wilful. My man says as it's no worse nor manslaughter at the most, and that isn't hanging," cried the compassionate woman. Vincent started with the sudden force of passionate dismay and indignation as this horrible truth burst upon him. He thrust away the alarmed policeman, who was off his guard. "Where is she?" cried the young man. "She! Don't you understand me the woman who followed him, tracked him, vowed to kill him-have none of you seen her? Fools! do you think an innocent girl could do it? Where is that woman? Has she come into the house like a ghost without being seen? I tell you she vowed to kill him, and she has done it. Search the house; perhaps she is still here."

"Lord bless us! the poor young gentleman's gone out o' his senses. There's been nobody here but the young woman," cried the landlady. "Not a soul, sir, you may take my word; it was nobody else as done it.

O Lord! what's the good of struggling? Let him go through all the house, if that's what he wants, p'liceman. There ain't nothing to conceal in my house. I feel for him, I do. He's welcome to search all through, he is. There ain't no woman a-hiding here."

At this crisis, while Vincent, half-crazed with the intolerable horror of this new blow, struggled fiercely with the man who had mounted guard upon him, the inspector, a cool and wary Scotchman, made his appearance. The sight of a person indued with some authority recalled the unhappy young man to himself. Before this new judge the whole case was stated, and Vincent eagerly described Mrs Hilyard, whom in other circumstances he might have tried to screen and cover, but whom now he was feverishly anxious to have identified, as having been at least seen by somebody in the house. But his little audience looked at him with incredulous faces, the policeman suspicious,

the woman compassionate, the inspector attentive and taking notes. Nobody had seen her; nothing had occurred to direct attention from Susan; no passing figure or suspicious footstep had complicated the direct unbroken evidence which seemed to connect the unhappy girl with this crime. The inspector, however, who was sufficiently experienced to know that the clearest apparent conclusion is not always the true one, yielded to Vincent's entreaties so far as to have the house searched. No one, of course, was to be found. Up-stairs, in one of the bedrooms, lay a flimsy piece of gauze, which excited Vincent almost beyond the possibility of self-control. It was the blue veilfatal ensign of misery; he seized it in his hands, and would have torn it like a maniac. Then a wiser suggestion came to his disturbed mind. Where was the girl? She had disappeared stealthily and unseen. She had not gone with Susan, who had left the house alone, as all the people about could prove. Who had conveyed away this helpless beautiful child, for whom the disguise of the veil was no longer needed? Even the inspector was roused by this thickening of the mystery. It began to appear probable that some other secret agent had been somehow involved. The suggestion, however, made the people of the house indignant. The landlady's sympathy for Susan turned into hot resentment and indignation. She began to feel her own character involved in the proof of her statement, that nobody else had entered the house. Affairs were still in this state, when Vincent, having satisfactorily proved that he arrived only the night before, and could not possibly have anything to do with the murder, was permitted to go away to hasten to his distressed mother at Carlingford. He went, tortured with the most horrible apprehensions, as was natural, afraid to hope that Susan had gone to her mother,

fearing sudden death, madness, or

suicide, for the unhappy girl thus suddenly reft out of the peacefulness of her youth into circumstances so desperate. When he entered Carlingford late at night, it was with insupportable pangs of suspense and alarm that he looked into the faces he met on the lighted streets. Were they looking at him with a consciousness of some horrible shadow which enveloped him? Tozer's shop was already shut-earlier than usual, surely; and two or three people stood talking at the open door, clearly visible against the gaslight, which still burned bright within, pointing, as Vincent thought, across the street. Farther up, opposite his own house-ah, there was no mistaking that little throng of excited spectators looking up at the lighted windows. The young man rushed upon them with an impulse of unreasoning rage. "What are you doing there?" he shouted hoarsely to the nearest group. The bystanders gave way before him, half- alarmed, halfashamed, and slunk off into the shadows, only, as his eyes, sharpened with passion, could divine, to return again as soon as he was gone. The door opened at the sound of his voice. Several people were in the hall, all in an excited condition. Common life, with its quiet summonses and answers, was over. Wild confusion, agitation, breathless expectancy, surrounded him. His landlady came forward immediately to lament her own misfortune, and upbraid him with the wrong he had done her. "I took in the pastor for a lodger, because he was sure to be respectable and

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steady," cried the hysterical woman, "and this is what he has brought upon me!"

What is the meaning of all this?" said Vincent, looking round him with wild fury; but he did not wait for an answer. He went up to his rooms to know the worst. As he rushed breathless upstairs, loud outcries of delirium reached him.

