her troubled eyes fixed vacantly on the opposite wall; and again and again recurred to her the one weak answer, flight.

While she was racking herself with this question, Nancy knocked at the door, and entered bearing a card-Mr. Edward O'Callaghan.' Norah repeated the name as trying to recall any one of her acquaintance-so named-to no purpose. He wants the Masther, miss; but he's come from Misther Maurice '—meaning that Norah must therefore be as much concerned with his business as the Masther.' Nor was Nancy disappointed. Norah at once started up excitedly. I must see him. Where is he?' she would know the whole truth.

Now

'He's in the dhrawin'-room, miss.' Norah would have neglected even the indispensable glance at the glass of a lady about to go down to a visitor, if Nancy hadn't intercepted her. Hould an, miss, a minute,' she cried, scandalised by the wild state of Norah's hair, which she proceeded to set to rights.

'What is it, Miss Norah, ashthore?' she said presently, with a world of love and sympathy in her voice; for Norah was trembling like an aspen leaf under her hands, and the reflection of her face in the glass had a ghost-seeing look in it that quite upset Nancy.

'It's more trouble, Nancy-I'll tell you afterwards. I must see him at once,' Norah cried hastily and incoherently, for she feared her father's return in time to prevent her learning the whole truth. There, that will do. Now, Nancy!' she added remonstratively, as the girl broke into tears.

'It's good news he's bringin', I'm thinkin', miss,' Nancy replied hastily wiping her tears away. He spakes so loud.' As the girl was given to saying always the pleasantest things she could think of, Norah was not much encouraged by this being the sole good omen even Nancy could perceive. Having drunk a draught of water, she hurried down to the drawing-room to find there a portly personage-loud in other things besides his voice-in dress, manner, and appearance generally.'

'My father is from home,' said Norah in her soft voice made more plaintive by the tremor in it.

'Miss Wyndham? How do you do, Miss Wyndham? My client will be glad to hear that I have had the pleasure of seeing you.' Mr. Studdert?' asked Norah, still more tremulously.

Mr. Maurice Studdert,' pronouncing each syllable of the name separately and as though he were tasting it with relish. Who has put his case in my hands, Miss Wyndham; and your case too, if I may say so. And, indeed, I couldn't get him to speak of his own till I had got yours off my hands.'

'Mine?'

'Well, your part in the case, I should say, speaking accuratelyyour evidence. Mr. Studdert instructs me to keep you out of court if possible. I don't think it possible, Miss Wyndham; in fact, I told him it was quite out of the question; but as I couldn't get him to speak or think of the very critical position in which he stands until I had seen Mr. Wyndham and begged him to use his influence with Mr. Brew to keep you out of the case, I hurried here at once.'

Norah, who had been standing up to this, here sat down suddenly. Is my evidence so important?' she asked faintly.

It is important, unquestionably; most important; all-important. But it is not of your evidence he thinks, Miss Wyndham, but of you. He will gladly, he instructs me, admit that he said to you all Mr. Wainright reports him to have said, if you may be spared the annoyance of appearing in court. He is much more concerned, I assure you, about you're being put into the witnessbox than about himself being placed in the dock.' Here Mr. O'Callaghan paused, in the natural expectation that Norah would express some gratification at Maurice's magnanimity. But it was impossible for Norah to express anything she felt at this sweet and bitter news to this loud stranger. She sat in silent distress, looking still inquiringly up into his face. Wherefore Mr. O'Callaghan, not sorry to have the talk to himself, resumed in his assured tone: 'I'm sorry to tell you, Miss Wyndham, that I don't think it can be done--not even at the preliminary investigation to-morrow, and most certainly not at the trial. You will be subpoenaed and compelled to appear against him, no matter what were your mutual relations-unless, indeed, they were those of husband and wife. According to the law of England, a wife cannot give evidence against her husband.' This sentimental concession of the law of England' Mr. O'Callaghan enunciated as though it were made in mercy by himself. It was evident that Maurice's excess of anxiety about Norah's position had made Mr. O'Callaghan quite certain of their being engaged. Nevertheless, Mr. O'Callaghan spake not as a man, but as a lawyer, upon this delicate topic, without the most distant approach to nonsensical sentiment. Yet it was distressing, even amid so much deeper distress, to hear such a subject discussed in anyway by such a man; and Norah, flushing scarlet, at once turned the conversation.

But, if Mr. Studdert explains to-morrow where he was and what he did last night

That's just it, Miss Wyndham; that's just the point. But he won't. He says it's out of his power to explain his proceedings

last night.

He couldn't do it even to spare you. He's not free to do it, he says, and, therefore, the case must go on,' cried Mr. O'Callaghan, rather triumphantly it seemed to Norah; and, indeed, it wasn't in human nature for him to wish that a case which promised him celebrity should collapse at this stage. This triumphant tone made Mr. O'Callaghan's loud manner doubly insupportable to Norah, while his announcement that Maurice could give no exculpatory account of himself turned her sick to the heart. Therefore she rose at once with a murmured excuse that her father, who must soon be back now, would understand the matter better than she did, and took an abrupt leave of the breezy attorney.

As she was crossing the hall towards the staircase, she met her father just entering the front door.

