In that part of London called "the City" are shady little streets, that look like pleasant retreats from the busy, noisy world; yet are strongholds of business.

One of these contained, and perhaps still contains, a public office full of secrets--some droll, some sad, some terrible. The building had a narrow, insignificant front, but was of great depth, and its south side lighted by large bay windows all stone and plate-glass; and these were open to the sun and air, thanks to a singular neighbor. Here, in the heart of the City, was wedged a little rustic church, with its church-yard, whose bright-green grass first startled, then soothed and refreshed the eye, in that wilderness of stone; an emerald set in granite. The grass flowed up to the south wall of the "office;" those massive stone windows hung over the graves; the plumed clerks could not look out of window and doubt that all men are mortal: and the article the office sold was immortality.

It was the Gosshawk Life Insurance.

On a certain afternoon anterior to the Hillsborough scenes last presented, the plumed clerks were all at the south windows, looking at a funeral in the little church-yard, and passing some curious remarks; for know that the deceased was insured in the Gosshawk for nine hundred pounds, and had paid but one premium.

The facts, as far as known, were these. Mr. Richard Martin, a Londoner by birth, but residing in Wales, went up to London to visit his brother. Toward the end of the visit the two Martins went up the river in a boat, with three more friends, and dined at Richmond. They rowed back in the cool of the evening. At starting they were merely jovial; but they stopped at nearly all the public-houses by the water-side, and, by visible gradations, became jolly--uproarious--sang songs--caught crabs. At Vauxhall they got a friendly warning, and laughed at it: under Southwark bridge they ran against an abutment, and were upset in a moment: it was now dusk, and, according to their own account, they all lost sight of each other in the water. One swam ashore in Middlesex, another in Surrey, a third got to the chains of a barge, and was taken up much exhausted, and Robert Martin laid hold of the buttress itself, and cried loudly for assistance. They asked anxiously after each other, but their anxiety appeared to subside in an hour or two, when they found there was nobody missing but Richard Martin. Robert told the police it was all right, Dick could swim like a cork. However, next morning he came with a sorrowful face to say his brother had not reappeared, and begged them to drag the river. This was done, and a body found, which the survivors and Mrs. Richard Martin disowned.

The insurance office was informed, and looked into the matter; and Mrs. Martin told their agent, with a flood of tears, she believed her husband had taken that opportunity to desert her, and was not drowned at all. Of course this went to the office directly.

But a fortnight afterward a body was found in the water down at Woolwich, entangled in some rushes by the water-side.

Notice was given to all the survivors.

The friends of Robert Martin came, and said the clothes resembled those worn by Richard Martin; but beyond that they could not be positive.

But, when the wife came, she recognized the body at once.

The brother agreed with her, but, on account of the bloated and discolored condition of the face, asked to have the teeth examined: his poor brother, he said, had a front tooth broken short in two. This broken tooth was soon found; also a pencil-case, and a key, in the pocket of the deceased. These completed the identification.

Up to this moment the conduct of Richard Martin's relatives and friends had been singularly apathetic; but now all was changed; they broke into loud lamentations, and he became the best of husbands, best of men: his lightest words were sacred. Robert Martin now remembered that "poor Dick" had stood and looked into that little church-yard and said, "If you outlive me, Bob, bury me in this spot; father lies here." So Robert Martin went to the church-warden, for leave to do this last sad office. The church-warden refused, very properly, but the brother's entreaties, the widow's tears, the tragedy itself, and other influences, extorted at last a reluctant consent, coupled with certain sanitary conditions.

The funeral was conducted unobtrusively, and the grave dug out of sight of Gosshawk. But of course it could not long escape observation; that is to say, it was seen by the clerks; but the directors and manager were all seated round a great table upstairs absorbed in a vital question, viz., whether or not the Gosshawk should imitate some other companies, and insure against fire as well as death. It was the third and last discussion; the minority against this new operation was small, but obstinate and warm, and the majority so absorbed in bringing them to reason, that nobody went to the window until the vote had passed, and the Gosshawk was a Life and Fire Insurance. Then some of the gentlemen rose and stretched their legs, and detected the lugubrious enormity. "Hallo!" cried Mr. Carden, and rang a bell. Edwards, an old clerk, appeared, and, in reply to Mr. Carden, told him it was one of their losses being buried--Richard Martin.

Mr. Carden said this was an insult to the office, and sent Edwards out to remonstrate.

Edwards soon reappeared with Robert Martin, who represented, with the utmost humility, that it was the wish of the deceased, and they had buried him, as ordered, in three feet of charcoal.

"What, is the ceremony performed?"

"Yes, sir, all but filling in the grave. Come and see the charcoal."

"Hang the charcoal!"

"Well," said the humane but somewhat pompous director, "if the ceremony has gone so far--but, Mr. Martin, this must never recur, charcoal or no charcoal."

Mr. Martin promised it never should: and was soon after observed in the church-yard urging expedition.

The sad company speedily dispersed, and left nothing to offend nor disgust the Life and Fire Insurance, except a new grave, and a debt of nine hundred pounds to the heirs or assigns of Richard Martin.

Not very far from this church-yard was a public-house; and in that public-house a small parlor upstairs, and in that parlor a man, who watched the funeral rites with great interest; but not in a becoming spirit; for his eyes twinkled with the intensest merriment all the time, and at each fresh stage of the mournful business he burst into peals of laughter. Never was any man so thoroughly amused in the City before, at all events in business hours.

Richard Martin's executor waited a decent time, and then presented his claim to the Gosshawk. His brother proved a lien on it for £300 and the rest went by will to his wife. The Gosshawk paid the money after the delay accorded by law.

Messrs. Bolt and Little put their heads together, and played a prudent game. They kept the works going for a month, without doing anything novel, except what tended to the health and comfort of their workmen.

But, meantime, they cleared out two adjacent rooms: one was called the studio, the other the experiment-room.

In due course they hired a couple of single men from Birmingham to work the machine under lock and key.

Little with his own hands, affected an aperture in the party-wall, and thus conveyed long saws from his studio to the machine, and received them back ground.

Then men were lodged three miles off, were always kept at work half an hour later than the others, and received six pounds per week apiece, on pain of instant dismissal should they breathe a syllable. They did the work of twenty-four men; so even at that high rate of wages, the profit was surprising. It actually went beyond the inventor's calculation, and he saw himself at last on the road to rapid fortune, and, above all, to Grace Carden.

This success excited Bolt's cupidity, and he refused to contract the operation any longer.

Then the partners had a quarrel, and nearly dissolved. However, it ended in Little dismissing his Birmingham hands and locking up his "experiment-room," and in Bolt openly devoting another room to the machines: two long, two circular.

These machines coined money, and Bolt chuckled and laughed at his partner's apprehensions for the space of twenty-one days.

On the twenty-second day, the Saw-grinders' Union, which had been stupefied at first, but had now realized the situation, sent Messrs. Bolt and Little a letter, civil and even humble; it spoke of the new invention as one that, if adopted, would destroy their handicraft, and starve the craftsmen and their families, and expressed an earnest hope that a firm which had shown so much regard for the health and comfort of the workmen would not persist in a fatal course, on which they had entered innocently and for want of practical advice.

The partners read this note differently. Bolt saw timidity in it. Little saw a conviction, and a quiet resolution, that foreboded a stern contest.

No reply was sent, and the machines went on coining.

Then came a warning to Little, not violent, but short, and rather grim. Little took it to Bolt, and he treated it with contempt.

Two days afterward the wheel-bands vanished, and the obnoxious machines stood still.

Little was for going to Grotait, to try and come to terms. Bolt declined. He bought new bands, and next day the machines went on again.

This pertinacity soon elicited a curious epistle:

"MESSRS. BOLT AND LITTLE,--When the blood is in an impure state, brimstone and treacle is applied as a mild purgative; our taking the bands was the mild remedy; but, should the seat of disease not be reached, we shall take away the treacle, and add to the brimstone a necessary quantity of saltpetre and charcoal.

TANTIA TOPEE."

On receipt of this, Little, who had tasted the last-mentioned drugs, showed such undisguised anxiety that Bolt sent for Ransome. He came directly, and was closeted with the firm. Bolt handed him the letters, told him the case, and begged leave to put him a question. "Is the police worth any thing, or nothing, in this here town?"

"It is worth something, I hope, gentlemen."

"How much, I wonder? Of all the bands that have been stolen, and all the people that have been blown up, and scorched and vitrioled, and shot at, and shot, by Union men, did ever you and your bobbies nail a single malefactor?"

Now Mr. Ransome was a very tall man, with a handsome, dignified head, a long black beard, and pleasant, dignified manners. When short, round, vulgar Mr. Bolt addressed him thus, it really was like a terrier snapping at a Newfoundland dog. Little felt ashamed, and said Mr. Ransome had been only a few months in office in the place. "Thank you, Mr. Little," said the chief constable. "Mr. Bolt, I'll ask you a favor. Meet me at a certain place this evening, and let me reply to your question then and there."

This singular proposal excited some curiosity, and the partners accepted the rendezvous. Ransome came to the minute, and took the partners into the most squalid part of this foul city. At the corner of a narrow street he stepped and gave a low whistle. A policeman in plain clothes came to him directly.

"They are both in the 'Spotted Dog,' sir, with half a dozen more."

"Follow me, and guard the door. Will you come, too, gentlemen?"

The "Spotted Dog" was a low public, with one large room and a sanded floor. Mr. Ransome walked in and left the door open, so that his three companions heard and saw all that passed.

"Holland and Cheetham, you are wanted."

"What for?"

"Wilde's affair. He has come to himself, and given us your names."

On this the two men started up and were making for the door. Ransome whipped before it. "That won't do."

Then there was a loud clatter of rising feet, oaths, threats, and even a knife or two drawn; and, in the midst of it all, the ominous click of a pistol, and then dead silence; for it was Ransome who had produced that weapon. "Come, no nonsense," said he. "Door's guarded, street's guarded, and I'm not to be trifled with."

He then handed his pistol to the officer outside with an order, and, stepping back suddenly, collared Messrs. Holland and Cheetham with one movement, and, with a powerful rush, carried them out of the house in his clutches. Meantime the policeman had whistled, there was a conflux of bobbies, and the culprits were handcuffed and marched off to the Town Hall.

"Five years' penal servitude for that little lot," said Ransome.

"And now, Mr. Bolt, I have answered your question to the best of my ability."

"You have answered it like a man. Will you do as much for us?"

"I'll do my best. Let me examine the place now that none of them are about."

Bolt and Ransome went together, but Little went home: he had an anxiety even more pressing, his mother's declining health. She had taken to pining and fretting ever since Dr. Amboyne brought the bad news from Cairnhope; and now, instead of soothing and consoling her son, she needed those kind offices from him; and, I am happy to say, she received them. He never spent an evening away from her. Unfortunately he did not succeed in keeping up her spirits, and the sight of her lowered his own.

At this period Grace Carden was unmixed comfort to him; she encouraged him to encroach a little, and visit her twice a week instead of once, and she coaxed him to confide all his troubles to her. He did so; he concealed from his mother that he was at war with the trade again, but he told Grace everything, and her tender sympathy was the balm of his life. She used to put on cheerfulness for his sake, even when she felt it least.

One day, however, he found her less bright than usual, and she showed him an advertisement--Bollinghope house and park for sale; and she was not old enough nor wise enough to disguise from him that this pained her. Some expressions of regret and pity fell from her; that annoyed Henry, and he said, "What is that to us?"

"Nothing to you: but I feel I am the cause. I have not used him well, that's certain."

Henry said, rather cavalierly, that Mr. Coventry was probably selling his house for money, not for love, and (getting angry) that he hoped never to hear the man's name mentioned again.

Grace Carden was a little mortified by his tone, but she governed herself and said sadly, "My idea of love was to be able to tell you every thought of my heart, even where my conscience reproaches me a little. But if you prefer to exclude one topic--and have no fear that it may lead to the exclusion of others----"

They were on the borders of a tiff; but Henry recovered himself and said firmly, "I hope we shall not have a thought unshared one day; but, just for the present, it will be kinder to spare me that one topic."

"Very well, dearest," said Grace. "And, if it had not been for the advertisement----" she said no more, and the thing passed like a dark cloud between the lovers.

Bollinghope house and park were actually sold that very week; they were purchased, at more than their value, by a wealthy manufacturer: and the proceeds of this sale and the timber cleared off all Coventry's mortgages, and left him with a few hundred pounds in cash, and an estate which had not a tree on it, but also had not a debt upon it.

Of course he forfeited, by this stroke, his position as a country gentleman; but that he did not care about, since it was all done with one view, to live comfortably in Paris far from the intolerable sight of his rival's happiness with the lady he loved.

He bought in at the sale a few heirlooms and articles of furniture--who does not cling, at the last moment, to something of this kind?--and rented a couple of unfurnished rooms in Hillsborough to keep them in. He fixed the day of his departure, arranged his goods, and packed his clothes. Then he got a letter of credit on Paris, and went about the town buying numerous articles of cutlery.

But this last simple act led to strange consequences. He was seen and followed; and in the dead of the evening, as he was cording with his own hands a box containing a few valuables, a heavy step mounted the stair, and there was a rude knock at the door.

Mr. Coventry felt rather uncomfortable, but he said, "Come in."

The door was opened, and there stood Sam Cole.

Coventry received him ill. He looked up from his packing and said, "What on earth do you want, sir?"

But it was not Cole's business to be offended. "Well, sir," said he, "I've been looking out for you some time, and I saw you at our place; so I thought I'd come and tell you a bit o' news."

"What is that?"

"It is about him you know of; begins with a hel."

"Curse him! I don't want to hear about him. I'm leaving the country. Well, what is it?"

"He is wrong with the trade again."

"What is that to me?--Ah!--Sit down, Cole, and tell me."

Cole let him know the case, and assured him that, sooner or later, if threats did not prevail, the Union would go any length.

"Should you be employed?"

"If it was a dangerous job, they'd prefer me."

Mr. Coventry looked at his trunks, and then at Sam Cole. A small voice whispered "Fly." He stifled that warning voice, and told Cole he would stay and watch this affair, and Cole was to report to him whenever any thing fresh occurred. From that hour this gentleman led the life of a malefactor, dressed like a workman, and never went out except at night.

Messrs. Bolt and Little were rattened again, and never knew it till morning. This time it was not the bands, but certain axle-nuts and screws that vanished. The obnoxious machines came to a standstill, and Bolt fumed and cursed. However, at ten o'clock, he and the foreman were invited to the Town hall, and there they found the missing gear, and the culprit, one of the very workmen employed at high wages on the obnoxious machines.

Ransome had bored a small hole in the ceiling, by means of which this room was watched from above; the man was observed, followed, and nabbed. The property found on him was identified and the magistrate offered the prisoner a jury, which he declined; then the magistrate dealt with the case summarily, refused to recognize rattening, called the offense "petty larceny," and gave the man six months' prison.

Now as Ransome, for obvious reasons, concealed the means by which this man had been detected, a conviction so mysterious shook that sense of security which ratteners had enjoyed for many years, and the trades began to find that craft had entered the lists with craft.

Unfortunately, those who directed the Saw-grinders' Union thought the existence of the trade at stake, and this minor defeat merely exasperated them.

Little received a letter telling him he was acting worse than Brinsley, who had been shot in the Briggate; and asking him, as a practical man, which he thought was likely to die first, he or the Union? "You won't let us live; why should we let you?"

Bolt was threatened in similar style, but he merely handed the missives to Ransome; he never flinched.

Not so Little. He got nervous; and, in a weak moment, let his mother worm out of him that he was at war with the trades again.

This added anxiety to her grief, and she became worse every day.

Then Dr. Amboyne interfered, and, after a certain degree of fencing--which seems inseparable from the practice of medicine--told Henry plainly he feared the very worst if this went on; Mrs. Little was on the brink of jaundice. By his advice Henry took her to Aberystwith in Wales, and, when he had settled her there, went back to his troubles.

To those was now added a desolate home; gone was the noble face, the maternal eye, the soothing voice, the unfathomable love. He never knew all her value till now.

One night, as he sat by himself sad and disconsolate, his servant came to tell him there was a young woman inquiring for Mrs. Little. Henry went out to her, and it was Jael Dence. He invited her in, and told her what had happened. Jael saw his distress, and gave him her womanly sympathy. "And I came to tell her my own trouble," said she; "fie on me!"

"Then tell it me, Jael. There, take off your shawl and sit down. They shall make you a cup of tea."

Jael complied, with a slight blush; but as to her trouble, she said it was not worth speaking of in that house.

Henry insisted, however, and she said, "Mine all comes of my sister marrying that Phil Davis. To tell you the truth, I went to church with a heavy heart on account of their both beginning with a D-- Dence and Davis; for 'tis an old saying--

If you change the name, and not the letter,
You change for the worse, and not for the better.

Well, sir, it all went wrong somehow. Parson, he was South country; and when his time came to kiss the bride, he stood and looked ever so helpless, and I had to tell him he must kiss her; and even then he stared foolish-like a bit before he kissed her, and the poor lass's face getting up and the tear in her eye at being slighted. And that put Patty out for one thing: and then she wouldn't give away the ribbon to the fastest runner--the lads run a hundred yards to the bride, for ribbon and kiss, you know;--wasn't the ribbon she grudged, poor wench; but the fastest runner in Cairnhope town is that Will Gibbon, a nasty, ugly, slobbering chap, that was always after her, and Philip jealous of him; so she did for the best, and Will Gibbon safe to win it. But the village lads they didn't see the reason, and took it all to themselves. Was she better than their granddam? and were they worse than their grandsires? They ran on before, and fired the anvil when she passed: just fancy! an affront close to her own door: and, sir, she walked in a doors crying. There was a wedding for you! George the blacksmith was that hurt at their making free with his smithy to affront her, he lifted his arm for the first time, and pretty near killed a couple of them, poor thoughtless bodies. Well, sir, Phil Davis always took a drop, you know, and, instead of mending, he got worse; they live with father, and of course he has only to go to the barrel; old-fashioned farmers like us don't think to spy on the ale. He was so often in liquor, I checked him; but Patty indulged him in every thing. By-and-by my lord gets ever so civil to me; 'What next?' said I to myself. One fine evening we are set upstairs at our tea; in he comes drunk, and says many things we had to look at one another and excuse. Presently he tells us all that he has made a mistake; he has wedded Patty, and I'm the one he likes the best. But I thought the fool was in jest; but Patty she gave a cry as if a knife had gone through her heart. Then my blood got up in a moment. 'That's an affront to all three,' said I: 'and take your answer, ye drunken sow,' said I. I took him by the scruff of the neck and just turned him out of the room and sent him to the bottom of the stairs headforemost. Then Patty she quarreled with me, and father he sided with her. And so I gave them my blessing, and told them to send for me in trouble; and I left the house I was born in. It all comes of her changing her name, and not her letter." Here a few tears interrupted further comment.

Henry consoled her, and asked her what she was going to do.

She said she did not know; but she had a good bit of money put by, and was not afraid of work, and, in truth, she had come there to ask Mrs. Little's advice, "poor lady. Now don't you mind me, Mr. Henry, your trouble is a deal worse than mine."

"Jael," said he, "you must come here and keep my house till my poor mother is better."

Jael colored and said, "Nay, that will not do. But if you could find me something to do in your great factory--and I hear you have enemies there; you might as well have a friend right in the middle of them. Eh, but I'd keep my eyes and ears open for you."

Henry appreciated this proposal, and said there were plenty of things she could do; she could hone, she could pack, she could superintend, and keep the girls from gabbling; "That," said he, "is the real thing that keeps them behind the men at work."

So Jael Dence lodged with a female cousin in Hillsborough, and filled a position of trust in the factory of Bolt & Little: she packed, and superintended, and the foreman paid her thirty shillings a week. The first time this was tendered her she said severely, "Is this right, young man?" meaning, "Is it not too much?"

"Oh, you will be raised if you stay with us three months."

"Raised?" said the virtuous rustic! Then, looking loftily round on the other women, "What ever do these factory folk find to grumble at?"

Henry told Grace all about this, and she said, rather eagerly, "Ah, I am glad of that. You'll have a good watch-dog."

It was a shrewd speech. The young woman soon found out that Little was really in danger, and she was all eyes and ears, and no tongue.

Yet neither her watchfulness, nor Ransome's, prevailed entirely against the deviltries of the offended Union. Machinery was always breaking down by pure accident; so everybody swore, and nobody believed: the water was all let out of the boiler, and the boiler burst. Bands were no longer taken but they were cut. And, in short, the works seemed to be under a curse.

And, lest the true origin of all these mishaps should be doubted, each annoyance was followed by an anonymous letter. These were generally sent to Little. A single sentence will indicate the general tone of each.

1. "All these are but friendly warnings, to save your life if possible."

2. "I never give in. I fight to death, and with more craft and duplicity than Bolt and Ransome. They will never save you from me, if you persist. Ask others whether I ever failed to keep my word."

3. "If I but move my finger, you are sent into eternity."

Henry Little's nerve began to give way more and more.

Meantime Cole met Mr. Coventry, and told him what was going on beneath the surface: at the same time he expressed his surprise at the extraordinary forbearance shown by the Union. "Grotait is turning soft, I think. He will not give the word to burn Sebastopol."

"Then do it without him."

Cole shook his head, and said he daren't. But, after some reflection, he said there was a mate of his who was not so dependent on Grotait: he might be tempted perhaps to do something on his own hook, Little being wrong with the trade, and threatened. "How much would you stand?"

"How far would your friend go?"

"I'll ask him."

Next day Cole walked coolly into the factory at dinner-time and had a conversation with Hill, one of the workmen, who he knew was acting for the Union, and a traitor in his employers' camp. He made Hill a proposal. Hill said it was a very serious thing; he would think of it, and meet him at a certain safe place and tell him.

Cole strolled out of the works, but not unobserved. Jael Dence had made it her business to know every man in the factory by sight, and observing, from a window, a stranger in conversation with Hill, she came down and met Cole at the gate. She started at sight of him: he did not exactly recognize her; but, seeing danger in her eye, took to his heels, and ran for it like a deer: but Jael called to some of the men to follow him, but nobody moved. They guessed it was a Union matter. Jael ran to Little, and told him that villain, who had escaped from Raby Hall, had been in the works colloguing with one of the men.

Ransome was sent for, and Cole described to him.

As for Hill, Jael watched him like a cat from that hour, since a man is known by his friends. She went so far as to follow him home every evening.

Cole got fifty pounds out of Coventry for Hill, and promised him twenty. For this sum Hill agreed to do Little. But he demanded some time to become proficient in the weapon he meant to use.

During the interval, events were not idle. A policeman saw a cutter and a disguised gentleman talking together, and told Ransome. He set spies to discover, if possible, what that might mean.

One day the obnoxious machines were stopped by an accident to the machinery, and Little told Jael this, and said, "Have you a mind to earn five pound a week?"

"Ay, if I could do it honestly?"

"Let us see the arm that flung Phil Davis down-stairs."

Jael colored a little, but bared her left arm at command.

"Good heavens!" cried Little. "What a limb! Why mine is a shrimp compared with it."

"Ay, mine has the bulk, but yours the pith."

"Oh, come; if your left arm did that, what must your right be?"

"Oh," said Jael, "you men do every thing with your right hand; but we lasses know no odds. My left is as strong as my right, and both at your service."

"Then come along with me."

He took her into the "Experiment Room," explained the machine to her, gave her a lesson or two; and so simple was the business that she soon mastered her part of it; and Little with his coat off, and Jael, with her noble arms bare, ground long saws together secretly; and Little, with Bolt's consent, charged the firm by the gross. He received twenty-four pounds per week, out of which he paid Jael six, in spite of her "How can a lass's work be worth all that?" and similar remonstrances.

Being now once more a workman, and working with this loyal lass so many hours a day, his spirits rose a little, and his nerves began to recover their tone.

But meantime Hill was maturing his dark design.

In going home, Little passed through one place he never much liked, it was a longish close, with two sharp rectangular turns.

Since he was threatened by the trade, he never entered this close without looking behind him. He did not much fear an attack in front, being always armed with pistols now.

On a certain night he came to this place as usual, went as far as the first turn, then looked sharply round to see if he was followed; but there was nobody behind except a woman, who was just entering the court. So he went on.

But a little way down this close was a small public-house, and the passage-door was ajar, and a man watching. No sooner was Little out of sight than he emerged, and followed him swiftly on tiptoe.

The man had in his hand a weapon that none but a Hillsborough cutler would have thought of; yet, as usual, it was very fit for the purpose, being noiseless and dangerous, though old-fashioned. It was a long strong bow, all made of yew-tree. The man fitted an arrow to this, and running lightly to the first turn, obtained a full view of Little's retiring figure, not fifteen yards distant.

So well was the place chosen, that he had only to discharge his weapon and then run back. His victim could never see him.

He took a deliberate aim at Little's back, drew the arrow to the head, and was about to loose it, when a woman's arm was flung round his neck.

Coventry and Cole met that night near a little church.

Hill was to join them, and tell them the result.

Now, as it happens, Little went home rather late that night; so these confederates waited, alternately hoping and fearing, a considerable time.

Presently, something mysterious occurred that gave them a chill. An arrow descended, as if from the clouds, and stuck quivering on a grave not ten yards from them. The black and white feathers shone clear in the moonlight.

To Coventry it seemed as if Heaven was retaliating on him.

The more prosaic but quick-witted cutler, after the first stupefaction, suspected it was the very arrow destined for Little, and said so.

"And Heaven flings it back to us," said Coventry, and trembled in every limb.

"Heaven has naught to do in it. The fool has got drunk, and shot it in the air. Anyway, it mustn't stick there to tell tales."

Cole vaulted over the church-yard wall, drew it out of the grave, and told Coventry to hide it.

"Go you home," said he. "I'll find out what this means."

Hill's unexpected assailant dragged him back so suddenly and violently that the arrow went up at an angle of forty-five, and, as the man loosed the string to defend himself, flew up into the sky, and came down full a hundred yards from the place.

Hill twisted violently round and, dropping the bow, struck the woman in the face with his fist; he had not room to use all his force; yet the blow covered her face with blood. She cried out, but gripped him so tight by both shoulders that he could not strike again but he kicked her savagely. She screamed, but slipped her arms down and got him tight round the waist. Then he was done for; with one mighty whirl she tore him off his feet in a moment, then dashed herself and him under her to the ground with such ponderous violence that his head rang loud on the pavement and he was stunned for a few seconds. Ere he quite recovered she had him turned on his face, and her weighty knee grinding down his shoulders, while her nimble hands whipped off her kerchief and tied his hands behind him in a twinkling.

So quickly was it all done, that by the time Little heard the scrimmage, ascertained it was behind him, and came back to see, she was seated on her prisoner, trembling and crying after her athletic feat, and very little fit to cope with the man if he had not been tied.

Little took her by the hands. "Oh, my poor Jael! What is the matter? Has the blackguard been insulting you?" And, not waiting for an answer, gave him a kick that made him howl again.

"Yes, kill him, the villain! he wanted to murder you. Oh, oh, oh!"

She could say no more, but became hysterical.

Henry supported her tenderly, and wiped the blood from her face; and as several people came up, and a policeman, he gave the man in charge, on Jael's authority, and he was conveyed to the station accordingly, he and his bow.

They took Jael Dence to a chemist's shop, and gave her cold water and salts: the first thing she did, when she was quite herself, was to seize Henry Little's hand and kiss it with such a look of joy as brought tears into his eyes.

Then she told her story, and was taken in a cab to the police-office, and repeated her story there.

Then Henry took her to "Woodbine Villa," and Grace Carden turned very pale at Henry's danger, though passed: she wept over Jael, and kissed her; and nobody could make enough of her.

Grace Carden looked wistfully at Henry and said, "Oh that I had a strong arm to defend you!"

"Oh, Miss Grace," said Jael, "don't you envy me. Go away with him from this wicked, murdering place. That will be a deal better than any thing I can do for him."

"Ah, would to Heaven I could this minute!" said Grace, clinging tenderly to his shoulder. She insisted on going home with him and sharing his peril for once.

Hill was locked up for the night.

In the morning a paper was slipped into his hand. "Say there was no arrow."

He took this hint, and said that he was innocent as a babe of any harm. He had got a bow to repair for a friend, and he went home twanging it, was attacked by a woman, and, in his confusion, struck her once, but did not repeat the blow.

Per contra, Jael Dence distinctly swore there was an arrow, with two white feathers and one black one, and that the prisoner was shooting at Mr. Little. She also swore that she had seen him colloguing with another man, who had been concerned in a former attempt on Mr. Little, and captured, but had escaped from Raby Hall.

On this the magistrate declined to discharge the prisoner; but, as no arrow could be found at present, admitted him to bail, two securities fifty pounds each, which was an indirect way of imprisoning him until the Assizes.

This attempt, though unsuccessful in one way, was very effective in another. It shook Henry Little terribly; and the effect was enhanced by an anonymous letter he received, reminding him there were plenty of noiseless weapons. Brinsley had been shot twice, and no sound heard. "When your time comes, you'll never know what hurt you." The sense of a noiseless assassin eternally dogging him preyed on Little's mind and spirits, and at last this life on the brink of the grave became so intolerable that he resolved to leave Hillsborough, but not alone.

He called on Grace Carden, pale and agitated.

"Grace," said he, "do you really love me?"

"Oh, Henry! Do I love you?"

"Then save me from this horrible existence. Oh, my love, if you knew what it is to have been a brave man, and to find your courage all oozing away under freezing threats, that you know, by experience, will be followed by some dark, subtle, bloody deed or other. There, they have brought me down to this, that I never go ten steps without looking behind me, and, when I go round a corner, I turn short and run back, and wait at the corner to see if an assassin is following me. I tremble at the wind. I start at my own shadow."

Grace threw her arms round his neck, and stopped him with tears and kisses.

"Ah, bless you, my love!" he cried, and kissed her fondly. "You pity me--you will save me from this miserable, degrading life?"

"Ah, that I will, if I can, my own."

"You can."

"Then tell me how."

"Be my wife--let us go to the United States together. Dearest, my patents are a great success. We are making our fortune, though we risk our lives. In America I could sell these inventions for a large sum, or work them myself at an enormous profit. Be my wife, and let us fly this hellish place together."

"And so I would in a moment; but" (with a deep sigh) "papa would never consent to that."

"Dispense with his consent."

"Oh, Henry; and marry under my father's curse!"

"He could not curse you, if he love you half as well as I do; and if he does not, why sacrifice me, and perhaps my life, to him?"

"Henry, for pity's sake, think of some other way. Why this violent haste to get rich? Have a little patience. Mr. Raby will not always be abroad. Oh, pray give up Mr. Bolt, and go quietly on at peace with these dreadful Trades. You know I'll wait all my life for you. I will implore papa to let you visit me oftener. I will do all a faithful, loving girl can do to comfort you."

"Ay," said Henry, bitterly, "you will do anything but the one thing I ask."

"Yes, anything but defy my father. He is father and mother both to me. How unfortunate we both are! If you knew what it costs me to deny you anything, if you knew how I long to follow you round the world--"

She choked with emotion, and seemed on the point of yielding, after all.

But he said, bitterly, "You long to follow me round the world, and you won't go a twelve-days' voyage with me to save my life. Ah, it is always so. You don't love me as poor Jael Dence loves me. She saved my life without my asking her; but you won't do it when I implore you."

"Henry, my own darling, if any woman on earth loves you better than I do, for God's sake marry her, and let me die to prove I loved you a little."

"Very well," said he, grinding his teeth. "Next week I leave this place with a wife. I give you the first offer, because I love you. I shall give Jael the second, because she loves me."

So then he flung out of the room, and left Grace Carden half fainting on the sofa, and drowned in tears.

But before he got back to the works he repented his violence, and his heart yearned for her more than ever.

With that fine sense of justice which belongs to love, he spoke roughly to Jael Dence.

She stared, and said nothing, but watched him furtively, and saw his eyes fill with tears at the picture memory recalled of Grace's pale face and streaming eyes.

She put a few shrewd questions, and his heart was so full he could not conceal the main facts, though he suppressed all that bore reference to Jael herself. She took Grace's part, and told him he was all in the wrong; why could not he go to America alone, and sell his patents, and then come back and marry Grace with the money? "Why drag her across the water, to make her quarrel with her father?"

"Why, indeed?" said Henry: "because I'm not the man I was. I have no manhood left. I have not the courage to fight the Trades, nor yet the courage to leave the girl I love so dearly."

"Eh, poor lad," said Jael, "thou hast courage enough; but it has been too sore tried, first and last. You have gone through enough to break a man of steel."

She advised him to go and make his submission at once.

He told her she was his guardian angel, and kissed her, in the warmth of his gratitude; and he went back to "Woodbine Villa," and asked Grace's forgiveness, and said he would go alone to the States and come back with plenty of money to satisfy Mr. Carden's prudence, and----

Grace clutched him gently with both hands, as if to hinder from leaving her. She turned very pale, and said, "Oh my heart!"

Then she laid her head on his shoulder, and wept piteously.

He comforted her, and said, "What is it? a voyage of twelve days! And yet I shall never have the courage to bid you good-bye."

"Nor I you, my own darling."

Having come to this resolution, he was now seized with a fear that he would be assassinated before he could carry it out; to diminish the chances, he took up his quarters at the factory, and never went out at night. Attached to the works was a small building near the water-side. Jael Dence occupied the second floor of it. He had a camp-bed set up on the first floor, and established a wire communication with the police office. At the slightest alarm he could ring a bell in Ransome's ear. He also clandestinely unscrewed a little postern door that his predecessors had closed, and made a key to the lock, so that if he should ever be compelled to go out at night he might baffle his foes, who would naturally watch the great gate for his exit.

With all this he became very depressed and moody, and alarmed Doctor Amboyne, who remembered his father's end.

The doctor advised him to go and see his mother for a day or two; but he shook his head, and declined.

A prisoner detained for want of bail is allowed to communicate with his friends, and Grotait soon let Hill know he was very angry with him for undertaking to do Little without orders. Hill said that the job was given him by Cole, who was Grotait's right-hand man, and Grotait had better bail him, otherwise he might be induced to tell tales.

Grotait let him stay in prison three days, and then sent two householders with the bail.

Hill was discharged, and went home. At dusk he turned out to find Cole, and tracing him from one public-house to another, at last lighted on him in company with Mr. Coventry.

This set him thinking; however, he held aloof till they parted; and then following Cole, dunned him for his twenty pounds.

Cole gave him five pounds on account. Hill grumbled, and threatened.

Grotait sent for both men, and went into a passion, and threatened to hang them both if they presumed to attack Little's person again in any way. "It is the place I mean to destroy," said Grotait, "not the man."

Cole conveyed this to Coventry, and it discouraged him mightily, and he told Cole he should give it up and go abroad.

But soon after this some pressure or other was brought to bear on Grotait, and Cole, knowing this, went to him, and asked him whether Bolt and Little were to be done or not.

"It is a painful subject," said Grotait.

"It is a matter of life and death to us," said Cole.

"That is true. But mind--the place, and not the man." Cole assented, and then Grotait took him on to a certain bridge, and pointed out the one weak side of Bolt and Little's fortress, and showed him how the engine-chimney could be got at and blown down, and so the works stopped entirely: "And I'll tell you something," said he; "that chimney is built on a bad foundation, and was never very safe; so you have every chance."

Then they chaffered about the price, and at last Grotait agreed to give him £20.

Cole went to Coventry, and told how far Grotait would allow him to go: "But," said he, "£20 is not enough. I run an even chance of being hung or lagged."

"Go a step beyond your instructions, and I'll give you a hundred pounds."

"I daren't," said Cole: "unless there was a chance to blow up the place with the man in it." Then, after a moment's reflection, he said: "I hear he sleeps in the works. I must find out where."

Accordingly, he talked over one of the women in the factory, and gained the following information, which he imparted to Mr. Coventry:--

Little lived and slept in a detached building recently erected, and the young woman who had overpowered Hill slept in a room above him. She passed in the works for his sweetheart, and the pair were often locked up together for hours at a time in a room called the "Experiment Room."

This information took Coventry quite by surprise, and imbittered his hatred of Little. While Cole was felicitating him on the situation of the building, he was meditating how to deal his hated rival a stab of another kind.

Cole, however, was single-minded in the matter; and the next day he took a boat and drifted slowly down the river, and scanned the place very carefully.

He came at night to Coventry, and told him he thought he might perhaps be able to do the trick without seeming to defy Grotait's instructions. "But," said he, "it is a very dangerous job. Premises are watched: and, what do you think? they have got wires up now that run over the street to the police office, and Little can ring a bell in Ransome's room, and bring the bobbies across with a rush in a moment. It isn't as it was under the old chief constable; this one's not to be bought nor blinded. I must risk a halter."

"You shall have fifty pounds more."

"You are a gentleman, sir. I should like to have it in hard sovereigns. I'm afraid of notes. They get traced somehow."

"You shall have it all in sovereigns."

"I want a little in advance, to buy the materials. They are costly, especially the fulminating silver."

Coventry gave him ten sovereigns, and they parted with the understanding that Cole should endeavor to blow up the premises on some night when Little was in them, and special arrangements were made to secure this.

Henry Little and Grace Carden received each of them, an anonymous letter, on the same day.

Grace Carden's ran thus:--

"I can't abide to see a young lady made a fool of by a villain. Mr. Little have got his miss here: they dote on each other. She lives in the works, and so do he, ever since she came, which he usen't afore. They are in one room, as many as eight hours at a stretch, and that room always locked. It is the talk of all the girls. It is nought to me, but I thought it right you should know, for it is quite a scandal. She is a strapping country lass, with a queerish name. This comes from a stranger, but a well-wisher.

FAIR PLAY."

The letter to Henry Little was as follows:--

"The reason of so many warnings and ne'er a blow, you had friends in the trade. But you have worn them out. You are a doomed man. Prepare to meet your God."

This was the last straw on the camel's back, as the saying is.

He just ground it in his hand, and then he began to act.

He set to work, packed up models, and dispatched them by train; clothes ditto, and wrote a long letter to his mother.

Next day he was busy writing and arranging papers till the afternoon. Then he called on Grace, as related, and returned to the works about six o'clock: he ordered a cup of tea at seven, which Jael brought him. She found him busy writing letters, and one of these was addressed to Grace Carden.

That was all she saw of him that night; for she went to bed early, and she was a sound sleeper.

It was nine o'clock of this same evening.

Mr. Coventry, disguised in a beard, was walking up and down a certain street opposite the great door of the works.

He had already walked and lounged about two hours. At last Cole joined him for a moment and whispered in a tone full of meaning, "Will it do now?"

Coventry's teeth chattered together as he replied, "Yes; now is the time."

"Got the money ready?"

"Yes."

"Let us see it."

"When you have done what you promised me."

"That very moment?"

"That very moment."

"Then I'll tell you what you must do. In about an hour go on the new bridge, and I'll come to you; and, before I've come to you many minutes, you'll see summut and hear summut that will make a noise in Hillsbro', and, perhaps, get us both into trouble."

"Not if you are as dexterous as others have been."

"Others! I was in all those jobs. But this is the queerest. I go to it as if I was going to a halter. No matter, a man can but die once."

And, with these words, he left him and went softly down to the water-side. There, in the shadow of the new bridge, lay a little boat, and in it a light-jointed ladder, a small hamper, and a basket of tools. The rowlocks were covered with tow, and the oars made no noise whatever, except the scarce audible dip in the dark stream. It soon emerged below the bridge like a black spider crawling down the stream, and melted out of sight the more rapidly that a slight fog was rising.

Cole rowed softly past the works, and observed a very faint light in Little's room. He thought it prudent to wait till this should be extinguished, but it was not extinguished. Here was an unexpected delay.

However, the fog thickened a little, and this encouraged him to venture; he beached the boat very gently on the muddy shore, and began his work, looking up every now and then at that pale light, and ready to fly at the first alarm.

He took out of the boat a large varnish-can, which he had filled with gunpowder, and wrapped tightly round with wire, and also with a sash-line; this can was perforated at the side, and a strong tube screwed tightly into it; the tube protruded twelve inches from the can in shape of an S: by means of this a slow-burning fuse was connected with the powder; some yards of this fuse were wrapt loosely round the can.

Cole crept softly to the engine-chimney, and, groping about for the right place, laid the can in the engine bottom and uncoiled the fuse. He took out of his pocket some small pieces of tile, and laid the fuse dry on these.

Then he gave a sigh of relief, and crept back to the boat.

Horrible as the action was, he had done all this without much fear, and with no remorse, for he was used to this sort of work; but now he had to commit a new crime, and with new and terrible materials, which he had never handled in the way of crime before.

He had in his boat a substance so dangerous that he had made a nest of soft cotton for the receptacle which held it; and when the boat touched the shore, light as the contact was, he quaked lest his imprisoned giant-devil should go off and blow him to atoms.

He put off touching it till the last moment. He got his jointed ladder, set it very softly underneath the window where the feeble gas-light was, and felt about with his hands for the grating he had observed when he first reconnoitered the premises from the river. He found it, but it was so high that he had to reach a little, and the position was awkward for working.

The problem was how to remove one of those bars, and so admit his infernal machine; it was about the shape and size of an ostrich's egg.

