m time and consideration.'

"That plan was carried out. Shall I recount the dreadful circumstances
again? Spare me, I entreat you!"

"No, I won't! The whole truth!" exclaimed the stern magistrate. "Tell
it!"

"You are making no mistake, my young friend," said Duff Salter. "It will
all be told very soon."

"As we started from Treaty Island, on that dark winter night," continued
Andrew Zane, growing pale while he spoke, "Mr. Rainey said to me, 'Go in
the bow. You are not to speak one word. I will face your father astern.'
The oarsman, Donovan, had a hard pull. The first word I heard my father
say was, 'That is none of your affair.' 'It is everybody's affair,'
answered Mr. Rainey, 'because you make it so. Behave like a gentleman
and a parent. The young people love each other.' 'I have the young
lady's affections,' said my father. 'You are making her miserable,' said
Mr. Rainey, 'and are deceiving yourself. She begins to hate you.' 'You
are an insolent liar!' exclaimed my father. 'If you mix in this business
I will throw you out of the firm.' 'That is no intimidation to me,'
answered his partner. 'Prosperity can never attend the business of a
cruel and unjust man. I shall be a brother to Andrew and a father to
Agnes, since you would defraud them so. William Zane, I will see them
married and supported!' With that my father threw himself in mere
physical rage upon Mr. Rainey. They both arose, and Mr. Rainey shook
himself loose and cried, 'You are outwitted, partner. I saw them
married! They are man and wife!'

"With this my father's rage had no expression short of recklessness. He
always carried arms, and was unconquerable. His ready hand had sought
his weapon, I think, hardly consciously. His dismay and indignation for
an instant destroyed his reason at Mr. Rainey's sudden statement of
fact.

"My God! can I further particularize on such a scene? In a moment of
time I saw before my eyes a homicide of insanity, a suicide of remorse;
and to end all, the sailor in the boat, as if set crazy by these
occurrences, leaped overboard also."

This narrative, given with rising energy of feeling by Andrew Zane, was
heard with breathless attention. Andrew paused and glanced at his wife,
whose face was bathed with the inner light of perfect relief. The
greater babe of secrecy had ceased to travail with her.

"Mr. Magistrate," said the young husband, "as I am under my oath, I can
only relate the acts which followed from the infere