was irreconcilable. She could not
believe that her lover was dishonest. She could not but call his act a
theft. The night came and went, and no lull had come to the storm by which
her soul was tossed. She could not sleep. As the morning dawned, she rose
with haggard and weary eyes, and prepared to write to Stephen. In some of
her calmer intervals, she had read the remainder of his letter. It was
chiefly filled with the details of the manner in which the gold had been
hidden. A second fireplace had been built inside the first, leaving a
space of several inches between the two brick walls. On each side two
bricks had been so left that they could be easily taken out and replaced;
and the bags of gold hung upon iron stanchions in the outer wall. What a
strange picture it must have been in the silent night hours,--the old
miser bending above the embers of the dying fire on the hearth, and
reaching down the crevice to his treasures! The bags were of leather,
curiously embossed; they were almost charred by the heat, and the gold was
dull and brown.

"I wonder which old fellow put it there?" said Stephen, at the end of his
letter. "Captain John would have been more likely to have foreign gold;
but why should he hide it in his brother's fireplace? At any rate, to
whichever of them I am indebted for it, I am most profoundly grateful. If
ever I meet him in any world, I'll thank him."

Suddenly the thought occurred to Mercy, "Perhaps old Mrs. Jacobs is dead.
Then there would be nobody who had any right to the money. But no: Stephen
would have told me if she had been."

Still she clung to this straw of a hope; and, when she sat down to write
to Stephen, these words came first to her pen:--

"Is Mrs. Jacobs dead, Stephen? You do not say any thing about her; but I
cannot imagine your thinking for a moment of keeping that money for
yourself, unless she is dead. If she is alive, the money is hers. Nobody
but her husband or his brother could have put it there. Nobody else has
lived in the house, except very poor people. Forgive me, dear, but perhaps
you had not thought of this when you first wrote: it has very likely
occurred to you since then, and I may be making a very superfluous
suggestion." So hard did she cling to the semblance of a trust that all
would yet prove to be well with her love and her lover.

Stephen's reply came by the very next mail. It was short: it ran thus:--

"DEAR DARLING,--I do not know what to make of your