and the man's strength was returning. He
half-raised himself, and clutched Hayes with
both hands, and they fell together, and
struggled with their whole strength. Hayes
held the cross still, instinctively, which
engaged his hand, and his antagonist drew a
pistol from his belt. In another moment he
would have shot his opponent dead; but
Hayes held off his arm, and, blinded by the
fury of the struggle, drew a pistol from his
own breast, and fired at his opponent. The
officer uttered a groan, his hold relaxed, and
he fell back heavily. Horrified by the dreadful
act into which his cupidity had betrayed
him, Hayes fled from the ground.

Night had fallen as he hurried on over
fields, and through lanes, till he must have
journeyed some miles. He discovered no
trace of his comrades, nor did he desire to
meet them again. The words of the preacher
who had left him at Newcastle rang in his
ears, and reproached him with his crime.
He would have given all that he possessed
—all hopes that he had ever cherished, to go
back and wipe out that one day from his
memory for ever. Towards daylight, he met
some labourers, who directed him to a little
village, where he purchased a blue linen
blouse, and a cap and trousers, which
concealed his military uniform. In this garb he
wandered about for some time, till finally, he
found his way to the coast, and took ship for
England.

Hayes found employment in London; but
he lived a solitary life. Of those who
employed him, or came in contact with him,
none knew his history, but all remarked his
reserved and gloomy character, and shrank
from him with dislike or dread. Some even
said that he had been a highwayman; others
did not scruple to hint their belief that he
had stained his hands with some dreadful
deed. Hayes knew their distrust or hatred
of him; but he lived too much with his own
thoughts to heed it. His sole idea was to
remain cut off for ever from all who had
known him or cared for him, suffering a life
of voluntary hardship in expiation of his
crime; though, sometimes, the thought of the
misfortunes he had met with, and how these
had, step by step, drawn him onward,
through a kind of madness to this dreadful
end, passed through his mind, and eased him
for a moment of some portion of the burden
that he bore.

Two years had elapsed, when one
night, coming to his cheerless home, Hayes
passed a man, who stared at him for a
moment, and then, following him, called to him
in an anxious manner to stop. Hayes turned
beneath a lamp, and the man, suddenly
coming up with him, called him by the name
of Philip Joyce!

Hayes recognised him as Jacob Bonnell,
the street preacher, whom he had parted
with in Newcastle.

"They reported you killed," said the
preacher; "and for these two years I
believed that we could never meet again in
this world."

Hayes was too much agitated to speak
many words. He begged his friend to go
home with him, and there the preacher told
him that he had visited his native town, and,
according to his compact, had communicated
to Margaret and her father the intelligence
that he was dead.

"Promise me," exclaimed Hayes, "never to
let them know that I still live."

The wildness of his manner struck his
hearer with astonishment; but Hayes that
night made confession to him of the crime of
which he had been guilty.

"This is horrible," said his friend, "and
can scarcely hope for forgiveness."

Hayes made no answer; but, taking a little
box he unlocked it, and displayed to his
visitor's eyes a purse of money and a cross,
sparkling with diamonds.

"They are here as I stole them," says
Hayes, "the accursed things that tempted
me to murder a wounded man. I have
touched no atom of their value."

"Such justice as is possible must be done,"
said the preacher. "I will endeavour by this
clue to discover the family to whom they
belong, that you may restore them."

Hayes thanked him, and his visitor took a
description of the cross. They spent that
night in serious converse, and Hayes felt a
support in his presence which he had not
known for a long time. When they parted, his
friend told him, that he was going from London
for some time, but would return again.

Many months after this event, the young
workman was sitting one night alone in his
room, seeking occupation for his mind in
reading, when a tapping at his door aroused
him. Taking his lamp in his hand, he threw
the door open, and there found his faithful
friend, Jacob Bonnell, with a stranger. The
light upon the stranger's face revealed a man
advanced in life. His countenance was stern
and worn, and he had a thick moustache like
a foreigner. Hayes shrank from the man's
gaze, as if he remembered some one like him,
and remembered him with dread.

"Enter Monsieur Bonnell," said the
stranger to the street preacher, in a foreign
accent. "You can best explain this visit."

"This," said the preacher, " is the Count
de Beauséant, the representative of Count de
Beauséant, who was killed in the action at Val.
After much correspondence with persons on
the continent, I have discovered him, and he
has travelled here in person to obtain from
your hand the diamond cross, a precious heirloom
belonging to his family, which you took
from his brother's person on the battlefield.

"They are here!" exclaimed Hayes,
suddenly unlocking the box; but the stranger
stopped him, and taking the lamp from his
hand, held it up to his own face, and bade