busy labourer, who was at work upon this
universal holiday. Doors that would have creaked
under less careful and less steady fingers, turned
noiselessly upon their hinges as they admitted
me; and the mouldering floors gave no warning
of my stealthy approach. Only my heart beat,
and my pulses throbbed clamorously in my
ears, until I had to tarry for a minute underneath
the attic, where there was the dull heavy thud
of weighty reams of paper thrown down in
haste. I crept partly up the winding stairs, and
stood still in the deep shadows where I could
see him, myself unseen, at the furthest end of
the crowded room. He had been toiling long,
for the sweat and pallor of exhaustion were upon
his haggard face, and his white lips were pinched
for breath; but still he laboured, bearing piles
of paper, upon which the dust of years had
gathered, out of the dark closet into a scanty space
he had cleared, upon the very spot where the
murdered man had lain. Each packet he
unwrapped and examined carefully, laying it down
with a growing pallor and a deeper sigh, and
retreating again behind the thin partition which
hid him from my sight. At last he stayed so
long that I stole on warily over the piled-up
papers, to the opened door of the secret closet.
He had sunk to his knees, and was holding to
the feeble light of his candle a yellow page, with
writing almost effaced by time— the one stained
paper among thousands of blank and empty
sheets. His thin and wasted fingers grasped it
with a desperate clutch, but he trembled
throughout his whole frame, until he could not
steady himself to read it. One step forward,
and I stood beside him, leaning over him, and in
a moment detecting that the time-stained lines
were in his own handwriting.

"My God!" he gasped, as he felfc the touch
of my dress, and looked up straight into my
bending face; but his painful breath failed him,
and he fell prostrate at my feet, only drawing
under him the paper which he grasped so
desperately. I stood motionless, for before me
were passing, in dreary procession, all the weary,
weary days I had dragged through waiting for
this moment; my seared life, weeks, and months,
and years, crossed in funeral sadness my kindled
memory; until last of all came the vague and
dim but heavenly vision, when on the morning of
this day I bowed my head in prayer, and lifting up
my tearful eyes beheld the " I. H. S.," and heard
a secret voice in my soul whispering, " Jesus, the
Saviour of men."

"George!" I said, stooping over him, and
laying my hand gently upon the grey head at my
feet—" George, I came back to tell you I would
leave this place in pity for myself and you.
To-day and yesterday Heaven has shown me that
there is yet love for us. I have meddled with
vengeance too long. Now it is made clear to me
that I am worse than you, even if you are a
murderer; for I have been your destruction body
and soul."

"That is true!" he cried hoarsely, though
his voice was very low; " help me, Rachel; I
cannot breathe. Raise me up."

I lifted him up in my arms, and rested his
head against me, fanning the stifled air about us
to bring a purer breeze to his quivering lips.
As his strength came back a little I supported
him over the scattered packets, and opened
the narrow window for the evening wind to
breathe upon him. The streets below were dark
and quiet, as with a Sabbath rest from labour,
and no illumination rose up from open shops;
but the stars were come out brightly, and the
moon was shining, though we could not see her
from our western casement, and her yellow light
blending with the glittering of the stars, shed a
faint gleam upon George's pallid face, and his
nervous fingers grasping still the written paper.
Yet the dimness hid the changes that time and
trouble had made; and in that confused glimmering
the features I looked down upon were the
features of my playmate in years gone by, of my
betrothed husband, to whom I had linked myself
for life.

"It is fit for me to die here," he muttered; " I
have been dying by inches ever since; and it is fit
for me to be hurried off at last. Take the paper,
Rachel; it is found too late. There, take it;
it is my legacy to you. You have your secret at
last."

He thrust the paper in my hand, making a
helpless effort to close my fingers upon it,
but I let it float away, and fall rustling on to
the floor. There was no thought in my mind
but of the days of old, when he and I were boy
and girl together. This hideous dream would
be over soon, and I should wake to his
morning call under my window, and my fearful
fancies would be half-laughed and half-caressed
away.

"I'd no thought to do it," he said, speaking
painfully; " he held a bond of mine for a hundred
pounds, and he never let me rest. I was fitting
up my home for Rachel, and he was threatening
me with a prison. The old miser kept his hoard
in the closet yonder, and when he found that I
had seen him go to it— it was late, and he
believed every one of us were gone—he flew at
me like a madman. I never meant to murder
him."

The moon had gone under a cloud; and, behind
us, the candle in the closet burned dim, so that
his face was only a blank whiteness, with two
burning eyes in which the light of life glimmered
fitfully; but I could not turn away my gaze from
it, even to glance round the attic, where the
evening wind was fluttering and rustling many a
sheet of paper, until the whole place seemed
alive with restless sounds and movements. I
drew his head down again upon my bosom,
and laid my cheek against his clammy
forehead.

"I was so strong," he murmured, clenching
his feeble fingers, " I did not know that death
could be in my grip. Rachel, I wrote a confession
—it is there on the floor; take care of it