had decided on the laws of Nature as affecting the products of the moon, replied to the ten witnesses of the alleged creature in that orb, "It may be so; at the same time, my persuasions to the contrary are so strong that I must judge for myself," and then looked through the telescope with inquisitive, anxious eyes, perhaps he might have found the wonder explicable, and his system unharmed. He might, indeed, have beheld the monster whose existence seemed to destroy his theory; but discovered, on careful scrutiny, that it was no inhabitant of the moon, but a bluebottle fly that had got on the glass, and, viewed through the magnifier, seemed bigger than a dragon.

Possibly, if a philosopher who possessed in an equal degree the virtue of candour and the acuteness of science, would condescend to examine, as Bacon and Newton would unquestionably have examined, some of the modern thaumaturgia recorded by witnesses whose evidence would decide any matter of fact in any court of law,-possibly he might either make an immense progress in our knowledge of the laws of nature, or prevent

incalculable mischief in the spread of a new superstition. If he say, What you tell me is impossibleI will not stoop to examine," he abandons the field to those who examine, deprived of the guide which his science should be to them; if he come to examine with old-fashioned notions drawn from the last century's stupid materialism, which any youth of our time, fit to mature into physiologist or metaphysician, knows to be obsolete rubbish, he may call himself a philosopher;-posterity will call him some hard name or another; certainly not philosopher. But if he say quietly, with Newton, “It may be so there is no arguing against facts and experiments;' I dare not say that, when you all, being respectable, intelligent men, agree that you see a monster in the moon, you are liars or idiots; but before I believe in the monster, you must permit me to examine the telescope;"-then the philosopher is indeed a philosopher; and then he may find, and then he may prove, to the satisfaction of all whom the portent appalled, that the monster in the moon is a bluebottle fly on the lens.

WHEN Vincent was set down in the darkness and silence of the Sunday night in the Dover railway station, stunned as he was by all that he had heard and seen, and worn out with fatigue and want of rest, his faculties were not at his command, as they ought to have been at the command of a man in such desperate straits, and with such a matter in his hands. When his fellow-passengers trooped away with all the bustle and excitement of travellers who had then only completed the first stage of their journey to the pier, and the night-boat which waited to carry them across the Channel, he, left behind, after being vainly stimulated by various porters and attendants with adjurations to make haste, and warnings that he would be too late, stumbled out at length into the unknown place-into the gloom of night only half aware of the immediate occupation that lay before him. The image of Susan grew hazy before her brother's eyes. Mary's revelation did not move him now with the quickening thrill of anguish and rage which had at first stirred him when he heard it. He had no longer his wits about him; anxiety, fear, the impulse of revenge, were all obliterated by the utter weariness which dulled all his senses, and made the necessity of throwing down his wearied limbs in some corner, and somehow dropping to sleep, more imperative than any other need. He had not energy enough to ask where the hotel was to which Mary had directed him, but wandered along in the darkness with the sound of the sea booming in his ears-sounding all the more thundery and tempestuous because it was unseen. This heavy unaccustomed cadence aided the dull effect of weariness. His own thoughts left him altogether-he

was scarcely conscious of anything but the measured roll of the sea and the languor of his own wornout frame, as he went on mechanically towards the lights before him. When he came into the brighter street, and began to encounter other wayfarers, his mind returned to him so far that he became dimly aware of what he had to do. The hotel of which Mary had told him was directly in his way, and the sight of it roused him still further. He went in and asked first for Mr Fordham, and then for Colonel Mildmay, without any success. Then he described the party-a tall man with light thin hair and mustache, two ladies, one with a blue veil. With a pang which penetrated through the cloud of fatigue which enveloped him, he did his best to describe Susan as he had seen her last, and repeated with melancholy mechanical iteration the one circumstance he knew about the other companion of her flight-the blue veil. This dreadful piece of female drapery seemed to float through the occurrences of the past week, visible through the feverish haze which obliterated all distinctions of day and night, and made a kind of dull eternity, broken by no divisions of time, of this terrible crisis in Vincent's history. The description, however, gained him some information, though not what he sought. The party had left the inn an hour or two before-suddenly, as if upon some sudden news or unexpected necessity-where, nobody could tell. Vincent received the account of their departure dimly, scarcely able to follow its details; but he understood that it was most probable they must have gone across the Channel, and had consciousness enough left to rush as fast as his wearied limbs would carry him to the pier. Had he been in time

enough, he would have leaped on board the boat without further question, and gone hopelessly far away from poor Susan and her terrible fate; but the coloured lamp on the mast of the steamer was just gliding out of the shelter of the harbour as he stumbled down through the darkness into the midst of the dispersing lookers-on. Nobody there could tell him anything about that blue veil; there was no other boat till morning and whether the party he pursued had gone in this one, he could get no information. It was very late, very dark and cold, and the ominous moan of the sea again bewildered all the confused powers he had left. He took his troubled way back again to the inn, possessed above everything with an overwhelming desire to throw himself down somewhere and rest. When he had got into a room there, he summoned once more the waiter who had first identified the fugitives. He wanted to hear over again, if perhaps he could understand a little more clearly this time the particulars of their departure.

