Jim Swain looked at Harriet. There was
something strange as well as intelligent in the
look, but she saw only the intelligence.  It
harmonised with the thought in her own mind,
and she replied to it:

"You think, perhaps, they may not like to tell
you," she said. " Perhaps they may not. But
you may tell whoever answers you that Mr.
Felton's sister wishes to know——". Jim still
looked at her, and Harriet felt that he did so,
but this time she did not catch his eye. " Be
quick," she said, " and bring me the answer
yonder." She pointed to the bench on which
she had been sitting, and which was beyond the
reach of observation from the house she had
indicated, and walked away towards it as she
ceased speaking. "It cannot be helped," she
said. "The risk is a trifling one at worst, and
must be run. I could not put Harris in
communication with any one on a false pretext, and
I can trust this boy so far not to say he has
asked this question for me. I cannot bear it
any longer. I must know how much time there
is before me. I must have so much certainty; if
not, I shall go mad."

She had reached the bench now, and sat down
in the former attitude.

"Once before I asked myself," she muttered,
"if I was going mad. I did not feel more like
it then than now—not so like it, indeed. I
knew what he was doing then, I had found him
out. But I don't know now—I don't know
now. I am in the dark, and the tide is rising."

Jim came back from his errand. He had
been civilly answered by a woman-servant. Mr.
Felton was expected in a few days; the exact
day was not yet named. No letters had been
received for him. He had sent no orders relative
to the forwarding of any. Having
delivered his message so far, Jim Swain hesitated.
Harriet understood the reticence, and spared a
momentary thought for passing wonderment at
this little touch of delicacy in so unpromising
a subject for the exhibition of the finer
emotions.

"Did the person who answered you ask you
any question?" she said.

"No, mum," said Jim, relieved. Harriet said
no more; she knew he had not made the false
statement which had proved to be needless,
and something assured her that there was no
necessity that she should caution Jim to say
nothing concerning this commission. Now she
went away in reality—went home. She ascended
the stairs to her room, and looked at her
face in a glass as she took her bonnet off, and
thought, " I wonder if people can see in my
face that I am turning into a coward, and am
going mad? I could not knock at that door
and ask that simple, natural question for myself—
I could not; and a little while ago, since—ay,
long since—I could have done anything. But
not now—not now. When the time comes,
when the waiting is over, when the suspense is
ended, then I may be strong again, if indeed I
am not quite mad by then; but now—now I
cannot do anything—I cannot even wait."

The fixed look had left her face, and was
succeeded by a painful wildness, and an expression
almost like that of some present physical terror.
She pressed her hands upon her temples and
rocked herself to and fro, but there was no wild
abandonment of grief in the gesture. Presently
she began to moan, but all unconsciously; for
catching the sound after a little, she checked it
angrily. Then she took up some needlework,
but it dropped from her hands after a few
minutes. She started up, and said, quite aloud,
"It's no use—it's no use; I must have rest!"
Then she unlocked her dressing-case, took out
a bottle of laudanum, poured some of the
contents into a glass of water, drank the mixture,
and lay down upon her bed. She was soon in
a deep sleep, which seemed peaceful and full of
rest. It was undisturbed. A servant came
into the room, but did not arouse her, and
it was understood in the house that " master"
would probably not return to dinner.

Mr. James Swain turned his steps in the
direction of the delectable region in which his
home was situated. He was in so far more
fortunate than many of his class that he had a
home, though a wretched one. It consisted of
a dingy little room at the back of the third
story in a rickety house in Stretton-ground, and
was shared with a decrepid female, the elder
sister of the boy's dead mother, who earned a
frightfully insufficient subsistence by shoe-binding.
More precarious than ever was this fragile
means of living now, for her sight was failing,
as her strength had failed. But things had
been looking up with Jim of late, odd jobs
had been plenty, his services had reached in
certain quarters the status of recognised facts,
and the street-boy was kind to his old relative.
They were queer people, but not altogether
uninteresting, and, strange to say, by no means
unhappy. Old Sally had never been taught
anything herself but shoe-binding, or she would
have imparted instruction to Jim. Now Jim
had learned to read in his mother's lifetime, and
before his father had " come to grief " and
been no more heard of, and it was consequently
he who imparted instruction to his aunt. She
was as fond of penny romances as the boy
himself, and was wonderfully quick at discovering
the impenetrable mysteries and unwinding the
labyrinthine webs of those amazing productions.
So Jim, cheered by the prospect of a lucrative
job for the morrow, purchased a fresh and intensely
horrible pennyworth by the way, and
devoted himself for the evening to the delectation
of old Sally, who liked her murders, as she
liked her tea and her snuff, strongly flavoured.

The pennyworth lasted a good while, for Jim
read slowly and elaborately, and conversational
digressions occurred frequently. The heroine of
the story, a proud and peerless peeress, was
peculiarly fascinating to the reader and the listener.

"Lor, Jim," said old Sally, when the last
line had been spelled over, and Jim was reluctantly
obliged to confess that that was " all on
it"—" lor, Jim, to think of that sweet pretty
creetur, Rorer, " the angelic victim of the story