first, but as they gazed, the characters assumed
a certain clearness and coherency, becoming at
last intelligible. The forms seen dimly in the
darkness took shape now, and grim and ghastly
forms they were.

Gilbert was the first to break the silence.

"What did that dreadful woman mean?" he
asked. "What—what," and here he hesitated
in spite of himself—"was that she said about
last night?"

The events of that past day and night were
ranging themselves in order in Gabrielle's mind
as her husband spoke. Every little thing that
had taken place was being repeated before her
mental vision.

"Oh, Gilbert," she cried, "what have I done?
I do not even dare to think of what may come
of it."

"Come of what?" he repeated mechanically.
He would not own to himself even that he
knew.

"Of all that took place yesterday," continued
Gabrielle; "of the words that passed between
us—the angry words, and then what followed.
That last food which she partook of coming
through my hands, and after that—her—her
DEATH."

Penmore could not repress a groan of anguish.
With his quick perception and legal training he
could not help seeing how easily what had happened
on the previous day might be misrepresented,
and what a fearful strength of evidence
might thus be accumulated against his wife.

"Will they kill me, Gilbert?" she asked.
"What will they do to me?"

Her husband gazed at her as if hardly
understanding what she said.

"They will suspect you, that is what I fear,"
he answered at last. "The horrible coherency
with which these things hang together, may make
them suspect you, and that is bad enough—bad
enough," he repeated.

They sat side by side silent for a while, their
cold hands locked together. There was much of
the boy and girl about them still. They had sat
so in the old West Indian time, when their first
sorrow, the dread of separation, had come upon
them.

The husband seemed now to be almost the
greater sufferer of the two. From time to time
a sort of shudder passed through all his frame.
He seemed unable to help dwelling on those
dreadful and damning circumstances. " Great
Heaven!" he cried, but faintly, and as if some
hideous sight were revealed to his eyes, " what
evidence in wicked hands;" and then he repeated,
as if it were some dreadful refrain, those words,
"The last food partaken of at night, by her who
was to die before the morning."

Gabrielle uttered a faint cry. The same
thoughts which had passed through her
husband's mind were in hers also. Link by link the
great chain of evidence which might be turned
against her, seemed to become developed before
the eyes of both husband and wife.

"Oh, Gilbert," cried the latter after a time,
"you will not hate me for what I have done. I
don't mean what I have done; you can't hate me
for that, because I only sought to make my peace
with her, but for the dreadful consequences, the
disgrace that may come of it. Oh, Gilbert, darling,
whatever I may have to suffer, let it not be
in one way, dear, not in losing you, my love.
You will still love me and trust me whatever
happens, will you not, and never let even one
unkind thought come between us to separate
us?"

Gilbert caught her in his arms before she could
say more, and reassured her with such loving
words as made her happy even in the midst of all
this anxiety and misery. They were together,
and they loved each other, and while this was so,
they could not be utterly unhappy;

They sat silent and full of thought for some
time, and might have continued so much longer,
had they not been disturbed by various strange
noises below in the passage, and the sound of
voices and of a suppressed sobbing.

CHAPTER XXI. AFFECTIONATE RELATIVES.

IT was just as the light was fading fast on the
evening of this dreadful day, that a cab, heavily
laden with luggage, drove up to the door of the
house in Beaumont-street. The head of a
good-looking gentleman was thrust out of one of the
windows of the vehicle, and then, as if he were
impatient, his arm followed, and his hand turned
the handle of the cab door.

The contents of the cab seemed to indicate
less that the occupant had come off a journey
than that he was making a move from one place
of residence to another, for, although there were
not wanting certain boxes and portmanteaus on
the roof of the cab, that vehicle was also loaded
both outside and in with a great many such
knick-knacks as sofa-cushions, chimney-piece
ornaments, large meerschaum pipes, and other
similar articles, which people do not usually
carry about with them loose, when travelling.
Above all, there was in the interior of the cab a
pair of very handsome kettle-drums, and about
these the owner was so solicitous that, as soon
as he was out of the conveyance, he caused them
to be brought out also, and placed beside him
on the stone before the door, which a moment
afterwards was opened by no less a person than
Jane Cantanker.

Mr. Lethwaite, whom the drums have doubtless
already proclaimed to the reader, was so
solicitous about these instruments, that, without
observing who had let him in, he at once bore
them with the tenderest care into the house, and
deposited them in a place of safety behind the
dining-room door.

"Are the rooms ready for me?" asked Lethwaite,
turning round as soon as he thought the
drums were safe, and not perceiving in the dusk
of the evening whom he was addressing.

"No, sir—they are not," replied a voice, which
Lethwaite recognised immediately; "and anything