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sight had called up. What made her turn so suddenly pale again? The first whisper of a doubt was heard. Oh how indignantly she repelled it the next moment, with expanded nostril and curling lip, as if some one else had hinted a suspicion of him she loved. It was folly-madness to think of such a thing. What Fairfax, the brave, the noble, the to hurt a poor old man like that! But, oh, that clinging thing, doubt, how it adheres to the human mind when once it has got the least hold! She asked herself whether the lover might not have met the husband, and whether some quarrel might not have ensued? A chance blow!-Heaven and earth, how her brain reeled! that mysterious hundred pounds which he had more than once mentioned, without ever stating how it had been obtained, telling her he could not explain-his abhorrence of the subject of her ill-starred marriage-of the very name of Kenmore-all came rushing upon her in a moment.

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Nonsense, nonsense!" she cried; but the agitation of the very thought was too much, and she fell fainting upon the floor.

She did not lie there long, for the man-servant came seeking her, to tell her that Ben Halliday was in the hall, and wished to speak with her. When he found his fair mistress fainting on the carpet he rang loud, and called for help, and Halliday himself ran in with the maid. When laid upon the sofa, a little water sprinkled on her face soon brought Margaret back to consciousness, and when her recollection fully returned she felt ashamed of the agitation she had experienced and its cause. Rising gracefully from the couch, she thanked the faithful people round her, said she was better, and seeing Halliday there, asked if he wanted any thing.

"Yes, my lady," replied the good man; "but it will do quite well another time."

"No, Halliday, no," she answered, "I am nearly well again now. I will speak with you in a minute," and she put her hand to her head as the same train of thoughts which she strove to banish returned.

is it, Halliday?" she inquired.

The man paused, looking at the servants, and then replied, time will do quite well, my lady."

"What

"Another

"Leave us, William, and you too, Martha," said Margaret, speaking to the footman and her maid," now, Halliday, what is it?"

"Why it was first about my cousin Jacob, my lady," replied Ben Halliday, "I have never yet liked to ask you to give him work, for poor fellow he has been driven by poverty and other things to do a good deal that he ought not to do, and I have helped him as far as I could myself ; but he spoke to me about it the other day, and seemed very much vexed that he could not earn his bread honestly, and he promised upon his word if you would give him a trial he would never do a wrong thing again. I told him that I would let you know what he said, but that I would not hide from you that I knew he had been a good deal out poaching; but I do believe it was only to feed his wife and boy."

"Well, try him, Ben," replied Lady Fairfax, with an absent air, "but only you must see he keeps his word. Was there any thing else you wished to say?"

"Nothing, my lady," replied Ben Halliday, "but only, if Sir Allan had been at home, to give him back something he left at my cottage one morning, between two and three years ago.”

"Ah, when was that?" asked Margaret, eagerly.

"Oh, ma'am, it was just at a time that is not pleasant to speak of," replied the good man, "he came so kindly-it was the very morning after, and hardly daylight; and when he found how ill I was he gave me five sovereigns. When he went away we found a key upon the floor, just where he had been sitting. He must have dropped it when he took out his purse, I think, and I have always been wishing to give it back, but have forgotten."

"The morning after?" said Margaret, gazing at him with a straining eye, "after what?"

"Oh, a very sad night, my lady,” replied Halliday, very good man in these parts."

"A key!" said Margaret, "a key! let me see it."

"when we lost a

"Oh yes, my lady," replied the peasant, feeling in his pockets. "Ay, here it is," and he produced a strong and very peculiar key. Margaret started up and caught it from his hand.

"It is mine," she said, with a gasp, gazing at it with deep melancholy, "it is mine." She knew it too well; it was the key of Kenmore's iron safe, and the next moment she fell back again in another death-like swoon.

"What a fool I was to talk to her about the good Doctor's murder," said Halliday, running to the door to call the servants. But this time all their efforts were unavailing to recall her to herself, and they had carried her to her bed-room about five minutes, when Fairfax himself returned.

He was by her side in a moment; he held her in his arms; he directed prompt and judicious means for her recovery, and in about a quarter of an hour Margaret opened her eyes again, and found her head resting on her husband's bosom.

