Talbot Bulstrode. Indeed, the young member for Penruthy had by no means a pleasant time of it during those few days of anxiety and suspense. A keeper set to watch over a hearty young jungle-tiger, and bidden to prevent the noble animal from committing any imprudence, might have found his work little harder than that which Mr. Bulstrode did, patiently and uncomplainingly, for pure friendship's sake.

John Mellish roamed about in the custody of this friendly keeper, with his short auburn hair tumbled into a feverish-looking mass, like a field of ripening corn that had been beaten by a summer hurricane, his cheeks sunken and haggard, and a bristling yellow stubble upon his chin. I dare say he had made a vow neither to shave nor be shaven until the murderer of James Conyers should be found. He clung desperately to Talbot Bulstrode, but he clung with still wilder desperation to the detective, the professional criminal-hunter, who had in a manner tacitly pledged himself to the discovery of the real homicide.

All through the fitful August day, now hot and still, now overclouded and showery, the master of Mellish Park went hither and thither,—now sitting in his study; now roaming out on the lawn; now pacing up and down the drawing-room, displacing, disarranging, and overturning the pretty furniture; now wandering up and down the staircase, lolling on the landing-places, and patrolling the corridor outside the rooms in which Lucy and Aurora sat together making a show of employing themselves, but only waiting, waiting, waiting, for the hoped-for end.

Poor John scarcely cared to meet that dearly-loved wife; for the great earnest eyes that looked in his face always asked the same question so plainly, -always appealed so piteously for the answer that could not be given.

It was a weary and a bitter time. I wonder, as I write of it, when I think of a quiet Somersetshire household in which a dreadful deed was done, the secret of which has never yet been brought to light, and perhaps never will be revealed until the Day of Judgment, what must have been suffered by each member of that family? What slow agonies, what ever-increasing tortures, while that cruel mystery was the "sensation" topic of conversation in a thousand happy home-circles, in a thousand tavern-parlours and pleasant club-rooms!--a common and everinteresting topic, by means of which travellers in first-class railway-carriages might break down the ceremonial icebergs which surround each travelling Englishman, and grow friendly and confidential; a safe topic upon which even tacit enemies might talk pleasantly without fear of wrecking themselves upon hidden rocks of personal insinuation. God help that household, or any such household, through the weary time of waiting which it may please Him to appoint, until that day in which it shall be His good pleasure to reveal the truth! God help all patient creatures labouring under the burden of an unjust suspicion, and support them unto the end!

John Mellish chafed and fretted himself ceaselessly all through that August day at the non-appearance of the detective. Why didn't he

come? He had promised to bring or send them news of his proceedings. Talbot in vain assured his friend that Mr. Grimstone was no doubt hard at work; that such a discovery as he had to make was not to be made in a day; and that Mr. Mellish had nothing to do but to make himself as comfortable as he could, and wait quietly for the event he desired so eagerly.

"I should not say this to you, John," Mr. Bulstrode said by and by, "if I did not believe-as I know this man Grimstone believes that we are upon the right track, and are pretty sure to bring the crime home to the wretch who committed it. You can do nothing but be patient, and wait the result of Grimstone's labours."

"Yes," cried John Mellish; "and in the mean time all these people are to say cruel things of my darling, and keep aloof from her, and— No, I can't bear it, Talbot; I can't bear it. I'll turn my back upon this confounded place; I'll sell it; I'll burn it down; I'll-I'll do any thing to get away, and take my precious one from the wretches who have slandered her!"

"That you shall not do, John Mellish," exclaimed Talbot Bulstrode, "until the murderer of James Conyers has been discovered. Go away then, as soon as you like; for the associations of this place cannot be otherwise than disagreeable to you-for a time, at least. But until the truth is out, you must remain here. If there is any foul suspicion against Aurora, her presence here will best give the lie to that suspicion. It was her hurried journey to London which first set people talking of her, I dare say," added Mr. Bulstrode, who was of course entirely ignorant of the fact that an anonymous letter from Mrs. Powell had originally aroused the suspicions of the Doncaster constabulary.

So through the long summer's day Talbot reasoned with and comforted his friend, never growing weary of his task, never for one moment losing sight of the interests of Aurora Mellish and her husband.

