothes didn't seem absurd. If Arden could have witnessed our interview, I thought, even his self-absorbed soul might have been aroused. one thing that I wandered restlessly through innumerable churches all the afternoon, and did not return to the Cà Loredan till nightfall. When I entered the door Marietta met me with the information that the English Signorina had packed her baggage and departed, canaries and all, no one knew where. That was the end of the episode. I saw her walking with Arden two or three times during the following week, then they disappeared from Venice. I heard nothing of their being married, and Mrs Perivale had no information. I left Italy with a strong sense of having played a small part in two acts of a drama, and of having been ruthlessly eliminated from the third. After some time I wrote to Arden at Trieste (Mrs Perivale knew the name of the shipping firm which employed him), but I received no answer. The third act remained a mysterious blank. A year ago, and two years after the events in Venice, I VIII. was reading a paper in a café when I came upon the following paragraph: The Count and Countess Federowski, who have been on trial for political conspiracy, were yesterday sentenced at St Petersburg to twenty years' confinement in Siberia. They will be permitted permitted to take their younger children with them into exile. Their English governess, Miss Erica Fane, has obtained leave to accompany them. Poor Lordessa! I wonder if she remembers the Cà Loredan. I don't think, really, that I want to meet Lewis Arden again. STALKING THE RED DEER OF OTAGO. BY A. E. LEATHAM. I DOUBT whether anything in the way of sport can surpass red deer stalking in the highlands of Otago. Gorgeous scenery a climate so bracing that a man can walk from sunrise to sunset without feeling unduly tired; glorious trophies in the form of stags' horns far surpassing anything to be found in our own country! What more can the heart of hunter desire? The district is a perfect paradise for deer, which have plenty of food both winter and summer, unlimited ranges of mountains and valleys to roam over, high grassy slopes to feed on in fine weather, and thick evergreen beech forests wherein to find shelter during bad weather. The first deer were imported from Lord Dalhousie's forest in Scotland. Eight yearlings, turned down near Lake Hawea in 1868, have increased to many thousands, covering an area of some three thousand square miles. And whilst still keeping the beautiful wild and graceful heads of their ancestors, they have developed length and strength of horn far superior to those of any stags in Great Britain at the present day. On my deerstalking trips I considered myself unlucky if I did not get at least three stags with horns over forty inches in length, and I am prepared to believe that in an exceptionally good season horns might be found to measure at least another ten inches. I noticed that the farther west I went, the better the heads were. My conviction is that the heads in the heavy forest near the west coast are equal to any of the forest heads of Central Europe. I was the first Englishman to shoot in the Hunter River Valley. On my first visit to the country in 1902 the Secretary of the Acclimatisation Society at Dunedin told me that an Australian sportsman had found tracks of deer in the river-bed of the Hunter, though he had not actually seen any deer, so I settled to go there. Travelling to Pembroke by train and coach over the Crown Range, I drove on to Hawea Flat, and taking packhorses there, reached the mouth of the Hunter in four days from Dunedin. Then gradually moving my camp up the river for thirty miles to Mount Macpherson, I explored all the Hunter Valley, and did so well that in the following season the valley was full of sportsmen. The proverb which deals with cooks and broth conveys a salutary warning to the big-game hunter, so I spent most of my time that year in the side valleys, and in that and three subsequent seasons explored every side valley up Lake Hawea and the Hunter, some of which, owing to the difficulty of approaching them through the rocky gorges, no Englishman had ever entered. There are as many as twenty valleys on the west side, from ten to twelve miles in length, most of them holding deer; on the east side there are no deep valleys, but many corries and much nice ground for deer in summer, though there is a scarcity of bush, and consequently of feed for them in winter. I was extremely fortunate in having a capital man, Donald by name, as gillie for my first two seasons. Always cheery and always encouraging, never down-hearted with any illsuccess, very keen, a real fine Scotsman, a splendid walker, as strong as a horse, Donald had the rare gift of not considering that he knew better than any one else, and was ever ready to follow out any suggestion made. Most of the bush on the lower part of the Hunter near the lake has been destroyed by burning, but in the upper reaches of the river and all the side valleys there is bush down to the river-beds. Large and evergreen beeches-birches they are called in New Zealand,-with pines and other hard-wood trees, flourish in the low ground, gradually giving place to the scrub that covers the hill - sides. Above the scrub again are grassy banks amongst rocks and rugged ridges, with occasional spacious green slopes, topped by frowning cliffs of grey granite, and on the highest tops snow-drifts and glaciers. Some of the ravines are very precipitous and rugged, and the walking is very hard work in most of them. Besides the perils of stone-slides and rocks, the low scrubby bush which has been laid by the snow in winter on the very steep hillsides has never properly reasserted itself, and in its semirecumbent form is very trying to both legs and temper. The deer are easy to stalk, provided there are no precipices in the way, for on the one hand, owing to the rough nature of the ground, the stalker who pays due regard to the wind is nearly sure to get within shot, and on the other, the deer, having no enemies except man, and in many places never having heard the crack of a rifle, take little or no notice of noises such as those of falling stones, to which they are accustomed, and hardly condescend to look up. One very pretty little valley, which has a lake at its head, I found very difficult to enter at the first attempt, but on two subsequent occasions I hit off a deer-trail, and got in comparatively easily. On the first occasion, intending to stay the night, we started from our camp in the main valley, taking a rück-sack which held a soldier's little canteen, meat, bread, plum-pudding, tea, sugar, and two sweaters to sleep in. We spent a thoroughly bad morning in trying to get through the bush and fern up a very steep gorge, where we were constantly thwarted |