subject and offered no word of explanation. These reflections
naturally recalled again more strongly than before his haggard face,
his wandering manner, his restless anxious looks. His affection for
the child might not be inconsistent with villany of the worst kind;
even that very affection was in itself an extraordinary contradiction,
or how could he leave her thus? Disposed as I was to think badly of
him, I never doubted that his love for her was real. I could not admit
the thought, remembering what had passed between us, and the tone
of voice in which he had called her by her name.

'Stay here of course,' the child had said in answer to my question, 'I
always do!' What could take him from home by night, and every
night! I called up all the strange tales I had ever heard of dark and
secret deeds committed in great towns and escaping detection for a
long series of years; wild as many of these stories were, I could not
find one adapted to this mystery, which only became the more
impenetrable, in proportion as I sought to solve it.

Occupied with such thoughts as these, and a crowd of others all
tending to the same point, I continued to pace the street for two long
hours; at length the rain began to descend heavily, and then over-powered
by fatigue though no less interested than I had been at first,
I engaged the nearest coach and so got home. A cheerful fire was
blazing on the hearth, the lamp burnt brightly, my clock received me
with its old familiar welcome; everything was quiet, warm and
cheering, and in happy contrast to the gloom and darkness I had quitted.

But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred
and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever
before me the old dark murky rooms--the gaunt suits of mail with