Who can tell the emotions of that moment? love, confidence, fear, doubt, suspicion, mingling in the most strange and fearful chaos that ever found place in human heart. She lay there and sobbed, and Fairfax soothed and supported her, utterly ignorant of all that was passing within. She grew a little calmer, but fits of deep and intense thought seized her, which he could not at all comprehend; and though she declared she was better, and rose from her bed, re-adjusted her dress, and strove to appear as ordinary, her manner was so different from that of the frank, straightforward, warm-hearted Margaret Graham, that her husband was pained as well as alarmed. She was cold, absent, thoughtful, and sometimes she gazed at him with eyes full of tenderness and affection, sometimes seemed to shrink from him with a chilly shudder. Then she would fall into reveries so profound that he would speak without her hearing him, and start when he repeated his words, as if caught in some guilty act. The conflict in her breast was terrible during all that live-long day and the night that followed. Sometimes the emotions of different kinds would come upon her all at once; sometimes present themselves singly. Now love would be triumphant, and she would say to herself that it was impossible he could be guilty; such deeds were not in his nature; and she would resolve to tell him all; but then again she would recollect that he had told her the news of her marriage to another had well nigh driven him mad-that it had changed his nature and his character-that for some time he had hardly known what he did. She would ask herself, if she did tell him, and the dreadful suspicion should prove true, what was to follow then?

It was

It had well nigh turned her brain; but still she paused and pondered, weighing all the circumstances, thinking over all the events, and still she found fearful evidence against which she had nothing to oppose but love and love's confidence. At one moment she thought that any thing would be better than such terrible doubt, and she determined boldly to speak; but then her courage failed her. She felt she dared not; it seemed as if the first words might blast all her happiness for ever. plucking the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the taste of which would bring death into the Eden of her love. She thought what would be her feelings if he hesitated, if he faltered, if all could not be explained clearly; of what must be her conduct if her dreadful doubts were confirmed-of the new struggles that must take place, of the anguish and the fears that would be in store; and she fancied that ignorance-even partial ignorance were better than more certain knowledge. At length she resolved to believe him innocent, to forget what she had seen and learned, to trust implicitly that all could be explained. To believe! to forget! to trust! Those are things beyond man's will to accomplish. She felt it-she felt that if she could believe, and forget, and trust, why no tspeak at once? But her heart failed her, and her mind vacillated between convictions and lines of conduct incompatible with one another. No sleep visited her eyes that night, and she rose pale and wan, and still sad and thoughtful. Fairfax sent for a physician, but what could the man of healing do? He felt her pulse; he declared her somewhat hysterical. He could see nothing more. He ordered her some insignificant draught. He could do nothing less. Fairfax questioned the servants as to whether any thing had occurred to agitate or alarm their mistress during his absence. They knew of nothing. He questioned Margaret herself, and she burst into tears, but did not answer. The tone of her mind was shaken with the struggle. The natural frankness of her character was overawed by a great terror, and though now she longed to speak she could not.

Fairfax was puzzled, grieved, alarmed, somewhat offended. Another day passed, and another. The physician saw her twice, and hinted that there was no disease-that there must be something mental. Fairfax tried to sooth; but the delay had rendered that conduct still more difficult, which she had at first shrunk from, and had given suspicion stronger hold upon her mind. The facts had arranged themselves more clearly. Two articles of the dead man's property seemed clearly traced to her husband's possession. He had suddenly, as he acknowledged, become possessed of a sum of money, which she knew must have been about the amount on the murdered man's person; he must have been near the spot at the time; he never explained how he had obtained that sum; he studiously avoided naming the dead. She tried hard not to believe it, not to doubt, not to suspect, but still she could not avoid a sensation of shrinking fear when he touched her.

Fairfax perceived it, and his spirit took fire. His brain, too, seemed to give way. He grew cold, and haughty, and stern. He called Margarethis Margaret," Madam," and at length, on the morning of the fifth day, he started at daybreak from the bed which had become a place of torture for him, and which Margaret had bedewed with her tears; and telling his servant that he should most likely not return all day, he went forth, and took his way in search of utter solitude towards the moors.

SECRET HISTORY OF THE COURT, MINISTRY, AND TIMES OF GEORGE IV.

WITH ANECDOTES OF REIGNING DYNASTIES, ARISTOCRACIES, AND PUBLIC MEN, INCLUDING RUSSIAN CZARS, AUSTRIAN EMPERORS, FRENCH KINGS, ROYAL DUKES, SECRET SERVICES, &c. &c.

BY AN OLD DIPLOMATIST.

CHAP. VIII.

London, 5th of July, 1816.

THE documents relative to the proposed treaty between America and Russia are of amazing importance. The Opposition are astonished! They say, if no other evidence appeared before their eyes, these reports, if true, are sufficient to deter them from taking office on any terms whatever. "Instead of five years, the country will be finished in three." They are right;" ad interim, affairs go on progressively with great strides! Liverpool emphatically said, a few days since, to Byrne of the Post, "During the war we looked forward with hope to its termination, now the war is at end we have nothing to hope for."

