been able to elude all pursuit, and then have gone straight to the
pool--in midwinter, too--and deliberately jumped in. And there she might
have lain, and no one the wiser, had not young Archibald Malmaison
happened to see her, and given the alarm. If he had been a few minutes
earlier, who can tell but he might have seen something--that nobody
suspected!

All this random talk proved nothing more than that the Honorable Mr.
Pennroyal was not a favorite with his neighbors; and that was a fact of
which no proof was needed. Some men, who are good fellows enough at bottom
and even capable of inspiring genuine attachment in particular cases,
never become generally popular. When Mr. Pennroyal was accused of
stinginess, it was not considered that he had a great many liabilities to
meet, and perhaps some big debts to pay off. When it was said that he was
unsocial and cynical, it was forgotten that these very remarks were enough
to make him so. And when he was blamed for neglecting his wife, and
profiting by her demise--well, now, how is a gentleman to pay attentions
to an idiot, or to be inconsolable when Providence gives him fifty
thousand down in exchange for her? Besides, he gave her an imposing
funeral, and put himself and all his household into strict mourning. As
for the iron railing, it might be looked upon as a sort of monument to the
departed, in which practical usefulness and a becoming sentiment were
ingeniously combined.

The incident had its effect upon Archibald--in rather a curious fashion. He
was, as has been intimated, the one to give the alarm. He had been passing
that way, it seemed, and had caught sight of a struggling something in the
water; and his shouts had speedily drawn the gamekeeper and a couple of
villagers to the spot. The boy had watched the recapture of the lifeless
body in solemn silence, a red flush of color in either cheek. He had been