It must be done without noise, for the room above him was Little's, and Little, he knew, had a wire by means of which he could summon Ransome and the police in the turn of a hand.

The cold of the night, and the now present danger, made Cole shiver all over, and he paused.

But he began again, and, taking out a fine steel saw highly tempered, proceeded to saw the iron slowly and gently, ready at the first alarm to spring from his ladder and run away.

With all his caution, steel grated against steel, and made too much noise in the stilly night. He desisted. He felt about, and found the grating was let into wood, not stone; he oiled the saw, and it cut the wood like butter; he made two cuts like a capital V, and a bar of the grating came loose; he did the same thing above, and the bar came out.

Cole now descended the ladder, and prepared for the greatest danger of all. He took from its receptacle the little metal box lined with glazed paper, which contained the fulminating silver and its fuse; and, holding it as gently as possible, went and mounted the ladder again, putting his foot down as softly as a cat.

But he was getting colder and colder, and at this unfortunate moment he remembered that, when he was a lad, a man had been destroyed by fulminating silver--quite a small quantity--in a plate over which he was leaning; yet the poor wretch's limbs had been found in different places, and he himself had seen the head; it had been torn from the trunk and hurled to an incredible distance.

That trunkless head he now fancied he saw, in the middle of the fog; and his body began to sweat cold, and his hands to shake so that he could hardly hold the box. But if he let it fall----

He came hastily down the ladder and sat down on the dirty ground, with the infernal engine beside him.

By-and-by he got up and tried to warm his hands and feet by motion, and at last he recovered his fortitude, and went softly and cat-like up the steps again, in spite of the various dangers he incurred.

Of what was this man's mind composed, whom neither a mere bribe could buy to do this deed, nor pure fanaticism without a bribe; but, where both inducements met, neither the risk of immediate death, nor of imprisonment for life, nor both dangers united, could divert him from his deadly purpose, though his limbs shook, and his body was bedewed with a cold perspiration?

He reached the top of the ladder, he put his hand inside the grate; there was an aperture, but he could not find the bottom. He hesitated.

Here was a fresh danger: if he let the box fall it might explode at once and send him to eternity.

Once more he came softly down, and collected all the tow and wool he could find. He went up the ladder and put these things through the grating; they formed a bed.

Then he went back for the fatal box, took it up the ladder with beating heart, laid it softly in its bed, uncoiled the fuse and let it hang down.

So now these two fiendish things were placed, and their devilish tails hanging out behind them. The fuses had been cut with the utmost nicety to burn the same length of time--twelve minutes.

But Cole was too thoughtful and wary to light the fuses until everything was prepared for his escape. He put the ladder on board the boat, disposed the oars so that he could use them at once; then crept to the engine-chimney, kneeled down beside the fuse, looked up at the faint light glimmering above, and took off his hat.

With singular cunning and forethought he had pasted a piece of sandpaper into his hat. By this means he lighted a lucifer at once, and kept it out of sight from the windows, and also safe from the weather; he drew the end of the fuse into the hat, applied the match to it out of sight, then blew the match out and darted to his other infernal machine. In less than ten seconds he lighted that fuse too; then stepped into the boat, and left those two devilish sparks creeping each on its fatal errand. He pulled away with exulting bosom, beating heart, and creeping flesh. He pulled swiftly up stream, landed at the bridge, staggered up the steps, and found Coventry at his post, but almost frozen, and sick of waiting.

He staggered up to him and gasped out, "I've done the trick, give me the brass, and let me go. I see a halter in the air." His teeth chattered.

But Coventry, after hoping and fearing for two hours and a half, had lost all confidence in his associate, and he said, "How am I to know you've done anything?"

"You'll see and you'll hear," said Cole. "Give me the brass."

"Wait till I see and hear," was the reply.

"What, wait to be nabbed? Another minute, and all the town will be out after me. Give it me, or I'll take it."

"Will you?" And Coventry took out a pistol and cocked it. Cole recoiled.

"Look here," said Coventry-- "there are one hundred and fifty sovereigns in this bag. The moment I receive proof you have not deceived me, I give you the bag."

"Here, where we stand?"

"Here, on this spot."

"Hush! not so loud. Didn't I hear a step?"

They both listened keenly. The fog was thick by this time.

Cole whispered, "Look down the river. I wonder which will go off first? It is very cold; very." And he shook like a man in an ague.

Both men listened, numbed with cold, and quivering with the expectation of crime.

A clock struck twelve.

At the first stroke the confederates started and uttered a cry. They were in that state when everything sudden shakes men like thunder.

All still again, and they listened and shook again with fog and grime.

Sudden a lurid flash, and a report, dull and heavy, and something tall seemed to lean toward them from the sky, and there was a mighty rushing sound, and a cold wind in their faces, and an awful fall of masonry on the water, and the water spurted under the stroke. The great chimney had fallen in the river. At this very moment came a sharp, tremendous report like a clap of thunder close at hand. It was so awful, that both bag and pistol fell out of Coventry's hand and rung upon the pavement, and he fled, terror-stricken.

Cole, though frightened, went down on his knees, and got the bag, and started to run the other way.

But almost at the first step he ran against a man, who was running toward him.

Both were staggered by the shock, and almost knocked down.

But the man recovered himself first, and seized Cole with a grip of iron.

When Coventry had run a few steps he recovered his judgment so far as to recollect that this would lay him open to suspicion. He left off running, and walked briskly instead.

Presently the great door of the works was opened, and the porter appeared crying wildly for help, and that the place was on fire.

The few people that were about made a rush, and Coventry, driven by an awful curiosity, went in with them; for why should he be suspected any more than they?

He had not gone in half a minute when Mr. Ransome arrived with several policemen, and closed the doors at once against all comers.

Strange to say, the last explosion had rung the bell in the police-office; hence this prompt appearance of the police.

The five or six persons who got in with Coventry knew nothing, and ran hither and thither. Coventry, better informed, darted at once to Little's quarters, and there beheld an awful sight; the roof presented the appearance of a sieve: of the second floor little remained but a few of the joists, and these were most of them broken and stood on and across each other, like a hedgehog's bristles.

In Little's room, a single beam in the center, with a fragment of board, kept its place, but the joists were all dislocated or broken in two, and sticking up here and there in all directions: huge holes had been blown in the walls of both rooms and much of the contents of the rooms blown out by them; so vast were these apertures, that it seemed wonderful how the structure hung together; the fog was as thick in the dismembered and torn building as outside, but a large gas-pipe in Little's room was wrenched into the form of a snake and broken, and the gas set on fire and flaring, so that the devastation was visible; the fireplace also hung on, heaven knows how.

Coventry cast his eyes round, and recoiled with horror at what he had done: his foot struck something; it was the letter-box, full of letters, still attached to the broken door. By some instinct of curiosity he stooped and peered. There was one letter addressed "Grace Carden."

He tried to open the box: he could not: he gave it a wrench, it was a latticed box, and came to pieces. He went down the stairs with the fragments and the letters in his hand; feet approached, and he heard a voice close to him say, "This way, Mr. Ransome, for God's sake!" A sort of panic seized him; he ran back, and in his desperation jumped on to the one beam that was standing, and from that through the open wall, and fell on the soft mud by the river bank. Though the ground was soft, the descent shook him and imbedded him so deeply he could not extricate himself for some time. But terror lends energy, and he was now thoroughly terrified: he thrust the letters in his pocket, and, being an excellent swimmer, dashed at once into the river; but he soon found it choked up with masonry and debris of every kind: he coasted this, got into the stream, and swam across to the other side. Then taking the lowest and darkest streets, contrived at last to get home, wet and filthy, and quaking.

Ransome and his men examined the shattered building within and without; but no trace could be found of any human being, alive or dead.

Then they got to the river-side with lights, and here they found foot-marks. Ransome set men to guard these from being walked over.

Attention was soon diverted from these. Several yards from the torn building, a woman was found lying all huddled together on a heap of broken masonry. She was in her night-dress, and a counterpane half over her. Her forehead and head were bleeding, and she was quite insensible. The police recognized her directly. It was Jael Dence.

She was alive, though insensible, and Ransome had her conveyed at once to the infirmary.

"Bring more lights to the water-side," said he: "the explosion has acted in that direction."

Many torches were brought. Keen eyes scanned the water. One or two policemen got out upon the ruins of the chimney, and went ankle-deep in water. But what they sought could not be found. Ransome said he was glad of it. Everybody knew what he meant.

He went back to Little's room, and examined it minutely. In the passage he found a card-case. It was lying on the door. Ransome took it up mechanically, and put it in his pocket. He did not examine it at this time: he took for granted it was Little's. He asked one of his men whether a man had not been seen in that room. The officer said, "Yes."

"Did he come down?"

"No; and I can't think how he got out."

"It is plain how he got out; and that accounts for something I observed in the mud. Now, Williams, you go to my place for that stuff I use to take the mold of footprints. Bring plenty. Four of you scour the town, and try and find out who has gone home with river-mud on his shoes or trousers. Send me the porter."

When the porter came, he asked him whether Mr. Little had slept in the works.

The porter could not say for certain.

"Well, but what was his habit?"

"He always slept here of late."

"Where did you see him last?"

"I let him into the works."

"When?"

"I should think about seven o'clock."

"Did you let him out again?"

"No, Mr. Ransome."

"Perhaps you might, and not recollect. Pray think."

The porter shook his head.

"Are you sure you did not let him out?"

"I am quite sure of that."

"Then the Lord have mercy on his soul!"

That was Grace Carden's first anonymous letter. Its contents curdled her veins with poison. The poor girl sat pale and benumbed, turning the letter in her hand, and reading the fatal words over and over again.

There was a time when she would have entirely disbelieved this slander; but now she remembered, with dismay, how many things had combined to attach Henry to Jael Dence. And then the letter stated such hard facts; facts unknown to her, but advanced positively.

But what terrified her most was that Henry had so lately told her Jael Dence loved him best.

Yet her tossed and tortured mind laid hold of this comfort, that not the man only, but the woman too, were loyal, faithful spirits. Could they both have changed? Appearances are deceitful, and might have deceived this anonymous writer.

After hours of mere suffering, she began to ask herself what she should do?

Her first feminine impulse was to try and find out the truth without Henry's aid.

But no; on second thoughts she would be open and loyal, show Henry the letter, and ask him to tell her how much truth, if any, there was in it.

The agony she endured was a lesson to her. Now she knew what jealousy was; and saw at once she could not endure its torments. She thought to herself he was quite right to make her dismiss Mr. Coventry, and he must dismiss Jael; she should insist on it.

This resolution formed, she lived on thorns, awaiting Henry Little's next visit.

He came next day, but she was out.

She asked the servant if he had said anything.

The servant said, "He seemed a good deal put out at first, miss, but afterward he said, 'No, it was all for the best.'"

This was another blow. Grace connected these words of Henry in some mysterious way with the anonymous letter, and spent the night crying: but in the morning, being a brave, high-spirited girl, she resolved to take a direct course; she would go down to the works, and request an explanation on the premises. She would see the room where Henry was said to pass so many hours with Jael, and she would show him that the man she loved, and lived for, must place himself above suspicion, or lose her forever. "And if he quarrels with me for that," she thought, "why, I can die." She actually carried out her resolution, and went early next morning to the works to demand an explanation. She took the letter with her. As she went along she discussed in her own mind how she should proceed, and at last she resolved to just hand him the letter and fix her eye on him. His face would tell her the truth.

She drove up to the great gate; there were a good many people about, talking, in excited groups.

The porter came out to her. She said she wished to see Mr. Little.

The porter stared: the people within hearing left off talking, and stared too, at her, and then at one another.

At last the porter found his voice. "Mr. Little! why, we can't find him anywhere, dead or alive."

Just then Ransome came out, and, seeing Miss Carden, gave a start, and looked much concerned.

Grace noticed this look, and her own face began to fill with surprise, and then with alarm. "Not to be found!" she faltered.

She did not know Mr. Ransome, but he knew her; and he came to the carriage-window and said, in a low voice, "Miss Carden, I am the chief-constable. I would advise you to return home. The fact is, there has been an explosion here, and a young woman nearly killed."

"Poor creature! But Mr. Little! Oh, sir! Oh, sir!"

"We can't find him," said Ransome, solemnly: "and we fear--we sadly fear----"

Grace uttered a low cry, and then sat trembling.

Ransome tried to console her; said it was just possible he might have not slept in the works.

The porter shook his head.

Grace sprung from the carriage. "Show me the place," said she, hoarsely.

Ransome demurred. "It is an ugly sight for any one to see."

"Who has a better right to see it than I? I shall find him if he is there. Give me your arm: I have heard him speak of you."

Then Ransome yielded reluctantly, and took her to the place.

He showed her Henry's room, all rent and mutilated.

She shuddered, and, covering her face with her hands, leaned half fainting against her conductor; but soon she shook this off, and became inspired with strange energy, though her face was like marble.

She drew him, indeed almost dragged him, hither and thither, questioning him, and listening to everybody's conjectures; for there were loud groups here of work-people and towns-people.

Some thought he was buried under the great chimney in the river, others intimated plainly their fear that he was blown to atoms.

At each suggestion Grace Carden's whole body winced and quivered as if the words were sword cuts, but she would not be persuaded to retire. "No, no," she cried, "amongst so many, some one will guess right. I'll hear all they think, if I die on the spot: die! What is life to me now? Ah! what is that woman saying?" And she hurried Ransome toward a work-woman who was haranguing several of her comrades.

The woman saw Ransome coming toward her with a strange lady.

"Ah!" said she, "here's the constable. Mr. Ransome, will ye tell me where you found the lass, yesternight?"

"She was lying on that heap of bricks: I marked the place with two pieces of chalk; ay, here they are; her head lay here, and her feet here."

"Well, then," said the woman, "he will not be far from that place. You clear away those bricks and rubbish, and you will find him underneath. She was his sweetheart, that is well known here; and he was safe to be beside her when the place was blown up."

"No such thing," said Ransome, angrily, and casting a side-look at Grace. "She lay on the second floor, and Mr. Little on the first floor."

"Thou simple body," said the woman. "What's a stair to a young man when a bonny lass lies awaiting him, and not a soul about? They were a deal too close together all day, to be distant at night."

A murmur of assent burst at once from all the women.

Grace's body winced and quivered, but her marble face never stirred, nor did her lips utter a sound.

"Come away from their scandalous tongues," said Ransome, eagerly.

"No," said Grace; and such a "No." It was like a statue uttering a chip of its own marble.

Then she stood quivering a moment; then, leaving Ransome's arm, she darted up to the place where Jael Dence had been found.

She stood like a bird on the broken masonry, and opened her beautiful eyes in a strange way, and demanded of all her senses whether the body of him she loved lay beneath her feet.

After a minute, during which every eye was riveted on her, she said, "I don't believe it; I don't feel him near me. But I will know."

She took out her purse full of gold, and held it up to the women. "This for you, if you will help me." Then, kneeling down, she began to tear up the bricks and throw them, one after another, as far as her strength permitted. The effect on the work-women was electrical: they swarmed on the broken masonry, and began to clear it away brick by brick. They worked with sympathetic fury, led by this fair creature, whose white hands were soon soiled and bloody, but never tired. In less than an hour they had cleared away several wagon-loads of debris.

The body of Henry Little was not there.

Grace gave her purse to the women, and leaned heavily on Mr. Ransome's arm again. He supported her out of the works.

As soon as they were alone, she said, "Is Jael Dence alive or dead?"

"She was alive half an hour ago."

"Where is she?"

"At the hospital."

"Take me to the hospital."

He took her to the hospital, and soon they stood beside a clean little bed, in which lay the white but still comely face of Jael Dence: her luxuriant hair was cut close, and her head bandaged; but for her majestic form, she looked a fair, dying boy.

"Stand back," said Grace, "and let me speak to her." Then she leaned over Jael, where she lay.

Gentle women are not all gentleness. Watch them, especially in contact with their own sex, and you shall see now and then a trait of the wild animal. Grace Carden at this moment was any thing but dove-like; it was more like a falcon the way she clutched the bedclothes, and towered over that prostrate figure, and then, descending slowly nearer and nearer, plunged her eyes into those fixed and staring orbs of Jael Dence.

So she remained riveted. Had Jael been conscious, and culpable, nothing could have escaped a scrutiny so penetrating.

Even unconscious as she was, Jael's brain and body began to show some signs they were not quite impervious to the strange magnetic power which besieged them so closely. When Grace's eyes had been close to hers about a minute, Jael Dence moved her head slightly to the left, as if those eyes scorched her.

But Grace moved her own head to the right, rapid as a snake, and fixed her again directly.

Jael Dence's bosom gave a heave.

"Where--is--Henry Little?" said Grace, still holding her tight by the eye, and speaking very slowly, and in such a tone, low, but solemn and commanding; a tone that compelled reply.

"Where--is--Henry Little?"

When this was so repeated, Jael moved a little, and her lips began to quiver.

"Where--is--Henry Little?"

Jael's lips opened feebly, and some inarticulate sounds issued from them.

"Where--is--Henry Little?"

Jael Dence, though unconscious, writhed and moaned so that the head nurse interfered, and said she could not have the patient tormented.

Ransome waved her aside, but taking Grace Carden's hand drew her gently away.

She made no positive resistance; but, while her body yielded and retired, her eye remained riveted on Jael Dence, and her hand clutched the air like a hawk's talons, unwilling to lose her prey, and then she turned so weak, Ransome had to support her to her carriage.

As Grace's head sunk on Ransome's shoulder, Jael Dence's eyes closed for the first time.

As Ransome was lifting Grace Carden into the carriage, she said, in a sort of sleepy voice, "Is there no way out of these works but one?"

"Not that I know of; but I will go at once and see. Shall he drive you home?"

"Yes. No--to Dr. Amboyne."

Dr. Amboyne was gone to "Woodbine Villa."

She waited in his study, moving about the room all the time, with her face of marble, and her poor restless hands.

At last the doctor returned: they told him at the door Miss Carden was there; he came in to her with both hands extended, and his face working with emotion.

She fell sobbing into his arms; sobbing, but not a tear.

"Is there any hope?"

"I have one. May he not have left the country in a fit of despair? He often threatened. He talked of going to the United States."

"So he did. Ah, he called on me yesterday afternoon. Might not that have been to bid me good-bye?"

She looked so imploringly in Dr. Amboyne's face that he assented, though full of doubt.

And now there was a ring at the bell, and Mr. Ransome came to say there was a little postern gate by which Mr. Little might possibly have gone out and the porter not seen him; and, what was more, this gate, by all accounts, had been recently opened: it was closed before Bolt and Little took the premises.

Mr. Ransome added that he should now make it his business to learn, if possible, whether it had been opened by Mr. Little's orders.

Grace thanked him earnestly, and looked hopeful; so did Dr. Amboyne.

"But, doctor," said Grace, "if he has gone away at all, he must have told somebody. Even if there was nobody he loved, he would tell--ah! Mr. Bolt!!"

"You are right. Let us go to him at once."

They found Mr. Bolt in quite a different frame of mind from their own; he was breathing vengeance. However, he showed some feeling for Grace, and told the doctor plainly he feared the worst. Little had been downhearted for some time, and at last he (Bolt) had lost patience with him, and had proposed to him to take an annual payment of nine hundred pounds instead of a share, and leave the concern. Little had asked two days to consider this proposal. "Now," argued Bolt, "if he meant to leave England, he could not do better than take my offer: and he would have taken it before he left. He would have called, or else sent me a letter. But no; not a word! It's a bad job: I'm fond of money, but I'd give a few thousands to see him alive again. But I don't think I ever shall. There are five hundred thousand bricks of ours in that river, and a foot and a half of mud."

While they were both shuddering at this dark allusion, he went off into idle threats, and Grace left him, sick and cold, and clinging to Dr. Amboyne like a drowning woman.

"Have courage," said Dr. Amboyne. "There is one chance left us. His mother! I will telegraph to Aberystwith."

They drove together to the telegraph-office, and sent a telegram. The doctor would not consent to frighten Mrs. Little to death. He simply asked whether her son had just visited or written to her. The answer was paid for; but four hours elapsed, and no answer came.

Then Grace implored the doctor to go with her to Aberystwith. He looked grave, and said she was undertaking too much. She replied, almost fiercely, that she must do all that could be done, or she should go mad.

"But your father, my dear!"

"He is in London. I will tell him all when he returns. He would let me go anywhere with you. I must go; I will!"

At four o'clock they were in the train. They spoke to each other but little on the way; their hearts were too full of dire forebodings to talk about nothings. But, when they were in the fly at Aberystwith, going from the station to Mrs. Little's lodgings, Grace laid her head on her friend's shoulder and said, "Oh, doctor, it has come to this; I hope he loved his mother better than me." Then came a flood of tears--the first.

They went to Mrs. Little's lodgings. The landlady had retired to bed, and, on hearing their errand, told them, out of the second-floor window, that Mrs. Little had left her some days ago, and gone to a neighboring village for change of air.

Grace and Dr. Amboyne drove next morning to that village, and soon learned where Mrs. Little was. Dr. Amboyne left Grace at the inn, for he knew the sight of her would at once alarm Mrs. Little; and in a matter so uncertain as this, he thought the greatest caution necessary. Grace waited for him at the inn in an agony of suspense. She watched at the window for him, and at last she saw him coming toward her. His head was down, and she could not read his face, or she could have told in a moment whether he brought good news or bad.

She waited for him, erect but trembling. He opened the door, and stood before her, pale and agitated--so pale and agitated she had never seen him before.

He faltered out, "She knows nothing. She must know nothing. She is too ill and weak, and, indeed, in such a condition that to tell her the fatal news would probably have killed her on the spot. All I dared do was to ask her with assumed indifference if she had heard from Henry lately. No, Grace, not for these three days."

He sat down and groaned aloud.

"You love the son," said he, "but I love the mother: loved her years before you were born."

At this unexpected revelation Grace Carden kissed him, and wept on his shoulder. Then they went sadly home again.

Doctor Amboyne now gave up all hopes of Henry, and his anxiety was concentrated on Mrs. Little. How on earth was he to save her from a shock likely to prove fatal in her weak condition? To bring her to Hillsborough in her present state would be fatal. He was compelled to leave her in Wales, and that looked so like abandoning her. He suffered torture, the torture that only noble minds can know. At midnight, as he lay in bed, and revolved in his mind all the difficulties and perils of this pitiable situation, an idea struck him. He would try and persuade Mrs. Little to marry him. Should she consent, he could then take her on a wedding-tour, and that tour he could easily extend from place to place, putting off the evil time until, strong in health and conjugal affection, she might be able to endure the terrible, the inevitable blow. The very next morning he wrote her an eloquent letter; he told her that Henry had gone suddenly off to Australia to sell his patents; that almost his last word had been, "My mother! I leave her to you." This, said the doctor, is a sacred commission; and how can I execute it? I cannot invite you to Hillsborough, for the air is fatal to you. Think of your half-promise, and my many years of devotion, and give me the right to carry out your son's wishes to the full.

Mrs. Little replied to this letter, and the result of the correspondence was this: she said she would marry him if she could recover her health, but that she feared she never should until she was reconciled to her brother.

Meantime Grace Carden fell into a strange state: fits of feverish energy; fits of death-like stupor. She could do nothing, yet it maddened her to be idle. With Bolt's permission, she set workmen to remove all the remains of the chimney that could be got at--the water was high just then: she had a barge and workmen, and often watched them, and urged them by her presence. Not that she ever spoke; but she hovered about with her marble face and staring eyes, and the sight of her touched their hearts and spurred them to exertion.

Sometimes she used to stand on a heap of bricks hard by, and peer, with dilated eyes into the dark stream, and watch each bucket, or basket, as it came up with bricks, and rubbish, and mud, from the bottom.

At other times she would stand on the bridge and lean over the battlements so far as if she would fly down and search for her dead lover.

One day as she hung thus, glaring into the water, she heard a deep sigh. She looked up, and there was a face almost as pale as her own, and even more haggard, looking at her with a strange mixture of pain and pity. This ghastly spectator of her agony was himself a miserable man, it was Frederick Coventry. His crime had brought him no happiness, no hope of happiness.

At sight of him Grace Carden groaned, and covered her face with her hands.

Coventry drew back dismayed. His guilty conscience misinterpreted this.

"You can forgive us now," said Grace, with a deep sob: then turned away with sullen listlessness, and continued her sad scrutiny.

Coventry loved her, after his fashion, and her mute but eloquent misery moved him.

He drew nearer to her, and said softly, "Do not look so; I can't bear it. He is not there."

"Ah! How do you know?"

Coventry was silent for a moment, and seemed uneasy; but at last he replied thus: "There were two explosions. The chimney fell into the river a moment before the explosion that blew up the works. So how can he be buried under the ruins of the chimney? I know this from a workman who was standing on the bridge when the explosions took place."

"Bless the tongue that tells me that! Oh, how much wiser you are than the rest of us! Mr. Coventry, pity and forgive a poor girl who has used you ill. Tell me--tell me--what can have become of him?"

Coventry was much agitated, and could not speak for some time, and when he did, it was in a faint voice as of one exhausted by a mental struggle. "Would you rather he was--dead--or--false?"

"Oh false--a thousand times! Prove to me he is not dead, but only false to his poor Grace, and I will bless you on my knees."

Coventry's eye flashed. "Well, then, he was the lover of Jael Dence, the girl who fought for him, and shed her blood for him, and saved his life. The connection was open and notorious."

Grace was silent.

"Many a man has fled from two women, who could have been happy with either of them. I believe that this man found himself unable to play the double game any longer, and that he has fled the country--"

"I pray God it may be so," sobbed Grace.

"--Through remorse, or from dread of exposure. Have patience. Do not kill yourself, and break all our hearts. Take my word for it, you will hear from him in a few days, and he will give you reasons for his strange disappearance--excellent, business-like reasons, but not the true ones: there will not be a word about Jael Dence." This last with a sneer.

Grace turned on him with eyes that literally gleamed: "You hated him living, you slander him dead. Falsehood was not in him: his affection for Jael Dence was no secret. I knew it, and approved it. It was as pure as heaven. His poor mutilated body will soon contradict these vile calumnies. I hate you! I hate you!"

Coventry drew back at first from this burst of ire, but soon he met her glance with one of fiendish bitterness. "You hate me for pitying you, and saying that man is not dead. Well, have your own way, then; he is not false, but dead."

He turned on his heel, and went away.

As for Mr. Carden, he declined to admit that Little was dead, and said his conduct was unpardonable, and, indeed, so nearly resembled madness, that, considering the young man's father had committed suicide, he was determined never to admit him into his house again--at all events as a suitor to Grace.

Mr. Coventry had now taken spacious apartments, and furnished them. He resumed his visits to the club. Mr. Carden met him there, and spoke more confidentially to him than he did to his daughter, and admitted he had grave doubts, but said he was a director of the Gosshawk, and would never, either in public or private, allow that Little was dead unless his body should be found and properly identified.

All this time there was a hot discussion in the journals, and the Saw-grinders' Union repudiated the outrage with horror, and offered a considerable reward.

Outsiders were taken in by this, but not a single manufacturer or workman.

Mr. Holdfast denounced it as a Trade outrage, and Ransome groped the town for evidence.

The latter, however, was rather puzzled one day by an anonymous letter telling him he was all on the wrong tack; it was not a Trade job, but contrived by a gentleman for his private ends. Advantage had been taken of Little being wrong with the Trade; "but," said the letter, "you should look to the head for the motive, not to the hands. One or two saw them together a good many times before the deed was done, and the swell was seen on the very bridge when the explosion took place."

This set Ransome thinking very seriously and comparing notes.

Week after week went by and left the mystery unsolved.

Mr. Coventry saw Mr. Carden nearly every day, and asked him was there no news of Little? The answer was always in the negative, and this surprised Coventry more and more.

When a whole month had elapsed, even he began to fancy strange things, and to nurse wild projects that had never entered his head before. He studied books of medical jurisprudence, and made all manner of experiments. He resumed his intimacy with Cole, and they were often closeted together.

Five weeks had elapsed, and Grace Carden had lost all her feverish energy, and remained passive, lethargic, fearing every thing, hoping nothing, but quivering all day with expectation of the next blow; for what had she left to expect now but sorrow in some form or other?

She often wished to visit Jael Dence again at the hospital; but for some time an invincible repugnance withheld her.

She asked Dr. Amboyne to go instead, and question the unhappy girl.

Dr. Amboyne did so; but Jael was now in a half-stupid condition, and her poor brain not clear enough to remember what she was wanted to remember. Her memory was full of gaps, and, unluckily, one of these gaps embraced the whole period between her battle with Hill and the present time.

At last Grace was irritated, and blamed the doctor for his failure.

She reminded him she had herself magnetized Jael, and had almost made her speak. She resolved to go to the hospital herself. "I'll make her tell me one thing," said she, "though I tear her heart out, and my own too."

She dressed plainly, and walked rapidly down toward the hospital. There were two ways to it, but she chose the one that was sure to give her pain. She could not help it; her very feet dragged her to that fatal spot.

When she drew near the fatal bridge, she observed a number of persons collected on it, looking down in the river at some distance.

At the same time people began to hurry past her, making for the bridge.

She asked one of them what it was.

"Summut in the river," was the reply, but in a tone so full of meaning, that at these simple words she ran forward, though her knees almost gave way under her.

The bridge was not so crowded yet, but that she contrived to push in between two women, and look.

All the people were speaking in low murmurs. The hot weather had dried the river up to a stream in the middle, and, in midstream, about fifty yards from the foot of the bridge, was a pile of broken masonry, which had once been the upper part of Bolt and Little's chimney. It had fallen into water twelve feet deep; but now the water was not above five feet, and a portion of the broken bricks and tiles were visible, some just above, some just under the water.

At one side of this wreck jutted out the object on which all eyes were now fastened. At first sight it looked a crooked log of wood sticking out from among the bricks. Thousands, indeed, had passed the bridge, and noticed nothing particular about it; but one, more observant or less hurried, had peered, and then pointed, and collected the crowd.

It needed but a second look to show that this was not a log of wood but the sleeve of a man's coat. A closer inspection revealed that the sleeve was not empty.

There was an arm inside that sleeve, and a little more under the water one could see distinctly a hand white and sodden by the water.

The dark stream just rippled over this hand, half veiling it at times, though never hiding it.

"The body will be jammed among the bricks," said a by-stander; and all assented with awe.

"Eh! to think of its sticking out an arm like that!" said a young girl.

"Dead folk have done more than that, sooner than want Christian burial," replied an old woman.

"I warrant ye they have. I can't look at it."

"Is it cloth, or what?" inquired another.

"It's a kind of tweed, I think."

"What's that glittering on its finger?"

"It's a ring--a gold ring."

At this last revelation there was a fearful scream, and Grace Carden fell senseless on the pavement.

A gentleman who had been hanging about and listening to the comments now darted forward, with a face almost as white as her own, and raised her up, and implored the people to get her a carriage.

It was Mr. Coventry. Little had he counted on this meeting. Horror-stricken, he conveyed the insensible girl to her father's house.

He handed her over to the women, and fled, and the women brought her round; but she had scarcely recovered her senses, when she uttered another piercing scream, and swooned again.

Coventry passed a night of agony and remorse. He got up broken and despondent, and went straight to "Woodbine Villa" to do a good action.

He inquired for Miss Carden. They told him she was very ill. He expressed an earnest wish to see her. The servants told him that was impossible. Nobody was allowed to see her but Dr. Amboyne. He went next day to Dr. Amboyne, and the doctor told him that Miss Carden was dangerously ill. Brain fever appeared inevitable.

"But, sir," said Coventry, eagerly, "if one could prove to her that those were not the remains of Henry Little?"

"How could you prove that? Besides, it would be no use now. She is delirious. Even should she live, I should forbid the subject for many a day. Indeed, none but the man himself could make her believe those remains are not his; and even he could not save her now. If he stood by her bedside, she would not know him."

The doctor's lip trembled a little, and his words were so grave and solemn that they struck to the miserable man's marrow. He staggered away, like a drunken man, to his lodgings, and there flung himself on the floor, and groveled in an agony of terror and remorse.

One day it occurred to Raby he could play the misanthrope just as well at home as abroad, so he returned home.

He found old Dence dead and buried, and Patty Dence gone to Australia with her husband.

He heard Jael was in the hospital. He called at "Woodbine Villa," and they told him Grace was lying between life and death.

He called on Dr. Amboyne, and found him as sad as he used to be gay. The doctor told him all, and even took him to the town hall, and showed him an arm and part of the trunk of a man preserved in spirits, and a piece of tweed cloth, and a plain gold ring.

"There," said he, "is all that remains to us of your nephew, and my friend. Genius, beauty, courage--all come to this!" He could say no more.

The tears filled Raby's eyes, and all his bitterness melted away. With respect to his sister, he said he was quite willing to be reconciled, and even to own himself in the wrong, if Dr. Amboyne, on reading the correspondence, should think so. Dr. Amboyne said he would come to Raby Hall for that purpose. He communicated this at once to Mrs. Little.

Grace had a favorable crisis, and in a few days more she was out of danger, but in a deplorable state of weakness. Dr. Amboyne ordered her to the sea-side. A carriage was prepared expressly for her, and her father took her there.

"Woodbine Villa" was put up to let furnished, and it was taken by--Mr. Coventry.

Jael Dence began to recover strength rapidly, but she wore at times a confused look. The very day Grace left for Eastbank she was discharged as cured, and left the hospital. This was in the morning.

In the afternoon Dr. Amboyne, being now relieved of his anxiety as to Grace, remembered he had not been to see this poor girl for some time; so he went to the hospital.

When he heard she was discharged, he felt annoyed with himself for not having paid her closer attention. And besides, Grace had repeatedly told him Jael Dence could make a revelation if she chose. And now, occupied with Grace herself, he had neglected her wishes.

"Where is she gone? do you know?"

One of the nurses said she was gone home.

Another said the patient had told her she should go down to the works first.

"And that is the very last place you should have let her go to," said the doctor. "A fine shock the poor creature will get there. You want her back here again, I suppose!" He felt uneasy, and drove down to the works. There he made some inquiries among the women, and elicited that Jael Dence had turned faint at sight of the place, and they had shown her, at her request, where she had been picked up, and had told her about the discovery of Little's remains, and she had persuaded a little girl to go to the town hall with her.

"Oh, the tongue! the tongue!" groaned Amboyne.

He asked to see the little girl, and she came forward of her own accord, and told him she had gone to the town hall with the lass, "but" (regretfully) "that the man would not show them it without an order from the Mayor."

"It!"

Dr. Amboyne said he was very glad that common sense had not quite deserted the earth. "And where did you go next?"

"I came back here."

"So I see; but the lass?"

"She said she should go home. 'My dear,' says she, 'there's nobody left me here; I'll go and die among my own folk.' That was her word."

"Poor thing! poor thing! Why----"

He stopped short, for that moment he remembered Raby had said old Dence was dead, and Patty gone to Australia. If so, here was another blow in store for poor Jael, and she weakened by a long illness.

He instantly resolved to drive after her, and see whether she was really in a fit state to encounter so many terrible shocks. If not, he should take her back to the infirmary, or into his own house; for he had a great respect for her, and indeed for all her family.

He drove fast, but he could see nothing of her on the road. So then he went on to Cairnhope.

He stopped at the farm-house. It was sadly deteriorated in appearance. Inside he found only an old carter and his daughter. The place was in their charge.

The old man told him apathetically Jael had come home two hours ago and asked for her father and Patty, and they had told her the old farmer was dead and buried, and Patty gone to foreign parts.

"What, you blurted it out like that! You couldn't put yourself in that poor creature's place, and think what a blow it would be? How, in Heaven's name, did she take it?"

"Well, sir, she stared a bit, and looked stupid-like; and then she sat down. She sat crowded all together like in yon corner best part of an hour, and then she got up and said she must go and see his grave."

"You hadn't the sense to make her eat, of course?"

"My girl here set meat afore her, but she couldn't taste it."

Dr. Amboyne drove to Raby Hall and told Raby. Raby said he would have Jael up to the hall. It would be a better place for her now than the farm. He ordered a room to be got ready for her, and a large fire lighted, and at the same time ordered the best bedroom for Dr. Amboyne. "You must dine and sleep here," said he, "and talk of old times."

Dr. Amboyne thanked him--it was dusk by this time--and was soon seated at that hospitable table, with a huge wood fire blazing genially.

Meantime Jael Dence sat crouched upon her father's grave, stupefied with grief. When she had crouched there a long time she got up, and muttered, "Dead and gone! dead and gone!"

Then she crept up to the old church, and sat down in the porch, benumbed with grief, and still a little confused in her poor head.

She sat there for nearly two hours, and then she got up, and muttered, "Dead and gone--he is dead and gone!" and wandered on the hill desolate.

Her feet wandered, her brain wandered. She found herself at last in a place she recognized. It was Squire Raby's lawn. The moon had just risen, and shone on the turf, and on the little river that went curling round with here and there a deep pool.

She crept nearer, and saw the great bay-window, and a blaze of light behind it.

There she had sung the great Noel with her father; and now he was dead and gone.

There she had been with Henry Little, and seen him recognize his mother's picture; and now he was dead and gone. She had saved his life in vain; he was dead and gone. Every body was dead and gone.

She looked up at the glowing window. She looked down at the pool, with the moon kissing it.

She flung her arms up with a scream of agony, and sunk into the deep pool, where the moon seemed most to smile on it.

Directly after dinner Dr. Amboyne asked to see the unhappy correspondence of which he was to be the judge.

Raby went for the letters, and laid them before him. He took up the fatal letter. "Why, this is not written by Mrs. Little. I know her neat Italian hand too well. See how the letters slant and straggle."

"Oh! but you must allow for the writer's agitation."

"Why should I allow for it? You didn't. Who can look at this scrawl, and not see that the poor heart-broken creature was not herself when she wrote it? This is not a letter, it is a mere scream of agony. Put yourself in her place. Imagine yourself a woman--a creature in whom the feelings overpower the judgment. Consider the shock, the wound, the frenzy; and, besides, she had no idea that you left this house to get her husband the money from your own funds."

"She never shall know it either."

"She does know it. I have told her. And, poor thing, she thinks she was the only one to blame. She seeks your forgiveness. She pines for it. This is the true cause of her illness; and I believe, if you could forgive her and love her, it might yet save her life."

"Then tell her I blame myself as much as her. Tell her my house, my arms, and my heart are open to her. Amboyne, you are a true friend, and a worthy man. God bless you. How shall we get her here, poor soul? Will you go for her, or shall I?"

"Let me sleep on that," said Dr. Amboyne.

In the course of the evening, Dr. Amboyne told Raby all the reports about Jael Dence and Henry Little.

"What does that matter now?" said Raby, with a sigh.

Whenever a servant came into the room, Amboyne asked him if Jael had arrived.

Raby shared his curiosity, but not his anxiety. "The girl knows her friends," said he. "She will have her cry out, you may depend; but after that she will find her way here, and, when she has got over it a little, I shall be sure to learn from her whether he was her lover, and where he was when the place was blown up. A Dence never lies to a Raby."

But when nine o'clock struck, and there were no tidings of her, Raby began to share the doctor's uneasiness, and also to be rather angry and impatient.

"Confound the girl!" said he. "Her grandfathers have stood by mine, in their danger and trouble, for two hundred years; and now, in her trouble, she slinks away from me."

"Put yourself in her place," said Amboyne. "Ten to one she thinks you are offended about her and Henry. She is afraid to come near you."

"What, when I ask her?"

"Through your stupid lazy servants, who, to save themselves trouble, have very likely told somebody else to tell her; and we know what comes of that process. Ten to one the invitation has either missed her altogether, or come to her divested of all that is kind and soothing. And remember, she is not a man. She is a poor girl, full of shame and apprehension, and needs a gentle encouraging hand to draw her here. Do, for once, put yourself in a woman's place--you were born of a woman."

"You are right," said Raby. "I will send down a carriage for her, with a line in my own hand."

He did so.

At eleven the servant came back with the news that Jael Dence was not at home. She had been seen wandering about the country, and was believed to be wrong in her head. George, the blacksmith, and others, were gone up to the old church after her.

"Turn out with torches, every man Jack of you, and find her," said Raby.

As for Raby and Amboyne, they sat by the fireside and conversed together--principally about poor Mrs. Little; but the conversation was languid.

A few minutes after midnight a terrible scream was heard. It was uttered out of doors, yet it seemed to penetrate the very room where Raby and Amboyne were seated. Both men started to their feet. The scream was not repeated. They looked at each other.

"It was in my garden," said Raby; and, with some little difficulty, he opened the window and ran out, followed by Amboyne.

They looked, but could see nothing.

But, with that death-shriek ringing in their ears, they wasted no time. Raby waved Amboyne to the left, and himself dashed off to the right, and they scoured the lawn in less than a minute.

A cry of horror from Raby! He had found the body of a woman floating in a pool of the river, head downward.

He dashed into the water directly and drew it to the bank; Dr. Amboyne helped him, and they got it out on dry land. The face was ghastly, the body still.

"Turn her face downward," said Amboyne, "give her every chance. Carry her gently."

One took the shoulders, the other the feet; they carried her slowly in and laid her gently down before the fire.

