nights' durance in the lock-ups they were set
at liberty. But it became a standing joke
with Mr. Higgins to Mr. Dudgeon, from time
to time, whether he could recommend him a
place of safety for his valuables; or, if he had
made any more inventions lately for securing
houses from robbers.

About two years after this time—about
seven years after Mr. Higgins had been
married—one Tuesday evening, Mr. Davis was
sitting reading the news in the coffee-room
of the George-inn. He belonged to a club of
gentlemen who met there occasionally to play
at whist, to read what few newspapers and
magazines were published in those days, to
chat about the market at Derby, and prices
all over the country. This Tuesday night it
was a black frost; and few people were in
the room. Mr. Davis was anxious to finish
an article in the "Gentleman's Magazine;"
indeed, he was making extracts from it,
intending to answer it, and yet unable with his
small income to purchase a copy. So he
staid late; it was past nine, and at ten o'clock
the room was closed. But while he wrote,
Mr. Higgins came in. He was pale and
haggard with cold; Mr. Davis, who had had for
some time sole possession of the fire, moved
politely on one side, and handed to the new
comer the sole London newspaper which the
room afforded. Mr. Higgins accepted it, and
made some remark on the intense coldness
of the weather; but Mr. Davis was too full
of his article, and intended reply, to fall into
conversation readily. Mr. Higgins hitched
his chair nearer to the fire, and put his feet
on the fender, giving an audible shudder. He
put the newspaper on one end of the table
near him, and sat gazing into the red embers
of the fire, crouching down over them as if
his very marrow were chilled. At length he
said:

"There is no account of the murder at Bath
in that paper?" Mr. Davis, who had finished
taking his notes, and was preparing to go
stopped short, and asked:

"Has there been a murder at Bath? No!
I have not seen anything of it—who was
murdered?"

"Oh! it was a shocking, terrible murder!"
said Mr. Higgins not raising his look from
the fire, but gazing on, his eyes dilated till the
whites were seen all around them. "A
terrible murder! I wonder what will become of
the murderer? I can fancy the red glowing
centre of that fire—look and see how infinitely
distant it seems, and how the distance
magnifies it into something awful and unquenchable."

"My dear sir, you are feverish; how you
shake and shiver!" said Mr. Davis, thinking
privately that his companion had symptoms
of fever, and that he was wandering in his
mind.

"Oh, no!" said Mr. Higgins. "I am not
feverish. It is the night which is so cold."
And for a time he talked with Mr. Davis
about the article in the "Gentleman's Magazine,"
for he was rather a reader himself, and
could take more interest in Mr. Davis's
pursuits than most of the people at Barford. At
length it drew near to ten, and Mr. Davis rose
up to go home to his lodgings.

"No, Davis, don't go. I want you here.
We will have a bottle of port together, and
that will put Saunders in good humour. I
want to tell you about this murder," he
continued, dropping his voice, and speaking
hoarse and low. "She was an old woman,
and he killed her, sitting reading her Bible
by her own fireside!" He looked at Mr.
Davis with a strange searching gaze, as if
trying to find some sympathy in the horror
which the idea presented to him.

"Who do you mean, my dear sir? What
is this murder you are so full of? No one
has been murdered here."

"No, you fool! I tell you it was in Bath!"
said Mr. Higgins, with sudden passion; and
then calming himself to most velvet smoothness
of manner, he laid his hand on Mr.
Davis's knee, there, as they sat by the fire, and
gently detaining him, began the narration of
the crime he was so full of; but his voice and
manner were constrained to a stony quietude;
he never looked in Mr. Davis's face; once
or twice, as Mr. Davis remembered afterwards,
his grip tightened like a compressing
vice.

"She lived in a small house in a quiet old-
fashioned street, she and her maid. People
said she was a good old woman; but for all
that she hoarded and hoarded, and never gave
to the poor. Mr. Davis, it is wicked not to
give to the poor—wicked—wicked, is it not?
I always give to the poor, for once I read in
the Bible that 'Charity covereth a multitude
of sins.' The wicked old woman never gave,
but hoarded her money, and saved, and saved.
Some one heard of it; I say she threw a
temptation in his way, and God will punish
her for it. And this man—or it might be a
woman, who knows?—and this person—heard
also that she went to church in the mornings,
and her maid in the afternoons; and so—
while the maid was at church, and the street
and the house quite still, and the darkness of
a winter afternoon coming on—she was
nodding over the Bible—and that, mark you! is a
sin, and one that God will avenge sooner or
later; and a step came in the dusk up the
stair, and that person I told you of, stood in
the room. At first he—no! At first, it is
supposed—for, you understand, all this is
mere guess work, it is supposed that he asked
her civilly enough to give him her money, or
tell him where it was; but the old miser
defied him, and would not ask for mercy and
give up her keys, even when he threatened
her, but looked him in the face as if he had
been a baby—Oh, God! Mr. Davis, I once
dreamt when I was a little innocent boy that
I should commit a crime like this, and I
wakened up crying; and my mother comforted