She
penetrated the trees, and burst into tears as one in the dress of a
farm laborer caught her in his arms. In spite of his smock-frock and his
straw-wisped hat, and his false whiskers, black as Erebus, she knew him
for her brother.

"Oh, Richard! Where have you come from? What brings you here?"

"Did you know me, Barbara?" was his rejoinder.

"How was it likely--in this disguise? A thought crossed my mind that it
might be some one from you, and even that made me sick with terror.
How could you run such a risk as to come here?" she added, wringing her
hands. "If you are discovered, it is certain death; death--upon--you
know!"

"Upon the gibbet," returned Richard Hare. "I do know it, Barbara."

"Then why risk it? Should mamma see you it will kill her outright."

"I can't live on as I am living," he answered, gloomily. "I have been
working in London ever since--"

"In London!" interrupted Barbara.

"In London, and have never stirred out of it. But it is hard work for
me, and now I have an opportunity of doing better, if I can get a little
money. Perhaps my mother can let me have it; it is what I have come to
ask for."

"How are you working? What at?"

"In a stable-yard."

"A stable-yard!" she uttered, in a deeply shocked tone. "Richard!"

"Did you expect it would be as a merchant, or a banker, or perhaps as
secretary to one of her majesty's ministers--or that I was a gentleman
at large, living on my fortune?" retorted Richard Hare, in a tone of
chafed anguish, painful to hear. "I get twelve shillings a week, and
that has to find me in everything!"

"Poor Richard, poor Richard!" she wailed, caressing his hand and weeping
over it. "Oh, what a miserable night's work that was! Our only comfort
is, Richard, that you must have committed the deed in madness."

"I did not commit it at all," he replied.

"What!" she exclaimed.

"Barbara, I swear that I am innocent; I swear I was not present when
the man was murdered; I swear that from my own positive knowledge, my
eyesight, I know no more who did it than you. The guessing at it is
enough for me; and my guess is as sure and true a one as that the moon
is in the heavens."

Barbara shivered as she drew close to him. It was a shivering subject.
"You surely do not mean to throw the guilt on Bethel?"

"Bethel!" lightly returned Richard Hare. "He had nothing to do with it.
He was after his gins and his snares, that night, though, poacher as he
is!"

"Bethel is