She lay like dripping marble.

Her clothes clinging tightly round her, revealed her marvelous form and limbs of antique mold--but all so deadly still.

Amboyne kneeled over her, searching, in vain, for some sign of life. He groaned.

"Oh!" said he, "is it possible that such a creature as this can be cut off in its prime?"

"Dead!" cried Raby, trembling all over. "Oh, God forbid! One of her ancestors saved a Raby's life in battle, another saved a Raby in a foaming flood; and I couldn't save her in a dead pool! She is the last of that loyal race, and I'm the last Raby. Farewell, Dence! Farewell, Raby!"

While he bemoaned her thus, and his tears actually dripped upon her pale face, Amboyne detected a slight quivering in the drowned woman's throat.

"Hush!" said he to Raby.

There was a pair of old-fashioned bellows by the side of the fire; Amboyne seized them, and opened Jael's mouth with more ease than he expected. "That is a good sign," said he.

He inflated the bellows, and inserted the tube very carefully; then he discharged the air, then gently sucked it back again. When he had done this several times something like a sigh escaped from Jael's breast. The doctor removed the bellows, and felt her heart and examined her eyes. "Curious!" said he. "Give me some brandy. It is more like syncope than drowning."

Acting on this notion, he laid her flat on her back, and applied neat brandy to her nostrils and ears.

After a while she moved her whole body like a wounded snake, and moaned feebly.

Raby uttered a loud shout of joy. "She is saved!" he cried. "She is saved!" He jumped about the room like a boy, and, anxious to do something or other, was for ringing up the female servants. But Amboyne would not hear of it. "On the contrary," said he, "lock the door, and let only you and I see the poor girl's distress when she comes back to this bitter world. Raby, don't you shut your eyes to the truth. This was no accident."

"I am afraid not," said Raby. "She knows the water as well as I do, and she picked out the deepest hole: poor girl! poor girl"

He then asked Amboyne in a whisper what he thought she would do when she came to her senses.

"Impossible to say. She may be violent, and if so we shall have enough to do to hold her. They tell me she threw that workman like a sack."

At this moment Jael stretched her great arms and sighed. The movement, though gentle and feminine, had a grandeur and freedom that only goes with power.

The doctor lowered his voice to a whisper. "She is a good Christian, and most likely she will be penitent, and then she will cry her heart out. Any way, she is pretty sure to be hysterical, so mind and be firm as well as kind. There, her color is coming back. Now put yourself in her place. You and I must call this an accident. Stick to that through thick and thin. Ah, she is coming round safe. She shall see you first. You take her right hand, and look at her with all the pity and kindness I am sure you feel."

Mr. Raby took Jael's hand in both his, and fixed his eyes on her with pity and anxiety.

She came to her senses, and stared at him a long time.

Then she looked down at her wet clothes. Then she snatched her hand away, and covered her face with both hands, and began to rock and moan, and finally turned round and hid her face against the very floor as if she would grovel and burrow into it.

"Are you better, my dear?" said the doctor, quietly.

No reply. And the face still crushed against the floor.

"The next time you faint away, don't let it be on the banks of a river. You have been going too long without food; and you fainted away and fell into the river. Luckily it was not very deep or it might have been serious. You have given us a fine fright, I can tell you."

While these words were being uttered, Jael, who did not miss a syllable, began to look very, very slowly round with scared and troubled eyes, and to defend herself. "I remember naught," said she, doggedly. Who took me out?"

"Mr. Raby."

She looked timidly at him, and saw his wet clothes.

"Oh, squire, why did you spoil your clothes for me?" and she laid her head on his knee and began to cry.

"My clothes!" said Raby. "The girl wants to break my heart."

"Eh, dear! and I've spoiled the beautiful carpet," said Jael, piteously.

"D----n the carpet!" said Raby, nearly blubbering.

All this time Amboyne was putting himself in Jael's Dence's place.

"Is there a good fire in her room?" asked he, with a significant look.

Raby took the hint, and said he would go and see.

As soon as he was out of the room, the transmigrator began to talk very fast to Jael. "Now look here, Jael, that poor man is alone in the world now, and very sad; he wants you to keep his house for him. He has been sending messages all day after you, and your room has been ready ever so long."

"My room in this house?"

"Yes. But we could not find you. However, here you are. Now you must not go back to the farm. The poor squire won't be quite so sad if he sees you about him. You know he was always fond of you Dences. You should have seen him cry over you just now when he thought you were dead."

"I am more cared for than I thought," said Jael, softly.

"Yes, but not more than you deserve, my dear." He dipped a sponge-cake in wine. "Oblige me by eating that."

She took it submissively.

"Now another."

She ate another, and a third.

"It's a very wicked lass you are so good to," said she, softly, and some gentle tears began to flow.

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the doctor. "What do you know about wickedness? I'm a better judge of that than you, and I say you are the best girl and the most unselfish girl in the world; and the proof is that, instead of sitting down and nursing your own griefs, you are going to pluck up courage, and be a comfort to poor Mr. Raby in his lonely condition."

These words appeared to sink into Jael's mind: she put her hands to her head, and pondered them. Perhaps she might have replied to them, but Raby came down, and ordered her to her apartment.

She took a step or two in that direction, but presently drew back and would not move. "The women-folk! They'll see me on the stair, this figure."

"Not they. They are all in bed."

"Are they so? Then please let me go to the kitchen for a dry cloth or two."

"What to do?"

"To dry the rug a bit. Just look--what a mess I've made!"

"I'll say it was the dog."

"Will you, though? Oh, but you are a good friend to me this night. Then I'll go. Let me wring my gown a bit, not to mess the stairs as well."

"No, no; I'll take all the blame. Will you go, or must the doctor and I carry you?"

"Nay, nay, there's no need. Your will is my pleasure, sir."

So Mr. Raby showed Jael to her room, and opened a great wardrobe, and took out several armfuls of antique female habiliments, and flung them on the floor; rich velvets, more or less faded, old brocades, lace scarves, chemises with lace borders; in short, an accumulation of centuries. He soon erected a mound of these things in the middle of the floor, and told her to wear what she liked, but to be sure and air the things well first; "for," said he, "it is a hundred years or so since they went on any woman's back. Now, say your prayers like a good girl, and go to bed."

"Ay," said Jael, solemnly, "I shall say my prayers, you may be sure."

As he left the room she said, in a sort of patient way, "Good squire, I am willing to live, since you are so lonely."

Early next morning Mr. Raby was disturbed by female voices in a high key. He opened his window quietly, intending to throw in his bass with startling effect, when, to his surprise, he found the disputants were his dairymaid and Jael Dence.

"And who are you that interferes with me in my work? Where do you come from? Did ye get in over the wall? for ye never came in at no door. Who are you?"

"I am one who won't see the good squire wronged. Aren't ye ashamed? What, eat his bread, and take his wage, and then steal his butter!"

"If ye call me a thief, I'll law ye. Thief yourself! you don't belong to the house; whose gown have you got on your back? Here, James! Tom! here's a strange woman making off with the squire's lady's clothes, and two pounds of butter to boot."

Jael was taken aback for a moment by this audacious attack, and surveyed her borrowed habiliments with a blush of confusion. Several servants came about at the noise, and her situation bade fair to be a very unpleasant one: but Mr. Raby put in his word; "Hold your tongues, all of ye. Now, Jael Dence, what is the matter?"

Instantly all eyes were turned up to the window with a start, and Jael told her tale: "Sir," said she, "I did see this young woman take out something from under her apron and give it to a little girl. I thought there was something amiss, and I stopped the girl at the gate, and questioned her what she was carrying off so sly. She gives a squeak and drops it directly, and takes to her heels. I took it up and brought it in, and here it is, two beautiful pounds of butter, fresh churned; look else!"--here she undid a linen wrap, and displayed the butter--"so I challenged the dairymaid here. She says I'm a thief--and that I leave to you, Squire; you know whether I come of thieves or honest folk; but what I want to know from her is, why her lass dropped the butter and took to her heels at a word?"

"Now, my good Jael," said the Squire, "if you are going to interfere every time you catch my servants pilfering, you will have a hard time of it. However, zeal is too rare a thing for me to discourage it. I must make an example. Hy, you young woman: I dare say you are no worse than the rest, but you are the one that is found out; so you must pack up your clothes and begone."

"Not without a month's warning, or a month's wage, sir, it you please," said the dairymaid, pertly.

"If I catch you in the house when I come down, I'll send you to prison on my own warrant, with the butter tied round your neck."

At this direful threat the offender began to blubber, and speedily disappeared to pack her box.

Mr. Raby then told the other servants that Jael Dence was the new housekeeper, and that a person of her character was evidently required in the house; they must all treat her with respect, or leave his service. Thereupon two gave warning, and Mr. Raby, who never kept a servant a day after that servant had given him warning, had them up to his room, and paid them a month's wages. "And now," said he, "for the honor of the house, don't leave us fasting, but eat a good breakfast, and then go to the devil."

At his own breakfast he related the incident to Dr. Amboyne, with a characteristic comment: "And the fools say there is nothing in race. So likely, that of all animals man alone should be exempt from the law of nature! Take a drowning watch-dog out of the water and put him in a strange house, he is scarcely dry before he sets to work to protect it. Take a drowning Dence into your house, and she is up with the lark to look after your interests. That girl connive and let the man be robbed whose roof shelters her? She couldn't; it is not in her blood. I'm afraid there's to be a crusade against petty larceny in this house, and more row about it than it is worth. No matter; I shall support the crusader, on principle. It is not for me to check honest impulses, nor to fight against nature in almost the only thing where she commands my respect."

"Very well," said the doctor, "that is settled: so now let us talk of something more important. How are we to get your sister, in her delicate state, from Wales to this place?"

"Why, I will go for her myself, to be sure."

"Raby, your heart is in the right place, after all. But when she is here, how are we to conceal her unhappy son's fate from her? It will be more difficult than ever, now Jael Dence is in the house."

"Why so? We must take the girl into our confidence--that is all."

"The sooner the better then. Let us have her in here."

Jael was sent for, and Mr. Raby requested her to take a seat, and give all her attention to something Dr. Amboyne had to say.

Dr. Amboyne then told her, with quiet earnestness, that Mrs. Little was at present so ill and weak he felt sure the news of Henry's death would kill her.

"Ay, poor soul!" said Jael, and began to cry bitterly.

The doctor held his peace, and cast a disconsolate look on Raby, as much as to say, "We shall get no efficient aid in this quarter."

After a little while Jael dried her eyes, and said, "Go on, sir. I must needs cry before you now and then: 'tisn't to say I shall ever cry before her."

"Well, then, if we can get her safe to this place, and keep her in the dark for a few months, I think we may save her life. Every thing else will be in her favor here: her native air, cherished memories, her brother's love--and, after all, it was fretting about her quarrel with him that first undermined her health and spirits. Well, we shall remove the cause, and then perhaps the effect may go. But how are we to keep the sad truth from her?"

"Let me think," said Jael Dence. "My head is a deal clearer since last night."

She leaned her chin upon her hand, and her face and brow showed signs of intellectual power no one had ever observed in them before.

"Who is to go for her?" said she at last.

"I am going myself."

"That is a mistake at starting, begging your worship's pardon. Why, the very sight of you might startle her into her grave. Nay, you'll give me the money--for mine is all in the savings bank--and I shall go for her myself. I shall tell her squire is longing for her, and that I'm to be here for fear she might feel strange. She always liked me, poor soul. I shall get her safe here, you needn't fear for that. But when she is here"--the chin rested on the hand again-- "well, the doctor must forbid visitors. Miss Grace must be told not to write. Every newspaper must be read before she is allowed to see it. And, squire, you will be very kind to her when you are in her company; but we must manage, somehow or other, so that you can keep out of her way."

"What for, in heaven's name?"

"Sir, we shall have to lie from morn to night; and you will be a bungler at that, saving your presence. If there's a servant left in the house who knows, I'd give that servant a present, and part with her before Mrs. Little sets her foot in the house."

"This sounds very sensible," said Raby. "I am a novice at lying. But I shall cultivate the art for poor Edith's sake. I'm not a fanatic: there is justifiable homicide, so why not justifiable facticide?"

"Raby," said the doctor, "this young woman has said enough to show me that she is more fit to conduct this delicate undertaking than either you or I. Let us profit by the discovery, put our vanity in our pocket, and give her the command. My dear, you see the importance, you see the difficulty; now will you undertake it?"

"I will, sir," said Jael, firmly; "and I look to succeed, God willing. I shall be in Wales this afternoon."

"Well, but would you not be the better yourself for one day's rest?"

"No, sir. I've learned, with a sad heart, what one day may bring forth. After that, I'm sworn never to throw away a day. And, as for sitting down and thinking, 'tis the worst thing I can do. I do thank God that in this, my own heavy trouble, I'm not tied to my sad thoughts, but can get about, and do a little of good for Raby House. Do what I will, 'tis but giving them back one pig out of their own farrow; for we owe all we have to them."

With this she retired to prepare for her journey, leaving both the gentlemen lost in admiration of her simple virtues, and the clear intelligence she had shown them in few words.

She traveled into Wales that very day, and many a burst of bitter grief she had all by herself in the train.

At six P.M. she stood before Mrs. Little with a smiling countenance. Mrs. Little welcomed her with some little pleasure and much surprise.

"Good news, madam," said Jael. "Squire Raby has sent me to bring you to Raby Hall. He wanted to come himself, but I would not let him."

"That is good news," said Mrs. Little languidly. "Now I shall die at peace with my brother--at peace with all mankind, I hope."

"You'll die when your time comes," said Jael. But you have got a shorter journey before you at present, and that is to Raby Hall."

"Raby Hall! I shall never see it again. I have no strength to move. I am worn out with the battle of life. Stay with me here, and close my eyes."

"Of course I shall stay with you," said Jael, and began to gossip with every appearance of carelessness.

Next morning, with infinite difficulty, she persuaded the poor jaundiced lady to show her Aberystwith. She took the tickets herself, and got her patient half-way to Hillsborough; next day, with less difficulty, to Raby Hall. All had been settled before. Edith Little was shown into her old bedroom, adorned with pyramids of flowers in her honor; and there she found a loving line from Guy, begging her pardon for his past harshness, and telling her she was to send for him as soon as she felt strong enough to meet.

That evening brother and sister were clasped in each other's arms, and wept tears of affection and regret over each other.

Jael Dence slept on a camp-bed in Mrs. Little's room, which was very spacious, and watched her, and was always about her. Under private advice from Dr. Amboyne, she superintended her patient's diet, and, by soft, indomitable perseverance, compelled her to walk every day, and fight against her fatal lassitude.

Heaven rewarded her by giving her a warm and tender affection for her poor patient that did something to fill her own yearning and desolate heart.

Here I must leave them both for the present, and show how these events affected the main characters of my story.

Just outside the little sea-side town of Eastbank is a house which, being very old, contrasts agreeably with the pretentious villas fashion has raised. It is gloomy inside, yet outside it looks like a cottage: low, rambling, gabled, and picturesque. It stands on a slope just above the sea, and its front garden runs down almost to the sea-shore. The aspect is southerly. The placid sea looks like a beautiful lake; for, about two miles out, a great tongue of land runs across and keeps the tempests out.

The cottage itself was now closed deep with green creepers, and its veranda with jessamine; and the low white walls of the garden were beautiful with vine-leaves and huge fig-leaves, that ran up them and about them, and waved over them in tropical luxuriance. In short, the house was a very bower, and looked the abode of bliss; and this time last year a young couple had spent their honeymoon there, and left it with a sigh. But one place sees many minds; and now this sweet place was the bed on which dropped the broken lily of this tale, Grace Carden.

She lay in the warm air of the veranda, and turned her hollow eyes upon the sea; and every day life crept slowly back to her young body, but not to her desolate heart.

A brain fever either kills or blunts, and Grace's agony was blunted. Her mind was in a strange state. She was beginning to look two things in the face: that the man she loved was dead; that the man she loved, and had nearly died for, had loved another as well as herself: and this last grief, strange to say, was the saving of her. She forgave him with all her heart, for he was dead; she made excuses for him, for she loved him; but since his whole heart had not been hers, her pride and modesty rebelled against dying for him, and she resolved to live; she fought hard to live and get well. Finally, being a very woman, though a noble one, she hated Jael Dence.

She was not alone in the world. Her danger, her illness, and her misery had shown her the treasure of a father's love. He had found this sweet bower for her; and here he sat for hours by her side, and his hand in hers, gazing on her with touching anxiety and affection. Business compelled him to run into Hillsborough now and then, but he dispatched it with feverish haste, and came back to her: it drove him to London; but he telegraphed to her twice a day, and was miserable till he got back. She saw the man of business turned into a man of love for her, and she felt it. "Ah, papa," she said one day, "I little thought you loved your poor Grace so much. You don't love any other child but me, do you, papa?" and with this question she clung weeping round his neck.

"My darling child, there's nothing on earth I love but you. When shall I see you smile again?"

"In a few hours, years. God knows."

One evening--he had been in Hillsborough that day--he said, "My dear, I have seen an old friend of yours to-day, Mr. Coventry. He asked very kindly after you."

Grace made no reply.

"He is almost as pale as you are. He has been very ill, he tells me. And, really, I believe it was your illness upset him."

"Poor Mr. Coventry!" said Grace, but with a leaden air of indifference.

"I hope I didn't do wrong, but when he asked after you so anxiously, I said, 'Come, and see for yourself.' Oh, you need not look frightened; he is not coming. He says you are offended with him."

"Not I. What is Mr. Coventry to me?"

"Well, he thinks so. He says he was betrayed into speaking ill to you of some one who, he thought, was living; and now that weighs upon his conscience."

"I can't understand that. I am miserable, but let me try and be just. Papa, Mr. Coventry was trying to comfort me, in his clumsy way; and what he said he did not invent--he heard it; and so many people say so that I--I--oh, papa! papa!"

Mr. Carden dropped the whole subject directly.

However, she returned to it herself, and said, listlessly, that Mr. Coventry, in her opinion, had shown more generosity than most people would in his case. She had no feeling against him; he was of no more importance in her eyes than that stool, and he might visit her if he pleased, but on one condition--that he should forget all the past, and never presume to speak to her of love. "Love! Men are all incapable of it." She was thinking of Henry, even while she was speaking of his rival.

The permission, thus limited, was conveyed to Mr. Coventry by his friend Carden; but he showed no hurry to take advantage of it; and, as for Grace, she forgot she had given it.

But this coolness of Coventry's was merely apparent. He was only awaiting the arrival of Patrick Lally from Ireland. This Lally was an old and confidential servant, who had served him formerly in many intrigues, and with whom he had parted reluctantly some months ago, and allowed him a small pension for past services. He dared not leave the villa in charge of any person less devoted to him than this Lally.

The man arrived at last, received minute instructions, and then Mr. Coventry went to Eastbank.

He found what seemed the ghost of Grace Carden lying on the sofa, looking on the sea.

At the sight of her he started back in dismay.

"What have I done?"

Those strange words fell from him before he knew what he was saying.

Grace heard them, but did not take the trouble to inquire into their meaning. She said, doggedly, "I am alive, you see. Nothing kills. It is wonderful: we die of a fall, of a blow, of swallowing a pin; yet I am alive. But never mind me; you look unwell yourself. What is the matter?"

"Can you ask me?"

At this, which implied that her illness was the cause of his, she turned her head away from him with weariness and disgust, and looked at the sea, and thought of the dead.

Coventry sat speechless, and eyed her silent figure with miserable devotion. He was by her side once more, and no rival near. He set himself to study all her moods, and began by being inoffensive to her; in time he might be something more.

He spent four days in Eastbank, and never uttered a word of love; but his soft soothing voice was ever in her ear, and won her attention now and then; not often.

When he left her, she did not ask him to come again.

Her father did, though, and told him to be patient; better days were in store. "Give her time," said he, "and, a month or two hence, if you have the same feeling for her you used to have----"

"I love her more than ever. I worship her----"

"Then you will have me on your side, stronger than ever. But you must give her time."

And now Coventry had an ally far more powerful than himself--an ally at once zealous and judicious. Mr. Carden contented himself at first with praising him in general terms; next he affected to laugh at him for renting the villa, merely to be in the place which Grace had occupied. Then Grace defended him. "Don't laugh at an honest love. Pity it. It is all we can do, and the least we can do."

But when he advanced further, and began to remind his daughter she had once given this gentleman hopes, and all but engaged herself to him, she drew back with fear and repugnance, and said, "If he can not forget that, pray let him never come near me again."

"Oh," said Mr. Carden, "I believe he has no hopes of the kind; it is of you I am thinking, not of him. It has got about that poor Little had a connection with some girl in humble life, and that he was in love with her, and you in love with him. That wounds a father's pride, and makes me grateful to Coventry for his unshaken devotion, whilst others are sneering at my poor child for her innocent love."

Grace writhed, and the tears ran down her cheeks at this. "Oh, spare the dead!" she faltered.

Then her father kissed her, and begged her to forgive him; he would avoid all these topics in future: and so he did, for some time; but what he had said rankled.

A few days after this Coventry came again, and did nothing but soothe Grace with words; only he managed so that Grace should detect him looking very sad when he was not actually employed in cheering her.

She began to pity him a little, and wonder at his devotion.

He had not been gone many hours when another visitor arrived quite unexpectedly--Mr. Raby. He came to tell her his own news, and warn her of the difficult game they were now playing at Raby Hall, that she might not thwart it inadvertently.

Grace was much agitated, and shed tears of sympathy. She promised, with a sigh, to hold no communication with Mrs. Little. She thought it very hard, but she promised.

In the course of his narrative Mr. Raby spoke very highly of Jael Dence, and of her conduct in the matter.

To this Grace did not respond. She waited her opportunity, and said, keenly and coldly, "How did she come to be in your house?"

"Well, that is a secret."

"Can you not trust me with a secret?"

"Oh yes," said Raby, "provided you will promise faithfully to tell no one."

Grace promised, and he then told her that Jael Dence, in a moment of desperation, had thrown herself into the river at the back of his house. "Poor girl!" said he, "her brain was not right at the time. Heaven keep us all from those moments of despair. She has got over it now, and nurses and watches my poor sister more like a mother watching her child than a young woman taking care of an old one. She is the mainspring of the house."

At all this Grace turned from pale to white, but said nothing; and Raby ran on in praise of Jael, little dreaming what pain his words inflicted.

When he left her, she rose and walked down to the sea; for her tortured spirit gave her body energy. Hitherto she found she had only suspected; now she was sure. Hitherto she had feared Henry Little had loved Jael Dence a little; now she was sure he had loved her best. Jael Dence would not have attempted self-destruction for any man unless he loved her. The very act proved her claim to him more eloquently than words could do. Now she believed all--the anonymous letter--Mr. Coventry's report--the woman's words who worked in the same factory, and could not be deceived. And her godfather accepted Jael Dence and her claim to sympathy: she was taken into his house, and set to nurse Henry Little's mother: poor Grace was slighted on all sides; she must not even write to Mrs. Little, nor take part in the pious falsehood they were concocting together, Raby and his Jael Dence, whom everybody loved best-- everybody except this poor faithful ill-used wretch, Frederick Coventry; and him she hated for loving her better than the man she loved had loved her.

Tender, but very proud, this sensitive creature saw herself dethroned from her love. Jael Dence had eclipsed her in every way; had saved his life with her strong arm, had almost perished with him; and had tried to kill herself when he was dead. She was far behind this rival in every thing. She had only loved, and suffered, and nearly died. "No, no," she said to herself, "she could not love him better than I did: but he loved her best; and she knew it, and that made her arm strong to fight, and her heart strong to die for him. I am nobody--nothing." Then the scalding tears ran down her cheeks. But soon her pride got the upper hand, and dried her cheeks, and nearly maddened her.

She began to blush for her love, to blush for her illness. She rose into that state of exasperation in which persons of her sex do things they look back upon with wonder, and, strange to say, all this without one unkind thought of him whose faults she saw, but excused--he was dead.

She now began to struggle visibly, and violently, against her deadly sorrow. She forced herself to take walks and rides, and to talk, with nothing to say. She even tried to laugh now and then. She made violent efforts to be gracious and pitiful to Mr. Coventry, and the next minute made him suffer for it by treating him like a troublesome hound.

He loved her madly, yet sometimes he felt tempted to kill her, and end both her torture and his own.

Such was the inner life of Grace Carden for many days; devoid of striking incident, yet well worthy of study by those who care to pierce below the surface, and see what passes in the hearts of the unhappy, and to learn how things come gradually about that sound incredible when not so traced, yet are natural and almost inevitable results of certain conflicting passions in a virgin heart.

One day Mr. Carden telegraphed from London to Mr. Coventry at Hillsborough that he was coming down to Eastbank by the midday express, and would be glad to meet him there at four o'clock. He also telegraphed to Grace, and said, "Dinner at five."

Both gentlemen arrived about the same time, a little before dinner.

Soon after dinner was over, Grace observed a restlessness in her father's manner, which convinced her he had something private to say to Mr. Coventry. Her suspicions were aroused: she fancied he was going to encourage Mr. Coventry to court her. Instantly the whole woman was in arms, and her love for the deceased came rushing back tenfold. She rose, soon after dinner, and retired to the drawing-room; but, as soon as she got there, she slipped quietly into the veranda, and lay softly down upon her couch. The dining-room window was open, and with her quick ears, she could hear nearly every word.

She soon found that all her bitterness and her preparation for hostilities were wasted. Her father was telling Mr. Coventry the story of Richard Martin; only he carried it a step further than I have done.

"Well, sir," said he, "the money had not been paid more than a month, when an insurance office down at Liverpool communicated with us. The same game had been played with them; but, somehow, their suspicions were excited. We compared notes with them, and set detectives to work. They traced Martin's confederates, and found one of them was in prison awaiting his trial for some minor offense. They worked on him to tell the truth (I am afraid they compounded), and he let out the whole truth. Every one of those villains could swim like ducks, and Richard Martin like a fish. Drowned? not he: he had floated down to Greenwich or somewhere--the blackguard! and hid himself. And what do you think the miscreants did next? Bought a dead marine; and took him down in a box to some low public-house by the water-side. They had a supper, and dressed their marine in Richard Martin's clothes, and shaved its whiskers, and broke its tooth, and set it up in a chair, with a table before it, and a pot of ale, and fastened a pipe in its mouth; and they kept toasting this ghastly corpse as the thing that was to make all their fortunes." At this grotesque and horrible picture, a sigh of horror was uttered in the veranda. Mr. Carden, occupied with his narrative, did not hear it, but Coventry did. "Then, when it was pitch dark, they staggered down to the water with it, and planted it in the weeds. And, mark the cunning! when they had gone through their farce of recognizing it publicly for Richard Martin, they bribed a churchwarden and buried it under our very noses: it was all done in a way to take in the very devil. There's no Richard Martin; there never was a Richard Martin; there never will be: all this was contrived and executed by a swindler well known to the police, only they can't catch him; he is here, and there and everywhere; they call him 'Shifty Dick.' He and his myrmidons have bled the 'Gosshawk' to the tune of nine hundred pounds."

He drew his breath and proceeded more calmly. "However, a lesson of this kind is never thrown away upon a public man, and it has given me some very curious ideas about another matter. You know what I mean."

Coventry stared, and looked quite taken aback by this sudden turn.

However he stammered out, "I suppose you mean--but, really, I can't imagine what similarity----" he paused, and, inadvertently, his eye glanced uneasily toward the veranda.

"Oh," said Mr. Carden, "these diabolical frauds are not done upon one pattern, or, of course, there would soon be an end of their success. But come now, what proof have we got that what they found in the river at Hillsborough was the remains of Henry Little?"

"I don't know, I am sure. But nobody seems to doubt it. The situation, the clothes, the ring--so many coincidences."

"That is all very well, if there were no rogues in the world. But there are; and I know it, to my cost. The 'Gosshawk' has just lost nine hundred pounds by not suspecting. It shall not lose five thousand by the same weakness; I'll take care of that."

He paused a moment, and then proceeded to argue the matter:

"The very idea of an imposture has never occurred to any body; in Little's case, it did not occur to me until this business of Shifty Dick enlightened me. But, come now, just admit the idea of imposture into that honest, unsuspicious mind of yours, and you'll find the whole thing wears a very doubtful appearance directly. A common workman--he was no more at the time--insures his life, for how much? three hundred pounds? no; five thousand. Within one year after that he disappears, under cover of an explosion. Some weeks afterward--about as many as the Martin swindle--there is found in the river a fragment of humanity; an arm, and a hand, and a piece of a human trunk; but no face, mind you: arms are pretty much alike, faces differ. The fragment is clad in brown tweed, and Little wore brown tweed: that is all very well; but the marine was found dressed from head to foot in Shifty Dick's very clothes. But let us go on. There was a plain gold ring found on the hand in Hillsborough river, and my poor daughter had given Little a plain gold ring. But what was there to hinder an impostor from buying some pauper's body, and putting a plain gold ring on the hand? Why, paupers' bodies are constantly sold, and the funeral services gabbled over a coffin full of stones. If I had paper and ink here, and could put Little's case and Martin's in two columns, I should soon show you that Martin and his gang faced and overcame more and greater difficulties in the way of imposture than any that have been overcome in Little's case. The Martin gang dealt with the face; here, that is shirked. The Martin gang planted a body, not a fragment. Does it not strike you as very odd that the rest of Henry Little is not to be found? It may be all right; but, of the two, I incline to think it is a plan, and that some person, calling himself the heir or assign of Little, will soon apply to the 'Gosshawk' for five thousand pounds. Well, let him. I shall look on that person as the agent of a living man, not the heir of a dead one; and I shall tell him I don't believe in arms, and shoulders, and tweed suits, and plain gold rings--(why, wedding-rings are the very things conjurors take from the public at random to play hanky-panky with; they are so like one another). I shall demand to see the man's face; and the mother who bore him must identify that face before I will pay one shilling to his heirs or assigns. I am waiting to see who will come forward and claim. Nobody moves; and that is curious. Well, when they do, I shall be ready for them. You look pale! But no wonder: it is really no subject for an after-dinner conversation."

Coventry was pale indeed, and his mind all in a whirl as to what he should say; for Mr. Carden's sagacity terrified him, and the worst of it was, he felt sure that Grace Carden heard every word.

At last, however, his natural cunning came to his aid, and he made a very artful speech, directed principally to his unseen hearer.

"Mr. Carden," said he, "this seems to me very shrewd; but surely it fails in one respect: you leave the man's character out of the account. Mr. Little came between me and one I love, and inflicted great misery on me; but I will try and be just to him. I don't believe he was an impostor of that kind. He was false in love; he had been reared amongst workmen, and every body says he loved a working-girl more than he did your daughter; but as for his cheating you or any other person out of five thousand pounds, I can't believe it. They all say he was as honest a man in money matters as ever breathed."

"You judge him by yourself. Besides, men begin by deceiving women, but they go on to----Why, Grace, my poor child----Good heavens! have you----?"

Grace was leaning against the open window, ghastly and terrible.

"Yes," said she haughtily, "I have been guilty of the meanness of listening, and I suffer for it. It is but one pang more to a broken heart. Mr. Coventry, you are just, you are generous; and I will try and reward you for those words. No, papa, no impostor, but a man sore tried, sore tempted. If he is alive, we shall soon know."

"How?"

"He will write--to Jael Dence."

Having uttered this strange speech, she rushed away with a wild cry of agony, and nobody saw her face again that night.

She did not come down-stairs next day. Mr. Carden went up to her. He stayed with her an hour, and came down looking much dejected; he asked Mr. Coventry to take a turn in the garden with him. When they were alone, he said, gravely, "Mr. Coventry, that unfortunate conversation of ours has quite upset my poor girl. She tells me now she will not believe he is dead until months and months have passed without his writing to Jael Dence."

"Well, but, sir," said Coventry, "could you not convince her?"

"How can I, when I am myself convinced he is alive, and will give us a great deal of trouble yet? for it is clear to me the poor girl loves him more than she knows. Look here, Coventry, there's no man I so desire for a son-in-law as yourself; you have shown a patience, a fidelity!--but as a just man, and a man of honor, I must now advise you to give up all thoughts of her. You are not doing yourself justice; she will never marry you while that man is alive and unmarried. I am provoked with her: she will not leave her room while you are in the house. Shall I tell you what she said? 'I respect him, I admire him, but I can't bear the sight of him now.' That is all because I let out last night that I thought Little was alive. I told her, alive or not, he was dead to her."

"And what did she say to that?"

"Not a word. She wrung her hands, and burst out crying terribly. Ah! my friend, may you never know what it is to be a father, and see your child wring her hands, and cry her heart out, as I have seen mine."

His own tears flowed, and his voice was choked. He faltered out, "We are two miserable creatures; forgive us, and leave us to our fate."

Coventry rose, sick at heart, and said, "Tell her I will not intrude upon her."

He telegraphed to Lally, and went back to Hillsborough as miserable as those he left behind; but with this difference, he deserved his misery, deserved it richly.

Ere he had been two days in Hillsborough a telegram came from him to Mr. Carden:--

"Re Little. Important discovery. Pray come here at once."

Mr. Carden had the prudence to withhold from Grace the nature of this communication. He merely told her business called him suddenly to Hillsborough. He started by the next train and found Mr. Coventry awaiting him at "Woodbine Villa" with strange news: it was not conjecture, nor a matter of deduction, but a piece of undeniable evidence; and it knocked both Mr. Carden's theory and his daughter's to atoms at one blow.

Meantime the history of Raby House was the history of what French dramatists call "a pious lie."

Its indirect effect in keeping Grace Carden apart both from Mrs. Little and Jael Dence was unforeseen and disastrous; its immediate and direct effect on Mrs. Little was encouraging to those concerned; what with the reconciliation to her brother, the return to native air and beloved scenes, the tenderness and firmness of Jael Dence, and the conviction that her son was safe out of the clutches of the dreaded Unions, she picked up flesh and color and spirit weekly.

By-and-by she turned round upon Jael Dence, and the nurse became the pupil. Mrs. Little taught her grammar, pronunciation, dancing, carriage, and deportment. Jael could already sing from notes; Mrs. Little taught her to accompany herself on the pianoforte. The teacher was so vigilant, and the pupil so apt and attentive, that surprising progress was made. To be sure, they were together night and day.

This labor of love occupied Mrs. Little's mind agreeably, and, as the pupil was equally resolute in making the teacher walk or ride on horseback with her every day, the hours glided swiftly, and, to Mrs. Little, pleasantly.

Her brother rather avoided her, by order of Jael Dence; but so many probable reasons were given for his absences that she suspected nothing. Only she said one day, "What a gad-about he is now. This comes of not marrying. We must find him a wife."

When he was at home they breakfasted together, all three, and then Mrs. Little sometimes spoke of Henry, and so hopefully and cheerfully that a great qualm ran through her hearers, and Raby, who could not command his features so well as Jael could, looked gloomy, and sometimes retired behind his newspaper.

Mrs. Little observed this one day, and pointed it out to Jael. "Oh," said Jael, "take no notice. You know he wanted Mr. Henry to stay quietly here and be his heir."

"And so did I. But his very name seems to--"

"He likes him well, for all that, ma'am; only he won't own it yet. You know what Squire is."

"The Squire you should say, dear. But, 'Mr. Raby' is better still. As a rule, avoid all small titles: the doctor, the squire, the baronet, the mayor."

Jael seized this handle, and, by putting questions to her teacher, got her away from the dangerous topic.

Ever on the watch, and occupied in many ways with Mrs. Little, Jael began to recover resignation; but this could not be without an occasional paroxysm of grief.

These she managed to hide from Mrs. Little.

But one day that lady surprised her crying. She stood and looked at her a moment, then sat down quietly beside her and took her hand. Jael started, and feared discovery.

"My child," said Mrs. Little, "if you have lost a father, you have gained a mother; and then, as to your sister, why my Henry is gone to the very same country; yet, you see, I do not give way to sorrow. As soon as he writes, I will beg him to make inquiries for Patty, and send them home if they are not doing well." Then Mrs. Little kissed Jael, and coaxed her and rocked with her, and Jael's tears began to flow, no longer for her own great grief, but for this mother, who was innocently consoling her, unconscious of the blow that must one day fall upon herself.

So matters went on pretty smoothly; only one morning, speaking of Henry, Mrs. Little surprised a look of secret intelligence between her brother and Jael Dence. She made no remark at the time, but she puzzled in secret over it, and began at last to watch the pair.

She asked Raby at dinner, one day, when she might hope to hear from Henry.

"I don't know," said he, and looked at Jael Dence like a person watching for orders.

Mrs. Little observed this, and turned keenly round to Jael.

"Oh," said Jael, "the doctor--I beg pardon, Dr. Amboyne--can tell you that better than I can. It is a long way to Australia."

"How you send me from one to another," said Mrs. Little, speaking very slowly.

They made no reply to that, and Mrs. Little said no more. But she pondered all this. She wrote to Dr. Amboyne, and asked him why no letter had come from Henry.

Dr. Amboyne wrote back that, even if he had gone in a steamboat, there was hardly time for a letter to come back: but he had gone in a sailing-vessel. "Give him three months and a half to get there, and two months for his letters to come back."

In this same letter he told her he was glad to hear she was renewing her youth like an eagle, but reminded her it would entail some consequences more agreeable to him than to her.

She laid down the letter with a blush and fell into a reverie.

Dr. Amboyne followed up this letter with a visit or two, and urged her to keep her promise and marry him.

She had no excuse for declining, but she procrastinated: she did not like to marry without consulting Henry, or, at least, telling him by letter.

And whilst she was thus temporizing, events took place at Eastbank which ended by rudely disturbing the pious falsehood at Raby Hall.

That sequence of events began with the interview between Mr. Carden and Mr. Coventry at "Woodbine Villa."

"Little had made a will. My own solicitor drew it, and holds it at this moment." This was the intelligence Coventry had to communicate.

"Very well; then now I shall know who is coming to the 'Gosshawk' for the five thousand pounds. That will be the next act of the comedy, you will see."

"Wait a moment. He leaves to Mrs. Little his own reversion to a sum of nineteen hundred pounds, in which she has already the life interest; he gives a hundred pounds to his sweetheart Dence: all the rest of his estate, in possession or expectation, he bequeaths to--Miss Carden."

"Good heavens! Why then--" Mr. Carden could say no more, for astonishment.

"So," said Coventry, "If he is alive, she is the confederate who is to profit by the fraud; those five thousand pounds belong to her at this moment."

"Are you sure? Who is your authority?"

"A communicative clerk, who happens to be the son of a tenant of mine. The solicitor himself, I believe, chooses to doubt his client's decease. It is at his private request that horrible object is refused Christian burial."

"On what grounds, pray?"

"Legal grounds, I suppose; the man did not die regularly, and according to precedent. He omitted to provide himself with two witnesses previously to being blown up. In a case of this kind we may safely put an old-fashioned attorney's opinion out of the question. What do you think? That is all I care to know."

"I don't know what to think now. But I foresee one thing: I shall be placed in rather an awkward position. I ought to defend the 'Gosshawk;' but I am not going to rob my own daughter of five thousand pounds, if it belongs to her honestly."

"Will you permit me to advise you?"

"Certainly, I shall be very much obliged: for really I don't see my way."

"Well, then, I think you ought to look into the matter carefully, but without prejudice. I have made some inquiries myself: I went down to the works, and begged the workmen, who knew Little, to examine the remains, and then come here and tell us their real opinion."

"Oh, to my mind, it all depends on the will. If that answers the description you give--hum!" Next morning they breakfasted together, and during breakfast two workmen called, and, at Coventry's request, were ushered into the room. They came to say they knew Mr. Little well, and felt sure that was his dead hand they had seen at the Town Hall. Coventry cross-examined them severely, but they stuck to their conviction; and this will hardly surprise the reader when I tell him the workmen in question were Cole and another, suborned by Coventry himself to go through this performance.

Mr. Carden received the testimony readily, for the best of all reasons--he wanted to believe it.

But, when they were gone, he recurred to the difficulty of his position. Director of the "Gosshawk," and father to a young lady who had a claim of five thousand pounds on it, and that claim debatable, though, to his own mind, no longer doubtful.

Now Mr. Coventry had a great advantage over Mr. Carden here: he had studied this very situation profoundly for several hours, and at last had seen how much might be done with it.

He began by artfully complimenting Mr. Carden on his delicacy, but said Miss Carden must not be a loser by it. "Convince her, on other grounds, that the man is dead; encourage her to reward my devotion with her hand, and I will relieve you of everything disagreeable. Let us settle on Miss Carden, for her separate use, the five thousand pounds, and anything else derivable from Mr. Little's estate; but we must also settle my farm of Hindhope: for it shall never be said she took as much from that man as she did from me. Well, in due course I apply to the 'Gosshawk' for my wife's money. I am not bound to tell your Company it is not mine but hers; that is between you and me. But you really ought to write to London at once and withdraw the charge of fraud; you owe that piece of justice to Miss Carden, and to the memory of the deceased."

"That is true; and it will pave the way for the demand you propose to make on Mrs. Coventry's behalf. Well, you really are a true friend, as well as a true lover."

