me with languid and gloomy eyes, " there is no
secret. I know nothing but what you know. Of
course Willie thinks that I believe him innocent,
as I do, upon my own soul. How could a lad
like him be guilty of such a crime? It will make
no difference between us, that suspicion fell upon
him, Rachel. I meant to see him before he
sailed, but I was so ill. See how I tremble even
now."

He did tremble like one of the young leaves
upon the slender twigs of the poplar-trees in the
hedge-rows, and his voice was more shaken than
his frame.

"George," I answered, "though I was Willie's
own sister, I did not clear him. Why did he fly
like a criminal, and hide for his life? There is
some reason, some secret between you, and I will
find it out. If it takes my whole life, I must
know it. There can be nothing more between us,
unless you will tell me. Oh! tell me. I love
you; but I am no silly girl to love you blindly.
I will never marry you with a mystery that may
be murder between us. How did this old man
die? Who was the murderer, George? And
why should you and Willie risk everything to
screen him?"

"There is no mystery," he said, in a tone of
weariness, and leaning his head back against the
wall, with his eyes closed, and his pale sunken
face upturned to mine; " I know nothing,
Rachel. Willie fled in a kind of panic; that is
all I know. You are sacrificing yourself and me
for nothing; but if you will leave me, you must;
I cannot help it. I did not think you could
speak and look like this; when I am ill, too. I
should like you to go away now, and write to me
when you are calmer. You excite me too much."

He spoke in the petulant manner of a sick
man, and I tried to soothe him; but he seemed
impatient for me to be gone, and I left him, looking
back as I stepped out of the shadow of the
porch, to catch a farewell glance of mingled
agony and relief upon his wasted face. I went
home to my native town, and settled my few
affairs there, with the determination to return,
and put myself into some position where I could
watch him constantly, or regain my influence
over him, I had heard of a woman being wanted
in Mr. Saxon's binding-room, and I applied
immediately to him for the place, giving an assumed
name, and securing myself from detection as
William Holland's sister.

II.

So all that night I sat up, being too wakeful
and feverish for any thought of sleep; sometimes
resting for an hour upon the haunted hearth, and
then pacing to and fro through the empty, sounding
rooms, and trying restlessly the locked doors
of those workrooms where I was to meet with
George; for to-morrow, Mr. Saxon had said, his
foreman, who had been dangerously ill, was about
to resume his employment. He would not dream,
let the visions of his troubled sleep be wild as
they might be, of the meeting that lay before him
on this day, that was dawning faint and grey
through the deserted house. At an early hour
the other workmen came, and saw in me a grave,
quiet, dull woman, who was willing to be a drudge
to her sewing-press; but I was waiting stealthily
for George. To me there were no other beings
in the world but our two selves, no other interest
but the secret between us. I heard him coming
up the outer stair, which led from the yard, step
by step, while I sat still at the sewing-press,
working at the handicraft I had learned as a child.
There was something death-like in his face, a
livid, leaden dawning of despair, when he saw
me, though his former comrades flocked in from
other workrooms to welcome him. We were
not alone once during the day; and as the hours
passed by, I perceived a change coming over his
expression—a dogged, sullen aspect of resolve;
a strong making up his mind to the contest with
me.

I thought I had not entered upon my mode of
action rashly, yet I had not in the least foreseen
what my life would be. I reckoned upon George
yielding in a few weeks at the utmost, and
confiding his secret, whatever it might be, to my
keeping. But I had not counted upon the slow
and torturing death of love, and the deadly
suspicion, ever strengthening itself, that sprang
up in its place. My impressions of the crime I
was setting myself to track out had been as vague
as those of any woman's would be, when the
guilt appeared to rest either upon her lover or
her brother; nor had I measured my strength
for the dreadful task I had chosen. When the
hours of work were over, and every one except
myself left the blood-stained and abandoned
dwelling, then I began to know full well, with a
deep, and keen, and awful insight, what the sin
was, which had driven my brother into exile, and
the secret of which was hidden in the heart of
my betrothed husband. Then—when there came
the ghostly sense of a presence that had passed
away bodily, but might still be lurking unheard
and unseen about the place of violence; when
my feet trod the stairs up which the murdered
man had ascended to meet his death; when I
sat upon the hearth, where he had rested for the
last time, thinking little that its homely warmth
and light were to be never more for him—then I
realised the utter horror of the deed of murder
that had hurried him out of life, without time for
preparation or repentance. During the long
summer evenings of the first year, after Mr.
Saxon had gained enough confidence in me to
leave the workrooms unlocked, I used to mount
to that fatal attic, where the daylight lingered
some half-hour after it had forsaken the streets
below; and amid the countless pages of blank
paper, wondered whether any of them would
ever be employed in sending forth the haunting
secret to the world. These walls which I could
touch; yonder eye-like window with its beam of
disclosing light; these had sheltered and shone
upon the murderer in his deed, as they sheltered
and shone upon me. This dead and secret