wonder and satisfaction. I lighted a fire in the
kitchen grate, perhaps for the first time since
the murdered man had perished in the attic two
stories overhead; and drawing up the only chair
in the place to the warm and lightsome hearth,
I sat down with my face resting upon my spread
hands, and with my hearing unnaturally keen for
every sound, I began to think, and consider, and
ponder over many things in my heart.

Until six weeks before I had been earning my
own living comfortably by the embroidery of
religious vestments, in my native town about ten
miles from this; being also betrothed, and on
the eve of marriage to George Denning, the
foreman and ornamental bookbinder for the
murdered man. Through his influence, my only
brother, a lad six years younger than I, had
been received into the same establishment, and
worked under him at the bookbinding. Our
marriage had been put off from time to time,
until George could furnish the cottage he had
taken, which was somewhat larger and better
than befitted our position, so as to satisfy our
fastidious tastes, which had been cultivated and
fostered by the beauty of our employments.
Besides, George was not without some restless
ambition, and, though the murdered man was
always considered very close and miserly, still
he had business sense enough to pay well for the
first-rate workmanship, by which George brought
repute and money to his establishment.

The last embroidery I ever traced was an
altar-cloth of crimson velvet, upon which I had
just finished working the letters " I. H. S." with
rays of golden glory round them, when George
Denning rushed in, ghastly and almost breathless,
and followed closely by a policeman. He
said, though his white lips almost refused to
speak the words, that old Mr. Saxon had been
found dead in the paper-room, and that Willie
was missing. Though his voice shook, he spoke
hurriedly, before the policeman could check him,
as if to give me a hint to conceal anything I
knew. But I knew nothing. All the sunny
morning I had been tranquilly embroidering the
sacred " I. H. S." upon the crimson altar-cloth,
thinking only of the home that was preparing
for me, while the murdered man lay dead, and
Willie was fleeing or hiding for his life. And
wherefore should he flee or hide?

I would not write that dream of agony if I
could. Willie was discovered in the darkest
corner of the steerage of an emigrant ship bound
for America, just as he had fled, without luggage,
almost without a shilling after his passage was
paid. He refused resolutely to give any explanation
of his conduct. But there was nothing,
save his mysterious flight, to fix the crime upon
him, though the whole attic was ransacked for
some clue to the murderers under the vigilant
superintendence of George Denning. The feeble,
infirm old man had been found dead just outside
the closet door, with traces of a vehement
struggle for life about him, and with reams of
paper fallen upon him in such a manner as to prove
that the murderer had thrown them down in
making his escape. But no scrap of evidence
could be brought against Willie, though suspicion,
even my own, was strong against him; and
he pleaded with tears at his trial—for he was
committed to take his trial at the assizes—that
he was not guilty.

That was the verdict returned by the jury,
after a fearfully prolonged deliberation. Even I
did not fully believe in his innocence, so deadly
was the mystery of his flight; but guilty, or not
guilty, he belonged to me alone, and there was
no one else to receive him when the law released
him. They gave him up to me, this pale,
slight, boyish stripling of twenty, with fair curls
and soft blue eyes and tremulous lips like our
mother's— this boy branded with the foul
accusation of murder. We had to be attended by
policemen as we trod our sorrowful way through
the streets, and while Willie cowered into the
furthest corner of the railway-carriage, screening
himself behind me, strange faces came to
stare in upon us; but no man took his seat
beside us. A dull drizzling rain, the rain that
comes with an east wind, was falling when we
reached our native town; yet behind us, and on
each side, but at a marked distance, as if some
ban was upon us, there went with us through
the old familiar streets a band of pointing,
whispering witnesses, while Willie leaned heavily
upon my arm and drooped his head, unable to
bear the dim light of the clouded sky. Every
step was a heart-pang. But we reached home at
last, and, while he slunk in hastily, I turned and
faced our townspeople, until most of them moved
silently and quickly away.

He had sunk down, faint and quivering in
every limb, upon the settle by the fireplace, and,
with a strange calmness, I set about getting tea
ready, as I had done many a Sunday evening
when George and he had come over to see me.
There was a dreary resemblance to Sunday in
that evening. All my work, my embroidery-
frames and reels of coloured silks, were cleared
away out of sight, and we were wearing our
Sunday dress: even the church bells were
chiming for the week-day service, and the old
almswoman, who had been in to light our fire,
had placed the Bible and a hymn-book upon the
table. We were very quiet, too; quieter than
we ever were when George was about the house;
but I was expecting him every minute, and so
was Willie. All the evening, through the splash
of the rain and the moan of the wind, we
listened for the clicking of the latch under his
hand. But I began to understand his absence,
as the clock ticked out the creeping hours moment
by moment; and still George never came.
I called myself down in the depths of my heart,
and even there I tried to root out the thought
lest it should ever betray itself in words; I
called myself the sister of a murderer, and
renounced all claim to be George Denning's wife.

I formed my plans while Willie slept like a
child, worn out with the deathly agitation of the