In his horror and anguish he could not recognise the voice was it his mother who had given away under the terrible burden? He dashed open the door of the sitting-room in which he had spent so many quiet hours. Neither mother nor sister were there; instead of them a rough-featured man in a blue travelling-coat, and Tozer, flushed and argumentative, standing by the table. What the controversy was that was going on between them, the unhappy minister could not pause to think. He went up to the stranger, seized him violently, and ordered him out of the room. He did not understand the explanation that followed, nor Tozer's remonstrances. He forced the fellow to the door, only to be overpowered there by the intervention of the deacon, who grasped him firmly with arms less passionate but stronger than his own. "He has the law on his side," said Tozer; “it ain't for nothing he's here: for the sake of them poor women, keep quiet, and try and come to yourself. I'm your friend, Mr Vincent I always was; I'm not one as will desert a man in trouble. Take time, sir, and consider, and come to yourself-there ain't none but friends here."

When Vincent came to himself, and began to see clearly as they were, without any mists of excitement to obscure them, the true horrors of his position, his mind, driven to its last stronghold, rallied convulsively to meet the worst. Susan who was raving close by.

It was

In his own chair sat the officer of justice, with a warrant in his hands for the arrest of the unhappy girl'; and opposite to himself sat Tozer, the representative of "the connection" of Salem-of all that gave character and bread to the dissenting minister-fully aware of the

horrible circumstances by which he was now surrounded. Vincent recovered himself slowly, and looked his dreadful position in the face; no concealment was possible now -no preserving of appearances, hard though the widow had fought for it. Already all Carlingford believed that the minister's sister was a murderess-already their innocent honourable name was held up to public odium. The young man raised himself up from the sofa on which he had thrown himself, and faced his position, collecting all his forces. He turned his eyes away from the stranger, and turned them upon Tozer. While all was wild, unnatural, and desperate while he was among people who knew nothing of him nor his antecedents, it was more bearable; but the eyes of the butterman bent upon him, brought other aggravations to the misery. All the proprieties of his past life-the honour of his profession, the spotless reputation of his youth-stared upon him in horrible contrast out of Tozer's dull grey eyes. Not his sister's danger or disgrace alone, but his own ruin-the loss of all his training, the shipwreck of his life, flashed upon the mind of the young minister. This had to be faced as well as the darker and more frightful wretchedness.

"If there's anything as can be done," said Tozer, "it's best not to lose no time in doing of it. I'd speak to Mr Brown in the High Street, if I was you. She's young, and was aggravated awful-so the man tells

me.

She might be got off."

He

Vincent made no answer. rose up and approached Tozer, whose friendly looks went to his heart. "Must I endure him here?" said the poor minister; "because of this horrible, false, accursed accusation, must I bear him here?"

"Mr Vincent, sir, you mustn't swear. I'm as sorry for you as a man can be; but you're a minister, and you mustn't give way," said Tozer. "I've been a-trying of him if bail could be took, but they say bail can't be took in a case of murder, and-not meaning to say nothing to vex you-he tells me as the evidence is clear again' her. Well, I won't say no more-to think as a young creature, and a minister's daughter, and a mother like what she's got, could go and do any thing like that, it ain't what a man can believe, Mr Vincent, whatever anybody says; and your own father, if he was living, couldn't be more sorry nor me. But my advice is, keep him here quiet, and don't let nothing get out no more nor can be helped; and if it ain't true, it'll be found out and settled afore the young lady's able to be moved. It's a dispensation o' Providence that she's took so bad now. Hear to her, poor soul!-but, Mr Vincent," said Tozer, drawing him close, and confiding his doubt in a whisper, "what she says is best not to be listened to, if you'll take my advice. It ain't to be built upon what a poor creature says in a fever, but them sort of words and screechings don't come out of nothing but a troubled mind. She might be under great temptation, and do it in a moment unawares. Well, I'll not say no more; but my advice is, as you keep the man quiet here, and don't say nothing about it as can be helped. If it could be kept private from the Salem folks," said Tozer, not without some anxiety in his face, "it would be for the best. Them women do make such a talk about everything. I wouldn't undertake to say but there might be some unpleasantness about it, Mr Vin

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cent," added the worthy deacon, looking up at him with troubled eyes, though how anybody could go for to blame you. But there's pretty sure to be some unpleasantness, and the only way as I can see is just to put up with it, and stand your ground, and do your duty all the same. And I for one will stand by you, sir," said Tozer, rising to his feet with a little glow of conscious generosity and valour, and shaking the hand of the poor young minister with cordial kindness "I'll stand by you, sir, for one, whatever happens; and we'll tide it out, Mr Vincent, that's what we'll do, sir, if you can but hold on."

"Thank you," said poor Vincent, moved to the heart-"thank you. I dare not think how it is all to end, but thank you all the same; I shall not forget what you say.

"And tell your mother," continued Tozer, swelling to a little triumph in his own magnanimity"tell your mother as I said so; tell her as I'll stand by you through thick and thin; and we'll pull through, we'll pull through!" said the butterman, slowly disappearing, with a face radiant with conscious bounty and patronage, through the open door.