In short, he went back to Hillsborough resolved to marry his daughter to Coventry as soon as possible. Still, following that gentleman's instructions, he withheld from Grace that Little had made a will in her favor. He knew her to be quite capable of refusing to touch a farthing of it, or to act as executrix. But he told her the workmen had identified the remains, and that other circumstances had also convinced him he had been unjust to a deceased person, which he regretted.

When her father thus retracted his own words, away went Grace's last faint hope that Henry lived; and now she must die for him, or live for others.

She thought of Jael Dance, and chose the latter.

Another burst or two of agony, and then her great aim and study appeared to be to forget herself altogether. She was full of attention for her father, and, whenever Mr. Coventry came, she labored to reward him with kind words, and even with smiles; but they were sad ones.

As for Coventry, he saw, with secret exultation, that she was now too languid and hopeless to resist the joint efforts of her father and himself, and, that some day or other, she must fall lifeless into his arms.

He said to himself, "It is only a question of time."

He was now oftener at the villa than at Hillsborough, and, with remarkable self-denial, adhered steadily to the line of soothing and unobtrusive devotion.

One morning at breakfast the post brought him a large envelope from Hillsborough. He examined it, and found a capital "L" in the corner of the envelope, which "L" was written by his man Lally, in compliance with secret instructions from his master.

Coventry instantly put the envelope into his pocket, and his hand began to shake so that he could hardly hold his cup to his lips. His agitation, however, was not noticed.

Directly after breakfast he strolled, with affected composure, into the garden, and sat down in a bower where he was safe from surprise, as the tangled leaves were not so thick but he could peep through them.

He undid his inclosure, and found three letters; two were of no importance; the third bore a foreign postmark, and was addressed to Miss Carden in a hand writing which he recognized at a glance as Henry Little's.

But as this was not the first letter from Henry to Grace which he had intercepted and read, perhaps I had better begin by saying a few words about the first.

Well, then, the letters with which Coventry swam the river on the night of the explosion were six, viz., to Mr. Bolt, to Doctor Amboyne, to Mr. Baynes, to Jael Dence, to Mrs. Little, and to Grace Carden. The letter to Grace Carden was short but touching, full of devotion, hope, resolution, and grief at parting. He told her he had come to take leave that afternoon, but she had been out, luckily; for he felt he ought to go, and must go, but how could he look at her and then leave her? This was the general purport, and expressed with such anguish and fortitude as might have melted a heart of marble.

The reader may have observed that, upon his rival's disappearance, Coventry was no happier. This letter was the secret cause. First it showed him his rival was alive, and he had wasted a crime; secondly, it struck him with remorse, yet not with penitence; and to be full of remorse, yet empty of that true penitence which confesses or undoes the wrong, this is to be miserable.

But, as time rolled on, bringing the various events I have related, but no news of Little, Coventry began to think that young man must really have come to some untimely end.

From this pleasant dream he was now awakened by the second intercepted letter. It ran thus:

"BOSTON, U. S., June 20th.

MY OWN DEAR LOVE,--It is now nine weeks since I left England, and this will be a fortnight more getting to you; that is a long time for you to be without news from me, and I sadly fear I have caused you great anxiety. Dearest, it all happened thus: Our train was delayed by an accident, and I reached Liverpool just in time to see the steam-packet move down the Mersey. My first impulse, of course, was to go back to Hillsborough; but a seaman, who saw my vexation, told me a fast schooner was on the point of sailing for Boston, U. S. My heart told me if I went back to Hillsborough, I should never make the start again. I summoned all my manhood to do the right thing for us both; and I got into the schooner, heaven knows how; and, when I got there, I hid my face for ever so many hours, till, by the pitching and tossing, I knew that I was at sea. Then I began to cry and blubber. I couldn't hold it any longer.

"At such a time a kind word keeps the heart from breaking altogether; and I got some comfort from an old gentleman, a native of Boston: a grave old man he was, and pretty reserved with all the rest; but seeing me in the depths of misery, he talked to me like a father, and I told him all my own history, and a little about you too--at least, how I loved you, and why I had left England with a heavy heart.

"We had a very long passage, not downright tempestuous, but contrary winds, and a stiff gale or two. Instead of twenty days, as they promised, we were six weeks at sea, and what with all the fighting and the threats--I had another letter signed with a coffin just before I left that beautiful town--and the irritation at losing so much time on the ocean, it all brought on a fever, and I have no recollection of leaving the boat. When I came to myself, I was in a house near Boston, belonging to the old gentleman I spoke of. He and his nieces nursed me, and now I am as well as ever, only rather weak.

"Mr. Ironside, that is his name, but it should be Mr. Goldheart, if I had the christening of him--he has been my good Samaritan. Dear Grace, please pray for him and his family every night. He tells me he comes of the pilgrim fathers, so he is bound to feel for pilgrims and wanderers from home. Well, he has been in patents a little, and, before I lost my little wits with the fever, he and I had many a talk. So now he is sketching out a plan of operation for me, and I shall have to travel many a hundred miles in this vast country. But they won't let me move till I am a little stronger, he and his nieces. If he is gold, they are pearls.

"Dearest, it has taken me two days to write this: but I am very happy and hopeful, and do not regret coming. I am sure it was the right thing for us both.

"Please say something kind for me to the good doctor, and tell him I have got over this one trouble already.

"Dearest, I agreed to take so much a year from Bolt, and he must fight the trades alone. Such a life is not worth having. Bayne won't wrong me of a shilling. Whatever he makes, over his salary and the men's wages, there it will be for me when I come home; so I write to no one at Hillsborough but you. Indeed, you are my all in this world. I travel, and fight, and work, and breathe, and live for you, my own beloved; and if any harm came to you, I wouldn't care to live another moment."

At this point in the letter the reader stopped, and something cold seemed to pass all through his frame. It struck him that all good men would pity the writer of this letter, and abhor him who kept it from that pale, heart-broken girl inside the cottage.

He sat freezing, with the letter in his hand, and began to doubt whether he could wade any deeper in crime.

After a minute or two he raised his head, and was about to finish reading the letter.

But, in the meantime, Grace Carden had resumed her accustomed place in the veranda. She lay upon the couch, and her pale face, and hollow, but still beautiful eyes, were turned seaward. Out of those great sad eyes the sad soul looked across the waste of waters--gazed, and searched, and pined in vain. Oh, it was a look to make angels weep, and hover close over her head with restless, loving pinions, longing to shadow, caress, and heal her!

Coventry, with Henry Little's letter in his hand, peered through the leaves, and saw the woman he loved fix this look of despair upon the sea--despair of which he was the sole cause, and could dispel it with a gesture.

"And this brings me back to what is my only great trouble now. I told you, in the letter I left behind me, you would hear from me in a month at furthest. It will be not a month, but eleven weeks. Good heavens! when I think what anxiety you may have suffered on my account! You know I am a pupil of the good doctor, and so I put myself in your place, and I say to myself, 'If my Grace had promised to write in a month, and eleven weeks had passed without a word, what would my feelings be?' Why, I think I should go mad; I should make sure you were ill; I should fear you were dead; I should fancy every terrible thing on earth, except that you were false to your poor Henry. That I should never fear: I judge you by myself. Fly, steamboat, with this letter to my love, and set her mind at ease. Fly back with a precious word from her dear hand, and with that in my bosom, nothing will ever daunt me.

"God bless you! angel of my life, darling of my heart, star on which all my hopes are fixed! Oh, what miserable bad tools words are! When I look at them, and compare them with how I love you, I seem to be writing that I love you no more than other people love. What I feel is so much greater than words.

"Must I say farewell? Even on paper, it is like tearing myself away from heaven again. But that was to be: and now this is to be. Good-bye, my own beloved.--Yours till death,

HENRY."

Coventry read this sentence by sentence, still looking up, nearly every sentence, at her to whom it was addressed.

The letter pleaded on his knee, the pale face pleaded a few yards off; he sat between the two bleeding lovers, their sole barrier and bane.

His heart began to fail him. The mountain of crime looked high. Now remorse stung him deeper than ever; jealousy spurred him harder than ever; a storm arose within his breast, a tempest of conflicting passion, as grand and wild as ever distracted the heart; as grand and wild as any poet has ever tried to describe, and, half succeeding, won immortal fame.

"See what I can do?" whispered conscience. "With one bound I can give her the letter, and bring the color back to that cheek and joy to that heart. She will adore me for it, she will be my true and tender friend till death. She will weep upon my neck and bless me."

"Ay," whispered jealousy, "and then she will marry Henry Little."

"And am I sure to succeed if I persist in crime? Deserve her hatred and contempt, and is it certain they will not both fall on me?"

"The fault began with them. He supplanted me--she jilted me. I hate him--I love her. I can't give her up now; I have gone too far. What is intercepting a letter? I have been too near murder to stop at that."

"But her pale face! her pale face!"

"Once married, supplant him as he has supplanted you. Away to Italy with her. Fresh scenes--constant love--the joys of wedlock! What will this Henry Little be to her then?--a dream."

"Eternal punishment; if it is not a fable, who has ever earned it better than I am earning it if I go on?"

"It is a fable; it must be. Philosophers always said so, and now even divines have given it up."

"Her pale face! her pale face! Never mind him, look at her. What sort of love is this that shows no pity? Oh, my poor girl, don't look so sad--so pale! What shall I do? Would to God I had never been born, to torture myself and her!"

His good angel fought hard for him that day; fought and struggled and hoped, until the miserable man, torn this way and that, ended the struggle with a blasphemous yell by tearing the letter to atoms.

That fatal act turned the scale.

The next moment he wished he had not done it.

But it was too late. He could not go to her with the fragments. She would see he had intercepted it purposely.

Well, all the better. It was decided. He would not look at her face any more. He could not bear it.

He rushed away from the bower and made for the seaside; but he soon returned another way, gained his own room, and there burnt the fragments of the letter to ashes.

But, though he was impenitent, remorse was not subdued. He could not look Grace Carden in the face now. So he sent word he must go back to Hillsborough directly.

He packed his bag and went down-stairs with it.

On the last landing he met Grace Carden. She started a little.

"What! going away?"

"Yes, Miss Carden."

"No bad news, I hope?" said she, kindly.

The kindly tone coming from her, to whom he had shown no mercy, went through that obdurate heart.

"No--no," he faltered; "but the sight of your unhappiness---- Let me go. I am a miserable man!"

And with this he actually burst out crying and ran past her.

Grace told her father, and asked him to find out what was the matter with Mr. Coventry.

Mr. Carden followed Coventry to the station, and Coventry, who had now recovered his self-possession and his cunning, told him that for some time Miss Carden had worn a cheerful air, which had given him hopes; but this morning, watching her from a bower in the garden, he had seen such misery in her face that it had quite upset him; and he was going away to try and recover that composure, without which he felt he would be no use to her in any way.

This tale Carden brought back to his daughter, and she was touched by it. "Poor Mr. Coventry!" said she. "Why does he waste so much love on me?"

Her father, finding her thus softened, pleaded hard for his friend, and reminded Grace that she had not used him well. She admitted that at once, and went so far as to say that she felt bound never to marry any one but Mr. Coventry, unless time should cure him, as she hoped it would, of his unfortunate attachment.

From this concession Mr. Carden urged her daily to another, viz., that Mr. Coventry might be permitted to try and win her affection.

Her answer was, "He had much better content himself with what I can and do give him--my esteem and gratitude and sincere pity."

Mr. Carden, however, persisted, and the deep affection he had shown his daughter gave him great power. It was two against one; and the two prevailed.

Mr. Coventry began to spend his whole time at Eastbank Cottage.

He followed Grace about with a devotion to which no female heart could be entirely insensible; and, at last, she got used to him, and rather liked to have him about her. He broke her solitude as a dog does, and he fetched and carried for her, and talked when she was inclined to listen, and was silent when he saw his voice jarred upon her bereaved heart.

Without her father, matters might have gone on so for years; but Mr. Carden had now so many motives for marrying his daughter to Coventry, that he used all his judgment and all his influence. He worked on his daughter's pride, her affection, her sense of honor, and her sense of duty.

She struggled, she sighed, she wept; but, by little and little, she submitted. And, since three months more passed with no striking event, I will deviate from my usual custom and speak a little of what passed in her mind.

First of all, then, she was so completely deceived by appearances, that she believed the exact opposite of the truth in each particular. To her not only did black seem white, but white black. Her dead lover had given her but half his heart. Her living lover was the soul of honor and true devotion. It was her duty, though not her pleasure, to try and love him; to marry him would be a good and self-denying action.

And what could she lose by it? Her own chance of happiness was gone. All she could hope for hereafter was the gentle satisfaction that arises from making others happy. She had but a choice of evils: never to marry at all, or to marry Frederick Coventry.

Thus far she was conscious of her own feelings, and could, perhaps, have put them into words; but here she drifted out of her depth.

Nature implants in women a genuine love of offspring that governs them unconsciously. It governs the unconscious child; it governs the half-conscious mother who comes home from the toyshop with a waxen child for her girl, and a drum for her boy.

Men desire offspring---when they desire it at all--from vanity alone. Women desire it from pure love of it.

This instinct had probably its share in withholding Grace from making up her mind never to marry; and so operated negatively, though not positively, in Coventry's favor.

And so, by degrees and in course of time, after saying "no" a dozen times, she said "yes" once in a moment of utter lassitude, and afterward she cried and wished to withdraw her consent, but they were two to one, and had right on their side, she thought.

They got her to say she would marry him some day or other.

Coventry intercepted several letters, but he took care not to read them with Grace's sad face in sight. He would not give conscience such a power to torment him. The earlier letters gave him a cruel satisfaction. They were written each from a different city in the United States, and all tended to show that the writer had a year or two to travel yet, before he could hope to return home in triumph and marry his Grace.

In all these letters she was requested to send her answers to New York (and, now I think of it, there was a postscript to that effect in the very letter I have given in extenso).

But at last came a letter that disturbed this delightful dream. It was written from the western extremity of the States, but the writer was in high spirits; he had sold his patents in two great cities, and had established them in two more on a royalty; he had also met with an unexpected piece of good fortune: his railway clip had been appreciated, a man of large capital and enterprise had taken it up with spirit, and was about to purchase the American and Canadian right for a large sum down and a percentage. As soon as this contract should be signed he should come home and claim Mr. Carden's promise. He complained a little that he got no letters, but concluded the post-office authorities were in fault, for he had written to New York to have them forwarded. However, he soon should be in that city and revel in them.

This troubled Coventry, and drove him to extremities. He went on his knees to Grace, and implored her to name the day.

She drew back with horror and repugnance; said, with a burst of tears, she was a widow, and would not marry till a decent time had elapsed since----; then, with sudden doggedness, "I will never marry at all."

And so she left him to repent his precipitation.

He was at his wits' end, and could do nothing but look unhappy, and temporize, and hope the wind might change.

The wind did not change, and he passed a week or two of outward sorrow, but inward rage.

He fell ill, and Mr. Carden pitied him openly.

Grace maintained a sullen silence.

One day, as he was in bed, an envelope was brought him, with a large "L." He opened it slowly, fearing the worst.

The letter was full of love, and joy, and triumph that made the reader's heart faint within him till he came to this sentence:--

"The gentleman who treats with me for the railway clip makes it an express stipulation that I shall spend a month in his works at Chicago, superintending the forging and perfecting of the clip. As he intends to be there himself, and to buy it out-and-out if it answers his expectations, I shall certainly go, and wear a smith's apron once more for your sake. He is even half inclined to go into another of my projects--the forging of large axes by machinery. It was tried at Hillsborough two years ago, but the Union sent a bullet through the manufacturer's hat, and he dropped it."

The letter from which I give this extract was a reprieve. He had five or six weeks before him still.

Soon after this, his faithful ally, Mr. Carden, worked on Grace's pity; and as Coventry never complained, nor irritated her in any way, she softened to him. Then all the battery of imploring looks was brought to bear on her by Coventry, and of kind admonition and entreaty by her father; and so, between them, they gently thrust her down the slope.

"Stop all their tongues," said Mr. Carden. "Come back to Hillsborough a wife. I gave up my choice to yours once. Now give me my way. I am touched to the heart by this young man's devotion: he invites me to live with him when you are married. What other young fellow would show me so much mercy?"

"Does he?" said Grace. "I will try and reward him for that, and for speaking well of one who could not defend himself. But give me a little time."

Mr. Carden conveyed this to Coventry with delight, and told him he should only have another month or so to wait. Coventry received this at first with unmixed exultation, but by-and-by he began to feel superstitious. Matters were now drawing to such a point that Little might very well arrive before the wedding-day, and just before it. Perhaps Heaven had that punishment in store for him; the cup was to be in his very grasp, and then struck out of it.

Only a question of time! But what is every race? The space between winner and loser strikes the senses more obviously; but the race is just as much a question of time as of space. Buridan runs second for the Derby, defeated by a length. But give Buridan a start of one second, and he shall beat the winner--by two lengths.

Little now wrote from Chicago that every thing was going on favorably, and he believed it would end in a sale of the patent clip in the United States and Canada for fifty thousand dollars, but no royalty.

This letter was much shorter than any of the others; and, from that alone, his guilty reader could see that the writer intended to follow it in person almost immediately.

Coventry began almost to watch the sun in his course. When it was morning he wished it was evening, and when it was evening he wished it was morning.

Sometimes he half wondered to see how calmly the sun rose and set, and Nature pursued her course, whilst he writhed in the agony of suspense, and would gladly have given a year out of his life for a day.

At last, by Mr. Carden's influence, the wedding-day was fixed. But soon after this great triumph came another intercepted letter. He went to his room and his hands trembled violently as he opened it.

His eye soon fixed on this passage:--

"I thought to be in New York by this time, and looking homeward; but I am detained by another piece of good-fortune, if any thing can be called good-fortune that keeps me a day from you. Oh, my dear Grace, I am dying to see your handwriting at New York, and then fly home and see your dear self, and never, never quit you more. I have been wonderfully lucky; I have made my fortune, our fortune. But it hardly pays me for losing the sight of you so many months. But what I was going to tell you is, that my method of forging large axes by machinery is wonderfully praised, and a great firm takes it up on fair terms. This firm has branches in various parts of the world, and, once my machines are in full work, Hillsborough will never forge another ax. Man can not suppress machinery; the world is too big. That bullet sent through Mr. Tyler's hat loses Great Britain a whole trade. I profit in money by their short-sighted violence, but I must pay the price; for this will keep me another week at Chicago, perhaps ten days. Then home I come, with lots of money to please your father, and an ocean of love for you, who don't care about the filthy dross; no more do I, except as the paving-stones on the road to you and heaven, my adored one."

The effect of this letter was prodigious. So fearful had been the suspense, so great was now the relief, that Coventry felt exultant, buoyant. He went down to the sea-side, and walked, light as air, by the sands, and his brain teemed with delightful schemes. Little would come to Hillsborough soon after the marriage, but what of that?

On the wedding-night he would be at Dover. Next day at Paris, on his way to Rome, Athens, Constantinople. The inevitable exposure should never reach his wife until he had so won her, soul and body, that she should adore him for the crimes he had committed to win her--he knew the female heart to be capable of that.

He came back from his walk another man, color in his cheek and fire in his eye.

He walked into the drawing-room, and found Mr. Raby, with his hat on, just leaving Grace, whose eyes showed signs of weeping.

"I wish you joy, sir," said Raby. "I am to have the honor of being at your wedding."

"It will add to my happiness, if possible," said Coventry.

To be as polite in deed as in word, he saw Mr. Raby into the fly.

"Curious creatures, these girls," said Raby, shrugging his shoulders.

"She was engaged to me long ago," said Coventry, parrying the blow.

"Ah! I forgot that. Still--well, well; I wish you joy."

He went off, and Coventry returned to Grace. She was seated by the window looking at the sea.

"What did godpapa say to you?"

"Oh, he congratulated me. He reminded me you and I were first engaged at his house."

"Did he tell you it is to be at 'Woodbine Villa'?"

"What?"

"The wedding." And Grace blushed to the forehead at having to mention it.

"No, indeed, he did not mention any such thing, or I should have shown him how unadvisable--"

"You mistake me. It is I who wish to be married from my father's house by good old Dr. Fynes. He married my parents, and he christened me, and now he shall marry me."

"I approve that, of course, since you wish it; but, my own dearest Grace, 'Woodbine Villa' is associated with so many painful memories--let me advise, let me earnestly entreat you, not to select it as the place to be married from. Dr. Fynes can be invited here."

"I have set my heart on it," said Grace. "Pray do not thwart me in it."

"I should be very sorry to thwart you in any thing. But, before you finally decide, pray let me try and convince your better judgment."

"I have decided; and I have written to Dr. Fynes, and to the few persons I mean to invite. They can't all come here; and I have asked Mr. Raby; and it is my own desire; and it is one of those things the lady and her family always decide. I have no wish to be married at all. I only marry to please my father and you. There, let us say no more about it, please. I will not be married at 'Woodbine Villa,' nor anywhere else. I wish papa and you would show your love by burying me instead."

These words, and the wild panting way they were uttered in, brought Coventry to his knees in a moment. He promised her, with abject submission, that she should have her own way in this and every thing. He petted her, and soothed her, and she forgave him, but so little graciously, that he saw she would fly out in a moment again, if the least attempt were made to shake her resolution.

Grace talked the matter over with Mr. Carden, and that same evening he begged Coventry to leave the Villa as soon as he conveniently could, for he and his daughter must be there a week before the wedding, and invite some relations, whom it was his interest to treat with respect.

"You will spare me a corner," said Coventry, in his most insinuating tone. "Dear Woodbine! I could not bear to leave it."

"Oh, of course you can stay there till we actually come; but we can't have the bride and bridegroom under one roof. Why, my dear fellow, you know better than that."

There was no help for it. It sickened him with fears of what might happen in those few fatal days, during which Mr. Carden, Grace herself, and a household over which he had no control, would occupy the house, and would receive the Postman, whose very face showed him incorruptible.

He stayed till the last moment; stopped a letter of five lines from Little, in which he said he should be in New York very soon, en route for England; and the very next day he received the Cardens, with a smiling countenance and a fainting heart, and then vacated the premises. He ordered Lally to hang about the Villa at certain hours when the post came in, and do his best. But his was catching at a straw. His real hope was that neither Little himself, nor a letter in his handwriting, might come in that short interval.

It wanted but five days to the wedding.

Hitherto it had been a game of skill, now it was a game of chance; and every morning he wished it was evening, every evening he wished it was morning.

The day Raby came back from Eastbank he dined at home, and, in an unguarded moment, said something or other, on which Mrs. Little cross-examined him so swiftly and so keenly that he stammered, and let out Grace Carden was on the point of marriage.

"Marriage, while my son is alive!" said Mrs. Little, and looked from him to Jael Dence, at first with amazement, and afterward with a strange expression that showed her mind was working.

A sort of vague alarm fell upon the other two, and they waited, in utter confusion, for what might follow.

But the mother was not ready to suspect so horrible a thing as her son's death. She took a more obvious view, and inveighed bitterly against Grace Carden.

She questioned Raby as to the cause, but it was Jael who answered her. "I believe nobody knows the rights of it but Miss Carden herself."

"The cause is her utter fickleness; but she never really loved him. My poor Henry!"

"Oh yes, she did," said Raby. "She was at death's door a few months ago."

"At death's door for one man, and now going to marry another!"

"Why not?" said Raby, hard pushed; "she is a woman."

"And why did you not tell me till now?" asked Mrs. Little, loftily ignoring her brother's pitiable attempt at a sneer.

Raby's reply to this was happier.

"Why, what the better are you for knowing it now? We had orders not to worry you unnecessarily. Had we not, Jael?"

"That is all very well, in some things. But, where my son is concerned, pray never keep the truth from me again. When did she break off with Henry--or did he quarrel with her?"

"I have no idea. I was not in the country."

"Do you know, dear?"

"No, Mrs. Little. But I am of your mind. I think she could not have loved Mr. Henry as she ought."

"When did you see her last?"

"I could not say justly, but it was a long while ago."

Mrs. Little interpreted this that Jael had quarreled with Grace for her fickleness, and gave her a look of beaming affection; then fell into a dead silence, and soon tears were seen stealing down her cheek.

"But I shall write to her," said she, after a long and painful silence.

Mr. Raby hoped she would do nothing of the kind.

"Oh, I shall not say much. I shall put her one question. Of course she knows why they part."

Next morning Jael Dence asked Mr. Raby whether the threatened letter must be allowed to go.

"Of course it must," said Raby. "I have gone as far off the straight path as a gentleman can. And I wish we may not repent our ingenuity. Deceive a mother about her son! what can justify it, after all?"

Mrs. Little wrote her letter, and showed it to Jael:--

"DEAR MISS CARDEN,--They tell me you are about to be married. Can this be true, and Henry Little alive?"

An answer came back, in due course.

"DEAR MRS. LITTLE,--It is true, and I am miserable. Forgive me, and forget me."

Mrs. Little discovered the marks of tears upon the paper, and was sorely puzzled.

She sat silent a long time: then looking up, she saw Jael Dence gazing at her with moist eyes, and an angelic look of anxiety and affection.

She caught her round the neck, and kissed her, almost passionately.

"All the better," she cried, struggling with a sob. "I shall have my own way for once. You shall be my daughter instead."

Jael returned her embrace with ardor, but in silence, and with averted head.

When Jael Dence heard that Grace Carden was in Hillsborough, she felt very much drawn to go and see her: but she knew the meeting must be a sad one to them both; and that made her put it off till the very day before the wedding. Then, thinking it would be too unkind if she held entirely aloof, and being, in truth, rather curious to know whether Grace had really been able to transfer her affections in so short a time, she asked Mr. Raby's leave, and drove one of the ponies in to "Woodbine Villa."

The short interval previous to the wedding-day passed, to all appearance, as that period generally does. Settlements were drawn, and only awaited signature. The bride seemed occupied with dress, and receiving visits and presents, and reading and writing letters of that sort which ought to be done by machinery.

The bridegroom hovered about the house, running in and out on this or that pretext.

She received his presence graciously, read him the letters of her female friends, and forced herself to wear a look of languid complacency, especially before others.

Under all this routine she had paroxysms of secret misery, and he was in tortures.

These continued until the eve of the wedding, and then he breathed freely. No letter had come from the United States, and to-morrow was the wedding-day. The chances were six to one no letter came that day, and, even if one should, he had now an excuse ready for keeping Lally on the premises that particular morning. At one o'clock he would be flying south with his bride.

He left the villa to dress for dinner. During this interval Jael Dence called.

The housemaid knocked at Grace's door--she was dressing--and told her Jael wished to see her.

Grace was surprised, and much disturbed. It flashed on her in a moment that this true and constant lover of Henry Little had come to enjoy her superiority. She herself had greatly desired this meeting once, but now it could only serve to mortify her. The very thought that this young woman was near her set her trembling; but she forced herself to appear calm, and, turning to her maid, said, "Tell her I can see no one to-day."

The lady's maid gave this message to the other servant, and she went down-stairs with it.

The message, however, had not been gone long when the desire to put a question to Jael Dence returned strongly upon Grace Carden.

She yielded to an uncontrollable impulse, and sent her maid down to say that she would speak to Jael Dence, in her bedroom, the last thing at night.

"The last thing at night!" said Jael, coloring with indignation; "and where am I to find a bed after that?"

"Oh," said the late footman, now butler, "you shall not leave the house. I'll manage that for you with the housekeeper."

At half-past eleven o'clock that night Grace dismissed her maid, and told her to bring Jael Dence to her.

Jael came, and they confronted each other once more.

"You can go," said Grace to the maid.

They were alone, and eyed each other strangely.

"Sit down," said Grace, coldly.

"No, thank you," said Jael, firmly. "I shall not stay long after the way I have been received."

"And how do you expect to be received?"

"As I used to be. As a poor girl who once saved his life, and nearly lost her own, through being his true and faithful servant."

"Faithful to him, but not to me."

Jael's face showed she did not understand this.

"Yes," said Grace, bitterly, "you are the real cause of my marrying Mr. Coventry, whom I don't love, and never can love. There, read that. I can't speak to you. You look all candor and truth, but I know what you are: all the women in that factory knew about you and him--read that." She handed her the anonymous letter, and watched her like an eagle.

Jael read the poison, and colored a little, but was not confounded.

"Do you believe this, Miss Carden?"

"I did not believe it at first, but too many people have confirmed it. Your own conduct has confirmed it, my poor girl. This is cruel of me."

"Never mind," said Jael, resolutely. "We have gone too far to stop. My conduct! What conduct, if you please?"

"They all say that, when you found he was no more, you attempted self-destruction."

"Ah," cried Jael, like a wounded hare; "they must tell you that!" and she buried her face in her hands.

Now this was a young woman endowed by nature with great composure, and a certain sobriety and weight; so, when she gave way like that, it produced a great effect on those who knew her.

Grace sighed, and was distressed. But there was no help for it now. She awaited Jael's reply, and Jael could not speak for some time. She conquered her agitation, however, at last, and said, in a low voice, "Suppose you had a sister, whom you loved dearly--and then you had a quarrel with her, and neither of you much to blame, the fault lay with a third person; and suppose you came home suddenly and found that sister had left England in trouble, and gone to the other end of the world--would not that cut you to the heart?"

"Indeed it would. How correctly you speak. Now who has been teaching you?"

"Mrs. Little."

"Ah!"

"You have a father. Suppose you left him for a month, and then came back and found him dead and buried--think of that--buried!"

"Poor girl!"

"And all this to fall on a poor creature just off a sick-bed, and scarcely right in her head. When I found poor Mr. Henry was dead, and you at death's door, I crawled home for comfort, and there I found desolation: my sister gone across the sea, my father in the churchyard. I wandered about all night, with my heavy heart and distraught brain, and at last they found me in the river. They may say I threw myself in, but it is my belief I swooned away and fell in. I wouldn't swear, though, for I remember nothing of it. What does it prove against me?"

"Not much, indeed, by itself. But they all say you were shut up with him for hours."

"And that is true; ten hours, every day. He was at war with these trades, and his own workmen had betrayed him. He knew I was as strong as a man at some kinds of work--of course I can't strike blows, and hurt people like a man--so he asked me, would I help him grind saws with his machine on the sly--clandestinely, I mean. Well, I did, and very easy work it was--child's play to me that had wrought on a farm. He gave me six pounds a week for it. That's all the harm we did together; and, as for what we said, let me tell you a first-rate workman, like poor Mr. Henry, works very silently; that is where they beat us women. I am sure we often ground a dozen saws, and not a word, except upon the business. When we did talk, it was sure to be about you. Poor lad, the very last time we wrought together, I mind he said, 'Well done, Jael, that's good work; it brings me an inch nearer her.' And I said, All the better, and I'd give him another hour or two every day if he liked. That very evening I took him his tea at seven o'clock. He was writing letters; one was to you. He was just addressing it. 'Good-night, Jael,' said he. 'You have been a good friend to her and me.'"

"Oh! did he say that? What became of that letter?"

"Upon my soul, he did; ay, and it was his last word to me in this world. But you are not of his mind, it seems. The people in the factory! I know they used to say we were sweethearts. You can't wonder at that; they didn't know about you, nor any of our secrets; and, of course, vulgar folk like them could not guess the sort of affection I had for poor Mr. Henry; but a lady like you should not go by their lights. Besides, I was always open with you. Once I had a different feeling for him: did I hide it from you? When I found he loved you, I set to work to cure myself. I did cure myself before your very eyes; and, after that, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to go and doubt me. There, now, I have made her cry."

Her own voice faltered a moment, and she said, with gentle dignity, "Well, I forgive you, for old kindness past; but I shall not sleep under this roof now. God bless you, and give you many happy days yet with this gentleman you are going to marry. Farewell."

She was actually going; but Grace caught her by the arm. "No, no, you shall not leave me so."

"Ay, but I will." And Jael's eyes, so mild in general, began to sparkle with anger, at being detained against her will; but, generous to the last, she made no use of her great strength to get clear from Grace.

"You will not go, if you are the woman you were. I believe your words, I believe your honest face, I implore your forgiveness. I am the most miserable creature in this world. Pray do not abandon me."

This appeal, made with piteous gestures and streaming eyes, overpowered Jael Dence, and soon they were seated, rocking together, and Grace pouring out her heart.

Jael then learned, to her dismay, that Grace's belief in Henry's falsehood was a main cause of this sudden marriage. Had she believed her Henry true, she would have mourned him, as a widow, two years at least.

The unhappy young lady lamented her precipitation, and the idea of marrying Mr. Coventry to-morrow became odious to her. She asked Jael wildly whether she should not be justified in putting an end to her life.

Jael consoled her all she could; and, at her request, slept in the same bed with her. Indeed she was afraid to leave her; for she was wild at times, and said she would prefer to be married to that dead hand people said was at the Town hall, and then thrown into one grave with it. "That's the bridal I long for," said she.

In the morning she was calmer, and told Jael she thought she was doing right.

"I shall be neither more nor less wretched for marrying this poor man," said she: "and I shall make two people happy; two people that deserve the sacrifice I make."

So, after all, the victim went calmly.

Early in the morning came a letter from Dr. Fynes. He was confined by gout, and sorry to say the ceremony he had hoped to perform must be done by his curate.

Now this curate was quite a stranger to Grace, and indeed to most people in Hillsborough. Dr. Fynes himself knew nothing about him except that he had come in answer to his inquiry for a curate, had brought good letters of recommendation, and had shown himself acquainted with the learned doctor's notes to Apollonius Rhodius; on which several grounds the doctor, who was himself a better scholar than a priest, had made him his curate, and had heard no complaints, except from a few puritanical souls. These he looked on as barbarians, and had calmly ignored them and their prejudices ever since he transferred his library from St. John's College, Cambridge, to St. Peter's Rectory, and that was thirty years ago.

This sudden substitute of an utter stranger for Dr. Fynes afflicted Grace Carden not a little, and her wedding-day began with a tear or two on that account. But, strange as it may appear, she lived to alter her mind, and to thank and bless Mr. Beresford for taking her old friend's place on that great occasion.

But while the bride dressed for church, and her bridemaids and friends drove up, events were taking place to deal with which I must retrograde a step.

Jael Dence having gone to "Woodbine Villa," Mrs. Little and her brother dined tête-à-tête; and the first question she asked was, "Why where is Jael?"

"Don't you know? gone to 'Woodbine Villa'. The wedding is to-morrow."

"What, my Jael gone to that girl's wedding!" And her eyes flashed with fire.

"Why not? I am going to it myself."

"I am sorry to hear you say so--very sorry."

"Why, she is my godchild. Would you have me affront her?"

"If she is your godchild, Henry is your nephew."

"Of course, and I did all I could to marry him to Grace; but, you see, he would he wiser than me."

"Dear Guy, my poor Henry was to blame for not accepting your generous offer; but that does not excuse this heartless, fickle girl."

Raby's sense of justice began to revolt. "My dear Edith, I can't bear to hear you speak so contemptuously of this poor girl, who has so nearly died for love of your son. She is one of the noblest, purest, most unselfish creatures I ever knew. Why judge so hastily? But that is the way with you ladies; it must be the woman who is in the wrong. Men are gods, and women devils; that is your creed."

"Is Henry going to marry another?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then what excuse can there be for her conduct? Does wrong become right, when this young lady does it? It is you who are prejudiced, not I. Her conduct is without excuse. I have written to her: she has replied, and has offered me no excuse. 'Forgive me,' she says, 'and forget me.' I shall never forgive her; and you must permit me to despise her for a few years before I forget her."

"Well, don't excite yourself so. My poor Edith, some day or other you will be sorry you ever said a word against that amiable and most unfortunate girl."

He said this so sadly and solemnly that Mrs. Little's anger fell directly, and they both sat silent a long time.

"Guy," said Mrs. Little, "tell me the truth. Has my son done anything wrong--anything rash? It was strange he should leave England without telling me. He told Dr. Amboyne. Oh, there is some mystery here. If I did not know you so well, I should say there is some deceit going on in this house. There is---- You hang your head. I cannot bear to give you pain, so I will ask you no more questions. But----"

There was a world of determination in that "but."

She retired early to bed; to bed, but not to rest.

In the silence of the night she recalled every thing, every look, every word that had seemed a little strange to her, and put them all together. She could not sleep; vague misgivings crawled over her agitated mind. At length she slumbered from sheer exhaustion. She rose early; yet, when she came down-stairs, Raby was just starting for "Woodbine Villa."

Mrs. Little asked him to take her into Hillsborough. He looked uneasy, but complied, and, at her desire, set her down in the market-place of Hillsborough. As soon as he was out of sight she took a fly, and directed the driver to take her to Mr. Little's works. "I mean," said she, "the works where Mr. Bayne is."

She found Mr. Bayne in his counting-house, dressed in deep mourning.

He started at sight of her, and then she saw his eye fall with surprise on her gray dress.

"Mr. Bayne," said she, "I am come to ask you a question or two."

"Be seated, madam," said Bayne, reverently. "I expected a visit from you or from your agent, and the accounts are all ready for your inspection. I keep them as clear as possible."

"I do not come here about accounts. My son has perfect confidence in you, and so have I."

"Thank you, madam; thank you kindly. He did indeed honor me with his confidence, and with his friendship. I am sure he was more like a brother to me than an employer. Ah, madam! I shall never, never, see his fellow again." And honest Bayne turned away with his hand to his eyes.

This seemed to Mrs. Little to be more than the occasion required, and did not tend to lessen her misgivings. However, she said gravely, "Mr. Bayne, I suppose you have heard there is to be a wedding in the town to-day--Miss Carden?"

"That is sudden! No, madam, I didn't know it. I can hardly believe it."

"It is so. She marries a Mr. Coventry. Now I think you were in my son's confidence; can you tell me whether there was any quarrel between him and Miss Carden before he left us?"

"Well, madam, I didn't see so much of him lately, he was always at the other works. Would to heaven he had never seen them! But I don't believe he ever gave that lady an unkind word. He was not that sort. He was ready of his hand against a man, but a very lamb with women he was. And so she is going to marry? Well, well; the world, it must go round. She loved him dearly, too. She was down at Bolt and Little's works day after day searching for him. She spent money like water, poor thing! I have seen her with her white face and great eyes watching the men drag the river for him; and, when that horrible thing was found at last, they say she was on the bridge and swooned dead away, and lay at death's door. But you will know all this, madam; and it is sad for me to speak of, let alone you that are his mother."

The color died out of Mrs. Little's cheek as he spoke; but, catching now a glimpse of the truth, she drew Bayne on with terrible cunning, and so learned that there had been a tremendous explosion, and Jael Dence taken up for dead; and that, some time after, an arm and a hand had been found in the river and recognized for the remains of Henry Little.

When she had got this out of the unwary Bayne she uttered a piercing scream, and her head hung over the chair, and her limbs writhed, and the whole creature seemed to wither up.

Then Bayne saw with dismay what he had done, and began to falter out expressions of regret. She paid no attention.

He begged her to let him fetch her some salts or a cordial.

She shook her head and lay weak as water and white as a sheet.

At last she rose, and, supporting herself for a moment by the back of the chair, she said, "you will take me to see my son's remains."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, don't think of it!"

"I must; I cannot keep away from them an instant. And how else can I know they are his? Do you think I will believe any eye but my own? Come."

He had no power to disobey her. He trembled in every limb at what was coming, but he handed her into her carriage, and went with her to the Town Hall.

When they brought her the tweed sleeves, she trembled like an aspen leaf. When they brought her the glass receptacle, she seized Bayne by the shoulder and turned her head away. By degrees she looked round, and seemed to stiffen all of a sudden. "It is not my son," said she.

She rushed out of the place, bade Mr. Bayne good-morning, and drove directly to Dr. Amboyne. She attacked him at once. "You have been deceiving me all this time about my son; and what am I the better? What is anybody the better? Now tell me the truth. You think him dead?"

(Dr. Amboyne hung his head in alarm and confusion.)

"Why do you think so? Do you go by those remains? I have seen them. My child was vaccinated on the left arm, and carried the mark. He had specks on two of his finger-nails; he had a small wart on his little finger; and his fingers were not blunt and uncouth, like that; they were as taper as any lady's in England; that hand is nothing like my son's; you are all blind; yet you must go and blind the only one who had eyes, the only one who really loved him, and whose opinion is worth a straw."

Dr. Amboyne was too delighted at the news to feel these reproaches very deeply. "Thank God!" said he. "Scold me, for I deserve it. But I did for the best; but, unfortunately, we have still to account for his writing to no one all this time. No matter. I begin to hope. That was the worst evidence. Edith, I must go to 'Woodbine Villa'. That poor girl must not marry in ignorance of this. Believe me, she will never marry Coventry, if he is alive. Excuse my leaving you at such a time, but there is not a moment to be lost."

He placed her on a sofa, and opened the window; for, by a natural reaction, she was beginning to feel rather faint. He gave his housekeeper strict orders to take care of her, then snatching his hat, went hastily out.

At the door he met the footman with several letters (he had a large correspondence), shoved them pell-mell into his breast-pocket, shouted to a cabman stationed near, and drove off to "Woodbine Villa."

It was rather up-hill, but he put his head out of the window and offered the driver a sovereign to go fast. The man lashed his horse up the hill, and did go very fast, though it seemed slow to Dr. Amboyne, because his wishes flew so much faster.