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"It's my opinion they've not gone off yet," said the man: just afore you come in, sir, going the opposite way from the pier, I see the manservant passing by. It was he as took off the boxes; but they hadn't no boxes-what am I thinking of -that was the wonderfullest thing about them; the bags and the wraps, and them things. I don't believe they have gone off-not after seeing the man."

"Then where do you think they are?" said Vincent, getting up wearily. He threw on again the coat he had just taken off with a sigh of fatigue and exhaustion : as long as anything could be done he must not rest; but rest was the thing which of all others appeared at that moment most desirable in

and ask at the railway, and—and at the livery stables, if they've hired any carriages-or anywhere else as could be thought upon. There's an up train as is just off; shall I send to the station and make inquiries if they've been seen there?" "Do," said Vincent, dropping back again into his chair. He threw himself on the sofa when the waiter left him, and was so deep asleep when that functionary returned, that, stranger though he was, he had not the heart to wake the worn-out young man. It was morning before the young minister awoke out of that profound slumber-woke chilled, and aching, and confused, in the dark, with the untouched meal, which he had ordered the previous night, still on the table, the candle flaring in its socket, and he himself totally unaware how long he had lain there. He stumbled up, making an effort to recover himself, but only to find, when he looked at his watch by the expiring light of the candle, that it was still early morning-too early to do anything-and that he must have slept for hours. In the interval that elapsed before the first sounds of awakening life in the house, he had time to go over all the succession of events which had made this last week more important than many past years. Of all that had happened, two particulars remained most deeply impressed upon Vincent's mind - Mrs Hilyard's face in that railway carriage looking out upon him, calm, deadly, conscious of its terrible purpose-and poor Mary's burst of inconsolable weeping, expressive beyond all power of words, when he had asked her for Susan. Such thoughts made the daylight hideous as it crept chill and slow upon the awakening house. Pale, grim, and ghastly was the face which the unhappy young man saw in the glass as he attempted a hasty toilette. No news of the fugitives had been heard at the railway. They had not left by the morning boat-so the waiter informed him when he

went down-stairs; the rest was in his own hands.

But a man, accustomed only to the habits of an honourable and virtuous life, is sadly at a loss when he has to contend with the devices of guilt and cunning. Vincent went to inquire at the other hotels-went to the pier, the railway, the liverystables, as his friend the waiter suggested, without hearing anything of the party of which he was in search. He spent all the morning so, always baffled and growing hopeless. Another steamer sailed at mid-day, by which, if he obtained no information in the mean time, he had resolved to cross over to Calais, and try whether any clue were to be obtained there. With this thought in his mind, he was making his way through a back street towards the hotel, where already the prompt curiosity and interest of the common mind in anything mysterious had made him almost a person of consequence. Round one of the houses in the street a little crowd had congregated. As Vincent approached, a policeman darted forth from the throng, jumped into a passing cab, and drove off at a noisy pace, making more demonstration than speed. "He'll get her, sure enough," said one of the bystanders, as Vincent came up. "Murder will out. He'll run her down afore she's far from here. She ain't got such a start, but that Jim will soon be on her heels; and I shouldn't wonder if there was a good reward. He's a gentleman, though he's a bad 'un -that's clear."

"Yes," said a woman; "it's only them as calls themselves gentlefolks as ever do put a poor girl crazed o' that way. Poor soul! They say she ain't no more than twenty or so by her looks; and if it wasn't murder, and law, and the crowner, and all that, oh, wouldn't it be served him right, the villain, to drive a poor thing out o' her senses, and ruin her, and bring her to shame! It's him as Jim should ha' been after, and not her as is drove out o' her wits, and don't

VOL. XCII.-NO. DLXIII,

know what's she adoing of; and I hope she'll get clear out o' his hands, and get off, if she has killed the man. He's done worse nor kill her."

