give no satisfactory account of his frequent visits to Miriam.

In reply to Gerald's question: "What was your object in calling upon Miriam ?" he was obliged to admit that he had called in pursuance of Sir Thomas Lindor's wishes, to arouse Miriam to a sense of her sinful connexion with Gerald.

When he repeated that he knew nothing of her intention of going to the opera, nor where she was at present, Gerald flatly disbelieved him, and told him so.

"Covert," said Gerald, his eyes emitting a strange brilliancy, but still maintaining his self-control, "I have already said that you and my father have conspired to get me out of the way. There is evidently a plot between him, you, and these two ladies, to drive Miriam from my protection and prevent our marriage. Now listen; every engine shall be employed to discover Miriam. From her own lips I will learn the part you have played

in this criminal transaction, and if my strong suspicions be confirmed, that it is owing to your treachery, she has been goaded on to this step, there shall be a heavy reckoning between us."

CHAPTER IV.

SELF-DESTRUCTION IN FACT.

“Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod: and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling !-t'is too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death."

SHAKSPERE.

SLOWLY dragged on the hours of that day, spent, by Gerald and Downey in walking

about the streets, and returning often to the

house in the faint hope that Miriam might have come back during their absence. Downey noticed with a shudder that whenever they passed a police station, Gerald would stop to read the melancholy papers, setting forth that a dead body had been found, and then under the headings of sex, age, height, &c., giving the particulars which might lead to the identification of the remains.

At length on returning for the sixth time to his lodgings, Gerald found a gentleman waitto see him. He was a clergyman, and the moral antipodes of Mr. Covert. The Rev. Mr. Arncliffe was an independent minister, at whose chapel at Camden Town, Gerald and Miriam had been regular attendants. As I have already described this gentleman's character and personal appearance in detail, in a previous work, I shall not detain the reader on these points.*

The instant that Gerald beheld Mr. Arn

* See "The Cost of a Coronet," vol. iii.

cliffe, he knew that he was the bearer of evil tidings. The expression of deep commiseration, and the tears which glistened in the good man's eyes, would have been sufficient to tell him this, independently of other tokens in the copious tears shed by Miss Tomlins, and the servant Martha. One glance of Gerald's keen eye informed him of these things. He tottered, and Downey who supported him with his arm, thought he was about to swoon. The good, true-hearted fellow whispered to his friend

"Gerald, bear it like a man," and having uttered these words in a voice husky and choking with his emotion, he turned aside, to dash the moisture from his own eyes.

Gerald, mastering his feelings, walked up to Mr. Arncliffe, and made shift to get out these two words

"Miriam-dead?"

"My dear sir," said the old clergyman, taking Gerald's hand, and pressing it between