"Where was Clara?"

"Dear little thing!" said Herbert. "She was
up and down with Gruffandgrim all the evening.
He was perpetually pegging at the floor the
moment she left his sight. I doubt if he can hold
out long, though. What with rum and pepper—
and pepper and rum—I should think his pegging
must be nearly over."

"And then you will be married, Herbert?"

"How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?
—  Lay your arm out upon the back of the
sofa, my dear boy, and I'll sit down here, and
get the bandage off so gradually that you shall
not know when it comes. I was speaking of
Provis. Do you know, Handel, he improves?"

"I said to you I thought he was softened, when
I last saw him."

"So you did. And so he is. He was very
communicative last night, and told me more of
his life. You remember his breaking off here
about some woman that he had had great trouble
with.— Did I hurt you?"

I had started, but not under his touch. His
words had given me a start.

"I had forgotten that, Herbert,
but I remember it now you speak of it."

Well! He went into that part of his life,
and a dark wild part it is. Shall I tell you?
Or would it worry you just now?"

"Tell me by all means. Every word!"

Herbert bent forward to look at me more
nearly, as if my reply had been rather more
hurried or more eager than he rould quite
account for. "Your head is cool?" he said,
touching it.

"Quite" said I. "Tell me what Provis said,
my dear Herbert."

"It seems," said Herbert, "—there's a bandage
off most charmingly, and now comes the cool
one—makes you shrink at first, my poor dear
fellow, don't it? but it will be comfortable
presently— it seems that the woman was a young
woman, and a jealous woman, and a revengeful
woman; revengeful, Handel, to the last degree."

"To what last degree?"

"Murder.—Does it strike too cold on that
sensitive place?"

"I don't feel it. How did she murder?
Whom did she murder?"

"Why, the deed may not have merited quite
so terrible a name," said Herbert, "but, she
was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended her,
and the reputation of that defence first made his
name known to Provis. It was another and a
stronger woman who was the victim, and there
had been a struggle— in a barn. Who began it,
or how fair it was, or how unfair, may be doubtful;
but how it ended, is certainly not doubtful,
for the victim was found throttled."

"Was the woman brought in guilty?"

"No; she was acquitted.—My poor Handel,
I hurt you!"

"It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert.
Yes? What else!"

"This acquitted young woman and Provis,"
said Herbet, "had a little child: a little child
of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the
evening of the very night when the object of her
jealousy was strangled, as I tell you, the young
woman presented herself before Provis for one
moment, and swore that she would destroy the
child (which was in her possession), and he
should never see it again; then she vanished.
—There's the worst arm comfortably in the
sling once more, and now there remains but the
right hand, which is a far easier job. I can do
it better by this light than by a stronger, for my
hand is steadiest when I don't see the poor
blistered patches too distinctly.—You don't
think your breathing is affected, my dear boy?
You seem to breathe quickly."

"Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman
keep her oath?"

"There comes the darkest part of Provis's
life. She did."

"That is, he says she did."

"Why, of course, my dear boy," returned
Herbert, in a tone of surprise, and again bending
forward to get a nearer look at me. ''He
says it all. I have no other information."

"No, to be sure."

"Now, whether," pursued Herbert, "he had
used the child's mother ill, or whether he had
used the child's mother well, Provis doesn't say;
but she had shared some four or five years of the
wretched life he described to us at this fireside,
and he seems to have felt pity for her, and
forbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing he
should be called upon to depose about this
destroyed child, and so be the cause of her
death, he hid himself (much as he grieved for
the child), kept himself dark, as he says, out of
the way and out of the trial, and was only
vaguely talked of as a certain man called Abel,
out of whom the jealousy arose. After the
acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost the
child and the child's mother."

"I want to ask— "

"A moment, my dear boy," said Herbert,
"and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson,
the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels,
knowing of his keeping out of the way at that
time, and of his reasons for doing so, of course
afterwards held the knowledge over his head as
a means of keeping him poorer, and working
him harder. It was clear last night that this
barbed the point of Provis's hatred."

"I want to know," said I, "and particularly,
Herbert, whether he told you when this
happened?"

"Particularly? Let me remember, then, what
he said as to that. His expression was, 'a round
score o' year ago, and a'most directly after I took
up wi' Compeyson.' How old were you
when you came upon him in the little churchyard!"

"I think in my seventh year."

"Ay. It had happened some three or four
years then, he said, and you brought into his
mind the little girl so tragically lost, who would
have been about your age."

"Herbert," said I after a short silence, in a
hurried way, "can you see me best by the light
of the window, or the light of the fire?"