At last he got to the villa, and rang furiously.

After a delay that set the doctor stamping, Lally appeared.

"I must see Miss Carden directly."

"Step in, sir; she won't be long now."

Dr. Amboyne walked into the dining-room, and saw it adorned with a wealth of flowers, and the wedding-breakfast set out with the usual splendor; but there was nobody there; and immediately an uneasy suspicion crossed his mind.

He came out into the passage, and found Lally there.

"Are they gone to the church?"

"They are," said Lally, with consummate coolness.

"You Irish idiot!" roared the doctor, "why couldn't you tell me that before?" And, notwithstanding his ungainly figure, he ran down the road, shouting, like a Stentor, to his receding cabman.

"Bekase I saw that every minute was goold," said Lally, as soon as he was out of hearing.

The cabman, like most of his race, was rather deaf and a little blind, and Dr. Amboyne was much heated and out of breath before he captured him. He gasped out, "To St. Peter's Church, for your life!"

It was rather down-hill this time, and about a mile off.

In little more than five minutes the cab rattled up to the church door.

Dr. Amboyne got out, told the man to wait, and entered the church with a rapid step.

Before he had gone far up the center aisle, he stopped.

Mr. Coventry and Grace Carden were coming down the aisle together in wedding costume, the lady in her bridal veil.

They were followed by the bridemaids.

Dr. Amboyne stared, and stepped aside into an open pew to let them pass.

They swept by; he looked after them, and remained glued to his seat till the church was clear of the procession.

He went into the vestry, and found the curate there.

"Are that couple really married, sir?" said he.

The curate looked amazed. "As fast as I can make them," said he, rather flippantly.

"Excuse me," said the doctor, faintly. "It was a foolish question to ask."

"I think I have the honor of speaking to Dr. Amboyne?"

Dr. Amboyne bowed mechanically.

"You will be at the wedding-breakfast, of course?"

"Humph!"

"Why, surely, you are invited?"

"Yes" (with an equally absent air).

Finding him thus confused, the sprightly curate laughed and bade him good-morning, jumped into a hansom, and away to "Woodbine Villa."

Dr. Amboyne followed him slowly.

"Drive me to 'Woodbine Villa'. There's no hurry now."

On the way, he turned the matter calmly over, and put this question to himself: Suppose he had reached the villa in time to tell Grace Carden the news! Certainly he would have disturbed the wedding; but would it have been put off any the more? The bride's friends and advisers would have replied, "But that is no positive proof that he is alive; and, if he is alive, he has clearly abandoned her. Not a line for all these months."

This view of the matter appeared to him unanswerable, and reconciled him, in a great degree, to what seemed inevitable.

He uttered one deep sigh of regret, and proceeded now to read his letters; for he was not likely to have another opportunity for an hour or two at least, since he must be at the wedding breakfast. His absence would afflict the bride.

The third letter he took out of his breast-pocket bore an American postmark. At the first word of it he uttered an ejaculation, and his eye darted to the signature.

Then he gave a roar of delight. It was signed "Henry Little," and the date only twelve days old.

His first thought was the poor lady who, at this moment, lay on a sofa in his house, a prey to doubts and fears he could now cure in a moment.

But no sooner had he cast his eyes over the contents, than his very flesh began to creep with dire misgivings and suspicions.

To these succeeded the gravest doubts as to the course he ought to pursue at "Woodbine Villa."

He felt pretty sure that Grace Carden had been entrapped into marrying a villain, and his first impulse was to denounce the bridegroom before the assembled guests.

But his cooler judgment warned him against acting in hot blood, and suggested it would be better to try and tell her privately.

And then he asked himself what would be the consequence of telling her.

She was a lady of great spirit, fire, and nobility. She would never live with this husband of hers.

And then came the question, What would be her life?

She might be maid, wife, and widow all her days.

Horrible as it was, he began almost to fear her one miserable chance of happiness might lie in ignorance.

But then how long could she be in ignorance?

Little was coming home; he would certainly speak out.

Dr. Amboyne was more tormented with doubts than a man of inferior intellect would have been. His was an academic mind, accustomed to look at every side of a question; and, when he reached "Woodbine Villa," he was almost distracted with doubt and perplexity. However, there was one person from whom the news must not be kept a moment. He took an envelope out of his pocket-book, and sent the cabman to Mrs. Little with this line:--

"Thank God, I have a letter from Henry Little by this day's post. He is well. Wait an hour or two for me. I can not leave 'Woodbine Villa' at present."

He sent this off by his cabman, and went into the breakfast-room in a state of mind easier to imagine than to describe.

The party were all seated, and his the only vacant place.

It was like a hundred other weddings at which he had been; and, seeing the bride and bridegroom seated together as usual, and the pretty bridemaids tittering, as usual, and the gentle dullness lighted up with here and there a feeble jest, as usual, he could hardly realize that horrible things lay beneath the surface of all this snowy bride-cake, and flowers, and white veils, and weak jocoseness.

He stared, bowed, and sunk into his place like a man in a dream.

Bridemaids became magnetically conscious that an incongruous element had entered; so they tittered. At what does sweet silly seventeen not titter?

Knives and forks clattered, champagne popped, and Dr. Amboyne was more perplexed and miserable than he had ever been. He had never encountered a more hopeless situation.

Presently Lally came and touched the bridegroom. He apologized, and left the room a moment.

Lally then told him to be on his guard, for the fat doctor knew something. He had come tearing up in a fly, and had been dreadfully put out when he found Miss Carden was gone to the church.

"Well, but he might merely wish to accompany her to the church: he is an old friend."

Lally shook his head and said there was much more in it than that; he could tell by the man's eye, and his uneasy way. "Master, dear, get out of this, for heaven's sake, as fast as ye can."

"You are right; go and order the carriage round, as soon as the horses can be put to."

Coventry then went hastily back to the bridal guests, and Lally ran to the neighboring inn which furnished the four post-horses.

Coventry had hardly settled down in his chair before he cast a keen but furtive glance at Dr. Amboyne's face.

Then he saw directly that the doctor's mind was working, and that he was secretly and profoundly agitated.

But, after all, he thought, what could the man know? And if he had known any thing, would he have kept it to himself?

Still he judged it prudent to propitiate Dr. Amboyne; so, when the time came for the usual folly of drinking healths, he leaned over to him, and, in the sweetest possible voice, asked him if he would do them both the honor to propose the bride's health.

At this unexpected call from Mr. Coventry, Dr. Amboyne stared in the bridegroom's face. He stared at him so that other people began to stare. Recovering himself a little, he rose mechanically, and surprised every body who knew him.

Instead of the easy gayety natural to himself and proper to the occasion, he delivered a few faltering words of affection for the bride; then suddenly stopped, and, after a pause, said, "But some younger man must foretell her the bright career she deserves. I am unfit. We don't know what an hour may bring forth." With this he sunk into his chair.

An uneasy grin, and then a gloom, fell on the bright company at these strange words, and all looked at one another uncomfortably.

But this situation was unexpectedly relieved. The young curate rose, and said, "I accept the honor Dr. Amboyne is generous enough to transfer to the younger gentlemen of the party--accept it with pride."

Starting from this exordium, he pronounced, with easy volubility, a charming panegyric on the bride, congratulated her friends, and then congratulated himself on being the instrument to unite her in holy wedlock with a gentleman worthy of her affection. Then, assuming for one moment the pastor, he pronounced a blessing on the pair, and sat down, casting glances all round out of a pair of singularly restless eyes.

The loud applause that followed left him in no doubt as to the favorable effect he had produced. Coventry, in particular, looked most expressively grateful.

The bridegroom's health followed, and Coventry returned thanks in a speech so neat and well delivered that Grace felt proud of his performance.

Then the carriage and four came round, and Coventry gave Grace an imploring glance on which she acted at once, being herself anxious to escape from so much publicity. She made her courtesies, and retired to put on her traveling-dress.

Then Dr. Amboyne cursed his own indecision, but still could not make up his mind, except to tell Raby, and make him the judge what course was best.

The gayety, never very boisterous, began to flag altogether; when suddenly a noise was heard outside, and one or two young people, who darted unceremoniously to the window, were rewarded by the sight of a man and a woman struggling and quarreling at the gate. The disturbance in question arose thus: Jael Dence, looking out of Grace's window, saw the postman coming, and ran to get Grace her letters (if any) before she went.

The postman, knowing her well, gave her the one letter there was.

Lally, returning from the inn, where he had stopped one unlucky minute to drain a glass, saw this, and ran after Jael and caught her just inside the gate.

"That is for me," said he, rudely.

"Nay, it's for thy betters, young man; 'tis for Miss Grace Carden."

"She is Mrs. Coventry now, so give it me."

"I'll take her orders first."

On this Lally grabbed at it and caught Jael's right hand, which closed directly on the letter like a vise.

"Are these your manners?" said she. "Give over now."

"I tell you I will have it!" said he, fiercely, for he had caught sight of the handwriting.

He seized her hand and applied his knuckles to the back of it with all his force. That hurt her, and she gave a cry, and twisted away from him and drew back; then, putting her left hand to his breast, she gave a great yaw, and then a forward rush with her mighty loins, and a contemporaneous shove with her amazing left arm, that would have pushed down some brick walls, and the weight and strength so suddenly applied sent Lally flying like a feather. His head struck the stone gate-post, and he measured his length under it.

Jael did not know how completely she had conquered him, and she ran in with a face as red as fire, and took the letter up to Grace, and was telling her, all in a heat, about the insolence of her new husband's Irish servant, when suddenly she half recognized the handwriting, and stood staring at it, and began to tremble.

"Why, what is the matter?" said Grace.

"Oh, nothing, miss. I'm foolish. The writing seems to me like a writing we shall never see again." And she stood and trembled still more, for the handwriting struck her more and more.

Grace ran to her, and at the very first glance uttered a shriek of recognition. She caught it from Jael, tore it open, saw the signature, and sunk into a chair, half fainting, with the letter pressed convulsively to her breast.

Jael, trembling, but comparatively self-possessed, ran to the door directly and locked it.

"My darling! my darling! he is alive! The dear words, they swim before my eyes. Read! read! tell me what he says. Why has he abandoned me? He has not abandoned me! O God! what have I done? what have I done?"

Before that letter was half read, or rather sobbed, out to her, Grace tore off all her bridal ornaments and trampled them under her feet, and moaned, and twisted, and writhed as if her body was being tortured as well as her heart; for Henry was true as ever, and she had married a villain.

She took the letter from Jael, and devoured every word; though she was groaning and sobbing with the wildest agony all the time.

"NEW YORK, July 18th.

"MY OWN DEAREST GRACE,--I write you these few lines in wonder and pain. I have sent you at least fifteen letters, and in most of them I have begged you to write to me at the Post-office, New York; yet not one line is here to greet me in your dear handwriting. Yet my letters must have all reached 'Woodbine Villa,' or why are they not sent back? Of three letters I sent to my mother, two have been returned from Aberystwith, marked, 'Gone away, and not left her address.'

"I have turned this horrible thing every way in my mind, and even prayed God to assist my understanding; and I come back always to the same idea that some scoundrel has intercepted my letters.

"The first of these I wrote at the works on the evening I left Hillsborough; the next I wrote from Boston, after my long illness, in great distress of mind on your account; for I put myself in your place, and thought what agony it would be to me if nine weeks passed, and no word from you. The rest were written from various cities, telling you I was making our fortune, and should soon be home. Oh, I can not write of such trifles now!

"My own darling, let me find you alive; that is all I ask. I know I shall find you true to me, if you are alive.

"Perhaps it would have been better if my heart had not been so entirely filled by you. God has tried me hard in some things, but He has blessed me with true friends. It was ungrateful of me not to write to such true friends as Dr. Amboyne and Jael Dence. But, whenever I thought of England, I saw only you.

"By this post I write to Dr. Amboyne, Mr. Bolt, Mr. Bayne, and Jael Dence.

"This will surely baffle the enemy who has stopped all my letters to you, and will stop this one, I dare say.

"I say no more, beloved one. What is the use? You will perhaps never see this letter, and you know more than I can say, for you know how I love you: and that is a great deal more than ever I can put on paper.

"I sail for England in four days. God help me to get over the interval.

"I forget whether I told you I had made my fortune.--Your devoted and most unhappy lover,

"Henry."

Grace managed to read this, in spite of the sobs and moans that shook her, and the film that half blinded her; and, when she had read it, sank heavily down, and sat all crushed together, with hands working like frenzy.

Jael kneeled beside her, and kissed and wept over her, unheeded.

At last she spoke, looking straight before her, as if she was speaking to the wall.

"Bring my godfather here."

"Won't you see your father first?" said Jael, timidly.

"I have no father. I want something I can lean on over the gulf--a man of honor. Fetch Mr. Raby to me."

Jael kissed her tenderly, and wept over her once more a minute, then went softly down-stairs and straight into the breakfast-room.

Here, in the meantime, considerable amusement had been created by the contest between Lally and Jael Dence, the more so on account of the triumph achieved by the weaker vessel.

When Lally got up, and looked about him ruefully, great was the delight of the younger gentlemen.

When he walked in-doors, they chaffed him through an open window, and none of them noticed that the man was paler than even the rough usage he had received could account for.

This jocund spirit, however, was doomed to be short-lived.

Lally came into the room, looking pale and troubled, and whispered a word in his master's ear; then retired, but left his master as pale as himself.

Coventry, seated at a distance from the window, had not seen the scrimmage outside, and Lally's whispered information fell on him like a thunderbolt.

Mr. Beresford saw at once that something was wrong, and hinted as much to his neighbor. It went like magic round the table, and there was an uneasy silence.

In the midst of this silence, mysterious sounds began to be heard in the bride's chamber: a faint scream; feet rushing across the floor; a sound as of some one sinking heavily on to a chair or couch.

Presently came a swift stamping that told a tale of female passion; and after that confused sounds that could not be interpreted through the ceiling, yet somehow the listeners felt they were unusual. One or two attempted conversation, out of politeness; but it died away--curiosity and uneasiness prevailed.

Lally put his head in at the door, and asked if the carriage was to be packed.

"Of course," said Coventry; and soon the servants, male and female, were seen taking boxes out from the hall to the carriage.

Jael Dence walked into the room, and went to Mr. Raby.

"The bride desires to see you immediately, sir."

Raby rose, and followed Jael out.

The next minute a lady's maid came, with a similar message to Dr. Amboyne.

He rose with great alacrity, and followed her.

There was nothing remarkable in the bride's taking private leave of these two valued friends. But somehow the mysterious things that had preceded made the guests look with half-suspicious eyes into every thing; and Coventry's manifest discomfiture, when Dr. Amboyne was sent for, justified this vague sense that there was something strange going on beneath the surface.

Neither Raby nor Amboyne came down again, and Mr. Beresford remarked aloud that the bride's room was like the lion's den in the fable, "'Vestigia nulla retrorsum.'"

At last the situation became intolerable to Coventry. He rose, in desperation, and said, with a ghastly attempt at a smile, that he must, nevertheless, face the dangers of the place himself, as the carriage was now packed, and Mrs. Coventry and he, though loath to leave their kind friends, had a longish journey before them. "Do not move, I pray; I shall be back directly."

As soon as he had got out of the room, he held a whispered consultation with Lally, and then, collecting all his courage, and summoning all his presence of mind, he went slowly up the stairs, determined to disown Lally's acts (Lally himself had suggested this), and pacify Grace's friends, if he could; but, failing that, to turn round, and stand haughtily on his legal rights, ay, and enforce them too.

But, meantime, what had passed in the bride's chamber?

Raby found Grace Carden, with her head buried on her toilet-table, and her hair all streaming down her back.

The floor was strewn with pearls and broken ornaments, and fragments of the bridal veil. On the table lay Henry Little's letter.

Jael took it without a word, and gave it to Raby.

He took it, and, after a loud ejaculation of surprise, began to read it.

He had not quite finished it when Dr. Amboyne tapped at the door, and Jael let him in.

The crushed figure with disheveled hair, and Raby's eye gleaming over the letter in his hand, told him at once what was going on.

He ceased to doubt, or vacillate, directly; he whispered Jael Dence to stand near Grace, and watch her closely.

He had seen a woman start up and throw herself, in one moment, out of a window, for less than this--a woman crushed apparently, and more dead than alive, as Grace Carden was.

Then he took out his own letter, and read it in a low voice to Mr. Raby; but it afterwards appeared the bride heard every word.

"MY BEST FRIEND,--Forgive me for neglecting you so long, and writing only to her I love with all my soul. Forgive me, for I smart for it. I have written fifteen letters to my darling Grace, and received no reply. I wrote her one yesterday, but have now no hope she will ever get it. This is terrible, but there is worse behind. This very day I have learned that my premises were blown up within a few hours of my leaving, and poor, faithful Jael Dence nearly killed; and then a report of my own death was raised, and some remains found in the ruins that fools said were mine. I suppose the letters I left in the box were all destroyed by the fire.

"Now, mark my words, one and the same villain has put that dead man's hand and arm in the river, and has stopped my letters to Grace; I am sure of it. So what I want you to do is, first of all, to see my darling, and tell her I am alive and well, and then put her on her guard against deceivers.

"I suspect the postman has been tampered with. I write to Mr. Ransome to look into that. But what you might learn for me is, whether any body lately has had any opportunity to stop letters addressed to 'Woodbine Villa.' That seems to point to Mr. Carden, and he was never a friend of mine. But, somehow, I don't think he would do it.

"You see, I ask myself two questions. Is there any man in the world who has a motive strong enough to set him tampering with my letters? and, again, is there any man base enough to do such an act? And the answer to both questions is the same. I have a rival, and he is base enough for any thing. Judge for yourself. I as good as saved that Coventry's life one snowy night, and all I asked in return was that he wouldn't blow me to the Trades, and so put my life in jeopardy. He gave his word of honor he wouldn't. But he broke his word. One day, when Grotait and I were fast friends, and never thought to differ again, Grotait told me this Coventry was the very man that came to him and told him where I was working. Such a lump of human dirt as that--for you can't call him a man--must be capable of any thing."

Here the reading of the letter was interrupted by an incident.

There was on the toilet-table a stiletto, with a pearl handle. It was a small thing, but the steel rather long, and very bright and pointed.

The unfortunate bride, without lifting her head from the table, had reached out her hand, and was fingering this stiletto. Jael Dence went and took it gently away, and put it out of reach. The bride went on fingering, as if she had still got hold of it.

Amboyne exchanged an approving glance with Jael, and Raby concluded the letter.

"I shall be home in a few days after this; and, if I find my darling well and happy, there's no great harm done. I don't mind my own trouble and anxiety, great as they are, but if any scoundrel has made her unhappy, or made her believe I am dead, or false to my darling, by God, I'll kill him, though I hang for it next day!"

Crushed, benumbed, and broken as Grace Coventry was, this sentence seemed to act on her like an electric shock.

She started wildly up. "What! my Henry die like a felon--for a villain like him, and an idiot like me! You won't allow that; nor you--nor I."

A soft step came to the door, and a gentle tap.

"Who is that?" said Dr. Amboyne.

"The bridegroom," replied a soft voice.

"You can't come in here," said Raby, roughly.

"Open the door," said the bride.

Jael went to the door, but looked uncertain.

"Don't keep the bridegroom out," said Grace, reproachfully. Then, in a voice as sweet as his own, "I want to see him; I want to speak to him."

Jael opened the door slowly, for she felt uneasy. Raby shrugged his shoulders contemptuously at Grace's condescending to speak to the man, and in so amiable a tone.

Coventry entered, and began, "My dear Grace, the carriage is ready----"

No sooner had she got him fairly into the room, than the bride snatched up the stiletto, and flew at the bridegroom with gleaming eyes, uplifted weapon, the yell of a furious wild beast, and hair flying out behind her head like a lion's mane.

Dr. Amboyne and Raby cried out, and tried to interfere; but Grace's movement was too swift, furious, and sudden; she was upon the man, with her stiletto high in the air, before they could get to her, and indeed the blow descended, and, inspired as it was by love, and hate, and fury, would doubtless have buried the weapon in a rascal's body; but Jael Dence caught Grace's arm: that weakened, and also diverted the blow; yet the slight, keen weapon pierced Coventry's cheek, and even inflicted a slight wound upon the tongue. That very moment Jael Dence dragged her away, and held her round the waist, writhing and striking the air; her white hand and bridal sleeve sprinkled with her bridegroom's blood.

As for him, his love, criminal as it was, supplied the place of heroism: he never put up a finger in defense. "No," said he, despairingly, "let me die by her hand; it is all I hope for now." He even drew near her to enable her to carry out her wish: but, on that, Jael Dence wrenched her round directly, and Dr. Amboyne disarmed her, and Raby marched between the bride and the bridegroom, and kept them apart: then they all drew their breath, for the first time, and looked aghast at each other.

Not a face in that room had an atom of color left in it; yet it was not until the worst was over that they realized the savage scene.

The bridegroom leaned against the wardrobe, a picture of despair, with blood trickling from his cheek, and channeling his white waist-coat and linen; the bride, her white and bridal sleeve spotted with blood, writhed feebly in Jael Dence's arms, and her teeth clicked together, and her eyes shone wildly. At that moment she was on the brink of frenzy.

Raby, a man by nature, and equal to great situations, was the first to recover self-possession and see his way. "Silence!" said he, sternly. "Amboyne, here's a wounded man; attend to him."

He had no need to say that twice; the doctor examined his patient zealously, and found him bleeding from the tongue as well as the cheek; he made him fill his mouth with a constant supply of cold water, and applied cold water to the nape of his neck.

And now there was a knock at the door, and a voice inquired rather impatiently, what they were about all this time. It was Mr. Carden's voice.

They let him in, but instantly closed the door. "Now, hush!" said Raby, "and let me tell him." He then, in a very few hurried words, told him the matter. Coventry hung his head lower and lower.

Mr. Carden was terribly shaken. He could hardly speak for some time. When he did, it was in the way of feeble expostulation. "Oh, my child! my child! what, would you commit murder?"

"Don't you see I would," cried she, contemptuously, "sooner than he should do it, and suffer for it like a felon? You are all blind, and no friends of mine. I should have rid the earth of a monster, and they would never have hanged me. I hate you all, you worst of all, that call yourself my father, and drove me to marry this villain. One thing--you won't be always at hand to protect him."

"I'll give you every opportunity," said Coventry, doggedly. "You shall kill me for loving you so madly."

"She shall do no such thing," said Mr. Carden. "Opportunity? --do you know her so little as to think she will ever live with you. Get out of my house, and never presume to set foot in it again. My good friends, have pity on a miserable father and help me to hide this monstrous thing from the world."

This appeal was not lost: the gentlemen put their heads together and led Coventry into another room. There Dr. Amboyne attended to him, while Mr. Carden went down and told his guests the bridegroom had been taken ill, so seriously indeed that anxiety and alarm had taken the place of joy.

The guests took the hint and dispersed, wondering and curious.

Meantime, on one side of a plaster wall Amboyne was attending the bridegroom, and stanching the effusion of blood; on the other, Raby and Jael Dence were bringing the bride to reason.

She listened to nothing they could say until they promised her most solemnly that she should never be compelled to pass a night under the same roof as Frederick Coventry. That pacified her not a little.

Dr. Amboyne had also great trouble with his patient: the wound in the cheek was not serious; but, by a sort of physical retribution--of which, by-the-bye, I have encountered many curious examples--the tongue, that guilty part of Frederick Coventry, though slightly punctured, bled so persistently that Amboyne was obliged to fill his mouth with ice, and at last support him with stimulants. He peremptorily refused to let him be moved from "Woodbine Villa."

When this was communicated to Grace, she instantly exacted Raby's promise; and as he was a man who never went from his word, he drove her and Jael to Raby Hall that very night, and they left Coventry in the villa, attended by a surgeon, under whose care Amboyne had left him with strict injunctions. Mr. Carden was secretly mortified at his daughter's retreat, but raised no objection.

Next morning, however, he told Coventry; and then Coventry insisted on leaving the house. "I am unfortunate enough," said he: "do not let me separate my only friend from his daughter."

Mr. Carden sent a carriage off to Raby Hall, with a note, telling Grace Mr. Coventry was gone of his own accord, and appeared truly penitent, and much shocked at having inadvertently driven her out of the house. He promised also to protect her, should Coventry break his word and attempted to assume marital rights without her concurrence.

This letter found Grace in a most uncomfortable position. Mrs. Little had returned late to Raby Hall; but in the morning she heard from Jael Dence that Grace was in the house, and why.

The mother's feathers were up, and she could neither pity nor excuse. She would not give the unhappy girl a word of comfort. Indeed, she sternly refused to see her. "No," said she: "Mrs. Coventry is unhappy; so this is no time to show her how thoroughly Henry Little's mother despises her."

These bitter words never reached poor Grace, but the bare fact of Mrs. Little not coming down-stairs by one o'clock, nor sending a civil message, spoke volumes, and Grace was sighing over it when her father's letter came. She went home directly, and so heartbroken, that Jael Dence pitied her deeply, and went with her, intending to stay a day or two only.

But every day something or other occurred, which combined with Grace's prayers to keep her at "Woodbine Villa."

Mr. Coventry remained quiet for some days, by which means he pacified Grace's terrors.

On the fourth day Mr. Beresford called at "Woodbine Villa," and Grace received him, he being the curate of the parish.

He spoke to her in a sympathetic tone, which let her know at once he was partly in the secret. He said he had just visited a very guilty, but penitent man; that we all need forgiveness, and that a woman, once married, has no chance of happiness but with her husband.

Grace maintained a dead silence, only her eye began to glitter.

Mr. Beresford, who had learned to watch the countenance of all those he spoke to changed his tone immediately, from a spiritual to a secular adviser.

"If I were you," said he, in rather an offhand way, "I would either forgive this man the sin into which his love has betrayed him, or I would try to get a divorce. This would cost money: but, if you don't mind expense, I think I could suggest a way----"

Grace interrupted him. "From whom did you learn my misery, and his villainy? I let you in, because I thought you came from God; but you come from a villain. Go back, sir, and say that an angel, sent by him, becomes a devil in my eyes." And she rang the bell with a look that spoke volumes.

Mr. Beresford bowed, smiled bitterly, and went back to Coventry, with whom he had a curious interview, that ended in Coventry lending him two hundred pounds on his personal security. To dispose of Mr. Beresford for the present I will add that, soon after this, his zeal for the poor subjected him to an affront. He was a man of soup-kitchens and subscriptions. One of the old fogies, who disliked him, wrote letters to The Liberal, and demanded an account of his receipts and expenditure in these worthy objects, and repeated the demand with a pertinacity that implied suspicion. Then Mr. Beresford called upon Dr. Fynes, and showed him the letters, and confessed to him that he never kept any accounts, either of public or private expenditure. "I can construe Apollonius Rhodius--with your assistance, sir," said he, "but I never could add up pounds, shillings, and pence; far less divide them except amongst the afflicted." "Take no notice of the cads," said Dr. Fynes. But Beresford represented meekly that a clergyman's value and usefulness were gone when once a slur was thrown upon him. Then Dr. Fynes gave him high testimonials, and they parted with mutual regret.

It took Grace a day to get over her interview with Mr. Beresford; and when with Jael's help she was calm again, she received a letter from Coventry, indited in tones of the deepest penitence, but reminding her that he had offered her his life, had made no resistance when she offered to take it, and never would.

There was nothing in the letter that irritated her, but she saw in it an attempt to open a correspondence. She wrote back:--

"If you really repent your crimes, and have any true pity for the poor creature whose happiness you have wrecked, show it by leaving this place, and ceasing all communication with her."

This galled Coventry, and he wrote back:--

"What! leave the coast clear to Mr. Little? No, Mrs. Coventry; no."

Grace made no reply, but a great terror seized her, and from that hour preyed constantly on her mind--the fear that Coventry and Little would meet, and the man she loved would do some rash act, and perhaps perish on the scaffold for it.

This was the dominant sentiment of her distracted heart, when one day, at eleven A.M., came a telegram from Liverpool:--

"Just landed. Will be with you by four.

"HENRY LITTLE."

Jael found her shaking all over, with this telegram in her hand.

"Thank God you are with me!" she gasped. "Let me see him once more, and die."

This was her first thought; but all that day she was never in the same mind for long together. She would burst out into joy that he was really alive, and she should see his face once more. Then she would cower with terror, and say she dared not look him in the face; she was not worthy. Then she would ask wildly, who was to tell him? What would become of him?

"It would break his heart, or destroy his reason. After all he had done and suffered for her!"

Oh! why could she not die before he came? Seeing her dead body he would forgive her. She should tell him she loved him still, should always love him. She would withhold no comfort. Perhaps he would kill her, if so, Jael must manage so that he should not be taken up or tormented any more, for such a wretch as she was.

But I might as well try to dissect a storm, and write the gusts of a tempest, as to describe all the waves of passion in that fluctuating and agonized heart: the feelings and the agitation of a life were crowded into those few hours, during which she awaited the lover she had lost.

At last, Jael Dence, though she was also much agitated and perplexed, decided on a course of action. Just before four o'clock she took Grace upstairs and told her she might see him arrive, but she must not come down until she was sent for. "I shall see him first, and tell him all; and, when he is fit to see you, I will let you know."

Grace submitted, and even consented to lie down for half an hour. She was now, in truth, scarcely able to stand, being worn out with the mental struggle. She lay passive, with Jael Dence's hand in hers.

When she had lain so about an hour, she started up suddenly, and the next moment a fly stopped at the door. Henry Little got out at the gate, and walked up the gravel to the house.

Grace looked at him from behind the curtain, gazed at him till he disappeared, and then turned round, with seraphic joy on her countenance. "My darling!" she murmured; "more beautiful than ever! Oh misery! misery!"

One moment her heart was warm with rapture, the next it was cold with despair. But the joy was blind love; the despair was reason.

She waited, and waited, but no summons came.

She could not deny herself the sound of his voice. She crept down the stairs, and into her father's library, separated only by thin folding-doors from the room where Henry Little was with Jael Dence.

Meantime Jael Dence opened the door to Henry Little, and, putting her fingers to her lips, led him into the dining-room and shut the door.

Now, as his suspicions were already excited, this reception alarmed him seriously. As soon as ever they were alone, he seized both Jael's hands, and, looking her full in the face, said:

"One word--is she alive?"

"She is."

"Thank god! Bless the tongue that tells me that. My good Jael! my best friend!" And, with that, kissed her heartily on both cheeks.

She received this embrace like a woman of wood; a faint color rose, but retired directly, and left her cheek as pale as before.

He noticed her strange coldness, and his heart began to quake.

"There is something the matter?" he whispered.

"There is."

"Something you don't like to tell me?"

"Like to tell you! I need all my courage, and you yours."

Say she is alive, once more."

"She is alive, and not likely to die; but she does not care to live now. They told her you were dead; they told her you were false; appearances were such she had no chance not to be deceived. She held out for a long time; but they got the better of her--her father is much to blame--she is--married."

"Married!"

"Yes!"

"Married!" He leaned, sick as death, against the mantel-piece, and gasped so terribly that Jael's fortitude gave way, and she began to cry.

After a long time he got a word or two out in a broken voice.

"The false--inconstant--wretch! Oh Heaven! what I have done and suffered for her--and now married!--married! And the earth doesn't swallow her, nor the thunder strike her! Curse her, curse her husband, curse her children! may her name be a by-word for shame and misery--"

"Hush! hush! or you will curse your own mad tongue. Hear all, before you judge her."

"I have heard all; she is a wife; she shall soon be a widow. Thought I was false! What business had she to think I was false? It is only false hearts that suspect true ones. She thought me dead? Why? Because I was out of sight. She heard there was a dead hand found in the river. Why didn't she go and see it? Could all creation pass another hand off on me for hers? No; for I loved her. She never loved me."

"She loved you, and loves you still. When that dead hand was found, she fell swooning, and lay at death's door for you, and now she has stained her hands with blood for you. She tried to kill her husband, the moment she found you were alive and true, and he had made a fool of her."

"Tried to kill him! Why didn't she do it? I should not have failed at such work. I love her."

"Blame me for that; I stopped her arm, and I am stronger than she is. I say she is no more to blame than you. You have acted like a madman, and she suffers for it. Why did you slip away at night like that, and not tell me?"

"I left letters to you and her, and other people besides."

"Yes, left them, and hadn't the sense to post them. Why didn't you tell me? Had ever any young man as faithful and true a friend in any young woman as you had in me? Many a man has saved a woman's life, but it isn't often that a woman fights for a man, and gets the upper hand: yet you gave me nothing in return; not even your confidence. Look the truth in the face, my lad; all your trouble, and all hers, comes of your sneaking out of Hillsborough in that daft way, without a word to me, the true friend, that was next door to you; which I nearly lost my life by your fault; for, if you had told me, I should have seen you off, and so escaped a month's hospital, and other troubles that almost drove me crazy. Don't you abuse that poor young lady before me, or I sha'n't spare you. She is more to be pitied than you are. Folk should look at home for the cause of their troubles; her misery, and yours, it is all owing to your own folly and ingratitude; ay, you may look; I mean what I say--ingratitude."

The attack was so sudden and powerful that Henry Little was staggered and silenced; but an unexpected defender appeared on the scene; one of the folding-doors was torn open, and Grace darted in.

"How dare you say it is his fault, poor ill-used angel! No, no, no, no, I am the only one to blame. I didn't love you as you deserved. I tried to die for you, and failed. I tried to kill that monster for you, and failed. I am too weak and silly; I shall only make you more unhappy. Give me one kiss, my own darling, and then kill me out of the way." With this she was over his knees and round his neck in a moment, weeping, and clutching him with a passionate despair that melted all his anger away, and soon his own tears fell on her like rain.

"Ah, Grace! Grace!" he sobbed, "how could you? how could you?"

"Don't speak unkindly to her," cried Jael, "or she won't be alive a day. She is worse off than you are; and so is he too."

"You mock me; he is her husband. He can make her live with him. He can----" Here he broke out cursing and blaspheming, and called Grace a viper, and half thrust her away from him with horror, and his face filled with jealous anguish: he looked like a man dying of poison.

Then he rose to his feet, and said, with a sort of deadly calm, "Where can I find the man?"

"Not in this house, you may be sure," said Jael; "nor in any house where she is."

Henry sank into his seat again, and looked amazed.

"Tell him all," said Grace. "Don't let him think I do not love him at all."

"I will," said Jael. "Well, the wedding was at eleven; your letter came at half-past twelve, and I took it her. Soon after that the villain came to her, and she stabbed him directly with this stiletto. Look at it; there's his blood up on it; I kept it to show you. I caught her arm, or she would have killed him, I believe. He lost so much blood, the doctor would not let him be moved. Then she thought of you still, and would not pass a night under the same roof with him; at two o'clock she was on the way to Raby; but Mr. Coventry was too much of a man to stay in the house and drive her out; so he went off next morning, and, as soon as she heard that, she came home. She is wife and no wife, as the saying is, and how it is all to end Heaven only knows."

"It will end the moment I meet the man; and that won't be long."

"There! there!" cried Grace, "that is what I feared. Ah, Jael! Jael! why did you hold my hand? They would not have hung me. I told you so at the time: I knew what I was about."

"Jael," said the young man, "of all the kind things you have done for me, that was the kindest. You saved my poor girl from worse trouble than she is now in. No, Grace; you shall not dirty your hand with such scum as that: it is my business, and mine only."

In vain did Jael expostulate, and Grace implore. In vain did Jael assure him that Coventry was in a worse position than himself, and try to make him see that any rash act of his would make Grace even more miserable than she was at present. He replied that he had no intention of running his neck into a halter; he should act warily, like the Hillsborough Trades, and strike his blow so cunningly that the criminal should never know whence it came. "I've been in a good school for homicide," said he; "and I am an inventor. No man has ever played the executioner so ingeniously as I will play it. Think of all this scoundrel has done to me: he owes me a dozen lives, and I'll take one. Man shall never detect me: God knows all, and will forgive me, I hope. If He doesn't, I can't help it."

He kissed Grace again and again, and comforted her; said she was not to blame; honest people were no match for villains: if she had been twice as simple, he would have forgiven her at sight of the stiletto; that cleared her, in his mind, better than words.

He was now soft and gentle as a lamb. He begged Jael's pardon humbly for leaving Hillsborough without telling her. He said he had gone up to her room; but all was still; and he was a working man, and the sleep of a working-woman was sacred to him--(he would have awakened a fine lady without ceremony). He assured her he had left a note for her in his box, thanking and blessing her for all her goodness. He said that he hoped he might yet live to prove by acts, and not by idle words, how deeply he felt all she had done and suffered for him.

Jael received these excuses in hard silence. "That is enough about me," said she, coldly. "If you are grateful to me, show it by taking my advice. Leave vengeance to Him who has said that vengeance is His."

The man's whole manner changed directly, and he said doggedly:

"Well, I will be His instrument."

"He will choose His own."

"I'll lend my humble co-operation."

"Oh, do not argue with him," said Grace, piteously. "When did a man ever yield to our arguments? Dearest, I can't argue: but I am full of misery, and full of fears. You see my love; you forgive my folly. Have pity on me; think of my condition: do not doom me to live in terror by night and day: have I not enough to endure, my own darling? There, promise me you will do nothing rash to-night, and that you will come to me the first thing to-morrow. Why, you have not seen your mother yet; she is at Raby Hall."

"My dear mother!" said he: "it would be a poor return for all your love if I couldn't put off looking for that scum till I have taken you in my arms."

And so Grace got a reprieve.

They parted in deep sorrow, but almost as lovingly as ever, and Little went at once to Raby Hall, and Grace, exhausted by so many emotions, lay helpless on a couch in her own room all the rest of the day.

For some time she lay in utter prostration, and only the tears that trickled at intervals down her pale cheeks showed that she was conscious of her miserable situation.

Jael begged and coaxed her to take some nourishment: but she shook her head with disgust at the very idea.

For all that at nine o'clock, her faithful friend almost forced a few spoonfuls of tea down her throat, feeding her like a child: and, when she had taken it, she tried to thank her, but choked in the middle, and, flinging her arm round Jael's neck, burst into a passion of weeping, and incoherent cries of love, and pity, and despair. "Oh, my darling! so great! so noble! so brave! so gentle! And I have destroyed us both! he forgave me as soon as he saw me! So terrible, so gentle! What will be the next calamity? Ah, Jael! save him from that rash act, and I shall never complain; for he was dead, and is alive again."

"We will find some way to do that between us--you, and I, and his mother."

"Ah, yes: she will be on my side in that. But she will be hard upon me. She will point out all my faults, my execrable folly. Ah, if I could but live my time over again, I'd pray night and day for selfishness. They teach us girls to pray for this and that virtue, which we have too much of already; and what we ought to pray for is selfishness. But no! I must think of my father, and think of that hypocrite: but the one person whose feelings I was too mean, and base, and silly to consult, was myself. I always abhorred this marriage. I feared it, and loathed it; yet I yielded step by step, for want of a little selfishness; we are slaves without it--mean, pitiful, contemptible slaves. O God, in mercy give me selfishness! Ah me, it is too late now. I am a lost creature; nothing is left me but to die."

Jael got her to bed, and sleep came at last to her exhausted body; but, even when her eyes were closed, tears found their way through the lids, and wetted her pillow.

So can great hearts and loving natures suffer.

Can they enjoy in proportion?

Let us hope so. But I have my doubts.

Henry Little kept his word, and came early next morning. He looked hopeful and excited: he said he had thought the matter over, and was quite content to let that scoundrel live, and even to dismiss all thought of him, if Grace really loved him.

"If I love you!" said Grace. "Oh, Henry, why did I ask you to do nothing rash, but that I love you? Why did I attempt his life myself? because you said in your letter---- It was not to revenge myself, but to save you from more calamity. Cruel, cruel! Do I love him?"

"I know you love me, Grace: but do you love me enough? Will you give up the world for me, and let us be happy together, the only way we can? My darling Grace, I have made our fortune; all the world lies before us; I left England alone, for you; now leave it with me, and let us roam the world together."

"Henry!--what!--when I can not be your wife!"

"You can be my wife; my wife in reality, as you are his in name and nothing else. It is idle to talk as if we were in some ordinary situation. There are plenty of countries that would disown such a marriage as yours, a mere ceremony obtained by fraud, and canceled by a stroke with a dagger and instant separation. Oh, my darling, don't sacrifice both our lives to a scruple that is out of place here. Don't hesitate; don't delay. I have a carriage waiting outside; end all our misery by one act of courage, and trust yourself to me; did I ever fail you?"

"For shame, Henry! for shame!"

"It is the only way to happiness. You were quite right; if I kill that wretch we shall be parted in another way, always parted; now we can be together for life. Remember, dearest, how I begged you in this very room to go to the United States with me: you refused: well, have you never been sorry you refused? Now I once more implore you to be wise and brave, and love me as I love you. What is the world to us? You are all the world to me."

"Answer him, Jael; oh, answer him!"

"Nay, these are things every woman must answer for herself."

"And I'll take no answer but yours." Then he threw himself at her feet, and clasping her in his arms implored her, with all the sighs and tears and eloquence of passion, to have pity on them both, and fly at once with him.