Vincent had followed him with an instinct of civility and gratitude. Just as Tozer withdrew, a fresh burst of outcry came from the sickroom, ringing through the excited house. The deacon turned round half way down the stair, held up his hands, listened, and made a movement of wondering pity towards the closed door which hid Susan, but did not keep in her cries. The wretched minister drew back from that compassionate gesture as if some one had struck him a blow. He went back and threw himself down on the sofa, and covered his face with his hands. The pity and the patronage were the last drop of humiliation in his bitter cup. Hot tears came to his eyes; and there, beside him, was Susan's pursuer, watchful and silent, spying upon his misery.

It seemed to him more than flesh and blood could bear.

It

Some time elapsed, however, before Vincent had the courage to meet his mother. When those dreadful outcries sank into exhaustion, and all for the moment was quiet in the sick-room, he sent to tell her he had arrived, and went to the dreadful door which she kept closed so jealously. He was afraid to meet her eye when she came to him, and noiselessly drew him within. Judging by himself, he had not ventured to think what his mother's horror and despair would be. But Mrs Vincent put her arms round her son with an exclamation of thanksgiving. "Oh, Arthur! thank God, you are come. Now I shall be able to bear it," cried his mother. She cried a little upon his breast, and then wiped her eyes and looked up at him with quivering lips. "Oh, Arthur, what my poor darling must have come through!" said Mrs Vincent, with a wistful appeal to him in her tender eyes. She said nothing of the darker horror. lay upon her soul a frightful, inarticulate shadow; but in the mean time she could only think of Susan and her fever-that fever which afforded a kind of comfort to the mother-a proof that her child had not lost her innocence lightly, but that the shock had been to Susan a horrible convulsion, shaking earth and heaven. The mother and son went together to the bedside to look at the unhappy cause of all their sorrows-she clinging with her tender hand to his arm, wistful now, and afraid in the depths of her heart lest Arthur, who was only a man, might be hard upon Susan in her terrible abasement. It was more than a year since Vincent had seen his sister. Was it Susan ? The grandeur of the stricken form, the features sublimed and elevated, the majestic proportions into which this awful crisis of fate had developed the fair-haired girl of Lonsdale, struck her brother with unspeakable awe and pity. Pity and awe; but yet another feeling min

gled in the wonder with which he gazed upon her. A thrill of terror came over him. That frightful, tropical blaze of passion, anguish, and woe which had produced this sudden development, had it developed no unknown qualities in Susan's heart? As she lay there in the majesty of unconsciousness, she resembled more a woman who could avenge herself, than a soft girl, the sudden victim of a bad man. Vincent turned away from the bed with an involuntary shudder. He would not, could not, look at her again: he left his mother to her unceasing vigil, and himself went to his own room, to try if rest were possible. Rest, with his sister accused of

murder, a prisoner in the hands of justice-with that rude sentinel of the law watching lest his prisoner should escape him, making an impromptu couch of Vincent's sofawith Susan herself so strangely changed, turned to another creature, suggesting to her brother's mind awful involuntary visions of passionate self-defence, self-horror, revenge, at the suggestion of which his very heart failed within him,— but weariness is omnipotent with youth. He did sleep by snatches, in utter fatigue and exhaustion

slept long enough to secure for himself the unspeakable torture of waking to the renewed horror of a new day.

To find Susan's pursuer in the parlour when he entered it next morning-to see this man seated at breakfast, in horrible composure and cheerfulness, within hearing of his sister's ravings, was almost more than Vincent could bear. He had to subdue himself by every argument of necessity before he could bring his mind to tolerate the presence of the man who, after all, was compassionate enough, and as unobtrusive as a man could be, whose presence alone was the most unbearable of all intrusions. The minister wasted no time in that desecrated room. When he had seen his mother, who whispered to him accounts of Susan's illness which his brain was too much excited to take in, he went away immediately to the railway, and hastened to town, where he went to consult a lawyer, and to secure the attention of the detective police, in whose miracles of skill he had, like other inexperienced people, the most perfect confidence, to Mrs Hilyard and his own suspicions. Vincent was not rich-all that he had in the world would scarcely be enough to retain a fit defender for his unhappy sister, if she had to undergo that frightful ordeal. Would it not

be better if she died, and escaped that last crowning misery? He took up the papers as the thought entered his mind, while he was still waiting in the lawyer's office. There he found the whole terrible tale made into a romance of real life, with details which made him half mad. As he stood wiping the heavy dew from his forehead, almost frantic with rage and despair, the quick eye of his misery caught a couple of clerks in another corner of the office, over another newspaper, full of lively interest and excitement. It was Susan's story that interested them; the compiler of it had heightened with romantic details those hideous bare facts which had changed all his life, and made the entire world a chaos to Vincent; and all over the country, by this time, newspaper readers were waking up into excitement about this new case of love, revenge, and crime. The minister dashed the paper from his hands, and trod on it with an insane impulse; not enough to be rent asunder in heart and life-not enough to have every hope quenched out of his firmament, and every possibility of honour or happiness extinguished from his existence; but the whole