Perhaps this was a self-imposed penalty for the wrong which he had done the banker's daughter long ago in the dim starlit chamber at Felden. If it was so, he did penance very cheerfully.

"Heaven knows how gladly I would do her a service," he thought; "her life has been a troubled one, in spite of her father's thousands. Thank Heaven, my poor little Lucy has never been forced into playing the heroine of a tragedy like this; thank Heaven, my poor little darling's life flows evenly and placidly in a smooth channel."

He could not but reflect with something of a shudder that it might have been his wife whose history was being canvassed throughout the West Riding. He could not be otherwise than pleased to remember that the name of the woman he had chosen had never gone beyond the holy circle of her own home, to be the common talk among strangers.

There are things which are utterly unendurable to some people, but which are not at all terrible in the eyes of others. John Mellish, secure in his own belief in his wife's innocence, would have been content to carry

her away with him, after razing the home of his forefathers to the ground, and defying all Yorkshire to find flaw or speck upon her fair fame. But Talbot Bulstrode would have gone mad with the agony of the thought that common tongues had defiled the name he loved, and would, in no after-triumph of his wife's innocence, have been able to forget or to recover from the torture of that unendurable agony. There are people who cannot forget, and Talbot Bulstrode was one of them. He had never forgotten his Christmas agony at Felden Woods, and the after-struggle at Bulstrode Castle; nor did he ever hope to forget it. The happiness of the present, pure and unalloyed though it was, could not annihilate the anguish of the past. That stood alone,-so many months, weeks, days, and hours of unutterable misery riven away from the rest of his life, to remain for ever a stony memorial upon the smooth plains of the past.

Archibald Martin Floyd sat with his daughter and Lucy in Mrs. Mellish's morning room, the pleasantest chamber for many reasons, but chiefly because it was removed from the bustle of the house, and from the chance of unwelcome intrusion. All the troubles of that household had been made light of in the presence of the old man, and no word had been dropped before him which could give him reason to guess that his only child had been suspected of the most fearful crime that man or woman can commit. But Archibald Floyd was not easily to be deceived where his daughter's happiness was in question; he had watched that beautiful face, whose ever-varying expression was its highest charm, so long and earnestly, as to have grown familiar with its every look. No shadow upon the brightness of his daughter's beauty could possibly escape the old man's eyes, dim as they may have grown for the figures in his banking-book. It was Aurora's business, therefore, to sit by her father's side in the pleasant morning-room, to talk to him and amuse him; while John rambled hither and thither, and made himself otherwise tiresome to his patient companion, Talbot Bulstrode. Mrs. Mellish repeated to her father again and again that there was no cause for uneasiness; they were merely anxious—naturally anxious—that the guilty man should be found and brought to justice; nothing more.

The banker accepted this explanation of his daughter's pale face very quietly; but he was not the less anxious,-anxious he scarcely knew why, but with the shadow of a dark cloud hanging over him that was not to be driven away.

Thus the long August day wore itself out, and the low sun-blazing a lurid red behind the trees in Mellish Wood, until it made that pool beside which the murdered man had fallen seem a pool of blood-gave warning that one weary day of watching and suspense was nearly done.

John Mellish, far too restless to sit long at dessert, had roamed out upon the lawn, still attended by his indefatigable keeper, Talbot Bulstrode, and employed himself in pacing up and down the smooth grass amid Mr. Dawson's flower-beds, looking always towards the pathway that led to the house, and breathing suppressed anathemas against the dilatory detective.

"One day nearly gone, thank Heaven, Talbot!" he said, with an impatient sigh. "Will to-morrow bring us no nearer to what we want, I wonder? What if it should go on like this for long? what if it should go on for ever, until Aurora and I go mad with this wretched anxiety and suspense? Yes, I know you think me a fool and a coward, Talbot Bulstrode; but I can't bear it quietly, I tell you I can't. I know there are some people who can shut themselves up with their troubles, and sit down quietly and suffer without a groan; but I can't. I must cry out when I am tortured, or I should dash my brains out against the first wall I came to, and make an end of it. To think that any body should suspect my darling! to think that they should believe her to

be-"

"To think that you should have believed it, John!" said Mr. Bulstrode gravely.