She writhed and struggled faintly, and turned away from him, and fell tenderly toward him, by turns, and still he held her tight, and grew stronger, more passionate, more persuasive, as she got weaker and almost faint. Her body seemed on the point of sinking, and her mind of yielding.

But all of a sudden she made a desperate effort. "Let me go!" she cried. "So this is your love! With all my faults and follies, I am truer than you. Shame on your love, that would dishonor the creature you love! Let me go, sir, I say, or I shall hate you worse than I do the wretch whose name I bear."

He let her go directly, and then her fiery glance turned to one long lingering look of deep but tender reproach, and she fled sobbing.

He sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.

After a while he raised his head, and saw Jael Dence looking gravely at him.

"Oh, speak your mind," said he, bitterly.

"You are like the world. You think only of yourself; that's all I have to say."

"You are very unkind to say so. I think for us both: and she will think with me, in time. I shall come again to-morrow."

He said this with an iron resolution that promised a long and steady struggle, to which Grace, even in this first encounter, had shown herself hardly equal.

Jael went to her room, expecting to find her as much broken down as she was by Henry's first visit; but, instead of that, the young lady was walking rapidly to and fro.

At sight of Jael, she caught her by the hand, and said, "Well!"

"He is coming again to-morrow."

"Is he sorry?"

"Not he."

"Who would have thought he was so wicked?"

This seemed rather exaggerated to Jael; for with all Mrs. Little's teaching she was not quite a lady yet in all respects, though in many things she was always one by nature. "Let it pass," said she.

'It is a man's part to try,
And a woman's to deny.'"

"And how often shall I have to deny him I love so dearly?"

"As often as he asks you to be his mistress; for, call it what you like, that is all he has to offer you."

Grace hid her face in her hands.

Jael colored. "Excuse my blunt speaking; but sometimes the worst word is the best; fine words are just words with a veil on."

"Will he dare to tempt me again, after what I said?"

"Of course he will: don't you know him? he never gives in. But, suppose he does, you have your answer ready."

"Jael," said Grace, "you are so strong, it blinds you to my weakness. I resist him, day after day! I, who pity him so, and blame myself! Why, his very look, his touch, his voice, overpower me so that my whole frame seems dissolving: feel how I tremble at him, even now. No, no; let those resist who are sure of their strength. Virtue, weakened by love and pity, has but one resource--to fly. Jael Dence, if you are a woman, help me to save the one thing I have got left to save."

"I will," said Jael Dence.

In one hour from that time they had packed a box and a carpetbag, and were on their way to a railway station. They left Hillsborough.

In three days Jael returned, but Grace Coventry did not come back with her.

The day after that trying scene, Henry Little called, not to urge Grace again, as she presumed he would, but to ask pardon: at the same time we may be sure of this--that, after a day or two spent in obtaining pardon, the temptation would have been renewed, and so on forever. Of this, however, Little was not conscious: he came to ask pardon, and offer a pure and patient love, till such time as Heaven should have pity on them both. He was informed that Mrs. Coventry had quitted Hillsborough, and left a letter for him. It was offered him; he snatched it and read it:--

"MY OWN DEAR HENRY,--You have given me something to forgive, and I forgive you without asking, as I hope you will one day forgive me. I have left Hillsborough to avoid a situation that was intolerable and solicitations which I blushed to hear, and for which you would one day have blushed too. This parting is not forever, I hope; but that rests with yourself. Forego your idea of vengeance on that man, whose chastisement you would best alleviate by ending his miserable existence; and learn to love me honorably and patiently, as I love you. Should you obtain this great victory over yourself, you will see me again. Meantime, think of her who loves you to distraction, and whose soul hovers about you unseen. Pray for me, dear one, at midnight, and at eight o'clock every morning; for those are two of the hours I shall pray for you. Do you remember the old church, and how you cried over me? I can write no more: my tears blind me so. Farewell. Your unhappy

"GRACE."

Little read this piteous letter, and it was a heavy blow to him; a blow that all the tenderness shown in it could not at first soften. She had fled from him; she shunned him. It was not from Coventry she fled; it was from him.

He went home cold and sick at heart, and gave himself up to grief and deep regrets for several days.

But soon his powerful and elastic mind, impatient of impotent sorrow, and burning for some kind of action, seized upon vengeance as the only thing left to do.

At this period he looked on Coventry as a beast in human shape, whom he had a moral right to extinguish; only, as he had not a legal right, it must be done with consummate art. He trusted nobody; spoke to nobody; but set himself quietly to find out where Coventry lived, and what were his habits. He did this with little difficulty. Coventry lodged in a principal street, but always dined at a club, and returned home late, walking through a retired street or two; one of these passed by the mouth of a narrow court that was little used.

Little, disguised as a workman, made a complete reconnaissance of this locality, and soon saw that his enemy was at his mercy.

But, while he debated within himself what measure of vengeance he should take, and what noiseless weapon he should use, an unseen antagonist baffled him. That antagonist was Grace Carden. Still foreboding mischief, she wrote to Mr. Coventry, from a town two hundred miles distant:--

"Whatever you are now, you were born a gentleman, and will, I think, respect a request from a lady you have wronged. Mr. Little has returned, and I have left Hillsborough; if he encounters you in his despair, he will do you some mortal injury. This will only make matters worse, and I dread the scandal that will follow, and to hear my sad story in a court of law as a justification for his violence. Oblige me, then, by leaving Hillsborough for a time, as I have done."

On receipt of this, Coventry packed up his portmanteau directly, and, leaving Lally behind to watch the town, and see whether this was a ruse, he went directly to the town whence Grace's letter was dated, and to the very hotel.

This she had foreseen and intended.

He found she had been there, and had left for a neighboring watering-place: he followed her thither, and there she withdrew the clew; she left word she was gone to Stirling; but doubled on him, and soon put hundreds of miles between them. He remained in Scotland, hunting her.

Thus she played the gray plover with him she hated, and kept the beloved hands from crime.

When Little found that Coventry had left Hillsborough, he pretended to himself that he was glad of it. "My darling is right," said he. "I will obey her, and do nothing contrary to law. I will throw him into prison, that is all." With these moderated views, he called upon his friend Ransome, whom of course he had, as yet, carefully avoided, to ask his aid in collecting the materials for an indictment. He felt sure that Coventry had earned penal servitude, if the facts could only be put in evidence. He found Ransome in low spirits, and that excellent public servant being informed what he was wanted for, said dryly, "Well, but this will require some ability: don't you think your friend Silly Billy would be more likely to do it effectually than John Ransome?"

"Why, Ransome, are you mad?"

"No, I merely do myself justice. Silly Billy smelt that faulty grindstone; and I can't smell a rat a yard from my nose, it seems. You shall judge for yourself. There have been several burglaries in this town of late, and planned by a master. This put me on my mettle, and I have done all I could, with my small force, and even pryed about in person, night after night, and that is not exactly my business, but I felt it my duty. Well, sir, two nights ago, no more, I had the luck to come round a corner right upon a job: Alderman Dick's house, full of valuables, and the windows well guarded; but one of his cellars is only covered with a heavy wooden shutter, bolted within. I found this open, and a board wedged in, to keep it ajar: down I went on my knees, saw a light inside, and heard two words of thieves' latin; that was enough, you know; I whipped out the board, jumped on the heavy shutter, and called for the police."

"Did you expect them to come?"

"Not much. These jobs are timed so as not to secure the attendance of the police. But assistance of another kind came; a gentleman full dressed, in a white tie and gloves, ran up, and asked me what it was. 'Thieves in the cellar,' said I, and shouted police, and gave my whistle. The gentleman jumped on the shutter. 'I can keep that down,' said he. 'I'm sure I saw two policemen in Acorn Street: run quick!' and he showed me his sword-cane, and seemed so hearty in it, and confident, I ran round the corner, and gave my whistle. Two policemen came up; but, in that moment, the swell accomplice had pulled all his pals out of the cellar, and all I saw of the lot, when I came back, was the swell's swallow-tail coat flying like the wind toward a back slum, where I and my bobbies should have been knocked on the head, if we had tried to follow him; but indeed he was too fleet to give us the chance."

"Well," said Henry, "that was provoking: but who can foresee every thing all in a moment? I have been worse duped than that a good many times."

Ransome shook his head. "An old officer of police, like me, not to smell a swell accomplice. I had only to handcuff that man, and set him down with me on the shutter, till, in the dispensation of Providence, a bobby came by."

He added by way of corollary, "You should send to London for a detective."

"Not I," said Henry. "I know you for a sagacious man, and a worthy man, and my friend. I'll have no one to help me in it but you."

"Won't you?" said Ransome. "Then I'll go in. You have done me good, Mr. Little, by sticking to a defeated friend like this. Now for your case; tell me all you know, and how you know it."

Henry complied, and Ransome took his notes. Then he said, he had got some old memoranda by him, that might prove valuable: he would call in two days.

He did call, and showed Henry Coventry's card, and told him he had picked it up close by his letter-box, on the very night of the explosion. "Mark my words, this will expand into something," said the experienced officer.

Before he left, he told Henry that he had now every reason to believe the swell accomplice was Shifty Dick, the most successful and distinguished criminal in England. "I have just got word from London that he has been working here, and has collared a heavy swag; he says he will go into trade: one of his old pals let that out in jail. Trade! then heaven help his customers, that is all."

"You may catch him yet."

"When I catch Jack-a-lantern. He is not so green as to stay a day in Hillsborough, now his face has been close to mine; they all know I never forget a face. No, no; I shall never see him again, till I am telegraphed for, to inspect his mug and his wild-cat eyes in some jail or other. I must try and not think of him; it disturbs my mind, and takes off my attention from my duties."

Ransome adhered to this resolution for more than a month, during which time he followed out every indication with the patience of a beagle; and, at last, he called one day and told Little Hill had forfeited his bail, and gone to Canada at the expense of the trade; but had let out strange things before he left. There was a swell concerned in his attempt with the bow and arrow: there was a swell concerned in the explosion, with some workman, whose name he concealed; he had seen them on the bridge, and had seen the workman receive a bag of gold, and had collared him, and demanded his share; this had been given him, but not until he threatened to call the bobbies. "Now, if we could find Hill, and get him to turn Queen's evidence, this, coupled with what you and I could furnish, would secure your man ten years of penal servitude. I know an able officer at Quebec. Is it worth while going to the expense?"

Little, who had received the whole communication in a sort of despondent, apathetic way, replied that he didn't think it was worth while. "My good friend," said he, "I am miserable. Vengeance, I find, will not fill a yearning heart. And the truth is, that all this time I have been secretly hoping she would return, and that has enabled me to bear up, and chatter about revenge. Who could believe a young creature like that would leave her father and all her friends for good? I made sure she would come back in a week or two. And to think that it is I who have driven her away, and darkened my own life. I thought I had sounded the depths of misery. I was a fool to think so. No, no; life would be endurable if I could only see her face once a day, and hear her voice, though it was not even speaking to me. Oh! oh!"

Now this was the first time Little had broken down before Ransome. Hitherto he had spoken of Coventry, but not of Grace; he had avoided speaking of her, partly from manly delicacy, partly because he foresaw his fortitude would give way if he mentioned her.

But now the strong man's breast seemed as if it would burst, and his gasping breath, and restless body, betrayed what a price he must have paid for the dogged fortitude he had displayed for several weeks, love-sick all the time.

Ransome was affected: he rose and walked about the room, ashamed to look at a Spartan broken down.

When he had given Little time to recover some little composure, he said, "Mr. Little, you were always too much of a gentleman to gossip about the lady you love; and it was not my business to intrude upon that subject; it was too delicate. But, of course, with what I have picked up here and there, and what you have let drop, without the least intending it, I know pretty well how the land lies. And, sir, a man does not come to my time of life without a sore and heavy heart; if I was to tell you how I came to be a bachelor--but, no; even after ten years I could not answer for myself. All I can say is that, if you should do me the honor to consult me on something that is nearer your heart than revenge, you would have all my sympathy and all my zeal."

"Give me your hand, old fellow," said Little, and broke down again.

But, this time, he shook it off quickly, and, to encourage him, Mr. Ransome said, "To begin, you may take my word Mr. Carden knows, by this time, where his daughter is. Why not sound him on the matter?"

Henry acted on this advice, and called on Mr. Carden.

He was received very coldly by that gentleman.

After some hesitation, he asked Mr. Carden if he had any news of his daughter.

"I have."

The young man's face was irradiated with joy directly.

"Is she well, sir?"

"Yes."

"Is she happier than she was?"

"She is content."

"Has she friends about her? Kind, good people; any persons of her own sex, whom she can love?"

"She is among people she takes for angels, at present. She will find them to be petty, mean, malicious devils. She is in a Protestant convent."

"In a convent? Where?"

"Where? Where neither the fool nor the villain, who have wrecked her happiness between them, and robbed me of her, will ever find her. I expected this visit, sir; the only thing I doubted was which would come first, the villain or the fool. The fool has come first, and being a fool, expects me to tell him where to find his victim, and torture her again. Begone, fool, from the house you have made desolate by your execrable folly in slipping away by night like a thief, or rather like that far more dangerous animal, a fool."

The old man delivered these insults with a purple face, and a loud fury, that in former days would have awakened corresponding rage in the fiery young fellow. But affliction had tempered him, and his insulter's hairs were gray.

He said, quietly, "You are her father. I forgive you these cruel words." Then he took his hat and went away.

Mr. Carden followed him to the passage, and cried after him, "The villain will meet a worse reception than the fool. I promise you that much."

Little went home despondent, and found a long letter from his mother, telling him he must dine and sleep at Raby Hall that day.

She gave him such potent reasons, and showed him so plainly his refusal would infuriate his uncle, and make her miserable, that he had no choice. He packed up his dress suit, and drove to Raby Hall, with a heavy heart and bitter reluctance.

O cæca mens hominum!

It was the great anniversary. On that day Sir Richard Raby had lost for the Stuarts all the head he possessed. His faithful descendent seized the present opportunity to celebrate the event with more pomp than ever. A month before the fatal day he came in from Hillsborough with sixty yards of violet-colored velvet, the richest that could be got from Lyons; he put this down on a table, and told his sister that was for her and Jael to wear on the coming anniversary. "Don't tell me there's not enough," said he; "for I inquired how much it would take to carpet two small rooms, and bought it; now what will carpet two little libraries will clothe two large ladies; and you are neither of you shrimps."

While he was thus doing the cynical, nobody heeded him; quick and skillful fingers were undoing the parcel, and the ladies' cheeks flushed and their eyes glistened, and their fingers felt the stuff inside and out: in which occupation Raby left them, saying, "Full dress, mind! We Rabys are not beheaded every day."

Mrs. Little undertook to cut both dresses, and Jael was to help sew them.

But, when they came to be tried on, Jael was dismayed. "Why, I shall be half naked," said she. "Oh, Mrs. Little, I couldn't: I should sink with shame."

Mrs. Little pooh-poohed that, and an amusing dialogue followed between these two women, both of them equally modest, but one hardened, and perhaps a little blinded, by custom.

Neither could convince the other, but Mrs. Little overpowered Jael by saying, "I shall wear mine low, and you will mortally offend my brother if you don't."

Then Jael succumbed, but looked forward to the day with a simple terror one would hardly have expected from the general strength of her character.

Little arrived, and saw his mother for a minute or two before dinner. She seemed happy and excited, and said, "Cheer up, darling; we will find a way to make you happy. Mark my words, a new era in your life dates from to-day: I mean to open your eyes tonight. There, don't question me, but give me one kiss, and let us go and make ourselves splendid for poor Sir Richard."

When Little came down-stairs he found his uncle and a distinguished-looking young gentleman standing before the fire; both were in full dress. Raby had the Stuart orders on his breast and looked a prince. He introduced Little to Mr. Richard Raby with high formality; but, before they had time to make acquaintance, two ladies glided into the room, and literally dazzled the young men, especially Dissolute Dick, who knew neither of them.

Mrs. Little, with her oval face, black brow and hair, and stately but supple form, was a picture of matronly beauty and grace; her rich brunette skin, still glossy and firm, showed no signs of age, but under her glorious eyes were the marks of trouble; and though her face was still striking and lovely, yet it revealed what her person concealed, that she was no longer young. That night she looked about eight-and-thirty.

The other lady was blonde, and had a face less perfect in contour, but beautiful in its way, and exquisite in color and peach-like bloom; but the marvel was her form; her comely head, dignified on this occasion with a coronet of pearls, perched on a throat long yet white and massive, and smooth as alabaster; and that majestic throat sat enthroned on a snowy bust and shoulders of magnificent breadth, depth, grandeur, and beauty. Altogether it approached the gigantic; but so lovely was the swell of the broad white bosom, and so exquisite the white and polished skin of the mighty shoulders adorned with two deep dimples, that the awe this grand physique excited was mingled with profound admiration.

Raby and Henry Little both started at the sudden grandeur and brilliance of the woman they thought they knew, but in reality had never seen; and Raby, dazzled himself, presented her, quite respectfully, to Dissolute Dick.

"This is Miss Dence, a lady descended, like the rest of us, from poor Sir Richard; Miss Dence; Mr. Richard Raby."

Jael blushed more deeply than ladies with white and antique busts are in the habit of doing, and it was curious to see the rosy tint come on her white neck, and then die quietly away again. Yet she courtesied with grace and composure. (Mrs. Little had trained her at all points; and grace comes pretty readily, where nature has given perfect symmetry.)

Dinner was announced, and Raby placed the Dissolute between his sister and the magnificent Beauty dead Sir Richard had developed. He even gave a reason for this arrangement.

"All you ladies like a Rake: you praise sober fellows like me; but what you prefer is a Rake."

As they were rustling into their places, Mrs. Little said to Dick, with a delicious air of indifference, "Are you a rake, Mr. Raby?"

"I am anything you like," replied the shameless fellow.

All the old plate was out, and blazing in the light of candles innumerable.

There was one vacant chair.

Dick asked if there was anybody expected.

"Not much," said Raby dryly. "That is Sir Richard's chair, on these occasions. However, he may be sitting in it now, for aught I know. I sincerely hope he is."

"If I thought that, I'd soon leave mine," said Jael, in a tremulous whisper.

"Then stay where you are, Sir Richard," said the Rake, making an affected motion with his handkerchief, as if to keep the good Knight down.

In short, this personage, being young, audacious, witty, and animated by the vicinity of the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, soon deprived the anniversary of that solemn character Mr. Raby desired to give it. Yet his volubility, his gayety, and his chaff were combined with a certain gentlemanlike tact and dexterity; and he made Raby laugh in spite of himself, and often made the ladies smile. But Henry Little sat opposite, and wondered at them all, and his sad heart became very bitter.

When they joined the ladies in the drawing-room, Henry made an effort to speak to Jael Dence. He was most anxious to know whether she had heard from Grace Carden. But Jael did not meet him very promptly, and while he was faltering out his inquiries, up came Richard Raby and resumed his attentions to her--attentions that very soon took the form of downright love-making. In fact he stayed an hour after his carriage was announced, and being a young man of great resolution, and accustomed to please himself, he fell over head and ears in love with Miss Dence, and showed it then and thereafter.

It did not disturb her composure. She had often been made love to, and could parry as well as Dick could fence.

She behaved with admirable good sense; treated it all as a polite jest, but not a disagreeable one.

Mrs. Little lost patience with them both. She drew Henry aside, and asked him why he allowed Mr. Richard Raby to monopolize her.

"How can I help it?" said Henry. "He is in love with her; and no wonder: see how beautiful she is, and her skin like white satin. She is ever so much bigger than I thought. But her heart is bigger than all. Who'd think she had ever condescended to grind saws with me?"

"Who indeed? And with those superb arms!"

"Why, that is it, mother; they are up to anything; it was one of those superb arms she flung round a blackguard's neck for me, and threw him like a sack, or I should not be here. Poor girl! Do you think that chatterbox would make her happy?"

"Heaven forbid! He is not worthy of her. No man is worthy of her, except the one I mean her to have, and that is yourself."

"Me, mother! are you mad?"

"No; you are mad, if you reject her. Where can you hope to find her equal? In what does she fail? In face? why it is comeliness, goodness, and modesty personified. In person? why she is the only perfect figure I ever saw. Such an arm, hand, foot, neck, and bust I never saw all in the same woman. Is it sense? why she is wise beyond her years, and beyond her sex. Think of her great self-denial; she always loved you, yet aided you, and advised you to get that mad young thing you preferred to her--men are so blind in choosing women! Then think of her saving your life: and then how nearly she lost her own, through her love for you. Oh, Henry, if you cling to a married woman, and still turn away from that angelic creature there, and disappoint your poor mother again, whose life has been one long disappointment, I shall begin to fear you were born without a heart."

"Better for me if I had; then I could chop and change from one to another as you would have me. No, mother; I dare say if I had never seen Grace I should have loved Jael. As it is, I have a great affection and respect for her, but that is all."

"And those would ripen into love if once you were married."

"They might. If it came to her flinging that great arm round my neck in kindness she once saved my life with by brute force, I suppose a man's heart could not resist her. But it will never come to that while my darling lives. She is my lover, and Jael my sister and my dear friend. God bless her, and may she be as happy as she deserves. I wish I could get a word with her, but that seems out of the question to-night. I shall slip away to bed and my own sad thoughts."

With this he retired unobserved.

In the morning he asked Jael if she would speak to him alone.

"Why not?" said she calmly.

They took a walk in the shrubbery.

"I tried hard to get a word with you yesterday, but you were so taken up with that puppy."

"He is very good company."

"I have seen the time when I was as good; but it is not so easy to chatter with a broken heart."

"That is true. Please come to the point, and tell me what you want of me now."

This was said in such a curious tone, that Henry felt quite discouraged.

He hesitated a moment and then said, "What is the matter with you? You are a changed girl to me. There's something about you so cold and severe; it makes me fear I have worn out my friend as well as lost my love; if it is so, tell me, and I will not intrude my sorrow any more on you."

There was a noble and manly sadness in the way he said this, and Jael seemed touched a little by it.

"Mr. Henry," said she, "I'll be frank with you. I can't forgive you leaving the factory that night without saying a word to me; and if you consider what I had done before you used me so, and what I suffered in consequence of your using me so--not that you will ever know all I suffered, at least I hope not--no, I have tried to forgive you; for, if you are a sinner, you are a sufferer--but it is no use, I can't. I never shall forgive you to my dying day."

Henry Little hung his head dejectedly. "That is bad news," he faltered. "I told you why I did not bid you good-bye except by letter: it was out of kindness. I have begged your pardon for it all the same. I thought you were an angel; but I see you are only a woman; you think the time to hit a man is when he is down. Well, I can but submit. Good-bye. Stay one moment, let me take your hand, you won't refuse me that." She did not deign a word; he took her hand and held it. "This is the hand and arm that worked with me like a good master: this is the hand and arm that overpowered a blackguard and saved me: this is the hand and arm that saved my Grace from a prison and public shame. I must give them both one kiss, if they knock me down for it. There--there--good-bye, dear Jael, good-bye! I seem to be letting go the last thing I have to cling to in the deep waters of trouble."

Melted by this sad thought, he held his best friend's hand till a warm tear dropped on it. That softened her; the hand to which he owed so much closed on his and detained him.

"Stay where you are. I have told you my mind, but I shall act just as I used to do. I'm not proud of this spite I have taken against you, don't you fancy that. There--there, don't let us fret about what can't be helped; but just tell me what I can do for you."

Young Little felt rather humiliated at assistance being offered on these terms. He did not disguise his mortification.

"Well," said he, rather sullenly, "beggars must not be choosers. Of course I wanted you to tell me where I am likely to find her."

"I don't know."

"But you left Hillsborough with her?"

"Yes, and went to York. But there I left her, and she told me she should travel hundreds of miles from York. I have no notion where she is."

Little sighed. "She could not trust even you."

"The fewer one trusts with a secret the better."

"Will she never return? Will she give up her father as well as me? Did she fix no time? Did she give you no hint?"

"No, not that I remember. She said that depended on you."

"On me?"

"Yes."

Here was an enigma.

They puzzled over it a long time. At last Jael said, "She wrote a letter to you before she left: did she say nothing in that? Have you got the letter?"

"Have I got it?--the last letter my darling ever wrote to me! Do you think it ever leaves me night or day?"

He undid one of his studs, put his hand inside, and drew the letter out warm from his breast. He kissed it and gave it to Jael. She read it carefully and looked surprised. "Why, you are making your own difficulties. You have only got to do what you are told. Promise not to fall foul of that Coventry, and not to tempt her again, and you will hear of her. You have her own word for it."

"But how am I to let her know I promise?"

"I don't know; how does everybody let everybody know things nowadays? They advertise."

"Of course they do--in the second column of 'The Times.'"

"You know best." Then, after a moment's reflection, "Wherever she is, she takes in the Hillsborough papers to see if there's anything about you in them."

"Oh, do you think so?"

"Think so? I am sure of it. I put myself in her place."

"Then I will advertise in the Times and the Hillsborough papers."

He went into the library and wrote several advertisements. This is the one Jael preferred:

"H. L. to G. C. I see you are right. There shall be no vengeance except what the law may give me, nor will I ever renew that request which offended you so justly. I will be patient."

He had added an entreaty that she would communicate with him, but this Jael made him strike out. She thought that might make Grace suspect his sincerity. "Time enough to put that in a month hence, if you don't hear from her."

This was all I think worth recording in the interview between Jael and Henry, except that at parting he thanked her warmly, and said, "May I give you one piece of advice in return? Mr. Richard Raby has fallen in love with you, and no wonder. If my heart was not full of Grace I should have fallen in love with you myself, you are so good and so beautiful; but he bears a bad character. You are wise in other people's affairs, pray don't be foolish in your own."

"Thank you," said Jael, a little dryly. "I shall think twice before I give my affections to any young man."

Henry had a word with his mother before he went, and begged her not to prepare disappointment for herself by trying to bring Jael and him together. "Besides, she has taken a spite against me. To be sure it is not very deep; for she gave me good advice; and I advised her not to throw herself away on Dissolute Dick."

Mrs. Little smiled knowingly and looked very much pleased, but she said nothing more just then. Henry Little returned to Hillsborough, and put his advertisement in the Times and the Hillsborough journals.

Two days afterward Ransome called on him with the Hillsborough Liberal. "Is this yours?" said Ransome.

"Yes. I have reason to think she will write to me, if she sees it."

"Would you mind giving me your reason?"

Little gave it, but with so much reticence, that no other man in Hillsborough but Ransome would have understood.

"Hum!" said he, "I think I can do something with this." A period of expectation succeeded, hopeful at first, and full of excitement; but weeks rolled on without a word from the fugitive, and Little's heart sickened with hope deferred. He often wished to consult Jael Dence again; he had a superstitious belief in her sagacity. But the recollection of her cold manner deterred him. At last, however, impatience and the sense of desolation conquered, and he rode over to Raby Hall.

He found his uncle and his mother in the dining-room. Mr. Raby was walking about looking vexed, and even irritable.

The cause soon transpired. Dissolute Dick was at that moment in the drawing-room, making hot love to Jael Dence. He had wooed her ever since that fatal evening when she burst on society full-blown. Raby, too proud and generous to forbid his addresses, had nevertheless been always bitterly averse to them, and was now in a downright rage; for Mrs. Little had just told him she felt sure he was actually proposing.

"Confound him!" said Henry, "and I wanted so to speak to her."

Raby gave him a most singular look, that struck him as odd at the time, and recurred to him afterward.

At last steps were heard overhead, and Dissolute Dick came down-stairs.

Mrs. Little slipped out, and soon after put her head into the dining-room to the gentlemen, and whispered to them "YES." Then she retired to talk it all over with Jael.

At that monosyllable Mr. Raby was very much discomposed.

"There goes a friend out of this house; more fools we. You have lost her by your confounded folly. What is the use spooning all your days after another man's wife? I wouldn't have had this happen for ten thousand pounds. Dissolute Dick! he will break her heart in a twelvemonth."

"Then why, in heaven's name, didn't you marry her yourself?"

"Me! at my age? No; why didn't you marry her? You know she fancies you. The moment you found Grace married, you ought to have secured this girl, and lived with me; the house is big enough for you all."

"It is not so big as your heart, sir," said Henry. "But pray don't speak to me of love or marriage either."

"Why should I? The milk is spilt; it is no use crying now. Let us go and dress for dinner. Curse the world--it is one disappointment."

Little himself was vexed, but he determined to put a good face on it, and to be very kind to his good friend Jael.

She did not appear at dinner, and when the servants had retired, he said, "Come now, let us make the best of it. Mother, if you don't mind, I will settle five thousand pounds upon her and her children. He is a spendthrift, I hear, and as poor as Job."

Mrs. Little stared at her son. "Why, she has refused him!"

Loud exclamations of surprise and satisfaction.

"A fine fright you have given us. You said 'Yes.'"

"Well, that meant he had proposed. You know, Guy, I had told you he would: I saw it in his eye. So I observed, in a moment, he had, and I said 'Yes.'"

"Then why doesn't she come down to dinner?"

"He has upset her. It is the old story: he cried to her, and told her he had been wild, and misconducted himself, all because he had never met a woman he could really love and respect; and then he begged her, and implored her, and said his fate depended on her."

"But she was not caught with that chaff; so why does she not come and receive the congratulations of the company on her escape?"

"Because she is far too delicate;" then, turning to her son, "and perhaps, because she can't help comparing the manly warmth and loving appreciation of Mr. Richard Raby, with the cold indifference and ingratitude of others."

"Oh," said Henry, coloring, "if that is her feeling, she will accept him next time."

"Next time!" roared Raby. "There shall be no next time. I have given the scamp fair play, quite against my own judgment. He has got his answer now, and I won't have the girl tormented with him any more. I trust that to you, Edith."

Mrs. Little promised him Dick and Jael should not meet again, in Raby Hall at least.

That evening she drew her son apart and made an earnest appeal to him.

"So much for her spite against you, Henry. You told her to decline Richard Raby, and so she declined him. Spite, indeed! The gentle pique of a lovely, good girl, who knows her value, though she is too modest to show it openly. Well, Henry, you have lost her a husband, and she has given you one more proof of affection. Don't build the mountain of ingratitude any higher: do pray take the cure that offers, and make your mother happy, as well as yourself, my son." In this strain she continued, and used all her art, her influence, her affection, till at last, with a weary, heart-broken sigh, he yielded as far as this: he said that, if it could once be made clear to him there was no hope of his ever marrying Grace Carden he would wed Jael Dence at once.

Then he ordered his trap, and drove sullenly home, while Mrs. Little, full of delight, communicated her triumph to Jael Dence, and told her about the five thousand pounds, and was as enthusiastic in praise of Henry to Jael, as she had been of Jael to Henry.

Meantime he drove back to Hillsborough, more unhappy than ever, and bitter against himself for yielding, even so far, to gratitude and maternal influence.

It was late when he reached home. He let himself in with a latch-key, and went into his room for a moment.

A letter lay on the table, with no stamp on it: he took it up. It contained but one line; that line made his heart leap:--

"News of G. C.

"RANSOME."

Late as it was, Little went to the Town-hall directly. But there, to his bitter disappointment, he learned that Mr. Ransome had been called to Manchester by telegram. Little had nothing to do but to wait, and eat his heart with impatience. However, next day, toward afternoon, Ransome called on him at the works, in considerable excitement, and told him a new firm had rented large business premises in Manchester, obtained goods, insured them in the "Gosshawk," and then the premises had caught fire and the goods been burned to ashes; suspicions had been excited; Mr. Carden had gone to the spot and telegraphed for him. He had met a London detective there, and, between them, they had soon discovered that full cases had come in by day, but full sacks gone out by night: the ashes also revealed no trace of certain goods the firm had insured. "And now comes the clew to it all. Amongst the few things that survived the fire was a photograph--of whom do you think? Shifty Dick. The dog had kept his word, and gone into trade."

"Confound him!" said Little; "he is always crossing my path, that fellow. You seem quite to forget that all this time I am in agonies of suspense. What do I care about Shifty Dick? He is nothing to me."

"Of course not. I am full of the fellow; a little more, and he'll make a monomaniac of me. Mr. Carden offers £200 for his capture; and we got an inkling he was coming this way again. There, there, I won't mention his name to you again. Let us talk of what will interest you. Well, sir, have you observed that you are followed and watched?"

"No."

"I am glad of it; then it has been done skillfully. You have been closely watched this month past by my orders."

This made young Little feel queer. Suppose he had attempted anything unlawful, his good friend here would have collared him.

"You'll wonder that a good citizen like you should be put under surveillance; but I thought it likely your advertisement would either make the lady write to you, or else draw her back to the town. She didn't write, so I had you watched, to see if any body took a sly peep at you. Well, this went on for weeks, and nothing turned up. But the other night a young woman walked several times by your house, and went away with a sigh. She had a sort of Protestant nun's dress on, and a thick veil. Now you know Mr. Carden told you she was gone into a convent. I am almost sure it is the lady."

Little thanked him with all his soul, and then inquired eagerly where the nun lived.

"Ah, my man didn't know that. Unfortunately, he was on duty in the street, and had no authority to follow anybody. However, if you can keep yourself calm, and obey orders----"

"I will do anything you tell me."

"Well, then, this evening, as soon as it is quite dark, you do what I have seen you do in happier times. Light your reading-lamp, and sit reading close to the window; only you must not pull down the blind. Lower the venetians, but don't turn them so as to hide your face from the outside. You must promise me faithfully not to move under any circumstances, or you would be sure to spoil all."

Little gave the promise, and performed it to the letter. He lighted his lamp, and tried to read book after book; but, of course, he was too agitated to fix his attention on them. He got all Grace's letters, and read them; and it was only by a stern effort he kept still at all.

The night wore on, and heart-sickness was beginning to succeed to feverish impatience, when there was a loud knock at the door. Little ran to it himself, and found a sergeant of police, who told him in a low voice he brought a message from the chief-constable.

"I was to tell you it is all right; he is following the party himself. He will call on you at twelve to-morrow morning."

"Not before that?" said Little. However, he gave the sergeant a sovereign for good news, and then, taking his hat, walked twenty miles out of Hillsborough, and back, for he knew it was useless his going to bed, or trying to settle to any thing.

He got back at ten o'clock, washed, breakfasted, and dozed on two chairs, till Ransome came, with a carpet-bag in his hand.

"Tell me all about it: don't omit any thing." This was Little's greeting.

"Well, sir, she passed the house about nine o'clock, walking quickly; and took just one glance in at your window, but did not stop. She came back in half an hour, and stood on the opposite side of the way, and then passed on. I hid in a court, where she couldn't see me. By-and-by she comes back, on your side the way this time, gliding like a cat, and she crouched and curled round the angle of the house, and took a good look at you. Then she went slowly away, and I passed her. She was crying bitterly, poor girl! I never lost sight of her, and she led me a dance, I can tell you. I'll take you to the place; but you had better let me disguise you; for I can see she is very timid, and would fly away in a moment if she knew she was detected."

Little acquiesced, and Ransome disguised him in a beard and a loose set of clothes, and a billy-cock hat, and said that would do, as long as he kept at a prudent distance from the lady's eye. They then took a cab and drove out of Hillsborough. When they had proceeded about two miles up the valley, Ransome stopped the cab, and directed the driver to wait for them.

He then walked on, and soon came to a row of houses, in two blocks of four houses each.

The last house of the first block had a bill in the window, "To be let furnished."

He then knocked at the door, and a woman in charge of the house opened it.

"I am the chief-constable of Hillsborough; and this is my friend Mr. Park; he is looking out for a furnished house. Can he see this one?"

The woman said, "Certainly, gentlemen," and showed them over the house.

Ransome opened the second-story window, and looked out on the back garden.

"Ah," said he, "these houses have nice long gardens in the rear, where one can walk and be private."

He then nudged Henry, and asked the woman who lived in the first house of the next block--"the house that garden belongs to?"

"Why, the bill was in the window the other day; but it is just took. She is a kind of a nun, I suppose: keeps no servant: only a girl comes in and does for her, and goes home at night. I saw her yesterday, walking in the garden there. She seems rather young to be all alone like that; but perhaps there's some more of 'em coming. They sort o' cattle mostly goes in bands."

Henry asked what was the rent of the house. The woman did not know, but told him the proprietor lived a few doors off. "I shall take this house," said Little. "I think you are right," observed Ransome: "it will just answer your purpose." They went together, and took the house directly; and Henry, by advice of Ransome, engaged a woman to come into the house in the morning, and go away at dusk. Ransome also advised him to make arrangements for watching Grace's garden unseen. "That will be a great comfort to you," said he: "I know by experience. Above all things," said this sagacious officer, "don't you let her know she is discovered. Remember this: when she wants you to know she is here, she'll be sure to let you know. At present she is here on the sly: so if you thwart her, she'll be off again, as sure as fate."

Little was forced to see the truth of this, and promised to restrain himself, hard as the task was. He took the house; and used to let himself into it with a latch-key at about ten o clock every night.

There he used to stay and watch till past noon; and nearly every day he was rewarded by seeing the Protestant nun walk in her garden.

He was restless and miserable till she came out; when she appeared his heart bounded and thrilled; and when once he had feasted his eyes upon her, he would go about the vulgar affairs of life pretty contentedly.

By advice of Ransome, he used to sit in his other house from seven till nine, and read at the window, to afford his beloved a joy similar to that he stole himself.

And such is the power of true love that these furtive glances soothed two lives. Little's spirits revived, and some color came back to Grace's cheek.

One night there was a house broken into in the row.

Instantly Little took the alarm on Grace's account, and bought powder and bullets, and a double-barreled rifle, and a revolver; and now at the slightest sound he would be out of bed in a moment ready to defend her, if necessary.

Thus they both kept their hearts above water, and Grace visited the sick, and employed her days in charity; and then, for a reward, crept, with soft foot, to Henry's window, and devoured him with her eyes, and fed on that look for hours afterward.

When this had gone on for nearly a month, Lally, who had orders to keep his eye on Mr. Little, happened to come and see Grace looking in at him.

He watched her at a distance, but had not the intelligence to follow her home. He had no idea it was Grace Carden.

However, in his next letter to his master, who was then in London, he told him Little always read at night by the window, and, one night, a kind of nun had come and taken a very long look at him, and gone away crying. "I suspect," said Lally, "she has played the fool with him some time or other, before she was a nun."

He was not a little surprised when his master telegraphed in reply that he would be down by the first train; but the fact is, that Coventry had already called on Mr. Carden, and been told that his wife was in a convent, and he would never see her again. I must add that Mr. Carden received him as roughly as he had Little, but the interview terminated differently. Coventry, with his winning tongue, and penitence and plausibility, softened the indignant father, and then, appealing to his good sense, extorted from him the admission that his daughter's only chance of happiness lay in forgiving him, and allowing him to atone his faults by a long life of humble devotion. But when Coventry, presuming on this, implored him to reveal where she was, the old man stood stanch, and said that was told him under a solemn assurance of secrecy, and nothing should induce him to deceive his daughter. "I will not lose her love and confidence for any of you," said he.

So now Coventry put that word "convent" and this word "nun" together, and came to Hillsborough full of suspicions.

He took lodgings nearly opposite Little's house, and watched in a dark room so persistently, that, at last, he saw the nun appear, saw her stealthy, cat-like approaches, her affected retreat, her cunning advance, her long lingering look.

A close observer of women, he saw in every movement of her supple body that she was animated by love.

He raged and sickened with jealousy, and when, at last, she retired, he followed her, with hell in his heart, and never lost sight of her till she entered her house in the valley.

If there had been a house to let in the terrace, he would certainly have taken it; but Little had anticipated him.

He took a very humble lodging in the neighborhood; and by dint of watching, he at last saw the nun speaking to a poor woman with her veil up. It revealed to him nothing but what he knew already. It was the woman he loved, and she hated him; the woman who had married him under a delusion, and stabbed him on his bridal day. He loved her all the more passionately for that.

Until he received Lally's note, he had been content to wait patiently until his rival should lose hope, and carry himself and his affections elsewhere; he felt sure that must be the end of it.

But now jealousy stung him, wild passion became too strong for reason, and he resolved to play a bold and lawless game to possess his lawful wife. Should it fail, what could they do to him? A man may take his own by force. Not only his passions, but the circumstances tempted him. She was actually living alone, in a thinly-peopled district, and close to a road. It was only to cover her head and stifle her cries, and fly with her to some place beforehand prepared, where she would be brought to submission by kindness of manner combined with firmness of purpose.

Coventry possessed every qualification to carry out such a scheme as this. He was not very courageous; yet he was not a coward: and no great courage was required. Cunning, forethought, and unscrupulousness were the principal things, and these he had to perfection.

He provided a place to keep her; it was a shooting-box of his own, on a heathery hill, that nobody visited except for shooting, and the season for shooting was past.

He armed himself with false certificates of lunacy, to show on an emergency, and also a copy of his marriage certificate: he knew how unwilling strangers are to interfere between man and wife.

The only great difficulty was to get resolute men to help him in this act.

He sounded Cole; but that worthy objected to it, as being out of his line.

Coventry talked him over, and offered a sum that made him tremble with cupidity. He assented on one condition--that he should not be expected to break into the house, nor do any act that should be "construed burglarious." He actually used that phrase, which I should hardly have expected from him.

