"imposter"). Then his pink face became overcast.
But it was late, ten o'clock, and he asked the
London maid had her mistress gone to bed?
The London maid, with a toss of her head, said
she would be in bed in ten minutes. The triumph
of the. moment soon, shut out every other thought,
and he took his place in the gig with pride.
"Go to bed, father," he said, sternly, fixing him
with his eye; "you sit up too late. It is not
good for you. If I had a moment, I should
see you in bed before I left."

"Indeed I will," said the old man. "But
what a night for me to be left alone. Do you
hear the wind? Lord have mercy on us. That
we may all die in our beds!"

The son did not wait to hear the last of this
speech, but grumbled as he took his place in the
gig. " He does not think of me out here," he
said. The razors were indeed darting about
wildly. Miss Manuel up in her room, and just
about going to bed, heard the gig wheels and
the voices below, and the news of Squire
Morgan's wife being ill. She heard, too, the winds
growling up the straits sulkily and sourly, as
if they were coming up a tunnel. The London
maid came in and told her all the details—with
great zest, too, for she had now, like other
prisoners, begun to take interest in things like
social prison spiders or Picciolas. Her mistress
listened eagerly.

"Is it far away?" she asked.

"O," the maid answered, "he will be away
the whole night."

"I shan't go to bed yet," said Miss Manuel.
''Don't wait up."

It was an old house, built when the little dun
town was struggling out of being a mere village.
The wooden bow-window rattled, as if the wind
wanted to get in, and was in a fury at being kept
waiting. Every one was keeping close, even to
the old watchman who managed the "curfew"
—for they had their curfew in the dun town—and
he was snugly sitting in the public-house. Miss
Manuel, wrapping a shawl about her, came down
stairs, and saw a light through the glass door of
the parlour. She opened it softly.

The old man was looking nervously at the
clattering windows, shrinking away from each
gust. He did not hear or see Miss Manuel's
entrance. He was saying to himself, in his old
formula, "Lord have mercy on us! That we
may all die in our beds!" when he looked round
suddenly and saw his visitor—that is, a tall flashing
woman with a light in her hand—a spirit
surely, or an angel. For a moment he was terror-
struck. Miss Manuel began to speak cheerfully
to him and with encouragement. But he was
scarcely to be reassured.

"What a night!" said she. "It makes one
feel quite uncomfortable."

"Ay! what a night," he said. "God Almighty
be with us."

"Not a night," said she, "to be sitting alone.
We want company, and not to be left to our own
thoughts."

"No, indeed," said the old man, looking at
her strangely, "and it was odd, wasn't it, that
he should have been sent for to-night, when—
when——"

"When we would like the house to have all
its tenants. Yes," she said, " t is odd. Yet it
has happened fortunately for me. I wished to
speak to you."

"To me!" said the other, starting up. "Why
to me? What do you want to know?"

Miss Manuel smiled. "How odd, now!" she
said. "I never said I wished to know anything.
That would be accepted as suspicious
elsewhere."

"Suspicious! Who is talking of suspicions?"
said the old man, now very agitated.

She fixed her eyes on him. "Why," said she,
suddenly—"why is it that your son always
watches you so?"

"Watches me? No—he does not."

"Yes he does," said she, quickly. "I have
remarked it. It seems as if you had some
secret which he was afraid you would
disclose."

The look of stupid wonder and confusion the
old man gave her, she recollected long afterwards.
He could not answer.

"Another question," said Miss Manuel. "Good
gracious! what a gale. Did you feel the house
rock then? What is the reason that you are
always talking of dying in our beds? I have
heard you say so many times."

He looked at her now quite scared. "Why
do you come to me in this way?" he said, tossing
his hands, "when there is no one in the
house? When he is away? And on such a night,
Lord deliver us! What do you want? You
have some dreadful thing in your mind. And——
I have said nothing and done nothing."

She soothed him. "Don't be alarmed," she
said. "I am very solitary up-stairs. The wind
always frightens me. No wonder I should like
a little company. You talk of dying in our beds,
but think of any poor soul departing on such a
night as this—rushing from the world in a
storm! Are there any now in Beaumaris, I
wonder? I passed a house this very day where
there was a lady dying not so very long ago.
Griffiths's they told me it was called."

The old man was now standing up. "My son
was right," he said; "he told me so. He warned
me. He knew it. Ah! you have watched for this
opportunity. You have got me here alone and
helpless. It is unfair; it is——"

"Hush! hush!" said Pauliue, drawing herself
up. "You will betray yourself. Suppose
that I have? Suppose I have come down to
seek and to discover and to bring tho guilty to
justice—to track out a foul crime? Suppose I
have watched for, and found an opportunity?
Suppose I have found you here alone and helpless,
as you say; you may bless your stars for it!
For it is the only chance that offers to save you
from what you dread, and from what I can see
is preying on your soul and on your conscience.