nd. Poor Wilkinson! What a shock the appearance of his wife must have
given him! It set every nerve in my body to quivering. And it was all
my fault that he wasn't at home with his watching wife and sick child.
Ah me! How one wrong follows another!"

Ellis had reached his own door. Taking out his night-key, he applied it
to the latch; but the door did not open. It had been locked.

"Locked out, ha!" he ejaculated quickly; and with a feeling of anger.
His hand was instantly on the bell-pull, and he jerked it three or four
times vigorously; the loud and continued ringing of the bell sounding
in his ears where he stood on the doorstep without. A little while he
waited, and then the ringing was renewed, and with a more prolonged
violence than at first. Then he listened, bending his ear close to the
door. But he could detect no movement in the house.

"Confound it!" came sharp and impatiently from his lips. "If I thought
this was designed, I'd--"

He checked himself, for just at that instant he saw a faint glimmer of
light through the glass over the door. Then he perceived the distant
shuffle of feet along the passage floor. There was a fumbling at the
key and bolts, and then the half-asleep and half-awake servant admitted
him.

"I didn't know you was out, sir," said the servant, "or I wouldn't have
locked the door when I went to bed."

Ellis made no reply, but entered and ascended to his chamber. Cara was
in bed and asleep, or apparently so. Her husband did not fail to
observe a certain unsteady motion of the lashes that lay over her
closed eyes; and he was not far wrong in his impression that she was
awake, and had heard his repeated ringing for admission. His belief
that such was the case did not lessen the angry feelings produced by
the fact of having the key of his own door turned upon him.

But slumber soon locked his senses into oblivion, and he did not awake
until the sun was an hour above the horizon.

The moment Mrs. Wilkinson emerged, with her husband, from the bar-room
of Parker's tavern, she fled along the street like a swift gliding
spirit, far outstripping in speed her thoroughly sobered and alarmed
husband, who hurried after her with rapid steps. The door of the house
had been left open when she came forth in the anguish of her wild alarm
to summon her husband, and she re-entered and flew up-stairs without
the pause of an instant. Wilkinson was but a moment or two later in
reaching the house, and in