Coventry assented to this condition. He undertook to get into the house, and open the door to Cole and his myrmidons: he stipulated, however, that Cole should make a short iron ladder with four sharp prongs. By means of this he could enter Grace's house at a certain unguarded part and then run down and unbar the front door. He had thoroughly reconnoitered the premises, and was sure of success.

First one day was appointed for the enterprise, then another, and, at last, it was their luck to settle on a certain night, of which I will only say at present, that it was a night Hillsborough and its suburbs will not soon forget.

Midnight was the hour agreed on.

Now at nine o'clock of this very night the chief-constable of Hillsborough was drinking tea with Little scarcely twenty yards from the scene of the proposed abduction. Not that either he or Little had the least notion of the conspiracy. The fact is, Hillsborough had lately been deluged with false coin, neatly executed, and passed with great dexterity. The police had received many complaints, but had been unable to trace it. Lately, however, an old bachelor, living in this suburban valley, had complained to the police that his neighbors kept such enormous fires all night, as to make his wall red-hot and blister his paint.

This, and one or two other indications, made Ransome suspect the existence of a furnace, and he had got a search-warrant in his pocket, on which, however, he did not think it safe to act till he had watched the suspected house late at night, and made certain observations for himself. So he had invited himself to tea with his friend Little--for he was sure of a hearty welcome at any hour--and, over their tea, he now told him his suspicions, and invited him to come in and take a look at the suspected house with him.

Little consented. But there was no hurry; the later they went to the house in question the better. So they talked of other matters, and the conversation soon fell on that which was far more interesting to Little than the capture of all the coiners in creation.

He asked Ransome how long he was to go on like this, contenting himself with the mere sight of her.

"Why;" said Ransome, "even that has made another man of you. Your eye is twice as bright as it was a month ago, and your color is coming back. That is a wise proverb, 'Let well alone.' I hear she visits the sick, and some of them swear by her. If think I'd give her time to take root here; and then she will not be so ready to fly off in a tangent."

Little objected that it was more than flesh and blood could bear.

"Well, then," said Ransome, "promise me just one thing: that, if you speak to her, it shall be in Hillsborough, and not down here."

Little saw the wisdom of this, and consented, but said he was resolved to catch her at his own window the next time she came.

He was about to give his reasons, but they were interrupted by a man and horse clattering up to the door.

"That will be for me," said Ransome. "I thought I should not get leave to drink my tea in peace."

He was right; a mounted policeman brought him a note from the mayor, telling him word had come into the town that there was something wrong with Ousely dam. He was to take the mayor's horse, and ride up at once to the reservoir, and, if there was any danger, to warn the valley.

"This looks serious," said Ransome. "I must wish you good-bye."

"Take a piece of advice with you. I hear that dam is too full; if so, don't listen to advice from anybody, but open the sluices of the waste-pipes, and relieve the pressure; but if you find a flaw in the embankment, don't trifle, blow up the waste-wear at once with gunpowder. I wish I had a horse, I'd go with you. By the way, if there is the least danger of that dam bursting, of course you will give me warning in time, and I'll get her out of the house at once."

"What, do you think the water would get as far as this, to do any harm? It is six miles."

"It might. Look at the form of the ground; it is a regular trough from that dam to Hillsborough. My opinion is, it would sweep everything before it, and flood Hillsborough itself--the lower town. I shall not go to bed, old fellow, till you come back and tell me it is all right."

With this understanding Ransome galloped off. On his way he passed by the house where he suspected coining. The shutters were closed, but his experienced eye detected a bright light behind one of them, and a peculiar smoke from the chimney.

Adding this to his other evidence, he now felt sure the inmates were coiners, and he felt annoyed. "Fine I look," said he, "walking tamely past criminals at work, and going to a mayor's-nest six miles off."

However he touched the horse with his heel, and cantered forward on his errand.

John Ransome rode up to the Ousely Reservoir, and down again in less than an hour and a half; and every incident of those two rides is imprinted on his memory for life.

He first crossed the water at Poma bridge. The village of that name lay on his right, toward Hillsborough, and all the lights were out except in the two public houses. One of these, "The Reindeer," was near the bridge, and from it a ruddy glare shot across the road, and some boon companions were singing, in very good harmony, a trite Scotch chorus:

"We are nae fu', we're no that fu',
But just a drappie in our e'e;
The cock may craw, the day may daw,
But still we'll taste the barley bree."

Ransome could hear the very words; he listened, he laughed, and then rode up the valley till he got opposite a crinoline-wire factory called the "Kildare Wheel." Here he observed a single candle burning; a watcher, no doubt.

The next place he saw was also on the other side the stream; Dolman's farm-house, the prettiest residence in the valley. It was built of stone, and beautifully situated on a promontory between two streams. It had a lawn in front, which went down to the very edge of the water, and was much admired for its close turf and flowers. The farm buildings lay behind the house.

There was no light whatever in Dolman's; but they were early people. The house and lawn slept peacefully in the night: the windows were now shining, now dark, for small fleecy clouds kept drifting at short intervals across the crescent moon.

Ransome pushed on across the open ground, and for a mile or two saw few signs of life, except here and there a flickering light in some water-wheel, for now one picturesque dam and wheel succeeded another as rapidly as Nature permitted; and indeed the size of these dams, now shining in the fitful moonlight, seemed remarkable, compared with the mere thread of water which fed them, and connected them together for miles like pearls on a silver string.

Ransome pushed rapidly on, up hill and down dale, till he reached the high hill, at whose foot lay the hamlet of Damflask, distant two miles from Ousely Reservoir.

He looked down and saw a few lights in this hamlet, some stationary, but two moving.

"Hum," thought Ransome, "they don't seem to be quite so easy in their minds up here."

He dashed into the place, and drew up at the house where several persons were collected.

As he came up, a singular group issued forth: a man with a pig-whip, driving four children--the eldest not above seven years old--and carrying an infant in his arms. The little imps were clad in shoes, night-gowns, night-caps, and a blanket apiece, and were shivering and whining at being turned out of bed into the night air.

Ransome asked the man what was the matter

One of the by-standers laughed, and said, satirically, Ousely dam was to burst that night, so all the pigs and children were making for the hill.

The man himself, whose name was Joseph Galton, explained more fully.

"Sir," said he, "my wife is groaning, and I am bound to obey her. She had a dream last night she was in a flood, and had to cross a plank or summut. I quieted her till supper; but then landlord came round and warned all of us of a crack or summut up at dam. And so now I am taking this little lot up to my brother's. It's the foolishest job I ever done: but needs must when the devil drives, and it is better so than to have my old gal sour her milk, and pine her suckling, and maybe fret herself to death into the bargain."

Ransome seized on the information, and rode on directly to the village inn. He called the landlord out, and asked him what he had been telling the villagers. Was there any thing seriously amiss up at the reservoir?

"Nay, I hope not," said the man; "but we got a bit of a fright this afternoon. A young man rode through, going down to Hillsborough, and stopped here to have his girth mended; he had broke it coming down our hill. While he was taking a glass he let out his errand; they had found a crack in the embankment, and sent him down to Hillsborough to tell Mr. Tucker, the engineer. Bless your heart, we should never have known aught about it if his girth hadn't broke." He added, as a reason for thinking it was not serious that Mr. Tucker had himself inspected the dam just before tea-time, and hadn't even seen the crack. It was a laboring man who had discovered it, through crossing the embankment lower down than usual. "But you see, sir," said he, in conclusion, "we lie very low here, and right in the track; and so we mustn't make light of a warning. And, of course, many of the workmen stop here and have their say; and, to tell you the truth, one or two of them have always misliked the foundation that embankment is built on: too many old landslips to be seen about. But, after all, I suppose they can empty the dam, if need be; and, of course, they will, if there is any danger. I expect Mr. Tucker up every minute."

Ransome thanked him for his information and pushed on to Lower Hatfield: there he found lights in the houses and the inhabitants astir; but he passed through the village in silence, and came to the great corn-mill, a massive stone structure with granite pillars, the pride of the place. The building was full of lights, and the cranes were all at work hoisting the sacks of flour from the lower floors to the top story. The faces of the men reflected in the flaring gas, and the black cranes with their gaunt arms, and the dark bodies rising by the snake-like cords, formed a curious picture in the fluctuating moonlight, and an interesting one too; for it showed the miller did not feel his flour quite safe.

The next place Ransome came to was Fox Farm.

Farmer Emden was standing at the door of his house, and, in reply to Ransome, told him he had just come down from the reservoir. He had seen the crack and believed it to be a mere frost crack. He apprehended no danger, and had sent his people to bed; however, he should sit up for an hour or two just to hear what Tucker the engineer had to say about it; he had been sent for.

Ransome left him, and a smart canter brought him in sight of what seemed a long black hill, with great glow-worms dotted here and there.

That hill was the embankment, and the glow-worms were the lanterns of workmen examining the outer side of the embankment and prying into every part.

The enormous size and double slope of the bank, its apparent similarity in form and thickness to those natural barriers with which nature hems in lakes of large dimensions, acted on Ransome's senses, and set him wondering at the timidity and credulity of the people in Hatfield and Damflask. This sentiment was uppermost in his mind when he rode up to the south side of the embankment.

He gave his horse to a boy, and got upon the embankment and looked north.

The first glance at the water somewhat shook that impression of absolute security the outer side of the barrier had given him.

In nature a lake lies at the knees of the restraining hills, or else has a sufficient outlet.

But here was a lake nearly full to the brim on one side of the barrier and an open descent on the other.

He had encountered a little wind coming up, but not much; here, however, the place being entirely exposed, the wind was powerful and blew right down the valley ruffling the artificial lake.

Altogether it was a solemn scene, and, even at first glance, one that could not be surveyed, after all those comments and reports, without some awe and anxiety. The surface of the lake shone like a mirror, and waves of some size dashed against the embankment with a louder roar than one would have thought possible, and tossed some spray clean over all; while, overhead, clouds, less fleecy now, and more dark and sullen, drifted so swiftly across the crescent moon that she seemed flying across the sky.

Having now realized that the embankment, huge as it was, was not so high by several hundred feet as nature builds in parallel cases, and that, besides the natural pressure of the whole water, the upper surface of the lake was being driven by the wind against the upper or thin part of the embankment, Ransome turned and went down the embankment to look at the crack and hear opinions.

There were several workmen, an intelligent farmer called Ives, and Mr. Mountain, one of the contractors who had built the dam, all examining the crack.

Mr. Mountain was remarking that the crack was perfectly dry, a plain proof there was no danger.

"Ay, but," said Ives, "it has got larger since tea-time; see, I can get my hand in now."

"Can you account for that?" asked Ransome of the contractor.

Mountain said it was caused by the embankment settling. "Everything settles down a little--houses and embankments and all. There's no danger, Mr. Ransome, believe me."

"Well, sir," said Ransome, "I am not a man of science, but I have got eyes, and I see the water is very high, and driving against your weak part. Ah!" Then he remembered Little's advice. "Would you mind opening the sluice-pipes?"

"Not in the least, but I think it is the engineer's business to give an order of that kind."

"But he is not here, and professional etiquette must give way where property and lives, perhaps, are at stake. To tell you the truth, Mr. Mountain, I have got the advice of an abler man than Mr. Tucker. His word to me was, 'If the water is as high as they say, don't waste time, but open the sluices and relieve the dam.'"

The workmen who had said scarcely a word till then, raised an assenting murmur at the voice of common sense.

Mountain admitted it could do no harm, and gave an order accordingly; screws were applied and the valves of the double set of sluice-pipes were forced open, but with infinite difficulty, owing to the tremendous pressure of the water.

This operation showed all concerned what a giant they were dealing with; while the sluices were being lifted, the noise and tremor of the pipes were beyond experience and conception. When, after vast efforts, they were at last got open, the ground trembled violently, and the water, as it rushed out of the pipes, roared like discharges of artillery. So hard is it to resist the mere effect of the senses, that nearly every body ran back appalled, although the effect of all this roaring could only be to relieve the pressure; and, in fact, now that those sluices were opened, the dam was safe, provided it could last a day or two.

Lights were seen approaching, and Mr. Tucker, the resident engineer, drove up; he had Mr. Carter, one of the contractors, in the gig with him.

He came on the embankment, and signified a cold approval of the sluices being opened.

Then Ransome sounded him about blowing up the waste-wear.

Tucker did not reply, but put some questions to a workman or two. Their answers showed that they considered the enlargement of the crack a fatal sign.

Upon this Mr. Tucker ordered them all to stand clear of the suspected part.

"Now, then," said he, "I built this embankment, and I'll tell you whether it is going to burst or not."

Then he took a lantern, and was going to inspect the crack himself; but Mr. Carter, respecting his courage and coolness, would accompany him. They went to the crack, examined it carefully with their lanterns, and then crossed over to the waste-wear; no water was running into it in the ordinary way, which showed the dam was not full to its utmost capacity.

They returned, and consulted with Mountain.

Ransome put in his word, and once more remembering Little's advice, begged them to blow up the waste-wear.

Tucker thought that was a stronger measure than the occasion required; there was no immediate danger; and the sluice-pipes would lower the water considerably in twenty-four hours.

Farmer Ives put in his word. "I can't learn from any of you that an enlarging crack in a new embankment is a common thing. I shall go home, but my boots won't come off this night."

Encouraged by this, Mr. Mountain, the contractor, spoke out.

"Mr. Tucker," said he, "don't deceive yourself; the sluice-pipes are too slow; if we don't relieve the dam, there'll be a blow-up in half an hour; mark my words."

"Well," said Mr. Tucker, "no precaution has been neglected in building this dam: provision has been made even for blowing up the waste-wear; a hole has been built in the masonry, and there's dry powder and a fuse kept at the valve-house. I'll blow up the waste-wear, though I think it needless. I am convinced that crack is above the level of the water in the reservoir."

This observation struck Ransome, and he asked if it could not be ascertained by measurement.

"Of course it can," said Tucker, "and I'll measure it as I come back."

He then started for the wear, and Carter accompanied him.

They crossed the embankment, and got to the wear.

Ives went home, and the workmen withdrew to the side, not knowing exactly what might be the effect of the explosion.

By-and-by Ransome looked up, and observed a thin sheet of water beginning to stream over the center of the embankment and trickle down: the quantity was nothing; but it alarmed him. Having no special knowledge on these matters, he was driven to comparisons; and it flashed across him that, when he was a boy, and used to make little mud-dams in April, they would resist the tiny stream until it trickled over them, and from that moment their fate was sealed. Nature, he had observed, operates alike in small things and great, and that sheet of water, though thin as a wafer, alarmed him.

He thought it was better to give a false warning than withhold a true one; he ran to his horse, jumped on him, and spurred away.

His horse was fast and powerful, and carried him in three minutes back to Emden's farm. The farmer had gone to bed. Ransome knocked him up, and told him he feared the dam was going; then galloped on to Hatfield Mill. Here he found the miller and his family all gathered outside, ready for a start; one workman had run down from the reservoir.

"The embankment is not safe."

"So I hear. I'll take care of my flour and my folk. The mill will take care of itself." And he pointed with pride to the solid structure and granite pillars.

Ransome galloped on, shouting as he went.

The shout was taken up ahead, and he heard a voice crying in the night, "IT'S COMING! IT'S COMING!" This weird cry, which, perhaps, his own galloping and shouting had excited, seemed like an independent warning, and thrilled him to the bone. He galloped through Hatfield, shouting, "Save yourselves! Save yourselves!" and the people poured out, and ran for high ground, shrieking wildly; looking back, he saw the hill dotted with what he took for sheep at first, but it was the folk in their night-clothes.

He galloped on to Damflask, still shouting as he went.

At the edge of the hamlet, he found a cottage with no light in it; he dismounted and thundered at the door: "Escape for your lives! for your lives!"

A man called Hillsbro' Harry opened the window.

"The embankment is going. Fly for your lives!"

"Nay," said the man, coolly, "Ousely dam will brust noane this week," and turned to go to bed again.

He found Joseph Galton and another man carrying Mrs. Galton and her new-born child away in a blanket. This poor woman, who had sent her five children away on the faith of a dream, was now objecting, in a faint voice, to be saved herself from evident danger. "Oh, dear, dear! you might as well let me go down with the flood as kill me with taking me away."

Such was the sapient discourse of Mrs. Galton, who, half an hour ago, had been supernaturally wise and prudent. Go to, wise mother and silly woman; men will love thee none the less for the inequalities of thine intellect; and honest Joe will save thy life, and heed thy twaddle no more than the bleating of a lamb.

Ransome had not left the Galtons many yards behind him, when there was a sharp explosion heard up in the hills.

Ransome pulled up and said aloud, "It will be all right now, thank goodness! they have blown up the wear."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when he heard a loud sullen roar, speedily followed by a tremendous hiss, and a rumbling thunder, that shook the very earth where he stood, two miles distant.

This is what had taken place since he left the reservoir, but ten minutes ago.

Mr. Tucker and Mr. Carter laid the gunpowder and the train, and lighted the latter, and came back across the middle of the embankment.

Being quite safe here from the effect of the explosion, Mr. Tucker was desirous to establish by measurement that the water in the reservoir had not risen so high as the crack in the embankment.

With this view he took out a measure, and, at some risk of being swept into eternity, began coolly to measure the crack downward.

At this very time water was trickling over; and that alarmed Carter, and he told Tucker they were trifling with their own lives.

"Oh," said Tucker, "that is only the spray from the waves."

They actually measured the crack, stooping over it with their lanterns.

When they had done that, Carter raised his head, and suddenly clutched Tucker by the arm and pointed upward. The water was pouring over the top, still in a thin sheet, but then that sheet was gradually widening. The water came down to their feet, and some of it disappeared in the crack; and the crack itself looked a little larger than when last inspected. Tucker said, gravely, "I don't like that: but let me examine the valve-house at once." He got down to the valve-house, but before he could ascertain what quantity of water was escaping Carter called to him, "Come out, for God's sake, or you are lost."

He came running out, and saw an opening thirty feet wide and nearly a foot deep, and a powerful stream rushing over it.

The moment Tucker saw that, he cried, "It's all up, the embankment must go!" And, the feeling of the architect overpowering the instincts of the man, he stood aghast. But Carter laid hold of him, and dragged him away.

Then he came to himself, and they ran across the embankment.

As they started, the powder, which had hung fire unaccountably, went off, and blew up the waste-wear; but they scarcely heard it; for, as they ran, the rent above kept enlarging and deepening at a fearful rate, and the furious stream kept rushing past their flying heels, and threatened to sweep them sideways to destruction.

They were safe at last; but even as they stood panting, the rent in the top of the embankment spread--deepened--yawned terrifically--and the pent-up lake plunged through, and sweeping away at once the center of the embankment, rushed, roaring and hissing, down the valley, an avalanche of water, whirling great trees up by the roots, and sweeping huge rocks away, and driving them, like corks, for miles.

At that appalling sound, that hissing thunder, the like of which he had never heard before, and hopes never to hear again, Ransome spurred away at all his speed, and warned the rest of the village with loud inarticulate cries: he could not wait to speak, nor was it necessary.

At the top of the hill he turned a moment, and looked up the valley; soon he saw a lofty white wall running down on Hatfield Mill: it struck the mill, and left nothing visible but the roof, surrounded by white foam.

Another moment, and he distinctly saw the mill swim a yard or two, then disappear and leave no trace, and on came the white wall, hissing and thundering.

Ransome uttered a cry of horror, and galloped madly forward, to save what lives he might.

Whenever he passed a house he shrieked his warning, but he never drew rein.

As he galloped along his mind worked. He observed the valley widen in places, and he hoped the flying lake would spread, and so lose some of that tremendous volume and force before which he had seen Hatfield stone mill go down.

With this hope he galloped on, and reached Poma Bridge, five miles and a half from the reservoir.

Here, to his dismay, he heard the hissing thunder sound as near to him as it was when he halted on the hill above Damflask; but he could see nothing, owing to a turn in the valley.

At the bridge itself he found a man standing without his hat, staring wildly up the valley.

He yelled to this man, "Dam is burst. Warn the village--for their lives--run on to Hillsborough--when you are winded, send another on. You'll all be paid at the Town Hall."

Then he dashed across the bridge.

As he crossed it, he caught sight of the flying lake once more: he had gone over more ground, but he had gone no further. He saw the white wall strike Dolman's farm; there was a light in one window now. He saw the farm-house, with its one light, swim bodily, then melt and disappear, with all the poor souls in it.

He galloped on: his hat flew off; he came under the coiners' house, and yelled a warning. A window was opened, and a man looked out; the light was behind him, and, even in that terrible moment, he recognized--Shifty Dick.

"The flood! the flood! Fly! Get on high ground, for your lives!"

He galloped furiously, and made for Little's house.

Little took a book, and tried to while away the time till Ransome's return; but he could not command his attention. The conversation about Grace had excited a topic which excluded every other.

He opened his window, a French casement, and looked out upon the night.

Then he observed that Grace, too, was keeping vigil; for a faint light shot from her window and sparkled on the branches of the plane-tree in her little front garden.

"And that," thought Henry, sadly, "is all I can see of her. Close to her, yet far off--further than ever now."

A deep sadness fell on him, sadness and doubt. Suppose he were to lay a trap for her to-morrow, and catch her at her own door! What good would it do? He put himself in her place. That process showed him at once she would come no more. He should destroy her little bit of patient, quiet happiness, the one daily sunbeam of her desolate life.

By-and-by, feeling rather drowsy, he lay down in his clothes to wait for Ransome's return. He put out his light.

From his bed he could see Grace's light kiss the plane-tree.

He lay and fixed his eyes on it, and thought of all that had passed between them; and, by-and-by, love and grief made his eyes misty, and that pale light seemed to dance and flicker before him.

About midnight, he was nearly dozing off, when his ear caught a muttering outside; he listened, and thought he heard some instrument grating below.

He rose very softly, and crept to the window, and looked keenly through his casement.

He saw nothing at first; but presently a dark object emerged from behind the plane-tree I have mentioned, and began to go slowly, but surely up it.

Little feared it was a burglar about to attack that house which held his darling.

He stepped softly to his rifle and loaded both barrels. It was a breech-loader. Then he crawled softly to the window, and peered out, rifle in hand.

The man had climbed the tree, and was looking earnestly in at one of the windows in Grace's house. His attention was so fixed that he never saw the gleaming eye which now watched him.

Presently the drifting clouds left the moon clear a minute, and Henry Little recognized the face of Frederick Coventry.

He looked at him, and began to tremble.

Why did he tremble? Because--after the first rush of surprise--rage, hate, and bloody thoughts crossed his mind. Here was his enemy, the barrier to his happiness, come, of his own accord, to court his death. Why not take him for a burglar, and shoot him dead? Such an act might be blamed, but it could not be punished severely.

The temptation was so great, that the rifle shook in his hands, and a cold perspiration poured down his back.

He prayed to God in agony to relieve him from this temptation; he felt that it was more than he could bear.

He looked up. Coventry was drawing up a short iron ladder from below. He then got hold of it and fixed it on the sill of Grace's window.

Little burst his own window open. "You villain!" he cried, and leveled his rifle at him.

Coventry uttered a yell of dismay. Grace opened her window, and looked out, with a face full of terror.

At sight of her, Coventry cried to her in abject terror, "Mercy! mercy! Don't let him shoot me!"

Grace looked round, and saw Henry aiming at Coventry.

She screamed, and Little lowered the rifle directly.

Coventry crouched directly in the fork of the tree.

Grace looked bewildered from one to the other; but it was to Henry she spoke, and asked him in trembling tones what it "all meant?"

But, ere either could make a reply, a dire sound was heard of hissing thunder: so appalling that the three actors in this strange scene were all frozen and rooted where they stood.

Then came a fierce galloping, and Ransome, with his black hair and beard flying, and his face like a ghost, reined up, and shouted wildly, "Dam burst! Coming down here! Fly for your lives! Fly!"

He turned and galloped up the hill.

Cole and his mate emerged, and followed him, howling; but before the other poor creatures, half paralyzed, could do any thing, the hissing thunder was upon them. What seemed a mountain of snow came rolling, and burst on them with terrific violence, whirling great trees and fragments of houses past with incredible velocity.

At the first blow, the house that stood nearest to the flying lake was shattered and went to pieces soon after: all the houses quivered as the water rushed round them two stories high.

Little never expected to live another minute; yet, in that awful moment, his love stood firm. He screamed to Grace, "The houses must go!--the tree!--the tree!--get to the tree!"

But Grace, so weak at times, was more than mortal strong at that dread hour.

"What! live with him," she cried, "when I can die with you!"

She folded her arms, and her pale face was radiant, no hope, no fear.

Now came a higher wave, and the water reached above the window-sills of the bedroom floor and swept away the ladder; yet, driven forward like a cannon-bullet, did not yet pour into the bed-rooms from the main stream; but by degrees the furious flood broke, melted, and swept away the intervening houses, and then hacked off the gable-end of Grace's house, as if Leviathan had bitten a piece out. Through that aperture the flood came straight in, leveled the partitions at a blow, rushed into the upper rooms with fearful roar, and then, rushing out again to rejoin the greater body of water, blew the front wall clean away, and swept Grace out into the raging current.

The water pouring out of the house carried her, at first, toward the tree, and Little cried wildly to Coventry to save her. He awoke from his stupor of horror, and made an attempt to clutch her; but then the main force of the mighty water drove her away from him toward the house; her helpless body was whirled round and round three times, by the struggling eddies, and then hurried away like a feather by the overwhelming torrent.

The mighty reflux, which, after a short struggle, overpowered the rush of water from the windows, and carried Grace Carden's helpless body away from the tree, drove her of course back toward the houses, and she was whirled past Little's window with fearful velocity, just as he was going to leap into the flood, and perish in an insane attempt to save her. With a loud cry he seized her by her long floating hair, and tried to draw her in at the window; but the mighty water pulled her from him fiercely, and all but dragged him in after her; he was only saved by clutching the side of the wall with his left hand: the flood was like some vast solid body drawing against him; and terror began to seize on his heart. He ground his teeth; he set his knee against the horizontal projection of the window; and that freed his left hand; he suddenly seized her arm with it, and, clutching it violently, ground his teeth together, and, throwing himself backward with a jerk, tore her out of the water by an effort almost superhuman. Such was the force exerted by the torrent on one side, and the desperate lover on the other, that not her shoes only, but her stockings, though gartered, were torn off her in that fierce struggle.

He had her in his arms, and cried aloud, and sobbed over her, and kissed her wet cheeks, her lank hair, and her wet clothes, in a wild rapture. He went on kissing her and sobbing over her so wildly and so long, that Coventry, who had at first exulted with him at her rescue, began to rage with jealousy.

"Please remember she is my wife," he shrieked: "don't take advantage of her condition, villain!"

"Your wife, you scoundrel! You stole her from me once; now come and take her from me again. Why didn't you save her? She was near to you. You let her die: she lives by me, and for me, and I for her." With this he kissed her again, and held her to his bosom. "D'ye see that?--liar! coward! villain!"

Even across that tremendous body of rushing death, from which neither was really safe, both rivals' eyes gleamed hate at each other.

The wild beasts that a flood drives together on to some little eminence, lay down their natures, and the panther crouches and whimpers beside the antelope; but these were men, and could entertain the fiercest of human passions in the very jaws of death.

To be sure it was but for a moment; a new danger soon brought them both to their senses; an elm-tree whirling past grazed Coventry's plane-tree; it was but a graze, yet it nearly shook him off into the flood, and he yelled with fear: almost at the same moment a higher wave swept into Little's room, and the rising water set every thing awash, and burst over him as he kneeled with grace. He got up, drenched and half-blinded with the turbid water, and, taking Grace in his arms, waded waist-high to his bed, and laid her down on it.

It was a moment of despair. Death had entered that chamber in a new, unforeseen, and inevitable form. The ceiling was low, the water was rising steadily; the bedstead floated; his chest of drawers floated, though his rifle and pistols lay on it, and the top drawers were full of the tools he always had about him: in a few minutes the rising water must inevitably jam Grace and him against the ceiling, and drown them like rats in a hole.

Fearful as the situation was, a sickening horror was added to it by the horrible smell of the water; it had a foul and appalling odor, a compound of earthiness and putrescence; it smelt like a newly-opened grave; it paralyzed like a serpent's breath.

Stout as young Little's heart was, it fainted now when he saw his bedstead, and his drawers, and his chairs, all slowly rising toward the ceiling, lifted by that cold, putrescent, liquid death.

But all men, and even animals, possess greater powers of mind, as well as of body, than they ever exert, unless compelled by dire necessity: and it would have been strange indeed if a heart so stanch, and a brain so inventive, as Little's, had let his darling die like a rat drowned in a hole, without some new and masterly attempt first made to save her.

To that moment of horror and paralysis succeeded an activity of mind and body almost incredible. He waded to the drawers, took his rifle and fired both barrels at one place in the ceiling bursting a hole, and cutting a narrow joist almost in two. Then he opened a drawer, got an ax and a saw out, and tried to wade to the bed; but the water now took him off his feet, and he had to swim to it instead; he got on it, and with his axe and his saw he contrived to paddle the floating bed under the hole in the ceiling, and then with a few swift and powerful blows of his ax soon enlarged that aperture sufficiently; but at that moment the water carried the bedstead away from the place.

He set to work with his saw and ax, and paddled back again.

Grace, by this time, was up on her knees, and in a voice, the sudden firmness of which surprised and delighted him, asked if she could help.

"Yes," said he, "you can. On with my coat."

It lay on the bed. She helped him on with it, and then he put his ax and saw into the pockets, and told her to take hold of his skirt.

He drew himself up through the aperture, and Grace, holding his skirts with her hands and the bed with her feet, climbed adroitly on to the head of the bed--a French bed made of mahogany--and Henry drew her through the aperture.

They were now on the false ceiling, and nearly jammed against the roof: Little soon hacked a great hole in that just above the parapet, and they crawled out upon the gutter.

They were now nearly as high as Coventry on his tree; but their house was rocking, and his tree was firm.

In the next house were heard the despairing shrieks of poor creatures who saw no way of evading their fate; yet the way was as open to them as to this brave pair.

"Oh, my angel," said Grace, "save them. Then, if you die, you go to God."

"All right," said Henry. "Come on."

They darted down the gutter to the next house. Little hacked a hole in the slates, and then in the wood-work, and was about to jump in, when the house he had just left tumbled all to pieces, like a house of sugar, and the debris went floating by, including the bedstead that had helped to save them.

"O God!" cried Little, "this house will go next; run on to the last one."

"No, Henry, I would rather die with you than live alone. Don't be frightened for me, my angel. Save lives, and trust to Jesus."

"All right," said Little; but his voice trembled now.

He jumped in, hacked a hole in the ceiling, and yelled to the inmates to give him their hands.

There was a loud cry of male and female voices.

"My child first," cried a woman, and threw up an infant, which Little caught and handed to Grace. She held it, wailing to her breast.

Little dragged five more souls up. Grace helped them out, and they ran along the gutter to the last house without saying "Thank you."

The house was rocking. Little and Grace went on to the next, and he smashed the roof in, and then the ceiling, and Grace and he were getting the people out, when the house they had just left melted away, all but a chimney-stack, which adhered in jagged dilapidation to the house they were now upon.

They were now upon the last. Little hacked furiously through the roof and ceiling, and got the people out; and now twenty-seven souls crouched in the gutter, or hung about the roof of this one house; some praying, but most of them whining and wailing.

"What is the use of howling?" groaned Little.

He then drew his Grace to his panting bosom, and his face was full of mortal agony.

She consoled him. "Never mind, my angel. God has seen you. He is good to us, and lets us die together."

At this moment the house gave a rock, and there was a fresh burst of wailing.

This, connected with his own fears, enraged Henry.

"Be quiet," said he, sternly. "Why can't you die decently, like your betters?"

Then he bent his head in noble silence over his beloved, and devoured her features as those he might never see again.

At this moment was heard a sound like the report of a gun: a large tree whirled down by the flood, struck the plane-tree just below the fork, and cut it in two as promptly as a scythe would go through a carrot.

It drove the upper part along, and, going with it, kept it perpendicular for some time; the white face and glaring eyes of Frederick Coventry sailed past these despairing lovers; he made a wild clutch at them, then sank in the boiling current, and was hurried away.

This appalling incident silenced all who saw it for a moment. Then they began to wail louder than ever.

But Little started to his feet, and cried "Hurrah!"

There was a general groan.

"Hold your tongues," he roared. "I've got good news for you. The water was over the top windows; now it is an inch lower. The reservoir must be empty by now. The water will go down as fast as it rose. Keep quiet for two minutes, and you will see."

Then no more was heard but the whimpering of the women, and, every now and then, the voice of Little; he hung over the parapet, and reported every half-minute the decline of the water; it subsided with strange rapidity, as he had foreseen.

In three minutes after he had noticed the first decline, he took Grace down through the roof, on the second floor.

When Grace and Henry got there, they started with dismay: the danger was not over: the front wall was blown clean out by the water; all but a jagged piece shaped like a crescent, and it seemed a miracle that the roof, thus weakened and crowded with human beings, had not fallen in.

"We must get out of this," said Little. "It all hangs together by a thread."

He called the others down from the roof, and tried to get down by the staircase, but it was broken into sections and floating about. Then he cut into the floor near the wall, and, to his infinite surprise, found the first floor within four feet of him. The flood had lifted it bodily more than six feet.

He dropped on to it, and made Grace let herself down to him, he holding her round the waist, and landing her light as a feather.

Henry then hacked through the door, which was jammed tight; and, the water subsiding, presently the wrecks of the staircase left off floating, and stuck in the mud and water: by this means they managed to get down, and found themselves in a layer of mud, and stones, and debris, alive and dead, such as no imagination had hitherto conceived.

Dreading, however, to remain in a house so disemboweled within, and so shattered without, that it seemed to survive by mere cohesion of mortar, he begged Grace to put her arm round his neck, and then lifted her and carried her out into the night.

"Take me home to papa, my angel," said she.

He said he would; and tried to find his way to the road which he knew led up the hill to "Woodbine Villa." But all landmarks were gone; houses, trees, hedges, all swept away; roads covered three feet thick with rocks, and stones, and bricks, and carcasses. The pleasant valley was one horrid quagmire, in which he could take few steps, burdened as he was, without sticking, or stumbling against some sure sign of destruction and death: within the compass of fifty yards he found a steam-boiler and its appurtenances (they must have weighed some tons, yet they had been driven more than a mile), and a dead cow, and the body of a wagon turned upside down (the wheels of this same wagon were afterward found fifteen miles from the body).

He began to stagger and pant.

"Let me walk, my angel," said Grace. "I'm not a baby."

She held his hand tight, and tried to walk with him step by step. Her white feet shone in the pale moonlight.

They made for rising ground, and were rewarded by finding the debris less massive.

"The flood must have been narrow hereabouts," said Henry. "We shall soon be clear of it, I hope."

Soon after this, they came under a short but sturdy oak that had survived; and, entangled in its close and crooked branches, was something white. They came nearer; it was a dead body: some poor man or woman hurried from sleep to Eternity.

They shuddered and crawled on, still making for higher ground, but sore perplexed.

Presently they heard a sort of sigh. They went toward it, and found a poor horse stuck at an angle; his efforts to escape being marred by a heavy stone to which he was haltered.

Henry patted him, and encouraged him, and sawed through his halter; then he struggled up, but Henry held him, and put Grace on him. She sat across him and held on by the mane.

The horse, being left to himself, turned back a little, and crossed the quagmire till he got into a bridle-road, and this landed them high and dry on the turnpike.

Here they stopped, and, by one impulse, embraced each other, and thanked God for their wonderful escape.

But soon Henry's exultation took a turn that shocked Grace's religious sentiments, which recent acquaintance had strengthened.

"Yes," he cried, "now I believe that God really does interpose in earthly things; I believe every thing; yesterday I believed nothing. The one villain is swept away, and we two are miraculously saved. Now we can marry to-morrow--no, to-day, for it is past midnight. Oh, how good He is, especially for killing that scoundrel out of our way. Without his death, what was life worth to me? But now--oh, Heavens! is it all a dream? Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"

"Oh, Henry, my love!" said Grace imploringly; "pray, pray do not offend Him, by rejoicing at such a moment over the death, perhaps the everlasting death, of a poor, sinful fellow-creature."

"All right, dearest. Only don't let us descend to hypocrisy. I thank Heaven he is dead, and so do you."

"Pray don't say so."

"Well, I won't: let him go. Death settles all accounts. Did you see me stretch out my hand to save him?"

"I did, my angel, and it was like you: you are the noblest and the greatest creature that ever was, or ever will be."

"The silliest, you mean. I wondered at myself next minute. Fancy me being such an idiot as to hold out a hand to save him, and so wither both our lives--yours and mine; but I suppose it is against nature not to hold out a hand. Well, no harm came of it, thank Heaven."

"Let us talk of ourselves," said Grace, lovingly. "My darling, let no harsh thought mar the joy of this hour. You have saved my life again. Well, then, it is doubly yours. Here, looking on that death we have just escaped, I devote myself to you. You don't know how I love you; but you shall. I adore you."

"I love you better still."

"You do not: you can't. It is the one thing I can beat you at and I will."

"Try. When will you be mine?"

"I am yours. But if you mean when will I marry you, why, whenever you please. We have suffered too cruelly, and loved too dearly, for me to put you off a single day for affectations and vanities. When you please, my own."

At this Henry kissed her little white feet with rapture, and kept kissing them, at intervals, all the rest of the way: and the horrors of the night ended, to these two, in unutterable rapture, as they paced slowly along to "Woodbine Villa" with hearts full of wonder, gratitude, and joy.

Here they found lights burning, and learned from a servant that Mr. Carden was gone down to the scene of the flood in great agitation.

Henry told Grace not to worry herself, for that he would find him and relieve his fears.

He then made Grace promise to go to bed at once, and to lie within blankets. She didn't like that idea, but consented. "It is my duty to obey you now in every thing," said she.

Henry left her, and ran down to the Town Hall.

He was in that glorious state of bliss in which noble minds long to do good actions; and the obvious thing to do was to go and comfort the living survivors of the terrible disaster he had so narrowly escaped.

He found but one policeman there; the rest, and Ransome at their head, were doing their best; all but two, drowned on their beat in the very town of Hillsborough.

Round a great fire in the Town Hall were huddled a number of half-naked creatures, who had been driven out of their dilapidated homes; some of them had seen children or relatives perish in the flood they had themselves so narrowly escaped, and were bemoaning them with chattering teeth.

Little spoke them a word of comfort, promised them all clothes as soon as the shops should open, and hurried off to the lower part of the town in search of Ransome.

He soon found the line the flood had taken. Between Poma Bridge and Hillsborough it had wasted itself considerably in a broad valley, but still it had gone clean through Hillsborough twelve feet high, demolishing and drowning. Its terrible progress was marked by a layer of mud a foot thick, dotted with rocks, trees, wrecks of houses, machinery, furniture, barrels, mattresses, carcasses of animals, and dead bodies, most of them stark naked, the raging flood having torn their clothes off their backs.

Four corpses and two dead horses were lying in a lake of mud about the very door of the railway station; three of them were females in absolute nudity. The fourth was a male, with one stocking on. This proved to be Hillsbro' Harry, warned in vain up at Damflask. When he actually heard the flood come hissing, he had decided, on the whole, to dress, and had got the length of that one stocking, when the flying lake cut short his vegetation.

Not far from this, Little found Ransome, working like a horse, with the tear in his eyes.

He uttered a shout of delight and surprise, and, taking Little by both shoulders, gazed earnestly at him, and said, "Can this be a living man I see?"

"Yes, I am alive," said Little, "but I had to work for it: feel my clothes."

"Why, the are dryer than mine."

"Ay; yet have been in water to the throat; the heat of my body and my great exertions dried them. I'll tell you all another day: now show me how to do a bit of good; for it is not one nor two thousand pounds I'll stick at, this night."

"Come on."

Strange sights they saw that night.

They found a dead body curled round the top frame of a lamppost, and, in the suburbs, another jammed between a beam and the wall of a house.

They found some houses with the front wall carried clean away, and, on the second floor, such of the inmates as had survived huddled together in their night-clothes, unable to get down. These, Ransome and his men speedily relieved from their situation.

And now came in word that the whole village of Poma Bridge had been destroyed.

Little, with Ransome and his men, hurried on at these sad tidings as fast as the mud and ruins would allow, and, on the way, one of the policemen trod on something soft. It was the body of a woman imbedded in the mud.

A little further they saw, at some distance, two cottages in a row, both gutted and emptied. An old man was alone in one, seated on the ground-floor in the deep mud.

They went to him, and asked what they could do for him.

"Do? Why let me die," he said.

They tried to encourage him; but he answered them in words that showed how deeply old Shylock's speech is founded in nature:

"Let the water take me--it has taken all I had."

When they asked after his neighbors, he said he believed they were all drowned. Unluckily for him, he had been out when the flood came.

Little clambered into the other cottage, and found a little boy and girl placidly asleep in a cupboard upstairs.

