written by George Dallas, and comprised the
whole of his correspondence with her. She
read them with attentive eye and knitted brow;
and when she locked the packet up in her desk
again, she looked, as Mrs. Brookes had seen her,
like a woman who had a purpose, and who
clearly saw her way to its fulfilment.

But the next day Harriet was restless. She
could do the thing that lay before her, but she
wanted the time for doing it to be come; she
wanted to get it over. If this were weakness,
then in this Harriet was weak.

Immediately after breakfast, Stewart Routh
went out. Only a few words had been
exchanged between him and Harriet on the
subject of George's expected visit, and Harriet had
gone to the drawing-room when George came.
She met him with the old frank welcome which
he remembered so well, and, in answer to his
inquiry for Routh, said she was momentarily
expecting him.

"You know what brought me back to
England," George said, when he was seated, and the
first greeting was over; "you got my message?"

"That bad news had reached you. Yes,"
replied Harriet. "I was just about to write to
you. You would have had my letter to-day. I
learned from the newspapers that your mother
was ill, and—"

"And went to see about it for me. I know
all your goodness, Mrs. Routh, and can never
thank you for it half enough. It is only of a
piece, though, with all your goodness to me.
You have always been the best and truest of
friends. My old nurse told me all about your
visit. God bless you, Mrs. Routh." And
George Dallas took her hand, and, for the
second time in his life, kissed it.

There was a pause, a dangerous pause.
Harriet felt it, for her heart was beating thickly,
and her face was not under such command but
that the interested eyes which were looking
into it might read the traces of a deep and
painful emotion.

"You have been comforted by your visit to
Poynings," she said. "You have more hope
and relief about your mother? Mrs. Brookes
has told you all particulars."

"Yes, Mrs. Routh, I did hear all the particulars,
and I also made an extraordinary and
terrible discovery in connexion with that illness."

"Indeed!" said Harriet, leaning towards him
with the liveliest interest and concern in every
feature of her face. "It is not that the illness
is of a hopeless nature, I hope?"

"I trust not," he said, solemnly; "but, Mrs.
Routh, my mother has been nearly killed by
being obliged to suspect me of a dreadful
crime."

"A dreadful crime! You, Mr. Dallas!
"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Dallas, "that a murder has
been committed, in which I would appear to
have been implicated. I know what I am about
to tell you will agitate and distress you, Mrs.
Routh, and one of the most mysterious points
of a mysterious subject is, that it should be my
lot to tell it to you." He hesitated, then went
on: "I don't know whether I ought to tell
you all that I have heard. I have to consult
Routh on some important matters, so that it is
the more unfortunate that he is out of the way,
as no time must be lost in what I have to do."

The occasion had come now, and Harriet,
was equal to it,. It was with a smile, serious
but quite unembarrassed, that she said:

"Don't depose me from the position of your
confidant, George." She called him by his
christian name for the first time. "You know
Stewart has no secret from me. Whatever
you would tell to him, tell to me. I have
more time at your disposal than he has,
though not more friendship. In this matter,
count us as one. Indeed," she added, with a
very skilful assumption of playfulness, which
did not, however, alter the gravity of George's
manner, "as I am your correspondent, I claim
precedence by prescriptive right."

"I hardly know how to tell you, Mrs. Routh;
all the circumstances are so shocking, and so very,
very strange. You and Routh have been rather
surprised, have you not, by the sudden
disappearance of Deane? Routh always thought
him an odd, eccentric, unaccountable sort of
fellow, coming nobody knew whence, and likely
to go nobody knew whither; but yet it has
surprised you and Routh a little that, since the
day we were to have dined together in the
Strand, Deane has never turned up, hasn't it?"

The strength and self-control which formed
such striking features in Harriet's character
were severely tried, almost beyond their limits,
by the expectation of the revelation which
George was about to make; but there was not
a questioning tone in her voice, not a quiver on
her lip, as the minutes passed by, while she won
him more and more securely by her calm interest
and friendliness. His growing anxiety to see
Routh confirmed her in the belief that he knew
all that his mother and Mrs. Brookes had
known. Remembering the agony she had
suffered when she and George had last talked
together, and feeling that the present crisis was
scarcely less momentous, she rallied all her
powers— and they were considerable — and asked
him boldly what it was he had to communicate
to her. In a voice of the deepest solemnity,
he said, taking her hand in his:

"The man who has been murdered, of whose
murder my mother was led to suspect me, was
Philip Deane!"

"Good God!" cried Harriet, and shrank back
in her chair, covering her face with her hands.

He had reason to say that, the news he had
to tell her would agitate and distress her. Her
whole frame crept and trembled, and a chill
moisture broke out on her smooth forehead and
pale shivering cheeks. George was alarmed
at her distress, and she knew by the intensity
of her emotion, now that the words she had
been expecting were spoken, how much her
nervous system had suffered in the long struggle
she had fought out with such success. He
tried to calm her, and loved and admired her
all the more for her keen womanly feeling.

"Horrible, most horrible!" she murmured, her