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What is it?" asked Vincent, with a warning thrill in his breast. Oh, sir, it's a poor thing as has been ruined and betrayed, and she's been and took a pistol and shot him, and the police is after her. I see them come in last night. There come three in a cab, though this ain't no place for gentlefolks. I said to my master, says I, they ain't no good, folks like that a-coming to the Swan; and look ye here, what's come of it? There was one on 'em was lovely-that one in the blue veil."

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Make way y!" said Vincent, with a stifled cry. He pressed in through the crowd, conscious of nothing round him, putting aside with mechanical care the women and babies who clustered closest to the door. His visible excitement was irresistible, and could not be set aside. The policeman at the door suffered him to enter in the whirlwind of passion which enveloped him. He sprang up the stairs in two or three steps, pressed to a halfopen door, within which he saw some people assembled, and, unawares thrusting aside a man who stopped him, went into that chamber of death. Several people were round the bed-one a surgeon, occupied with the prostrate figure there. Vincent, over the heads of the spectators, gazed with burning eyes at that horrible spectacle. No thought of Susan was in his mind, as with haggard face and horror-stricken soul he gazed at the shattered head bound up in bloody bandages, scarce recognisable, except by sharp eyes of love or hate, which lay on that mean pillow. "She has kept her word," he said to himself, with a groan of horror. He did not observe the start and rustle round him, which proved that he had spoken aloud. He was far too deeply absorbed to think of himself, or to remember that he had any interest in the matter. She had kept her

Y

word. There he lay, no longer capable of harm, that villain, without ruth or mercy, whom the young priest would not curse at her bidding, yet whom he had cursed in the anguish of his heart. Murdered! Vincent's heart stood still; his pulses refused to beat; his very life forsook him at the sight. He stood there, gazing with the fascination of horror, unaware of the curiosity that now centred upon himself. Either his own eyes were dizzy with the spectacle, or some feeble power of movement still remained in the murdered body; but his mind was too much stunned to consider which it was.

"You must come out of here," said the man at the door, grasping him rudely by the arm. "Nobody's allowed in here but the doctors and the police. Who is it that's kept her word-eh? What do you mean? You'll speak to the inspector, you shall, before you get out o' here."

"Where is she?" said Vincent, as he yielded mechanically to the touch, and followed the guardian of the death-room into another apart

ment.

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Maybe you can tell us?" said the suspicious policeman. "She's kept her word, eh, has she? I'll put down them words. You'll wait for the inspector before you get out of here."

"And the others," said Vincent, waking slowly out of that trance of horror; "where are those unhappy girls? they have nothing to do with it. One of them is my sister; let me see her. I have come after that

that accursed villain there. God forgive me; he has gone to his account I have followed him to rescue my sister. Call the people of the house; they will know where she is. What do you mean by keeping your hand on me?"

"Cause o' what you said. She's kep her word," said the policeman. 'You just give an account of yourself afore you leave here. I don't know about no girls; there was one with him-light-haired, twenty

year old or so, pretty looking, as is the one as has done the deed. Jim Daly's gone after her. He'll bring her back, I reckon, to-night, and then you'll see whether she's kep her word or not."

Vincent sat down mechanically, and gazed at the speaker with uncomprehending eyes. The fact that he himself was detained did not strike him at first, for Susan must be here; neither was his intelligence sufficiently disengaged to understand that his sister was accused. Close by him was a bell; he rang it violently, as the first means that occurred to him of throwing light on the matter. The sound brought up the terrified mistress of the house, attended half-way up the stair by a throng of curious women. The landlady was only too glad to be permitted to speak. She poured out upon him the tragic history of the night and morning. As Vincent listened-often breaking in upon her at first with questions, but at length, as the horrible truth dawned upon him, suddenly regaining his self-command, and following the tale with breathless dismay and terror-the true state of the case became dreadfully apparent. Susan, and no other, appeared against that lurid firmament. It was she who, when the sharp report of the pistol startled the house, was met on the stair, ghastly and pallid, escaping from the scene of the murder. The people of the house were profuse in regrets that they had suffered her to escape; but "when she came she was that innocent and distressed-looking, sir," said the apologetic landlady. "She kind o' clung to me, sir, and said as they were agoing to be married; for I could tell as they weren't married, and something was wrong. She kept close by the t'other miss, the poor soul did; and how he got her by herself I couldn't tell nobody. I reckon he druv her to it with some bad usage or other; that's all as I can tell. I think, for my part, as she snatched up the pistol to save herself. I don't believe as it was