but she held it in her hand, and looked at it as if she were intentlystudying it.

\"i\"m sure, ma\"am, it\"s a great weight off my mind; for the evidence wasso uncertain, you see, that the man had received any blow at all,--and ifany question of identity came in, it so plicated the case, as i toldmr. thornton--\"

\"mr. thornton!\" said margaret, again.

\"i met him this morning, just as he was ing out of this house, and, ashe\"s an old friend of mine, besides being the magistrate who sawleonards last night, i made bold to tell him of my difficulty.\"

margaret sighed deeply. she did not want to hear any more; she wasafraid alike of what she had heard, and of what she might hear. shewished that the man would go. she forced herself to speak.

\"thank you for calling. it is very late. i dare say it is past ten o\"clock.

oh! here is the note!\" she continued, suddenly interpreting the meaningof the hand held out to receive it. he was putting it up, when she said, \"ithink it is a cramped, dazzling sort of writing. i could not read it; willyou just read it to me?\"

he read it aloud to her.

\"thank you. you told mr. thornton that i was not there?\"

\"oh, of course, ma\"am. i\"m sorry now that i acted upon information,which seems to hāve been so erroneous. at first the young man was sopositive; and now he says that he doubted all along, and hopes that hismistake won\"t hāve occasioned you such annoyance as to lose their shopyour custom. good night, ma\"am.\"

\"good night.\" she rang the bell for dixon to show him out. as dixonreturned up the passage margaret passed her swiftly.

\"it is all right!\" said she, without looking at dixon; and before thewoman could follow her with further questions she had sped up-stairs,and entered her bed-chamber, and bolted her door.

she threw herself, dressed as she was, upon her bed. she was too muchexhausted to think. half an hour or more elapsed before the crampednature of her position, and the chilliness, supervening upon greatfatigue, had the power to rouse her numbed faculties. then she began torecall, to bine, to wonder. the first idea that presented itself to herwas, that all this sickening alarm on frederick\"s behalf was over; thatthe strain was past. the next was a wish to remember every word of theinspector\"s which related to mr. thornton. when had he seen him?

what had he said? what had mr. thornton done? what were the exactwords of his note? and until she could recollect, even to the placing oromitting an article, the very expressions which he had used in the note,her mind refused to go on with its progress. but the next conviction shecame to was clear enough;--mr. thornton had seen her close tooutwood station on the fatal thursday night, and had been told of herdenial that she was there. she stood as a liar in his eyes. she was a liar.

but she had no thought of penitence before god; nothing but chaos andnight surrounded the one lurid fact that, in mr. thornton\"s eyes, she wasdegraded. she cared not to think, even to herself, of how much ofexcuse she might plead. that had nothing to do with mr. thornton; shenever dreamed that he, or any one else, could find cause for suspicion inwhat was so natural as her acpanying her brother; but what wasreally false and wrong was known to him, and he had a right to judgeher. \"oh, frederick! frederick!\" she cried, \"what hāve i not sacrificed foryou!\" even when she fell asleep her thoughts were pelled to trāvelthe same circle, only with exaggerated and monstrous circumstances ofpain.

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