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The more minutely we examine the present crisis of affairs, at home and abroad, the more strongly are we impressed with the belief that things are drawing to a close! If we pass in review the private lives and public characters of every individual, in every department of the state, we can entertain little doubt whether they rest their stability on popular esteem or public services, or on the strength of private combination. There was a day when the virtue of Britons shone in its fullest lustre, when public spirit influenced the hearts and guided the judgments of men; when the pen of a Junius probed each public character, and marked the worthless with the indelible stigma of infamy, He was then believed. Our opinions have changed with the times. But shall England become the helpless prey of northern, as well as native locusts? Shall we, with cool indifference, see our country chained like Prometheus to a rock, and her remaining vitals devoured by vultures, yet make no effort to relieve her? Shall the historian of our times, comparing the late Lord Chatham to the Philopomen of the Greeks, or the Brutus of the Romans, say "That he was the LAST of ENGLISH FREEMEN?"

The town is still lost in conjecture as to the object of W's return; some assert that he is to be at the head of a new administration. This the Opposition do not believe; they add that not the best understanding

Witness the repeated and disgraceful renewal of the Anglo-Dutch pension to Russia, when the causes of it had wholly ceased, when the law of nations had pronounced England wholly exonerated, and the contracting party (Russia) had violated every compact upon which it was based. And the country is still doomed to hear from the lips of the first minister of the crown, the humiliating avowal, that the dishonourable tribute-for such it really is-must still be paid from apprehension of the consequences, if we should dare to act with justice and dignity, to vindicate our insulted honour, and our national independence, from so galling a money-yoke borne for the most sanguinary and unprincipled of all European powers.-Ed.

subsists between the Marquis and the Duke-the former accuses the latter of double dealing!

I saw Lord Gyesterday for the first time. He received me politely yet coldly. I asked him a few questions which he answered with such nonchalance, that I was not induced to prolong the interview. I showed him the paragraph in your last letter; he said "he did not believe it,” thought that things would remain in the same state on the continent. "It was desirable that they should continue so."

The Regent is not the man he was! Still nothing but the divorce occupies his attention. A mass of evidence has been collected by Lord Ex-th, the Prince is continually harassing the ministers on this ungracious subject.

What think you of Count Munster's playing a leading card? It is thus contrived: a dutiful and legal address shall be presented in the name of the people of Hanover, stating that they are apprehensive of being separated from the crown of England, in consequence of the relative situation of the royal family; they therefore pray that the Regent will adopt such measures as may be likely to prevent such an event.

The plot to blow up the Duke of Wellington with all his host, and the royal family of France, at his lordship's farewell ball, in France, I find, has ended in smoke. The Courier, whose active and intelligent correspondent claims credit for being the original reporter of this great explosion, has been, since the first announcement of this tremendous plot, endeavouring to fight out of it. The first account stated that it was the act of a conspiracy, of which several of the members were in custody. It is now said to have been the single act of an individual not yet discovered. This is a most rare plot. Paddy M'Kew's plot, or even the Roscrea plot, in which the Rev. Mr. Hamilton was burnt in effigy, sinks into nothing, compared with the plot to smoke the Duke of Wellington and his company out of his hotel. To be serious, what is really the cause of the Duke's return?

The W. bankers are gone to Newgate. The extents are gone down to Durham and Newcastle for 130,000l. The collieries are stopped! Several magistrates left town last week with their pockets well lined from the Treasury. "There, my good fellows, is a pound note for each of you, return home to your friends or families." The poor fellows gave three cheers, and "to the right about wheel."

Four o'clock p. m.-A report is in circulation that government have issued impress warrants, I have it from a naval officer; he says that ministers have received information of a bustle in the Dutch ports.

No less than twenty-eight banks (Scotch ones) drew upon Bruce's house which lately stopped.

Lord was the bearer of the evidence against the princess; he is said to have planted two persons in her establishment who made a regular report, in writing, of what they saw and heard.

Daily conferences are held at C- House between W. and the Regent. The ministers are in a state of horrible alarm and dismay. Liverpool declares that he is quite broken down. Despondency has already so far prevailed that even the wonted energies of Castlereagh have sunk into a state of apathy. What a change!

The Prince Regent yesterday prorogued the Parliament by a speech from the throne, in which we find the following important passage: "The assurances which I have received of the pacific and friendly

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