'Father, there's a lawyer here Maurice's lawyer-who says here, at sight of the sympathy in her father's look, she broke down and hid her face against his breast.

Miles kissed her with exceeding tenderness. It's a mere matter of form, dear, and Brew will make it as easy for you as he can.'

'It isn't that, father; but he will tell you'

Tut! Lawyers always make the worst of a case for their own credit, dear.'

'Come up afterwards, father,' she sobbed, unable to say more at the moment. She hurried upstairs to her room, ashamed of her breakdown, and there waited anxiously, hoping against hope that her father might find more comfort than she could in Mr. O'Callaghan's statement of the case.

But the attorney's account only confirmed Miles's forebodings; and, when he had at last got rid of him, he faced Norah with a heavy heart. Mr. O'Callaghan's mission had revealed to him Maurice's love for Norah, as Norah's wretchedness this morning had revealed her love or Maurice; and this discovery, which at any other time would have gladdened him inexpressibly, now but deepened the pathos of the situation.

'Well, father?' asked Norah anxiously, as she opened the door to him.

'Well, dear, I think, perhaps, Brew will dispense with your evidence, if I represent the matter to him as Maurice suggests.'

You mean that he will have evidence enough without it, father?' she said bitterly, finding this prospect the reverse of consoling.

'He will have Maurice's admission of all that you could testify to, dear. He's a noble fellow, Norah!' exclaimed Miles, making

this sudden diversion to Maurice's merits with great tact. To this absorbing subject he kept until he had coaxed Norah into lying down to try to get some sleep. But Norah quite understood the diversion. If her father had any comfort for her he would have given it, and the diversion to Maurice's merits was an implicit confession that he had none. Therefore, though, to please him, she lay down as if to sleep, it was only to turn this trouble over and over a thousand times in her mind. What weighed on Maurice the public exposure and brutal cross-examination of the witness-box-was not once in her thoughts. It was what her evidence might cost him, not what it would cost herself, that filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else. She could not get out of her ears Mr. O'Callaghan's valuation as a lawyer of her evidence as important, most important, all-important,' so that it appeared to her that Maurice's fate hung upon it alone. It was she, through what seemed now to her a kind of treachery, who had armed his enemies for his destruction; and yet, in this horrible peril into which she had brought him, he had thoughts to spare to the painfulness of her position-no thoughts to spare to anything else-according to Mr. O'Callaghan.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

'I AM GOING TO ASK MAURICE ABOUT IT.'

And I must die for want of one bold word.-Elaine.

NEXT morning early, Miles and Norah started together for the court-house of the neighbouring town. During the journey Miles administered to her what comfort he could by suggesting that the inquiry would be private, that her evidence would not be called for, and that Maurice would exonerate himself. Of this last, however, he was himself plainly so uncertain that Norah was not reassured.

'But Mr. O'Callaghan said he couldn't, father.'

'He said he couldn't give a full account of all his doings that night, my dear; but there are other ways of clearing himself. Besides, O'Callaghan's wish was father to the thought. He'd be bitterly disappointed if the case didn't go on.' After thinking over this a little, she found in it not much more than that Miles's wish was father to the thought.

'But if he can't clear himself, father?'

'Probably Brew will bail him, dear,' Miles replied evasively. 'But I mean at the trial-if he can't clear himself at the trial?'

'Pooh! the thing isn't to be supposed. If he's driven to it, he'll have to explain his doings that night.'

'He'll not explain them to save himself at the cost of others,' Norah answered decisively. As this was as certain to Miles as to her, he reverted to his distrust of O'Callaghan's account of the

case.

You may depend upon it, dear, O'Callaghan's made a mountain out of a molehill.' But Norah put pertinaciously the same question again and again until she had extracted from her father the answer that Maurice, if found guilty, would be sentenced to penal servitude for a term of years--the most lenient sentence probable in the present state of the country. Penal servitude! and on her evidence! For her father himself had to admit that her evidence would turn a wavering scale. Poor Norah sat silent and as turned to stone for the rest of the drive, until they approached the little court-house. Then a sudden thought seemed to strike her. She caught impulsively her father's arm.

'Father, I'll not give evidence to-day, not to-day. Tell Mr. Brew-ask Mr. Brew-to excuse me. I'm not well; besides, I couldn't-But you'll explain. I cannot do it. I will not,' she cried incoherently and in great agitation, but with a resolution of voice and manner which surprised and impressed deeply her father. She meant what she said, and would stick to it too in the teeth of any pressure or process that could be brought to bear upon her. This Miles knew well.

'My dear child, if I say you're not well, Brew will remand the case, I've no doubt.'

For a week! I shall not be well enough in a week. Surely he might put it off for a month?'

'My dear, impossible!'

'Then for three weeks,' she pleaded entreatingly. Miles shook

his head.

He couldn't possibly remand the case for longer than a week.'

A week!' she cried in a dismayed tone; and then, as they had now drawn up before the court-house, she added hurriedly and imploringly, Then for a week pray, pray persuade him, father, to put it off for a week!'

6

Miles was deeply perplexed by this passionate prayer for a mere reprieve. It was urged too energetically for him to suppose that nothing more than a nervous shrinking from a pressing