"Ah, there's the cruellest stab of all," cried John; "if I,-I who know her, and love her, and believe in her as man never yet believed in woman,—if I could have been bewildered and maddened by that horrible chain of cruel circumstances, every one of which pointed-Heaven help me!—at her!—if I could be deluded by these things until my brain reeled, and I went nearly mad with doubting my own dearest love, what may strangers think-strangers who neither know nor love her, but who are only too ready to believe any thing unnaturally infamous? Talbot, I won't endure this any longer. I'll ride into Doncaster and see this man Grimstone. He must have done some good to-day. I'll go at once."

Mr. Mellish would have walked straight off to the stables; but Talbot Bulstrode caught him by the arm.

"You may miss the man on the road, John," he said. "He came last night after dark, and may come as late to-night. There's no knowing whether he'll come by the road, or the short cut across the fields. You're as likely to miss him as not."

Mr. Mellish hesitated.

"He mayn't come at all to-night," he said; "and I tell you I can't bear this suspense."

"Let me ride into Doncaster, then, John," urged Talbot; "and you stay here to receive Grimstone if he should come."

it's

Mr. Mellish was considerably mollified by this proposition.

"Will you ride into the town, Talbot?" he said. "Upon my word, very kind of you to propose it. I shouldn't like to miss this man upon any account; but at the same time I don't feel inclined to wait for the chance of his coming or staying away. I'm afraid I'm a great nuisance to you, Bulstrode."

"Not a bit of it," answered Talbot, with a smile.

Perhaps he smiled involuntarily at the notion of how little John Mellish knew what a nuisance he had been through that weary day.

"I'll go with very great pleasure, John," he said, "if you'll tell them to saddle a horse for me."

"To be sure; you shall have Red Rover, my covert hack. We'll go round to the stables, and see about him at once.'

The truth of the matter is, Talbot Bulstrode was very well pleased to hunt up the detective himself, rather than that John Mellish should execute that errand in person; for it would have been about as easy for the young squire to have translated a number of the Sporting Magazine into Porsonian Greek, as to have kept a secret for half an hour, however earnestly entreated, or however conscientiously determined to do so.

Mr. Bulstrode had made it his particular business, therefore, during the whole of that day, to keep his friend as much as possible out of the way of every living creature, fully aware that Mr. Mellish's manner would most certainly betray him to the least observant eyes that might chance to fall upon him.

Red Rover was saddled, and, after twenty loudly-whispered injunctions from John, Talbot Bulstrode rode away in the evening sunlight. The nearest way from the stables to the high road took him past the north lodge. It had been shut up since the day of the trainer's funeral, such furniture as it contained left to become a prey to moths and rats; for the Mellish servants were a great deal too superstitiously impressed with the story of the murder to dream of readmitting those goods and chattels which had been selected for Mr. Conyers' accommodation, to the garrets whence they had been taken. The door had been locked, therefore, and the key given to Dawson the gardener, who was to be once more free to use the place as a storehouse for roots and matting, superannuated cucumber-frames, and crippled garden-tools.

The place looked dreary enough, though the low sun made a gorgeous illumination upon one of the latticed windows that faced the crimson west, and though the last leaves of the roses were still lying upon the long grass in the patch of garden before the door, out of which Mr. Conyers had gone to his last resting-place. One of the stable-boys had accompanied Mr. Bulstrode to the lodge in order to open the rusty iron gates, which hung loosely on their hinges, and were never locked.

Talbot rode at a brisk pace into Doncaster, never drawing rein until he reached the little inn at which the detective had taken up his quarters. Mr. Grimstone had been snatching a hasty refreshment, after a weary and useless perambulation about the town, and came out with his mouth full to speak to Mr. Bulstrode. But he took very good care not to confess that since three o'clock that day neither he nor his ally had seen or heard of Mr. Stephen Hargraves, or that he was actually no nearer the discovery of the murderer than he had been at eleven o'clock upon the previous night, when he had discovered the original proprietor of the fancy waistcoat, with buttons by Crosby, Birmingham, in the person of Dawson the gardener.

"I'm not losing any time, sir," he said, in answer to Talbot's inquiries; "my sort of work's quiet work, and don't make no show till