Little yelled with delight, and kissed them, and cuddled them, as if they had been his own, so sweet was it to see their pretty innocent faces, spared by death. The boy kissed him in return, and told him the room had been full of water, and dada and mamma had gone out at the window, and they themselves had floated in the bed so high he had put his little sister on the top shelf, and got on it himself, and then they had both felt very sleepy.

"You are a dear good boy, and I take you into custody," said Ransome, in a broken voice.

Judge if this pair were petted, up at the Town Hall.

At Poma Bridge the devastation was horrible. The flood had bombarded a row of fifty houses, and demolished them so utterly that only one arch of one cellar remained; the very foundations were torn up, and huge holes of incredible breadth and depth bored by the furious eddies.

Where were the inhabitants?

Ransome stood and looked and shook like a man in an ague.

"Little," said he, "this is awful. Nobody in Hillsborough dreams the extent of this calamity. I dread the dawn of day. There must be scores of dead bodies hidden in this thick mud, or perhaps swept through Hillsborough into the very sea."

A little further, and they came to the "Reindeer," where he had heard the boon-companions singing--over their graves; for that night, long before the "cock did craw, or the day daw," their mouths were full of water and mud, and not the "barley bree."

To know their fate needed but a glance at the miserable, shattered, gutted fragment of the inn that stood. There was a chimney, a triangular piece of roof, a quarter of the inside of one second-floor room, with all the boards gone and half the joists gone, and the others either hanging down perpendicular or sticking up at an angle of forty-five. Even on the side furthest from the flood the water had hacked and plowed away the wall so deeply, that the miserable wreck had a jagged waist, no bigger in proportion than a wasp's.

Not far from this amazing ruin was a little two-storied house, whose four rooms looked exactly, as four rooms are represented in section on the stage, the front wall having been blown clean away, and the furniture and inmates swept out; the very fender and fire-irons had been carried away: a bird-cage, a clock, and a grate were left hanging to the three walls.

As a part of this village stood on high ground, the survivors were within reach of relief; and Little gave a policeman orders to buy clothes at the shop, and have them charged to him.

This done, he begged Ransome to cross the water, and relieve the poor wretches who had escaped so narrowly with him. Ransome consented at once; but then came a difficulty--the bridge, like every bridge that the flying lake had struck, was swept away. However, the stream was narrow, and, as they were already muddy to the knee, they found a place where the miscellaneous ruin made stepping-stones, and by passing first on to a piece of masonry, and from that to a broken water-wheel, and then on to a rock, they got across.

They passed the coiner's house. It stood on rather high ground, and had got off cheap. The water had merely carried away the door and windows, and washed every movable out of it.

Ransome sighed. "Poor Shifty!" said he; "you'll never play us another trick. What an end for a man of your abilities!"

And now the day began to dawn, and that was fortunate, for otherwise they could hardly have found the house they were going to.

On the way to it they came on two dead bodies, an old man of eighty and a child scarce a week old. One fate had united these extremes of human life, the ripe sheaf and the spring bud. It transpired afterward that they had been drowned in different parishes. Death, that brought these together, disunited hundreds. Poor Dolman's body was found scarce a mile from his house, but his wife's eleven miles on the other side of Hillsborough; and this wide separation of those who died in one place by one death, was constant, and a pitiable feature of the tragedy.

At last they got to the house, and Little shuddered at the sight of it; here not only was the whole front wall taken out, but a part of the back wall; the jagged chimneys of the next house still clung to this miserable shell, whose upper floors were slanting sieves, and on its lower was a deep layer of mud, with the carcass of a huge sow lying on it, washed in there all the way from Hatfield village.

The people had all run away from the house, and no wonder, for it seemed incredible that it could stand a single moment longer; never had ruin come so close to demolition and then stopped.

There was nothing to be done here, and Ransome went back to Hillsborough, keeping this side the water.

Daybreak realized his worst fears: between Poma Bridge and the first suburb of Hillsborough the place was like a battle-field; not that many had been drowned on the spot, but that, drowned all up the valley by the flood at its highest, they had been brought down and deposited in the thick layer of mud left by the abating waters. Some were cruelly gashed and mangled by the hard objects with which they had come in contact. Others wore a peaceful expression and had color in their cheeks. One drew tears from both these valiant men. It was a lovely little girl, with her little hands before her face to keep out the sight of death.

Here and there, a hand or a ghastly face appearing above the mud showed how many must be hidden altogether, and Ransome hurried home to get more assistance to disinter the dead.

Just before the suburb of Allerton the ground is a dead flat, and here the flying lake had covered a space a mile broad, doing frightful damage to property but not much to life, because wherever it expanded it shallowed in proportion.

In part of this flat a gentleman had a beautiful garden and pleasure-grounds overnight: they were now under water, and their appearance was incredible; the flood expanding here and then contracting, had grounded large objects and left small ones floating. In one part of the garden it had landed a large wheat-rick, which now stood as if it belonged there, though it had been built five miles off.

In another part was an inverted summer-house and a huge water-wheel, both of them great travelers that night.

In the large fish-pond, now much fuller than usual, floated a wheel-barrow, a hair mattress, an old wooden cradle, and an enormous box or chest.

Little went splashing through the water to examine the cradle: he was richly rewarded. He found a little child in it awake but perfectly happy, and enjoying the fluttering birds above and the buoyant bed below, whose treacherous nature was unknown to him. This incident the genius of my friend Mr. Millais is about to render immortal.

Little's shout of delight brought Ransome splashing over directly. They took up the cradle and contents to carry it home, when all of a sudden Ransome's eye detected a finger protruding through a hole in the box.

"Hallo!" said he. "Why, there's a body inside that box."

"Good heavens!" said Little, "he may be alive."

With that he made a rush and went in over head and ears.

"Confound it" said he as soon as he got his breath. But, being in for it now, he swam to the box, and getting behind it, shoved it before him to Ransome's feet.

Ransome tried to open it, but it shut with a spring. However, there were air-holes, and still this finger sticking out of one--for a signal no doubt.

"Are ye alive or dead?" shouted Ransome to the box. "Let me out and you'll see," replied the box; and the sound seemed to issue from the bowels of the earth.

Little had his hatchet in his pocket and set to work to try and open it. The occupant assisted him with advice how to proceed, all of which sounded subterraneous.

"Hold your jaw!" said Little. "Do you think you can teach me?"

By a considerable exertion of strength as well as skill, he at last got the box open, and discovered the occupant seated pale and chattering, with knees tucked up.

The two men lent him a hand to help him up; Ransome gave a slight start, and then expressed the warmest satisfaction.

"Thank Heaven!" said he. "Shake hands, old fellow. I'm downright glad. I've been groaning over you: but I might have known you'd find some way to slip out of trouble. Mr. Little, this is Shifty himself. Please put your arm under his; he is as strong as iron, and as slippery as an eel."

The Shifty, hearing this account given of himself, instantly collapsed, and made himself weak as water, and tottered from one of his guards to the other in turn.

"I was all that once, Mr. Ransome," said he, in a voice that became suddenly as feeble as his body, "but this fearful night has changed me. Miraculously preserved from destruction, I have renounced my errors, and vowed to lead a new life. Conduct me at once to a clergyman, that I may confess and repent, and disown my past life with horror; then swear me in a special constable, and let me have the honor of acting under your orders, and of co-operating with you, sir" (to Little), "in your Christian and charitable acts. Let me go about with you, gentlemen, and relieve the sufferings of others, as you have relieved mine."

"There," said Ransome, proudly; "there's a man for you. He knows every move of the game--can patter like an archbishop." So saying, he handcuffed the Shifty with such enthusiasm that the convert swore a horrible oath at him.

Ransome apologized, and beckoning a constable, handed him the Shifty.

"Take him to the Town Hall, and give him every comfort. He is Number One."

This man's escape was not so strange as it appeared. The flood never bombarded his house--he was only on the hem of it. It rose and filled his house, whereupon he bored three holes in his great chest, and got in. He washed about the room till the abating flood contracted, and then it sucked him and his box out of the window. He got frightened, and let the lid down, and so drifted about till at last he floated into the hands of justice.

Little and Ransome carried the child away, and it was conveyed to the hospital and a healthy nurse assigned it.

Ransome prevailed on Little to go home, change his wet clothes and lie down for an hour or two. He consented, but first gave Ransome an order to lay out a thousand pounds, at his expense, in relief of the sufferers.

Then he went home, sent a message to Raby Hall, that he was all right, took off his clothes, rolled exhausted into bed, and slept till the afternoon.

At four o'clock he rose, got into a hansom, and drove up to "Woodbine Villa," the happiest man in England.

He inquired for Miss Carden. The man said he believed she was not up, but would inquire.

"Do," said Little. "Tell her who it is. I'll wait in the dining-room."

He walked into the dining-room before the man could object, and there he found a sick gentleman, with Dr. Amboyne and a surgeon examining him. The patient lay on a sofa, extremely pale, and groaning with pain.

One glance sufficed. It was Frederick Coventry.

"What! you alive?" said Little, staring.

"Alive, and that is all," said Coventry. "Pray excuse me for not dying to please you."

Ere Little could reply, Mr. Carden, who had heard of his arrival, looked in from the library, and beckoned him in.

When they were alone, he began by giving the young man his hand, and then thanked him warmly for his daughter. "You have shown yourself a hero in courage. Now go one step further; be a hero in fortitude and self-denial; that unhappy man in the next room is her husband; like you, he risked his life to save her. He tells me he heard the dam was going to burst, and came instantly with a ladder to rescue her. He was less fortunate than you, and failed to rescue her; less fortunate than you again, he has received a mortal injury in that attempt. It was I who found him; I went down distracted with anxiety, to look for my daughter; I found this poor creature jammed tight between the tree he was upon and a quantity of heavy timber that had accumulated and rested against a bank. We released him with great difficulty. It was a long time before he could speak; and then, his first inquiry was after her. Show some pity for an erring man, Mr. Little; some consideration for my daughter's reputation. Let him die in peace: his spine is broken; he can't live many days."

Little heard all this and looked down on the ground for some time in silence. At last he said firmly, "Mr. Carden, I would not be inhuman to a dying man; but you were always his friend, and never mine. Let me see her, and I'll tell her what you say, and take her advice."

"You shall see her, of course; but not just now. She is in bed, attended by a Sister of Charity, whom she telegraphed for."

"Can I see that lady?"

"Certainly."

Sister Gratiosa was sent for, and, in reply to Little's anxious inquiries, told him that Sister Amata had been very much shaken by the terrible events of the night, and absolute repose was necessary to her. In further conversation she told him she was aware of Sister Amata's unhappy story, and had approved her retirement from Hillsborough, under all the circumstances; but that now, after much prayer to God for enlightenment, she could not but think it was the Sister's duty, as a Christian woman, to stay at home and nurse the afflicted man whose name she bore, and above all devote herself to his spiritual welfare.

"Oh, that is your notion, is it?" said Henry. "Then you are no friend of mine."

"I am no enemy of yours, nor of any man, I hope. May I ask you one question, without offense?"

"Certainly."

"Have you prayed to God to guide you in this difficulty?"

"No."

"Then seek his throne without delay; and, until you have done so, do not rashly condemn my views of this matter, since I have sought for wisdom where alone it is to be found."

Henry chafed under this; but he commanded his temper, though with difficulty, and said, "Will you take a line to her from me?"

The Sister hesitated. "I don't know whether I ought," said she.

"Oh, then the old game of intercepting letters is to be played."

"Not by me: after prayer I shall be able to say Yes or No to your request. At present, being at a distance from my Superior, I must needs hesitate."

"Right and wrong must have made very little impression on your mind, if you don't know whether you ought to take a letter to a woman from a man who has just saved her life--or not."

The lady colored highly, courtesied, and retired without a word.

Little knew enough of human nature to see that the Sister would not pray against feminine spite; he had now a dangerous enemy in the house, and foresaw that Grace would be steadily worked on through her religious sentiments.

He went away, sick with disappointment, jealousy, and misgivings, hired a carriage, and drove at once to Raby Hall.

Mrs. Little saw her son arrive, met him in the hall, and embraced him, with a great cry of maternal joy, that did his heart good for a moment.

He had to tell her all; and, during the recital, she often clasped him to her bosom.

When he had told her all, she said: "Much as I love you, darling, I am ready to part with you for good: there is a cure for all your griefs; there is a better woman in this house than ever Grace Carden was or will be. Be a man; shake off these miserable trammels; leave that vacillating girl to nurse her villain, and marry the one I have chosen for you."

Henry shook his head. "What! when a few months perhaps will free my Grace from her incumbrance. Mother, you are giving me bad advice for once."

"Unwelcome advice, dear, not bad. Will you consult Dr. Amboyne? he sleeps here to-night. He often comes here now, you know." Then the widow colored just a little.

"Oh yes, I know; and I approve."

Dr. Amboyne came to dinner. In the course of the evening he mentioned his patient Coventry, and said he would never walk again, his spine was too seriously injured.

"How soon will he die? that is what I want to know," said Henry, with that excessive candor which the polite reader has long ago discovered in him, and been shocked.

"Oh, he may live for years. But what a life! An inert mass below the waist, and, above it, a sick heart, and a brain as sensitive as ever to realize the horrid calamity. Even I, who know and abhor the man's crimes, shudder at the punishment Heaven inflicts on him."

There was dead silence round the table, and Little was observed to turn pale.

He was gloomy and silent all the evening.

Next morning, directly after breakfast, his mother got him, and implored him not to waste his youth any longer.

"The man will never die," said she: "he will wear you out. You have great energy and courage; but you have not a woman's humble patience, to go on, year after year, waiting for an event you can not hasten by a single moment. Do you not see it is hopeless? End your misery by one brave plunge. Speak to dear Jael."

"I can't--I can't!"

"Then let me."

"Will it make you happy?"

"Very happy. Nothing else can."

"Will it make her happy?"

"As happy as a queen."

"She deserves a better fate."

"She asks no better. There, unless you stop me, I shall speak to her."

"Well, well," said Henry, very wearily.

Mrs. Little went to the door.

"Wait a moment," said he. "How about Uncle Raby? He has been a good friend to me. I have offended him once, and it was the worst job I ever did. I won't offend him again."

"How can you offend him by marrying Jael?"

"What, have you forgotten how angry he was when Mr. Richard Raby proposed to her? There, I'll go and speak to him."

"Well, do."

He was no sooner gone than Mrs. Little stepped into Jael's room, and told her how matters stood.

Jael looked dismayed, and begged her on no account to proceed: "For," said she, "if Mr. Henry was to ask me, I should say No. He would always be hankering after Miss Carden: and, pray don't be angry with me, but I think I'm worth a man's whole heart; for I could love one very dearly, if he loved me."

Mrs. Little was deeply mortified. "This I did not expect," said she. "Well, if you are all determined to be miserable--be."

Henry hunted up Mr. Raby, and asked him bluntly whether he would like him to marry Jael Dence.

Raby made no reply for some time, and his features worked strangely.

"Has she consented to be your wife?"

"I have never asked her. But I will, if you wish it."

"Wish it?"

"Why, sir, if you don't wish it, please forbid it, and let us say no more at all about it."

"Excuse me," said Raby, with his grandest air: "a gentleman may dislike a thing, yet not condescend to forbid it."

"That is true, sir; and an ex-workman may appreciate his delicacy, and give the thing up at once. I will die a bachelor."

"Henry, my boy, give me your hand--I'll tell you the truth. I love her myself. She is a pattern of all I admire in woman."

"Uncle, I suspected this, to tell the truth. Well, if you love her--marry her."

"What, without her consent?"

"Oh, she will consent. Order her to marry you: she will never disobey the Lord of the Manor."

"That is what I fear: and it is base to take advantage of her in that way."

"You are right, sir," said Henry, and ran off directly.

He found Jael, and said, "Jael, dear, couldn't you like Uncle Raby? he loves you dearly."

He then appealed to her heart, and spoke of his uncle's nobleness in fearing to obtain an unfair advantage over her.

To his surprise, Jael blushed deeply, and her face softened angelically, and presently a tear ran down it.

"Hallo!" said Henry. "That is the game, is it? You stay here."

He ran back to Mr. Raby, and said: "I've made a discovery. She loves you, sir. I'll take my oath of it. You go and ask her."

"I will," said Raby; and he went to Jael, like a man, and said, "Jael, he has found me out; I love you dearly. I'm old, but I'm not cold. Do you think you could be happy as my wife, with all the young fellows admiring you?"

"Sir" said Jael, "I wouldn't give your little finger for all the young men in Christendom. Once I thought a little too much of Mr. Henry, but that was over long ago. And since you saved my life, and cried over me in this very room, you have been in my head and in my heart; but I wouldn't show it; for I had vowed I never would let any man know my heart till he showed me his."

In short, this pair were soon afterward seen walking arm in arm, radiant with happiness.

That sight was too much for Henry Little. The excitement of doing a kind thing, and making two benefactors happy, had borne him up till now; but the reaction came: the contrast of their happiness with his misery was too poignant. He had not even courage to bid them good-bye, but fled back to Hillsborough, in anguish of spirit and deep despair.

When he got home, there was a note from Grace Carden.

"MY OWN DEAREST HENRY,--I find that you have called, and been denied me; and that Mr. Coventry has been admitted into the house.

"I have therefore left 'Woodbine Villa', and taken lodgings opposite. Sister Gratiosa has convinced me I ought to labor for the eternal welfare of the guilty, unhappy man whose name it is my misfortune to bear. I will try to do so: but nobody shall either compel, or persuade me, to be cruel to my dear Henry, to whom I owe my life once more, and who is all the world to me. I shall now be employed nearly all the day, but I reserve two hours, from three till five, when you will always find me at home. Our course is clear. We must pray for patience.--Yours to eternity,

GRACE."

After reading this letter, and pondering it well, Henry Little's fortitude revived, and, as he could not speak his mind to Grace at that moment, he wrote to her, after some hours of reflection, as follows:--

"MY OWN DEAREST GRACE,--I approve, I bless you. Our case is hard, but not desperate. We have been worse off than we are now. I agree with you that our course is clear; what we have got to do, as I understand it, is to outlive a crippled scoundrel. Well, love and a clear conscience will surely enable us to outlive a villain, whose spine is injured, and whose conscience must gnaw him, and who has no creature's love to nourish him.--Yours in this world, and, I hope, in the next,

HENRY."

Sister Gratiosa, to oblige Grace stayed at "Woodbine Villa." She was always present at any interview of Coventry and Grace.

Little softened her, by giving her money whenever she mentioned a case of distress. She had but this one pleasure in life, a pure one, and her poverty had always curbed it hard. She began to pity this poor sinner, who was ready to pour his income into her lap for Christian purposes.

And so the days rolled on. Raby took into his head to repair the old church, and be married in it. This crotchet postponed his happiness for some months.

But the days and weeks rolled on.

Raby became Sheriff of the county.

Coventry got a little better, and moved to the next villa.

Then Grace returned at once to "Woodbine Villa"; but she still paid charitable visits with Sister Gratiosa to the wreck whose name she bore.

She was patient.

But Little, the man of action, began to faint.

He decided to return to the United States for a year or two, and distract his mind.

When he communicated this resolve, Grace sighed.

"The last visit there was disastrous," said she. "But," recovering herself, "we can not be deceived again, nor doubt each other's constancy again." So she sighed, but consented.

Coventry heard of it, and chuckled inwardly. He felt sure that in time he should wear out his rival's patience.

A week or two more, and Little named the very day for sailing.

The Assizes came on. The Sheriff met the Judges with great pomp, and certain observances which had gone out. This pleased the Chief Justice; he had felt a little nervous; Raby's predecessor had met him in a carriage and pair and no outriders, and he had felt it his duty to fine the said Sheriff £100 for so disrespecting the Crown in his person.

So now, alluding to this, he said, "Mr. Sheriff, I am glad to find you hold by old customs, and do not grudge outward observances to the Queen's justices."

"My lord," said the Sheriff, "I can hardly show enough respect to justice and learning, when they visit in the name of my sovereign."

"That is very well said, Mr. Sheriff," said my lord.

The Sheriff bowed.

The Chief Justice was so pleased with his appearance, and his respectful yet dignified manner, that he conversed with him repeatedly during the pauses of the trials.

Little was cording his boxes for America when Ransome burst in on him, and said, "Come into court; come into court. Shifty Dick will be up directly."

Little objected that he was busy; but Ransome looked so mortified that he consented, and was just in in time to see Richard Martin, alias Lord Daventree, alias Tom Paine, alias Sir Harry Gulstone, alias the Quaker, alias Shifty Dick, etc., etc., appear at the bar.

The indictment was large, and charged the prisoner with various frauds of a felonious character, including his two frauds on the Gosshawk.

Counsel made a brief exposition of the facts, and then went into the evidence. But here the strict, or, as some think, pedantic rules of English evidence, befriended the prisoner, and the Judge objected to certain testimony on which the prosecution had mainly relied. As for the evidence of coining, the flood had swept all that away.

Ransome, who was eager for a conviction, began to look blue.

But presently a policeman, who had been watching the prisoner, came and whispered in his ear.

Up started Ransome, wrote the Crown solicitor a line, begging him to keep the case on its legs anyhow for half an hour, and giving his reason. He then dashed off in a cab.

The case proceeded, under discouraging remarks from the Judge, most of them addressed to the evidence; but he also hinted that the indictment was rather loosely drawn.

At last the Attorney-General, who led, began to consult with his junior whether they could hope for a conviction.

But now there was a commotion; then heads were put together, and, to the inexpressible surprise of young Little and of the Sheriff, Grace Coventry was put into the witness-box.

At the sight of her the learned Judge, who was, like most really great lawyers, a keen admirer of beautiful women, woke up, and became interested.

After the usual preliminaries, counsel requested her to look at that man, and say whether she knew him.

Grace looked, and recognized him. "Yes," said she, "it is Mr. Beresford; he is a clergyman."

Whereupon there was a loud laugh.

Counsel. "What makes you think he is a clergyman?"

Witness. "I have seen him officiate. It was he who married me to Mr.----" Here she caught sight of Henry, and stopped, blushing.

"What is that?" said the Judge, keenly. "Did you say that man performed the marriage ceremony over you?"

"Yes, my lord."

"When and where was that?"

She gave the time and place.

"I should like to see the register of that parish."

"Let me save you the trouble," said the prisoner. "Your lordship's time has been wasted enough with falsehoods; I will not waste it further by denying the truth. The fact is, my lord, I was always a great churchgoer (a laugh), and I was disgusted with the way in which the clergy deliver the Liturgy, and with their hollow discourses, that don't go home to men's bosoms. Vanity whispered, 'You could do better.' I applied for the curacy of St. Peter's. I obtained it. I gave universal satisfaction; and no wonder; my heart was in the work; I trembled at the responsibility I had undertaken. Yes, my lord, I united that young lady in holy matrimony to one Frederick Coventry. I had no sooner done it, than I began to realize that a clergyman is something more than a reader and a preacher. Remorse seized me. My penitence, once awakened, was sincere. I retired from the sacred office I had usurped--with much levity, I own, but, as heaven is my witness, with no guilty intent."

The Judge, to Grace. "Did you ever see the prisoner on any other occasion?"

Grace. "Only once. He called on me after my marriage. He left the town soon after."

The Judge then turned to Grace, and said, with considerable feeling, "It would be unkind to disguise the truth from you. You must petition Parliament to sanction this marriage by a distinct enactment; it is the invariable course, and Parliament has never refused to make these marriages binding. Until then, pray understand that you are Miss Carden, and not Mrs. Coventry."

The witness clasped her hands above her bead, uttered a loud scream of joy, and was removed all but insensible from the box.

The Judge looked amazed. The Sheriff whispered, "Her husband is a greater scoundrel than this prisoner."

Soon after this the Judge withdrew to luncheon, and took the Sheriff along with him. "Mr. Sheriff," said he, "you said something to me in court I hardly understood."

Then Raby gave the Judge a brief outline of the whole story, and, in a voice full of emotion, asked his advice.

The Judge smiled at this bit of simplicity; but his heart had been touched, and he had taken a fancy to Raby. "Mr. Sheriff," said he, "etiquette forbids me to advise you--"

"I am sorry for that, my lord."

"But humanity suggests--Tell me, now, does this Coventry hold to her? Will he petition Parliament?"

"It is very possible, my lord."

"Humph! Get a special license, and marry Grace Carden to Henry Little, and have the marriage consummated. Don't lose a day, nor an hour. I will not detain you, Mr. Sheriff."

Raby took the hint, and soon found Henry, and told him the advice he had got. He set him to work to get the license, and, being resolved to stand no nonsense, he drove to Grace, and invited her to Raby Hall. "I am to be married this week," said he, "and you must be at the wedding."

Grace thought he would be hurt if she refused, so she colored a little, but consented.

She packed up, with many a deep sigh, things fit for a wedding, and Raby drove her home. He saw her to her room, and then had a conversation with Mrs. Little, the result of which was that Henry's mother received her with well-feigned cordiality.

Next day Henry came to dinner, and, after dinner, the lovers were left alone. This, too, had been arranged beforehand.

Henry told her he was going to ask her a great favor; would she consider all they had suffered, and, laying aside childish delays, be married to him in the old church to-morrow, along with Mr. Raby and Jael Dence?

Oh, then she trembled, and blushed, and hesitated; and faltered out, "What! all in a moment like that? what would your mother think of me?"

Henry ran for his mother, and brought her into the room.

"Mother," said he, "Grace wants to know what you will think of her, if she should lay aside humbug and marry me to-morrow?"

Mrs. Little replied, "I shall say, here is a dear child, who has seen what misery may spring from delay, and so now she will not coquet with her own happiness, nor trifle with yours."

"No, no," said Grace; "only tell me you will forgive my folly, and love me as your child."

Mrs. Little caught her in her arms, and, in that attitude, Grace gave her hand to Henry, and whispered "Yes."

Next day, at eleven o'clock, the two couples went to the old church, and walked up the aisle to the altar. Grace looked all around. Raby had effaced every trace of Henry's sacrilege from the building; but not from the heart of her whose life he had saved on that very spot.

She stood at the altar, weeping at the recollections the place revived, but they were tears of joy. The parson of the parish, a white-haired old man, the model of a pastor, married the two couples according to the law of England.

Raby took his wife home, more majorum.

Little whirled his prize off to Scotland, and human felicity has seldom equaled his and his bride's.

Yet in the rapture of conjugal bliss, she did not forget duty and filial affection. She wrote a long and tender letter to her father, telling him how it all happened, and hoping that she should soon be settled, and then he would come and live with her and her adored husband.

Mr. Carden was delighted with this letter, which, indeed, was one gush of love and happiness. He told Coventry what had taken place, and counseled patience.

Coventry broke out into curses. He made wonderful efforts for a man in his condition; he got lawyers to prepare a petition to Parliament; he had the register inspected, and found that the Shifty had married two poor couples; he bribed them to join in his petition, and inserted in it that, in consideration of this marriage, he had settled a certain farm and buildings on his wife for her separate use, and on her heirs forever.

The petition was read in Parliament, and no objection taken. It was considered a matter of course.

But, a few days afterward, one of the lawyers in the House, primed by a person whose name I am not free to mention, recurred to the subject, and said that, as regarded one of these couples, too partial a statement had been laid before the House; he was credibly informed that the parties had separated immediately after the ceremony, and that the bride had since been married, according to law, to a gentleman who possessed her affections, and had lived with him ever since the said marriage.

On this another lawyer got up, and said that "if that was so, the petition must be abandoned. Parliament was humane, and would protect an illegal marriage per se, but not an illegal marriage competing with a legal one, that would be to tamper with the law of England, and, indeed, with morality; would compel a woman to adultery in her own despite."

This proved a knock-down blow; and the petition was dropped, as respected Frederick Coventry and Grace Little.

Coventry's farm was returned to him, and the settlement canceled.

Little sent Ransome to him with certain memoranda, and warned him to keep quiet, or he would be indicted for felony.

He groaned and submitted.

He lives still to expiate his crimes.

While I write these lines, there still stands at Poma Bridge one disemboweled house, to mark that terrible flood: and even so, this human survivor lives a wreck. "Below the waist an inert mass; above it, a raging, impotent, despairing criminal." He often prays for death. Since he can pray for any thing let us hope he will one day pray for penitence and life everlasting.

Little built a house in the suburbs leading to Raby Hall. There is a forge in the yard, in which the inventor perfects his inventions with his own hand. He is a wealthy man, and will be wealthier for he lives prudently and is never idle.

Mr. Carden lives with him. Little is too happy with Grace to bear malice against her father.

Grace is lovelier than ever, and blissfully happy in the husband she adores, and two lovely children.

Guy Raby no longer calls life one disappointment: he has a loving and prudent wife, and loves her as she deserves; his olive branches are rising fast around him; and as sometimes happens to a benedict of his age, who has lived soberly, he looks younger, feels younger, talks younger, behaves younger than he did ten years before he married. He is quite unconscious that he has departed from his favorite theories, in wedding a yeoman's daughter. On the contrary, he believes he has acted on a system, and crossed the breed so judiciously as to attain greater physical perfection by means of a herculean dam, yet retain that avitam fidem, or traditional loyalty, which (to use his own words) "is born both in Rabys and Dences, as surely as a high-bred setter comes into the world with a nose for game."

Mrs. Little has rewarded Dr. Amboyne's patience and constancy. They have no children of their own, so they claim all the young Littles and Rabys, present and to come; and the doctor has bound both the young women by a solemn vow to teach them, at an early age, the art of putting themselves into his place, her place, their place. He has convinced these young mothers that the "great transmigratory art," although it comes of itself only to a few superior minds, can be taught to vast numbers; and he declares that, were it to be taught as generally as reading and writing, that teaching alone would quadruple the intelligence of mankind, and go far to double its virtue.

But time flies, and space contracts: the words and the deeds of Amboyne, are they not written in the Amboyniana?

One foggy night, the house of a non-Union fender-grinder was blown up with gunpowder, and not the workman only--the mildest and most inoffensive man I ever talked with--but certain harmless women and innocent children, who had done nothing to offend the Union, were all but destroyed. The same barbarous act had been committed more than once before, and with more bloody results, but had led to no large consequences--carebat quai vate sacro; but this time there happened to be a vates in the place, to wit, an honest, intrepid journalist, with a mind in advance of his age. He came, he looked, he spoke to the poor shaken creatures--one of them shaken for life, and doomed now to start from sleep at every little sound till she sleeps forever--and the blood in his heart boiled. The felony was publicly reprobated, and with horror, by the Union, which had, nevertheless, hired the assassins; but this well-worn lie did not impose on the vates, or chronicler ahead of his time. He went round to all the manufacturers, and asked them to speak out. They durst not, for their lives; but closed all doors, and then, with bated breath, and all the mien of slaves well trodden down, hinted where information might be had. Thereupon the vates aforesaid--Holdfast yclept--went from scent to scent, till he dropped on a discontented grinder, with fish-like eyes, who had been in "many a night job." This man agreed to split, on two conditions; he was to receive a sum of money, and to be sent into another hemisphere, since his life would not be worth a straw, if he told the truth about the Trades in this one. His terms were accepted, and then he made some tremendous revelations and, with these in his possession, Holdfast wrote leader upon leader, to prove that the Unions must have been guilty of every Trade outrage that had taken place for years in the district; but adroitly concealing that he had positive information.

Grotait replied incautiously, and got worsted before the public. The ablest men, if not writers, are unwise to fence writers.

Holdfast received phonetic letters threatening his life: he acknowledged them in his journal and invited the writers to call.

He loaded a revolver and went on writing the leaders with a finger on the trigger. California! Oh, dear, no: the very center of England.

Ransome co-operated with him and collected further evidence, and then Holdfast communicated privately with a portion of the London press, and begged them to assist him to obtain a Royal commission of inquiry, in which case he pledged himself to prove that a whole string of murders and outrages had been ordered and paid for by the very Unions which had publicly repudiated them in eloquent terms, and been believed.

The London press took this up; two or three members of the House of Commons, wild, eccentric men, who would not betray their country to secure their re-election to some dirty borough, sided with outraged law; and by these united efforts a Commission was obtained. The Commission sat, and, being conducted with rare skill and determination, squeezed out of an incredible mass of perjury some terrible truths, whose discovery drew eloquent leaders from the journals; these filled simple men, who love their country, with a hope that the Government of this nation would shake off its lethargy, and take stringent measures to defend the liberty of the subject against so cruel and cowardly a conspiracy, and to deprive the workmen, in their differences with the masters, of an unfair and sanguinary weapon, which the masters could use, but never have as yet; and, by using which, the workmen do themselves no lasting good, and, indeed, have driven whole trades and much capital out of the oppressed districts, to their own great loss.

That hope, though not extinct, is fainter now than it was. Matters seem going all the other way. An honest, independent man, who did honor to the senate, has lost his seat solely for not conniving at these Trades outrages, which the hypocrites, who have voted him out, pretend to denounce. Foul play is still rampant and triumphant. Its victims were sympathized with for one short day, when they bared their wounds to the Royal Commissioners; but that sympathy has deserted them; they are now hidden in holes and corners from their oppressors, and have to go by false names, and are kept out of work; for odisse quem loeseris is the fundamental maxim of their oppressors. Not so the assassins: they flourish. I have seen with these eyes one savage murderer employed at high wages, while a man he all but destroyed is refused work on all hands, and was separated by dire poverty from another scarred victim, his wife, till I brought them together. Again, I have seen a wholesale murderer employed on the very machine he had been concerned in blowing up, employed on it at the wages of three innoxious curates. And I find this is the rule, not the exception. "No punishment but for already punished innocence; no safety but for triumphant crime."

The Executive is fast asleep in the matter--or it would long ago have planted the Manchester district with a hundred thousand special constables--and the globule of legislation now prescribed to Parliament, though excellent in certain respects, is null in others, would, if passed into law, rather encourage the intimidation of one man by twenty, and make him starve his family to save his skin--cruel alternative--and would not seriously check the darker and more bloody outrages, nor prevent their spreading from their present populous centers all over the land. Seeing these things, I have drawn my pen against cowardly assassination and sordid tyranny; I have taken a few undeniable truths, out of many, and have labored to make my readers realize those appalling facts of the day which most men know, but not one in a thousand comprehends, and not one in a hundred thousand realises, until Fiction--which, whatever you may have been told to the contrary, is the highest, widest, noblest, and greatest of all the arts--comes to his aid, studies, penetrates, digests the hard facts of chronicles and blue-books, and makes their dry bones live.

The End

"This is the largest trade, containing about three thousand men, and several hundred women and boys. Their diseases and deaths arise from poisoning by lead. The file rests on a bed of lead during the process of cutting, which might more correctly be called stamping; and, as the stamping-chisel can only be guided to the required nicety by the finger-nail, the lead is constantly handled and fingered, and enters the system through the pores.

"Besides this, fine dust of lead is set in motion by the blows that drive the cutting-chisel, and the insidious poison settles on the hair and the face, and is believed to go direct to the lungs, some of it.

"The file-cutter never lives the span of life allotted to man. After many small warnings his thumb weakens. He neglects that; and he gets touches of paralysis in the thumb, the arm, and the nerves of the stomach; can't digest; can't sweat; at last, can't work; goes to the hospital: there they galvanize him, which does him no harm; and boil him, which does him a deal of good. He comes back to work, resumes his dirty habits, takes in fresh doses of lead, turns dirty white or sallow, gets a blue line round his teeth, a dropped wrist, and to the hospital again or on to the file-cutter's box; and so he goes miserably on and off, till he drops into a premature grave, with as much lead in his body as would lap a hundredweight of tea."

"A. What the masters might do.

"1. Provide every forge with two small fires, eighteen inches from the ground. This would warm the lower limbs of the smiths. At present their bodies suffer by uneven temperature; they perspire down to the waist, and then freeze to the toe.

"2. For the wet-grinders they might supply fires in every wheel, abolish mud floors, and pave with a proper fall and drain.

"To prevent the breaking of heavy grinding-stones, fit them with the large strong circular steel plate--of which I subjoin a drawing--instead of with wedges or insufficient plates. They might have an eye to life, as well as capital, in buying heavy grindstones. I have traced the death of one grinder to the master's avarice: he went to the quarry and bought a stone for thirty-five shillings the quarry-master had set aside as imperfect; its price would have been sixty shillings if it had been fit to trust a man's life to. This master goes to church twice a Sunday, and is much respected by his own sort: yet he committed a murder for twenty-five shillings. Being Hillsborough, let us hope it was a murderer he murdered.

"For the dry-grinders they might all supply fans and boxes. Some do, and the good effect is very remarkable. Moreover the present fans and boxes could be much improved.

"One trade--the steel-fork grinders--is considerably worse than the rest; and although the fan does much for it, I'm told it must still remain an unhealthy trade. If so, and Dr. Amboyne is right about Life, Labor, and Capital, let the masters co-operate with the Legislature, and extinguish the handicraft.

"For the file-cutters, the masters might--

"1st. Try a substitute for lead. It is all very well to say a file must rest on lead to be cut. Who has ever employed brains on that question? Who has tried iron, wood, and gutta-percha in layers? Who has ever tried any thing, least of all the thing called Thought?

"2d. If lead is the only bed--which I doubt, and the lead must be bare--which I dispute, then the master ought to supply every gang of file-cutters with hooks--taps, and basins and soap, in some place adjoining their work-rooms. Lead is a subtle, but not a swift, poison; and soap and water every two hours is an antidote.

"3d. They ought to forbid the introduction of food into file-cutting rooms. Workmen are a reckless set, and a dirty set; food has no business in any place of theirs, where poison is going.

"B. What the workmen might do.

"1st. Demand from the masters these improvements I have suggested, and, if the demand came through the secretaries of their Unions, the masters would comply.

"2d. They might drink less and wash their bodies with a small part of the money so saved: the price of a gill of gin and a hot bath are exactly the same; only the bath is health to a dry-grinder, or tile-cutter; the gin is worse poison to him than to healthy men.

"3d. The small wet-grinders, who have to buy their grindstones, might buy sound ones, instead of making bargains at the quarry, which prove double bad bargains when the stone breaks, since then a new stone is required, and sometimes a new man, too.

"4th. They might be more careful not to leave the grindstone in water. I have traced three broken stones in one wheel to that abominable piece of carelessness.

"5th. They ought never to fix an undersized pulley wheel. Simmons killed himself by that, and by grudging the few hours of labor required to hang and race a sound stone.

"6th. If files can only be cut on lead, the file-cutters might anoint the lead over night with a hard-drying ointment, soluble in turps, and this ointment might even be medicated with an antidote to the salt of lead.

"7th. If files can only be cut on bare lead, the men ought to cut their hair close, and wear a light cap at work. They ought to have a canvas suit in the adjoining place (see above); don it when they come, and doff it when they go. They ought to leave off their insane habit of licking the thumb and finger of the left hand--which is the leaded hand--with their tongues. This beastly trick takes the poison direct to the stomach. They might surely leave it to get there through the pores; it is slow, but sure. I have also repeatedly seen a file-cutter eat his dinner with his filthy poisoned fingers, and so send the poison home by way of salt to a fool's bacon. Finally, they ought to wash off the poison every two hours at the taps.

"8th. Since they abuse the masters and justly, for their greediness, they ought not to imitate their greediness by driving their poor little children into unhealthy trades, and so destroying them body and soul. This practice robs the children of education at the very seed-time of life, and literally murders many of them; for their soft and porous skins, and growing organs, take in all poisons and disorders quicker than an adult.

"C. What the Legislature might do.

"It might issue a commission to examine the Hillsborough trades, and, when accurately informed, might put some practical restraints both on the murder and the suicide that are going on at present. A few of the suggestions I have thrown out might, I think, be made law.

"For instance, the master who should set a dry-grinder to a trough without a fan, or put his wet-grinders on a mud floor and no fire, or his file-cutters in a room without taps and basins, or who should be convicted of willfully buying a faulty grindstone, might be made subject to a severe penalty; and the municipal authorities invested with rights of inspection, and encouraged to report.

"In restraint of the workmen, the Legislature ought to extend the Factory Acts to Hillsborough trades, and so check the heartless avarice of the parents. At present, no class of her Majesty's subjects cries so loud, and so vainly, to her motherly bosom, and the humanity of Parliament as these poor little children; their parents, the lowest and most degraded set of brutes in England, teach them swearing and indecency at home, and rob them of all decent education, and drive them to their death, in order to squeeze a few shillings out of their young lives; for what?--to waste in drink and debauchery. Count the public houses in this town.

"As to the fork-grinding trade, the Legislature might assist the masters to extinguish it. It numbers only about one hundred and fifty persons, all much poisoned, and little paid. The work could all be done by fifteen machines and thirty hands, and, in my opinion, without the expense of grindstones. The thirty men would get double wages: the odd hundred and twenty would, of course, be driven into other trades, after suffering much distress. And, on this account, I would call in Parliament, because then there would be a temporary compensation offered to the temporary sufferers by a far-sighted and, beneficent measure. Besides, without Parliament, I am afraid the masters could not do it. The fork-grinders would blow up the machines, and the men who worked them, and their wives and their children, and their lodgers, and their lodgers' visitors.

"For all that, if your theory of Life, Labor, and Capital is true, all incurably destructive handicrafts ought to give way to machinery, and will, as Man advances."

Return to Index for This Novel
Return to Charles Reade Main Page