lum. It was certain that the man was insane, and that his
daughter was not safe from his violence. Amias concurred in this
opinion, and the necessary steps were taken. Unfortunately, either the
thing was bungled or Westbrook was too cunning for them, but before
they could secure him he had hidden himself in Verity's room, and when
the poor child entered he thought she was his keeper and felled her
brutally to the ground. They were only just in time to save her. Don't
look so pale, Anna, I am not going to harrow up your feelings. It is
not a nice story. Westbrook was raving in a strait waistcoat before
night, but he did not live many months afterwards;" and then Malcolm
related the rest of the story.

It was after that terrible experience that Verity had brain fever and
lost her beautiful hair. She had only just left the hospital when the
news of her father's death reached her. It was Amias who told her.

The good fellow had visited her constantly, and as soon as she was
strong enough to be moved, he took lodgings for her in a farmhouse in
Kent where he had often stayed. The woman of the house was a simple,
kindly creature who had grown-up daughters of her own, and Amias knew
he could safely trust Verity to her care.

No environment could have been better for the girl: the beautiful air,
the fresh country sights and sounds, soothed and strengthened her worn
nerves. When Verity woke in the morning, instead of the rumbling of
carts and wagons, she heard the fluting of blackbirds and thrushes in
the orchard below, and the lowing of cows for their pastures.
Everything was new and fresh to her; every flower in the hedgerow,
every bird singing in the copse, was a miracle and revelation; the old
miserable life had slipped away from her like a disused and faded
garment, and her soul seemed new-born and steeped in beauty. "Oh, the
peace and the loveliness of it all!" she would say to Amias when he
came down for his Sunday visit. "Am I really Verity--Verity Westbrook,
who used to live in that dreadful Montagu Street?" And then she would
look wistfully at him--for she had grown strangely timid and
self-distrustful. But he would only laugh at her in his kindly way.
"Yea-Verily, my child, it is certainly you yourself," he would answer;
"when Nature made you she broke her mould, there could not be two
editions of Verity." Sometimes, when she was low and weak, and memories
of the past horrors were too vivid, and even his big laugh an